109 - What to Do When Nothing Goes as Planned and Life Feels Chaotic

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE:

Danielle is a huge fan of planning and setting goals. Goal setting is extremely important and planning ahead is essential to be able to achieve BIG things in your life. 

But what happens when you set your goals and make a plan to get there and then… Life happens. 

We’ve all been there. You start your day with a big list of things to do, you grab your coffee, you are ready to dive in, and life gets in the way. We have a family emergency, our kids get sick, meetings cancel, we get rejected, a global pandemic there are so many things that can happen in life or within our business that knock us off track! 

Danielle talks about practical steps you can take when life feels chaotic and you feel overwhelmed.

Focus on What Is Going Right 

There will always be things in your life and business that are going right and that you can focus on and be grateful for! 

Do you have current clients or customers or supporters of your business? Practice gratitude in action - reach out to them and tell them how much you appreciate them and love working with them or how much you appreciate them being your customers! 

Look for Opportunities 

Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and grow! 

If you are facing a challenge, ask yourself, “Is this an opportunity to shift my business or create some systems that will help save me time & energy?” 

Take time to re-evaluate what you are doing and what you could possibly be doing differently.Maybe you need to set some boundaries or ask for help. Maybe it is time to delegate or hire someone. 

Focus on What You Can Control 

There are things in life and business that we cannot control, so instead of dwelling on the things we can’t control, focus your attention on the things you CAN control. 

Maybe you have a big client or an opportunity that falls through. Ask yourself “What other things could I do to make up for this lost opportunity?” 

Plan Ahead for Chaos + Challenges 

Give yourself buffer time - more time than you think you need. This can also help you to prioritize what is most important - the crucial tasks that help your business to succeed. Sometimes, special projects need to be saved for later, and that’s ok. 

You can accomplish your big goals! It is ok if the timeline shifts as you care for your business goals as well as your personal health and well being.

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Danielle: Welcome back to the podcast. I am excited for today's episode. We are gonna be talking about what to do when nothing goes as planned and life feels a little bit chaotic. So I personally am a huge fan of planning and setting goals. Anyone who knows me, our Mastermind members, people in our Action takers club, my clients, they know that I am a huge fan of goal setting.

[00:00:27] I think it's extremely important, and I think that planning ahead is honestly just really essential to be able to achieve really big things in your life. But what happens when you set these goals? You make these plans, and then life happens, right? Today we're gonna be talking about that.

[00:00:46] We're gonna be talking about some practical steps that you can take when life gets in the way of your goals and life feels chaotic and you feel overwhelmed, and maybe you feel like you're, you're in a spiral [00:01:00] or you're in a rut, and there are some practical things that I'm gonna share with you that are gonna help you to move forward no matter what is going on around.

[00:01:10] So before we dive in though, I wanted to share something really exciting. You guys know that on this podcast, we are always sharing the best tips and resources for entrepreneurs and small business owners, which is why I'm super excited to share with you about DHL's new online platform. it's called Fast Track.

[00:01:31] So it's an e-commerce crash course that is as designed to help small business owners take their businesses to the next level. So DHL has partnered with some really incredible industry experts to help people in topics such as creating content, social media growth, e-commerce, scaling, building visual identities and storytelling.

[00:01:56] So when you sign up, you'll actually get [00:02:00] exclusive access to recorded workshops, upcoming online sessions, articles from fellow small business owners, as well as discounts. So, we are so excited to be sharing this with you and you can actually get access for free by going to goglobal.dhl.ca/fasttrack to sign up.

[00:02:22] So you can also click, click the link in our show notes. We will have a link there and all the information that you need. So, and now let's go ahead and dive into our episode.

[00:02:34] Welcome to the Business Babes Collective podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Wiebe. In this podcast, you'll learn tangible business tips and strategies on how to grow successfully and sustainably. We'll also interview seasoned entrepreneurs so you can listen in on their stories and see behind the scenes of what it took to grow and scale their businesses. Let's dive in as we discuss the wild, exciting, crazy, [00:03:00] challenging rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship.

[00:03:02] It's the start of a new day, you have a big list of things that you're gonna accomplish in that day. You grab your cup of coffee, you're ready to dive in. And then you get a phone call, your kid is sick and needs to be picked up from school. How many times has something like that happened to you during your day and everything gets flipped on its head? Now maybe you're not a mom and you can't relate to your kid getting sick, but we all have things in our life that happen, that knock us, knock us off course or get in the way of us being able to accomplish what we wanna accomplish during our day.

[00:03:39] We have a family emergency. We have meetings canceled. We get rejected. Um, a global pandemic happens, right? So many things that can happen in our lives and in our businesses that can knock us off track.

[00:03:53] And sometimes those things are really serious things in life, and they [00:04:00] require us to actually step back and take some time away from our businesses. Now, today's episode is really gonna be focused on what you can do when you are ready to actually jump back into your business when you are ready to take some practical steps forward so that your life can feel less chaotic and that you can actually make a plan and be able to execute that plan.

[00:04:26] So I'm gonna be sharing some tips that I have, things that I've learned along the way that hopefully will help you as well. So the first one is to focus on what is going right. So even when you feel chaotic or it feels like nothing is going as planned, there will Always be things in your life, in business that are going right and things that you can focus on and be grateful for.

[00:04:50] So let me give you some examples. Do you have current clients or customers or supporters of your business that you can be really grateful for? And I actually [00:05:00] encourage you to take it a step further, reach out to them and tell them how much you appreciate them and love working with them, or how much you appreciate them being your customers.

[00:05:11] So the next tip that I have for you is to look for opportunities. So in every challenge there is always an opportunity. An opportunity to learn something, an opportunity for growth, or an opportunity to even shift your business and maybe create some systems that can help you save time and energy. Maybe you need to set some boundaries or maybe you have to ask for help.

[00:05:38] maybe it's time to delegate or hire someone. And many times when we go through challenges, it's a really good opportunity to just reevaluate what we're doing in our businesses and what we could possibly be doing differently. I know whenever I experience a challenge in my business, it always allows me to step back and reflect of, Okay, how [00:06:00] can I learn from this challenge and how can I actually implement some steps that will help this challenge not to happen in the future?

[00:06:09] And that is a really, really great way to, as you are building your business, really, start to systematize and streamline certain things that are causing you these problems. And also realize like, Hey, is this the way that I wanna run my business? Um, is this the right business model for me? Do I wanna start implementing some ways that I can earn passive income instead of just active income? Like, all of those questions or things that you can reflect on when challenges come your way is really, really key. And so I don't want you guys to miss out on that.

[00:06:45] And then the next tip is to focus on what you can control. So there are things in business that we can't control. So instead of dwelling on those things that we can't control, focus your attention on things that you can. [00:07:00] Say, for example, you have a big client or an opportunity that falls through, and maybe that opportunity was going to be a huge income source in your business.

[00:07:10] Now that is a huge bummer and, trust me, we've totally been there in the business before. Of course, you all know, um, what happened in 2020 when we were not able to do our events anymore. That was a huge hit to our revenue, and I had to let go of the fact that I could not control what was happening around me, and I had to focus on what I could.

[00:07:35] So what other things could I do to provide for my community and serve them and still make up the revenue that we had lost? And so that is really what sparked our focus in building our online offerings for our business. It sparked the launch of our signature business program, Action Takers Club, which we launched online.

[00:07:58] It sparked [00:08:00] investing time and energy into the Mastermind, and I actually also took on more one-on-one coaching clients. And then, in addition to that, we started to create other more sustainable ways to earn income in the business through affiliate marketing and different ways that we could actually bring in multiple streams of income.

[00:08:20] And, so, really, the amazing thing that this challenge of what 2020 did for us was really allow us to build a foundation for our business that allows us to make passive and recurring income, and it allows us to host events in a way that is actually more intentional and more fun as well. So I encourage you to focus on what you can control and not what you can't control.

[00:08:49] Again, another example, what you can control, what you can't control, sorry, is for example, yesterday, um, my daughter did not nap. She did not [00:09:00] want a nap at all. Usually she has one nap per day and it's normally a decent, um, nap of like an hour and a half to three hour nap, and she just did not want to sleep at all.

[00:09:10] And so that was something that I could not control. Now, what could I control? What I realized I could control is, Now that she has not napped, I'm not gonna get done what I thought I was gonna get done. And I either need to shift that to the evening after she goes to bed, or I'm gonna shift it to the morning, wake up early and get those things done.

[00:09:33] And so I decided to do it in the evening because, right now, I am just really, really enjoying my sleep in time. I mean, when I say sleep in time, I sleep until like 7:00 AM. But I'm just really enjoying that time. And so I decided, you know what, I'm gonna shift this to the evening. And I'm gonna do an hour and a half of work, and then the rest of the night just relax.

[00:09:53] And so that's what I did and that is what I could control. And so I just encourage you when things don't go [00:10:00] your way, instead of focusing on what you can't control and being frustrated, focus on what you can.

[00:10:05] The next tip is to plan ahead for challenges and potential chaos. So this one is really important because it's giving yourself more time than you think that you need. How many times have you just wrote this huge to-do list that's like 20 things long and you're like, Oh yeah, I can for sure get that done in one day. And then you get to the end of the year day and you're like, Ah, dang it. I only checked off three of those 20 things and you end up feeling unproductive, you end up feeling bad about yourself.

[00:10:37] And so what I have really learned is to give myself buffer space. So what I mean by that is when I plan out my days, I try to give myself more time than I think that I need. So if I think that some, that something's gonna take me 30 minutes, I'll give myself an hour.

[00:10:55] If I think something is gonna take me an hour, I'll give myself an hour and a half to two hours. [00:11:00] This really helps me prioritize also what is most important and not put too much on my plate for one day. So if I realize, okay, I've scheduled out my day and I only have room for three things, or I only have room for five things in that day. So then I will need to then prioritize the most important things that need to get done and then put everything else and I can shift it to another day.

[00:11:25] When life gets crazy, I really try to, again, prioritize the things that I must do to move my business forward, and, sometimes, I really need to push some of those projects that would be nice to dos on the back burner for times that I can get into more of a rhythm.

[00:11:45] The last thing that I wanna share before we end off is give yourself grace.

[00:11:49] Just know that life happens and you are a busy entrepreneur. Some of you are moms, other of you have other [00:12:00] priorities and other things in your lives that you're taking care of. You are balancing a lot, and so give yourself the grace and the space to know that maybe you can't check off 50 things on your list in one day, and that is okay.

[00:12:15] And so giving yourself that space, giving yourself that grace, and really planning for success. And when I say planning for success, meaning giving yourself that flexibility and that buffer time to make sure that you actually do have the time and capacity to get done what you say you're gonna get done.

[00:12:34] And so if you have some really, really big goals, it's not to say that you can't accomplish those goals, but maybe the timeline of those goals need to be shifted or changed depending on the other things that you have as priorities in your life.

[00:12:50] Now, I am not the type of coach and podcaster that is gonna tell you just, just do it no matter what. No excuses. Get up at [00:13:00] 3:00 AM. Stay up till 12 at night. That is not me. So if you're looking for someone who's gonna give you that advice, I am not that person. I know that in order to have a fulfilling and fruitful life, you need to take care of your own health and wellbeing and invest in things that are important to you, like your relationships and your spirituality and your wellness, and all of those things that are just as important as working on your business. Actually more important, really.

[00:13:32] And so I just wanna encourage you today, I hope this episode was helpful for you. I hope it gave you some encouragement, and I hope it gave you some tactical ways that you can move forward when things don't go as planned, because hey, Life is life and sometimes things don't go as planned, and that's okay.

[00:13:52] That does not mean that you can't accomplish your goals. That just means that maybe the timeline needs to be shifted. Maybe, [00:14:00] um, you can shift some things around or change some things or reorganize your business in a way that is gonna allow you to reach those goals in a more sustainable way. So thank you for listening.

[00:14:12] I hope you enjoyed this. If you did enjoy this. Could you do me a favor? Could you leave us a review on iTunes? This helps so much with the podcast and it really inspires me to continue to create content and our team to be putting out these episodes for you twice a week. I so enjoy hanging out with you, and I would so appreciate you writing a review, sharing what you love about this podcast and what you wanna hear more of.

[00:14:42] That's it for me. I hope you have a fabulous rest of your day.

[00:14:50] If you love this episode, make sure you screenshot, post and tag us on Instagram @businessbabesco. Want to know when the next episode goes live? Subscribe on [00:15:00] your podcast app and while you're there, leave us a review. Until next time, keep dreaming big, setting goals and taking action.

Danielle Wiebe