rshartley /Foter

There’s a basic technique I use regularly that has a big effect on how I experience my days. It seems way too simple to make so much difference, but I promise if you give it a try, you’ll notice a change in how you feel.

What am I talking about? Breathing. That’s it. What’s that you say? You already breathe? Well, good! You wouldn’t be able to read this blog post if you weren’t breathing.

I’m talking about taking one or more deep breaths, where you fill your lungs fully and exhale slowly. Doing this has a powerful effect on your body. It

• sends more oxygen to your brain,
• slows down your heart rate,
• stabilizes your blood pressure,
• and reduces tension in your muscles.

When Should You Breathe Deeply?

Several situations in daily life benefit from this technique. If you’re in conflict with someone – or heading in that direction – taking the time for one or more deep breaths can calm you, reducing your internal tension. It also allows you time to choose your response rather than simply react. Taking a moment also gives the other person a chance to think things through.

Maybe you’re experiencing a different type of stress. It could be sudden, like a near accident on the road or a call from school about your misbehaving child. Or it could be ongoing, such as financial stress or being the caretaker of an ailing relative.

Whenever you feel either type of stress, take a few seconds to breathe deeply. Not only will your body relax, but your brain will be able to decide how to handle your situation more effectively.

It’s Good for Business, Too.

This technique is also useful within your business. Whether it’s dealing with an unhappy customer or handling the overload of too many projects, taking a moment to just breathe can give you some perspective and the calm you need to manage the situation more productively.

This may seem overly simplistic to you, and it certainly won’t resolve the difficult circumstances we all find ourselves in at times. But it will help you cope with those circumstances in a more relaxed and productive manner.

What other techniques do you use to deal with stress?

This is the season when exclamations of joy abound. But does rushing from store to store and party to party create joy? Is joy measured by how many presents we open or the number of lights we hang on our houses?

The stores and parties often generate more stress than joy. And by now, we all realize that presents and decorations, while fun, don’t result in deep feelings of contentment.

This quote from Marianne Williamson was in my local Sunday paper this week:

“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.”

We frequently walk through life thinking we’ll be happy as soon as something happens: we get the job, we have a child, we win the lottery. Or even something smaller: it doesn’t rain today, our partner comes home in a good mood, we have a good hair day.

Marianne suggests that we already have joy in our lives, but don’t always recognize it. We take for granted so much in our day to day lives that we don’t take the opportunity to see there is much to be joyful about in our lives right now.

This may be easier to recognize if you’re financially stable and have a loving, healthy family. But even those in more unfortunate or even tragic circumstances still have reasons for joy in their lives.

I often feel joy just seeing the beautiful colors in the trees here in the Northeastern fall, or the snow on the tree branches in winter. It’s hard not to feel joyful when you see a small child laughing. Do you have someone you love who loves you? Nothing’s much better than that.

By the way, all this is just as true for our businesses. We tend to spend a lot of time focused on what we’re not doing and the money we’re not making. Even with the most positive attitude, we’re looking forward toward achieving our next goal.

During this holiday season and heading toward a new year, take time to reflect on the clients you have right now, the expertise and experience you have to offer, and the blessed freedom you have as an entrepreneur to decide how to structure your life. Even if you’re just getting started and don’t have lots of success yet, you can savor the excitement of embarking on a new adventure with all its possibilities.

Recognizing how good things really are is closely related to be grateful, I believe. And feeling grateful leads to joy.

What are you grateful for right now?

In my New Year’s post, I wrote about my business intentions for the coming year and I referred to reflecting on what we want to be/do/have in the next year. The way I expressed my intentions was in terms of “doing”. I think that’s quite typical, that most people express their goals in terms of either things to do or thing to have.

What I’ve come to realize, however, is that the truly powerful way to think about intentions is through how we’re BEING. In other words, we can write down as many goals as we like, but unless we approach them by being who we need to be to accomplish them, nothing will happen.

I’ve found that several areas affect my level of success:

1. Frame of mind. I often set up certain environmental cues around me that help me be more creative and productive. These include either light classical or new age-y music, a lit candle, a glass of water and ice nearby, and a good amount of light. I’ve been doing this for long enough that something in me recognizes this environment and “knows” it’s time to get to work.

Connecting with the right colleagues and friends also enhances results. They provide encouragement, inspiration, support, and ideas.

These environmental factors can help us be in the frame of mind to be more creative and productive.

2. Intention. Our results are – not surprisingly – greatly enhanced when we’re clear on what we want to achieve. If we’re vague or not committed enough, it’s much harder to know exactly what to do and if our efforts are going to get the results we really want. It’s like they say, “It’s hard to know if you’re going in the right direction if you don’t know where you want to end up.”

To achieve the outcomes we want, we must be quite clear about just what they are.

3. Energy. This refers to both the type and quantity of energy we bring to our work. You probably realize that when we feel positive and motivated, we accomplish more. The quality of energy is best when we’re not distracted or holding onto bad feelings.

Clearly, the quantity of energy has an effect, also. If we’re tired or low-energy for any reason, it’s harder to feel motivated to work, and when we do work, it’s harder to stay focused and get much done.

4. Focus. Being in the moment rather than thinking about either the past or the future helps us achieve more. This keeps our minds on what we’re doing right now. It’s not always easy to do, but our productivity is definitely enhanced when we’re ONLY thinking about the current task and not the unfortunate conversation we had an hour ago with a child or worrying about whether we’re going to get everything done today that we want to.

5. Health. To the extent that we’re well-rested and have eaten good food, we work better. None of us is going to do as well when we’re ill as when we’re feeling good. Too many of us skimp on sleep, but that’s actually counter-productive. Taking the time to get enough sleep helps us use all the waking hours more effectively. And, of course, sufficient rest and food positively affects energy levels.

Are there any other ways you can “be” to enhance your ability to grow your business? Leave a comment and you might help others get there, too!

I heard from a number of people in response to last week’s post. I’m still tweaking my daily process as I see what works and what doesn’t. I’ll give you an update soon as to what I’m learning.

I’ve decided to write shorter posts and occasionally post more often. I believe it’ll be more appealing to you to have less to read each time and I think it’ll be easier for me to create them. We’ll see! Do let me know what you think in the next few weeks.

What with my increased productivity and the new year approaching, I’m feeling more motivated than ever to accomplish great things in my business. Let me tell you what I’m up to and then you can comment and tell me your plans.

Now that I’ve ramped up my overall productivity, I’m not only working on client sites, but my own as well. It’s been woefully neglected recently and all my clients’ sites are more up to date, both in their look and their technology. I plan to unveil my new site early in the year and look forward to hearing what you think about it.

I’m also working on several service and products offerings. I have a special retainer offer for web work that’s good only until 12/31/2010. In January, I’ll have some attractive site maintenance plan for users of WordPress. They’ll include important ongoing support that will happen for you automatically.

I will also have a product offering delivered using a totally cool new service I’ll tell you about next week.

I’m so excited! I’ve wanted to get these areas moving forward for so long and I’ve finally figured out how to manage myself so I can make progress with them.

This might sound like a pretty self-promotional post, but that’s honestly not my intention. One the one hand, I really am excited by the strides I’m making, and on the other hand, I’m hoping you’ll be inspired to find the best way to manage your time and priorities – if you haven’t already – to make some amazing progress yourself!

It’s about to be a new year. What better time to amp up your motivation and discipline to make a brand new start? If you’re doing well now, how can you magnify it? And if you’re not, what can you do to turn your business in a more productive and profitable direction? I’m always available to consult with you about your plan for next year if you’d like some help.

Leave a comment and let me know how you’re doing and what your plans are for 2011.

Having decided on my 5 streams of income – plus list building – I needed to make more detailed plans so I would know exactly what to do to achieve these goals. The first thing I did was better define what was required to achieve each of these streams.

For example, one stream of income was paid teleclasses. So, I asked myself how many participants at what price I needed to attract each month to make the amount of income I wanted for this income stream. I did this for each of the five streams to make it very clear what I needed to accomplish to earn the monthly income I wanted.

By breaking down each stream this way, I could make sure the subsequent, more detailed plans I made would support the number of clients, registrants, customers, etc. I required for each area of my business.

Now I had to get down to the nitty-gritty. I knew I needed to make more detailed plans I could execute each month, week, and day that, if executed diligently, would lead to the results I wanted.

I designed a weekly schedule that included activities in each of the 6 areas – income streams and list building – every week. As I did this, I realized that I couldn’t actually do everything every week, so I chose the activities that were the most essential to achieving my goals and those that were leveraged – helpful for more than one project – to do each week. I then divided the remaining activities between two weeks.

So, my plan has an A Week and B Week. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday’s activities are the same each week, while Wednesday and Friday are different between the two weeks. Saturday and Sunday are reserved for catching up on email, reading various blogs, and reading or listening to learning materials.

The key to coming up with these weekly plans is to make sure that over the course of every two week period, I’m actively making progress on all six of my projects. When you do this correctly, that’s the main benefit of having these plans.

The other benefit is that you know exactly what you need to do each week, and when you’ve done enough. One of the pitfalls of working for ourselves is that it’s tough sometimes to know if you’ve done enough. After all, there’s always more you could be doing. So when can you feel comfortable quitting work for the day or week? This plan makes that a lot clearer.

Of course, your weekly plan might work out differently than mine. You might be able to work on all of your income streams and list building every week. Or you might require 3 weeks to cover everything at least once. I urge you not to let too many weeks go by without working on one of your projects, though. You’ll lose momentum and have a harder time making your monthly income projections if you don’t make steady progress toward each goal.

Once I created these weekly plans, I wrote them up in a document as checklists. Each one has space for the date at the top and check boxes next to each day’s activities. As each item is accomplished each week, I check off the box for that item. I find this very satisfying!

I put together a binder with a tab for four weeks. I printed out two A Week Checklists and two B Week Checklists and put one in each tab. I use a small Post-It note on each tab to indicate which calendar week it’s for. When the first week is complete, I remove its contents, move the tab to the back and add a fresh Week Checklist and Post-It to that section.

The next step is to create detailed checklists for each activity on the weekly checklists.

Well, it’s late February now. How are those New Year’s Resolutions going? I’ve never really liked making resolutions in January because we all expect to break them almost as soon as we make them. So why bother?

I’m sure you received many emails at the beginning of the year, as I did, expounding on the virtues of establishing goals for your business this year. I, as usual, chose not to go through the exercise at that time. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in setting goals. I just don’t think we should reserve the process for January 1st.

And it’s that word – process – that we need to focus on. It’s not just about setting goals, but about following up with more details about how we plan to accomplish them. It’s this lack of additional planning that causes New Year’s Resolutions and other goal-setting exercises to fail.

For the last few months, my business, my mindset, and my finances have been changing. And I’ve spent time in denial, distracting myself, confused, paralyzed, as well as working very hard. In my own way, I was processing the changes. (I wouldn’t mind finding a more efficient way to do this!) I finally found my way out of the fog last week and starting some serious business planning.

First, I clarified how much income I wanted each month. Then, I decided what streams of income I would continue, create, or enhance to achieve that income. I used a few guidelines here. First, I couldn’t have too many streams. It just becomes unmanageable to split my time and attention between too many “departments”. I chose five streams for now since several of them are new and will require a lot of attention to get going. As these streams become more established, I can choose to add new streams if I wish.

Each stream of income needed to involve a product or service that I knew I would enjoy providing. There’s nothing harder than trying to start up a line of business when you just hate what you’re doing. Why try to force it? There are so many ways you can earn money, and this is how you’re going to spend a great deal of your time, so make it something you enjoy.

The next guideline was to be realistic about how much I could really make with a stream within the next few months. I didn’t want to start with totally unrealistic estimates for these streams of income because if I did, I would certainly fail in making the income I needed each month. That would mess up my finances, but even more importantly, it would doom me to failure right from the start. This is a key problem we often have with goal-setting. When we make our goals too lofty, we’re almost guaranteed to fail and of course, that’s pretty discouraging. We might decide that setting goals is pointless and we lose our motivation to keep moving forward. As I execute my plan and the income from each stream meets my goals, I can always adjust my target income for a stream upward.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Duh. I know to do this. Is this the first time Peggy has ever done this?” The answer is “No.” I do know this and have done it many times over the years. I’m going over it again now for two reasons,

First, I want to emphasize that we need to do this over and over again through the years of our businesses. And not necessarily just at the beginning of the year. If we’re working a plan and getting the results we want, great. But if we’re feeling at all off course, going back to this exercise can help us refocus on where we want to being spending our time and energy. And even if we are getting the results we want, we will want to readjust our plan – raising income targets, adding additional streams – periodically.

The second reason for discussing these goals is to move on to what comes next. Far too often, I’ve set these goals but not continued the planning far enough or detailed enough for the level of successful results I wanted and could have had. I’ve resolved (“resolved,” get it? ) to do better this time, which means drilling down into each stream and creating plans that make it simple for me to know what I need to do each week and each day to achieve my goals.

So in the weeks to come, I’m going to share more about my planning process, hoping to inspire you to make yours as effective as possible. You’ll also be hearing more about the new products and services I’m going to be offering, so stay tuned!

Do you have a business plan for this year? How do you stay on track? I’d love to hear what works for you, so share what’s working – or not – in a comment below.

I was on a call with Jack Canfield recently where Alex Mandossian was interviewing him to promote Jack’s book, “The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.” There was a great metaphor Jack used that I wanted to share. You should know by now how much I like reflecting on ideas presented through stories!

Jack was addressing a question about the Law of Attraction. The questioner said that it worked for her in small areas, but she hadn’t achieved the results she wanted in larger areas.

Jack talked about going on a rafting trip that might be 10 miles long, with vans at the end to bring you back to your car. What if you decided that, instead of putting your raft in at the starting spot, you’d get a ride down to about 50 yards from the ending point and put your raft in there? After all, you’d then achieve the result much sooner.

Of course, you’re saying, “Yeah, but I’d miss the whole rafting trip!” In this example, it’s obvious that the trip itself is what we really want to experience.

But isn’t that just as true in our business and personal lives? Do we really want to find the perfect mate and then leap ahead to dying within months of each other at age 90? Of course not! It’s the life lived together, with its inevitable ups and downs, that we value.

It might seem more attractive within the business environment to start a business, for instance, and immediately jump ahead to making heaps of money. I suggest that this isn’t as attractive in reality as it sounds. (Not that I haven’t enjoyed this fantasy more than once myself!)

Let’s look at a slightly different example. Most big-money lottery winners do not fare all that well. They just aren’t prepared for what life throws at you when you suddenly have a huge amount of money – especially when everyone knows it.

I watched an Oprah show several months ago that addessed this very issue and was struck by the fact that Oprah, while very rich, accumulated her wealth over time as her career and business became more and more successful. She was able to learn over time how to deal with the new circumstances that her growing fame and wealth created. Whereas her lottery winner guests received sudden windfalls and found they didn’t make very good choices for quite a while. They hadn’t had any learning curve, just a huge leap.

In the business arena, most very successful people have had to work for years for their success. Even when it seems sudden to us, they’ve often worked without much reward for a long time before their “overnight success”.

I believe the lessons we learn on the journey are important to have when we do achieve success. Even more than that, the journey itself is often more valuable than the result.

So the next time you feel as though you’re not attracting what you want in your life, make sure you’re

• very clear on what you want;
• focused on what you want rather than what you don’t want;
• putting your attention on what makes you feel good to help quiet the monkeys in your head that tell you you can’t have the results you want;
• are taking action that will move you in the right direction.

And remember to appreciate the journey. Sometimes it’s the best part!

This is another story I appreciate. I hope you will, too.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word.

After about twenty minutes, she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.  Turning to her daughter, she said, “Tell me what you see.”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” her daughter replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg.

Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted inhaled its rich aroma and tasted its full flavor. The daughter then asked, “What does it mean, Mother?”

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.

The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however.  While in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?

Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff?  Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.  When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?

The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

May we all be coffee.

I thought this week I would step back and get a bit philosophical. I know many are going through hard times, due to real estate issues or flooding or hurricanes or job loss. This little parable is an old story, but one of my favorites. It never fails to give me needed perspective when the world seems aligned against me.

If you’ve been a subscriber for a long time, you may recognize this story. I published it in my ezine many years ago and thought it was worth repeating.

Donkey in the Well

One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well.

The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.

Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway;  it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him.

They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the  donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement he quieted down.

With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing.  He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up.

Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well  is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

NOW…

The donkey later came back, and bit the farmer who had tried to bury him.  The gash from the bite got infected and the farmer eventually died in agony from septic shock.

MORAL FROM TODAY’S LESSON:

When you do something wrong and try to cover your ass, it always comes back to bite you.

Make it a good week!