TBBVA 026: Staying On Track During The Summer

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Tweetables:

You may be experiencing a major shift and trying to decide what you need to refine and take out. #vatipGotta Tweet!

Your energy and approach to things are cues that it’s time to do some pruning in those areas. #vatip Gotta Tweet!

Don’t be afraid to start pruning things and saying “no” to the areas and people that you need to. #vatip Gotta Tweet!

In Words:

This episode, I don’t know, it might just be totally random. I have summer brain. What is summer brain? I can’t focus. Like I want to just read and watch movies and play games on my Kindle and relax and go to the beach. But guess what? Can’t exactly do that because I’ve got clients to work with. I’ve got money to make. So I have to hold off until vacation that’s later in the summer.

It was so cute. We had a family cookout and one of the kids was asking about work. I don’t know. She wasn’t exactly asking me what kind of work I did, but something related to work, and then she says, “But what about summer break?” I had to just break it to this sweet eight year old and tell her when you start working there is no summer break. She was like aww and basically she was like, I want to do work that let’s me eat or work where I can play games or work where I can listen to music. So she was giving these different, you know, options. She’s like you can get paid to do work and I was like, yeah, you can.

So she was, you know, giving me this list of different things and I’m thinking to myself the whole time, oh my gosh, it would be great to have summer break. That’s something that I’m working on for next summer, is to set it up to where I could have summer break where I am enjoying the summer more than working during the summer.

It could just be that I am in the middle of a time, and you may be experiencing this as well, where a major shift is happening and you feel the shifting where you’re going back and forth trying to decide what it is you need to refine and take out. Is it a service? Is it a client?

What exactly is it that needs to be pruned from the business?

That point, you know, is where you vacillate between being motivated and excited to not doing it. Knowing you have to do it. Got to do it anyway, and you just go back and forth, back and forth. But when you recognize that that’s the place you’re in, it’s probably good to just say, okay God, this is where I am. Let me just get settled and think about at what times do I feel a major back and forth, and at what times do I feel calm, do I feel easy, do I feel excited?

Regardless of what you’re doing, whether it’s challenging or not, just the way, you know, your energy and your approach to it. Because it could be something that’s very challenging, but you’re excited and ready for the challenge and you dive in. It could be something as simple as checking your email, but you’re not looking forward to it because, ugh, what if it’s regarding this or what if it’s that person or whatever. Those are cues so that you know that it’s time to do some pruning in those areas and it’s okay.

I don’t know if it’s greater during the summer or greater during the holidays or just happens periodically during the year. I’m not sure. But if that’s where you are, we’re in the same boat. That’s where I am too, and it’s okay. It’s all good.

It’s great to have choices. It’s great to know where you want to go and then figuring out the steps to get you there.

That makes me think about a conversation we had, my husband and I with a couple of our good friends, and we were talking about how people talk about, you know, start with the end in mind. I was just using a basic example, something that everybody at the table could understand and relate to, and that let’s say we all want our house clean, so the end in mind would be the clean house. But when you look around it might be a big task, so you break it up into little pieces.

I was telling them, you know, I might be sitting in front of the table and think, okay, let me take everything off this table that’s trash, or take everything off that’s books or everything off that’s not related to this room and go from there. Little bitty steps to the point where the next thing you know, you’re washing the dishes. You’re loading the laundry, putting clothes in the washing machine, you know, next thing you know you’re doing your little steps, little steps, and making progress, working towards the end that you had in mind because of those little steps.

It’s not so that you look at the end it overwhelms you and you think, oh my gosh, really, I have to do all that. No. It’s so you know how to slice it up into those chunks that you need to get you back to where you want to be. Right?

Anyway, like I told you today is just kind of a hodgepodge of thoughts because of the summer brain, and I’m already mapping out what I want next summer to look like because I need to know what do I want next summer to look like. This is starting with the end in mind, next summer, and what do I need to do now starting this summer to get me to that place next year and what all needs to happen so that, you know, it could be there.

That might be something that you need to look at as well or have desired to look, and I’ve talked about, you know, goals on other podcasts. Just what do you want things to look like in the next year, the next few months. Same concept, just putting it into a real scenario, a real situation that, you know, we all can relate to, and work back from there.

Anyway, how are we dealing with the summer brain?

Schedules are good, having a set schedule. Do you have a set schedule for when you talk to prospective clients or is it you’re just open, you know, it’s just based on your availability any day?

I’ve got it down to where I do calls with prospective clients on Mondays and Wednesdays. I don’t do it on Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday. Friday is really out of the question because I’m in weekend mode. When I wake up on Friday morning, after I workout, I’m at the weekend so I can’t make any promises about what happens on Friday. Tuesday and Thursday I’m really dived in working on projects for clients, following up with the team, seeing what’s going on, stuff like that.

Monday, you know, you’re coming off from the weekend. It’s a push. It’s still a push after all this time. What is it? Seven years. Monday morning is still a push. It was so ingrained that, you know, blue Monday, whatever with school and then with working in Corporate and then you transition, and so that stuff is still in me. The seven years hasn’t made that go away.

Anybody that’s new to working in your virtual assistant business, you’re doing it full-time, the feeling on Monday, it’s going to take a while to go away. One thing that did go away was the Sunday evening blues. Now, I get excited on Sunday evening because I know I don’t have to go anywhere on Monday morning. I’m in the house all day.

Okay. So real life happens when I’m recording this podcast and the doorbell rang right in the middle of it. Anyway, I kept that in there because real life stuff happens.

I was talking about how one thing that did go away was the Sunday evening blues. Ah, now I just rejoice that I don’t have to get up and out early on Monday mornings. It is an absolutely wonderful thing.

Now, I want to leave you with this and that is how to get through “summer brain.” Set a schedule for yourself and stick to that schedule. If you know there are times when you’re not 100 percent, don’t schedule important things during that time like talking to prospects or setting deadlines for important projects during that time.

You know you and you want to be your best, so don’t set yourself up for failure. Schedule your best during your best times, especially now in summer, and this will come up later when we get into the holidays. Oh my gosh, we’re at the halfway point. The holidays are around the corner if you think about it. Christmas in July, some sales are happening now in July, Christmas in July, preparing for that.

But anyway, focus on now. Get that schedule going and you will have a wonderful summer and don’t be afraid to start pruning things and saying “no” to the areas and people that you need to so that you can do an awesome job this season.

Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like what you heard, stay tuned. We’ll be back. Tell me what’s going on with you. Come on over the Facebook page: facebook.com/tiffanyparsonbiz, or if you prefer a little shorter message, come on over to Twitter: @tiffanydparson.

See you next time.