2023 Work/Life Reset

Hello and welcome to 2023, my friends. I have created this to be a really fast, 15-minute powerful mini course to help you set your intention for 2023, both at work and in your personal life.

My partner and I did this exercise together while driving up to the beautiful O'Reilly's Rainforest area on the Gold Coast for a bush walk the other day and we both took immediate action because we set our intention for the year ahead, which meant the action actually came quickly and naturally. By the end of this read, you'll have two words, one for work and one for personal that will be your theme for the year ahead. Don't skip this one, my friends.

Set yourself up for success and to do better in business and in life in 2023.

Okay. Let's take a moment to reflect on 2022 and to reset and to set your intention for 2023, so important. As mentioned earlier, by the end I'd like you to have a word for 2023 for work and a word for life, for personal. These words are designed to be central to your day-to-day decisions in 2023 to help you do better in business and in life. As mentioned, I did this exercise myself the other day and I want to use my experience as an example to help you out. I'll tell you about that now. I came up with two words when I did it that reflected how I think I can do better in business and life in 2023, in the year ahead. I think it is absolutely true that our greatest strengths are generally a double-edged sword.

For example, one of my really great strengths at work is that I'm a great delegator. The flip side to that, that I noticed when I reflected on the year that was, is that in my personal life, rather than just get shit done, I have a tendency to want to plan and delegate when actually it might just be easier to simply be a bit more organized and just do things in a one-touch kind of way. Now, if you are not familiar with the concept of one-touch, it's kind of cool and it's the idea that you touch things once rather than leaving them and trying to finish them later, which is not always possible. You know I'm a big delegator, which I'll talk about again in a minute. Relevant to this and to continue this as an example, so we all, as entrepreneurs, fit into one of these categories which are starter, maintainer, or finisher.

More often than not, as business owners, we're starters. We are great with vision as leaders and we are great at getting the ball rolling, but we're not always great finishers and that's okay. That's why one of the rules of the game is to build a team. Trying to be all things to all people, and be jack of all trades, and do everything yourself is not the road to success. Surrounding yourself with a team that compliments your strengths and weaknesses is the road to success. But in my personal life, just getting shit done is not only efficient, but sometimes it's good for my soul. I realize that when I reflected on 2022. My ability to delegate at work has absolutely helped me scale into a lifestyle business. But at home, when I reflect, it just wasn't always serving me. My word for 2023 in my personal life was simplify.

Now, I am a massive advocate of journaling, of the power of pen and paper and writing things down. All around us says tons of evidence from institutions like Harvard Uni about the power of this. When you do this exercise, it's really helpful to be able to scribble and write things down, to go a little deeper, to go down a few rabbit holes with your pen and paper. If you don't have a pen and paper handy, now I recommend that you listen to my podcast right now, great idea, but then listen again later. Sit somewhere quiet with a pen and paper and do this exercise, because if you really want to do better at business and life in the year ahead, in 2023, you'll make time rather than excuses. I don't pull punches, do I? Okay. Now let's get into reflection and come up with your words.

As a small business entrepreneur, your personal life and business will tend to overlap, and that's really important to know.

Sometimes people will tell you, "Well, business and life should be separate." Sure, if you've got a job. But when you are a small or medium size business owner, the two just invariably overlap. Actually, for most of us, that's okay. We thrive on it, we don't mind it. When you get your business to a nice point and it's a lifestyle business, it's quite enjoyable. I really want you to recognize that the two do overlap and that it's okay and it's natural and normal, and that sometimes business will take priority, and at other times, business will take a backseat rather than being totally balanced. But for the first part of this read, I want you to focus on your word for business. The key areas that I want you to think about when you're thinking about the business is profit, and cash, and time, and purpose.

Now, in terms of profit and cash, a lot of business owners don't know the difference between the two. If you can relate to that, then you're in good company. I want to point you towards my 7 Deadly Cash Flow Sins podcast and free e-book. You can find that in the Better in Business podcast. When you reflect on how your business is performing or performed rather over the last year in these key areas, so profit, cash, time, and purpose, these are the four main areas to reflect on. How did you perform in those key areas? What did you achieve? What are you struggling with more? Is the business not making as much profit as you need it to make? Do you have cash flow problems all the time that stress you out? Do you not know the difference between the two? Do you need support in that area? Is the business performing well financially, but you're a slave to it and you don't have the time and the lifestyle that you want?

Have you got all of those but it's not giving you the purpose that you want? Because purpose, in our jobs, whether we run a business or we have a job working for someone, purpose is so, so, so important. Legacy is important too. I want you to reflect on all of these things around how your business is performing, and then I want you to think about what are your greatest strengths? What are your greatest weaknesses? What are the lessons from 2022? My entrepreneurial profile is similar to many others. I am a creative starter. I love leading, but I don't really like managing. As an example to help you out, I'll tell you about when I reflected on 2022, I thought about how I had identified that I didn't really enjoy managing. I love leading, and that I had really made a commitment to step up and to do the five key areas of management when needed, which are plan, organize, staff, direct, and control.

I absolutely did not make a decision to become the manager all the time, but to wear the manager hat well when necessary, I will continue to be the great delegator that I am and I will continue to employ managers. It's what I've always done. It works really well for me and it's usually the way to scale, but it doesn't mean that I never have to put the management hat on. I reflected on 2022 and I've done really well in many areas. I do really, really well. If we're looking at those four categories, profit was good. I reinvested a lot of my profit into my new personal brand that I'm launching. Our cash flow's always fine. I can pull as much time out of the business as I want because I'm great at scale. Purpose was good, but I was also... The reason for my new personal brand was for more purpose and actually for legacy too.

That's an example of me reflecting on my year. I love to reflect, I love to set intentions. Through all of that, what I came up with for myself was the word measure. I will always, probably, or that might be a limiting belief to say that, but I noticed that I definitely can be challenged around management. I can be a people pleasing manager. I can be an absolute softie. One of the key areas of management is to measure. Measure your team's performance and measure the return on investment that you get from time and money invested into any activity. To measure numbers and to measure all these different things, which I absolutely facilitate management and my team doing. But I did realize that that word measure would be really, really powerful for me in 2023 when I reflected on profit, cash, time, purpose, and also legacy, and anything else you want to reflect on, but they're the key four there for you and the one extra that I added on the end.

Now let's have a look at what your word is. Thinking about everything that I've just said, thinking about your business performance and what challenges you and your strengths and your weaknesses,

what is one word that you could pick for 2023 as your theme to run through everything, that if you did that or you were that, business and therefore life, because they overlap, would get easier and more rewarding?

This word is going to set your intention. Now let's pick your word for your personal life. The key areas to think about in your personal life are health, time, family, friendships and finances. There are five key areas. There are other areas and you can absolutely look at them, but the five key areas I want you to think about right now are health, time, family, friendships, finances.

Now, when it comes to your health, this is not just physical health, this is mental, spiritual, and physical health. Health is definitely the three. Now, as an example, when I reflected on my 2023... 2022 rather, personal life, I was pretty happy in most areas. The main reason for that, I think, is that, on the whole, I'd put my health first, which I always try and do, so my mental, spiritual and physical health. If I can't put those first, so if I can't put my health first, for me, it's like the canary in the coal mine dying. I need to run for my life literally. Actually day to day, from time to time, when I observe that my health is not quite coming first and I observe it really quickly, I think, "Uh-oh. I need to change something," if I'm not getting what I need for my mental, spiritual and physical health.

As an example, my partner and I discussed this and he decided that he wanted to get back to meditation retreats. Actually he immediately booked one and he's literally on his way back right now. That is the power of doing this, of reflection, so that you can just take a breath, pause, look at what worked, look at what didn't. What did I get? What did I miss out on? What if I did more of something? I would be a better person and show up for everyone better, including myself. For me, when I reflected, as I said, my health is usually great. However, Latin dancing absolutely feeds my soul. It's where I get my spiritual health. It sets my soul on fire. I took action around there straight away. I got online, I got a group of girlfriends, and we all agreed that we would do Brazilian carnival samba dancing together. We are all in our 40s, and 50s, and 60s, it doesn't matter. This is all for fun.

We're amateurs, but we're even going to do amateur performances. Yes, it keeps me physically fit, but primarily, dancing feeds my spirituality and my soul and helps with my mental health as well because it is bilateral stimulation. Feel free to Google that. Bilateral stimulation is amazing for your mental health. That's an example of what I did. But the power of reflection in writing things down, I took immediate action. My partner took immediate action, our lives were better immediately. Now, as I mentioned earlier, my word for 2023, my personal life is simplify. I absolutely started doing that straight away, so when I reflected on those five key areas.

Health, time, family, friendships, finances. Probably time was one where I just thought I could have been doing better with my time, but then as I said earlier, I realized too I could save time, but doing some of these personal things I'd been trying to delegate were actually enjoyable and fed my soul. Really reflecting on those five key areas helped me come up with that word simplify. Simplify, do more things myself, enjoy it. It feeds my mental health. Things can be really mindful that I was doing, et cetera, et cetera. How are you going in these five key areas of health, time, family, friendships, and finance? Pause reading, make some notes, and then any other area that's important to you as well, really important. What are you crushing and what are you struggling with? Yeah. Think about those things.

Choose a word to set your intention for 2023 in your personal life.

We are done except for one last critically important thing. It is so important to write your words down. Here are some ideas, liquid chalk or whiteboard markers on your mirror in your bathroom so you look at them every day, multiple times a day. That is definitely what I'm doing. I haven't done it yet. After this, I'm heading straight from my bathroom and I am writing my words on the top of my mirror. My words being simplify in my personal life and measure. They're too easy to forget if you don't do this, and they're too powerful to forget. I also have an entire wall, it's 10 meters, in my office, at home here painted with whiteboard paint, also known as dry erase paint. Fantastic. I'm going to write my words at the top of that wall as well.

If you're thinking of painting a wall yourself, please know it is a little harder than it looks. You need to get the wall perfect first because dry erase paint is high sheen and so it shows every single flaw. I would recommend getting the white one. If you're going to use clear, just make sure your wall is the color that you want before you do it, but it's awesome. A massive whiteboard is so amazing. That's what I am doing.

I would love to hear what you thought of today's read, and so do email me at hello@betterinbusiness.global.

Go forth and prosper in 2023, my friends.

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