Business transitions and my word of the year

For those of you who don’t know, I work full-time and do this (and by this, I mean write this newsletter, blog over here on Organising Queen, do the products, coach, speak) all after hours and deep into the night, and on weekends. And I have a husband and twin toddlers.

I’ve been feeling like it’s all getting too much.

Not in terms of time so much (amazingly) because I still believe that we create time for what matters to us.

And this matters to me a lot.

But I think I got fixated a bit on the numbers and how much this was bringing in (or not) and whether it was a good return on my time investment.

The truth is… if I were coaching myself, purely based on the numbers, I would advise myself to shut this down, and pronto.

It seemed for a long time like I was a real failure when I started comparing myself to all the other online businesses out there making 6-figure incomes.

I realised I needed to quiet the noise for a bit so I could think and hear God clearly on this.

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Because when I started writing a newsletter (that’s how it all started – me and my computer after work, a few hours a month, writing a monthly newsletter), I wasn’t into all the internet marketing going on.

So I unsubscribed from virtually everything (EVERYTHING!) internet marketing related and I don’t follow any coach’s newsletter except for Elizabeth Hagen’s one.

I then read a fantastic article on Michael Hyatt’s blog on job satisfaction. If nothing else today, that link is worth the click 🙂

Basically I realised that “this” is a profitable hobby and quite honestly, it set me free.

Yes, I’m passionate and competent at what I do, but I clearly don’t have enough of a market, despite my best efforts.

And so I’m going back to basics which, for me, is to have the mindset of just encouraging and inspiring people again and to stop thinking of this as a business, but rather, a hobby I really, really enjoy.

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Does that make sense?

1. Along with the mindset change, I’m going to only send out a newsletter twice every month.

2. For the moment, I’ll still be blogging 3 times a week but I suspect the blogging will be easy blogging too. In other words, I don’t want to feel compelled to have a pic with every post and have x number of words. Yes, all the things the blog geniuses say not to do. Ha!

3. I also want to set up an affiliate programme so that some of you (who I deeply treasure) can recommend my products to friends and earn some money too.

4. And last but not least, one of my big goals this year is to work through all my products to revamp them. To be honest, I don’t expect much to change in terms of content (thank goodness most of the principles I talk about are quite timeless; it’s really just that social media has exploded more than ever before. I’m having new business cards made and I had to give the designer 6 different contact points, most of those being social media!) but certainly fonts, layout, formatting, etc.

5.  If I feel up to it, I may write another book but first I want to find a way to consistently promote Live Organised.

Are you still reading? (You deserve a medal)

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And now for my word of the year…this is the 5th year I’ve been choosing a word for the year.

My word for 2012, create worked really well for me last year.

I actually really thought and thought and over analysed (well, as much as someone like me can actually do) this word for 2013.

You see, by nature I’m a take charge kind of person.

And while that talks to most of my “awesomeness”, I’ve been delving a bit into the letting go.

I’ve become better at letting go and yet I still battle. God’s been drawing me into a lot more of the letting go which is SO hard for me. Or maybe because it’s so hard for me.

I was trying to find a word that was about letting go, surrendering, etc. but nothing felt quite right.

Then one day I was driving to work, listening to music and one of the lyrics was about trust.

Suddenly it hit me.

TRUST!

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That’s the perfect word for me.

It’s about letting go and surrendering, while still taking some of my take charge personality into account. Because it takes some effort and action to TRUST.

So that’s my word -trust.

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I was working through Susannah Conway’s unravelling 2013 workbook the other day and she has a nice way of doing this word of the year thing.

Choose one word but then pick 4 that support it too.

My four supporting little words are brave (similar to courage), surrender, connect and grace.

What is your one word for 2013?

If you worked through Susannah’s workbook, what are the other 4 words you chose?

PS my words for previous years were simplify, consolidate, courage, create.

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