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New Podcast - And An Oops!
New Here? Stay up to date on my latest posts by subscribing to my RSS feed. You can also get new posts delivered to your email. Thanks for visiting!
I’ve got A LOT of info packed into this post, so please read all the way to the end. You don’t want to miss anything!
First of all, I goofed up on a blog post recently. I ran a contest (http://indiebizchicks.com/blog/celebration/) and when I thought I published the winner’s name, I hit “save” — and not “publish”…
I had a really busy week last week and thought all my blog posts were set to publish, and didn’t realize what happened till today. Talk about an oops! Anyway, the winner is Michelle from http://laseraffairs.com/. Congrats, Michelle. Email me at info[at]indiebizchicks.com to claim your prize.
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We have a NEW podcast up this week. You can find Episode 25 at
(http://indiebizchicks.com/wp/episode-25/)
For this podcast, I do a live website review. We’ll discuss how making some small tweaks to your site can make a big difference in your sales! Grab my notes at
http://indiebizchicks.com/extras/website-review.pdf
And if YOU want a website review, request one at:
http://indiebizchicks.com/wp/website-review-and-biz-plans/
Celebration Time… Come On!
So, today we’re going to wrap up our talk about goal setting… With a little celebration! So fill us in! What was something that you achieved?
Brag about it… Come on! Leave a comment and let us praise you! (but do it by Tuesday at 5pm Eastern)
I’ll pick one lucky person at random, and they’ll win a 3 month subscription to Quick And Easy Newsletters!
(these are pre-written newsletters that you can customize and send out to your mailing list!)
Come back Tuesday to see if you’ve won!
How do you “get over it”
Sometimes, we fail to meet a goal. It can hurt. Especially when you worked really hard to accomplish it. I can say “oh, it happens, don’t worry about it,” but that doesn’t make the sting go away, now does it?
So what should you do? Grab a pint of ice cream and wallow? Go into a violent fit and throw your post-its over a cliff? No, that wouldn’t be wise, now would it?
You just have to get over it….. And start fresh. Make a new goal, make a new deadline, and start over.
But learn from this failure. Were you setting the bar too high? Creating an unachievable goal isn’t going to do you any good. You may think it’s going to motivate you, but just exactly how motivated do you feel after failing to accomplish it? Not very….
Were you not working hard enough? Creating the goal and then not putting in any effort isn’t going to bring you extra profits…(if you know you were slacking, go back and re-read the posts on sacrifice and giving yourself a reality check)
You CAN do this. You can accomplish whatever you put your mind to. It may not happen overnight, and it will take a lot of work, but you CAN do it!
Now, how do you get over a disappointment in your business??
Keeping Score
Over the past few days, we’ve been talking about goals and making a little bit of sacrifice to achieve success. As a business owner, you are both the boss and the employee. Some people can thrive in this type of situation and achieve more than they could in a traditional work environment.
For other people, this situation can spell disaster. That is why it is important to give yourself a reality check to make sure you are staying on track.
Are you focused on your business? This alone can throw your business into high gear or create a standstill. It can be easy to lose focus when you work at home, as there will always be other things competing for your attention.
It is okay to let the laundry wait for a few hours while you work on your business. Your laundry can’t pay your bills, but those few hours you put into your business could reap you many financial rewards.
Not only is focusing on business tasks important, but it is important to be focused within your business. It is easy to get sidetracked with new business ventures and other offers. It can be hard to spread your time and energy over too many projects. It is easier to manage a select few projects that are tightly woven within your target market.
Are you being productive? At the end of the day, do you ever feel like you worked all day but accomplished nothing? Take a look at the tasks you are working on, and whether they are actually important to your success. If you find yourself getting sidetracked by surfing the web, chatting in forums, or reading blogs, try to schedule time for those activities after your “real work” is done.
On the other hand, if you feel your time is being sucked away by answering email, updating your website, or collecting research for an upcoming information product you are working on, try outsourcing those tasks to a virtual assistant. This will help you free up some time to work on business tasks that need more attention.
If you find that you are constantly missing your goal deadlines, you may want to take the time to revamp your goals. Create an action plan that will be easy to follow and help you get to your end result.
Would I hire myself? This is a tough question to ask yourself, but it is very important. It may sound silly, but perhaps you could write out a job description and give yourself an interview. Are you the type of employee you would want to hire?
If you answered “no” to the above question, take some time to write out the areas within yourself that you would like to improve. This can be a hard exercise to complete, but once you have analyzed yourself, you’ll be on your way to becoming a better business owner and having a better business.
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Check out my friend Carrie’s free biz guide
Is a little sacrifice worth it?
I’ll be honest with you… today’s topic is not going to be full of fun and laughter. But it isn’t exactly torture, either. It’s about sacrifice, and more importantly, what you’re going to sacrifice to meet your goals.
Remember, you set that goal for a reason, and it’s important to you, so you should be eager to achieve it, right? And that’s where a funny thing happens.
Even though we may want to achieve our goals, we often do little things to set ourselves up for failure. Like procrastinate. Why do we do that??
The reality is, we will need to sacrifice a little something to achieve a BIG something later…
For some of us, it may mean sacrificing free time at night and on weekends to have time to work on our businesses… So, maybe you get up at 5am on to have a few hours of quiet time each morning to work on your business or maybe you temporarily give up going out for Sunday brunch or give up watching Grey’s Anatomy… Is it worth it in the long run? Of course it is!
What are you willing to sacrifice?
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If you love to write AND need to bring in some extra money, check out the Guide to Writing for Pay
You’ll be surprise at just how many writing jobs there are on the ‘net. I should know - I’ve earned many a paycheck from writing web content and copy (and you can, too!)