I’m back!

I can’t deny it…

Life definitely got the better of me a few months ago and I needed to take a break to regroup and get back on track. Has that ever happened to you?

I’m sure there were signs along the way that I just didn’t pay attention to (duh…of course there were) but being a very determined and high capacity person I either consciously or subconsciously chose to ignore those signs. I got stuck in the trap of thinking “this is just how it is right now”…which, by the way, is such a lie. You always have the ability to influence your own life – it’s just easy to forget that sometimes.

The one thing that I simply can’t ignore is my health. I mean really, if you don’t have that, what do you have?  You could have all the money or time in the world but if you aren’t healthy and feeling good you can’t enjoy either of those things.

I made a quick little video (well…it’s actually 5 min) but it tells you honestly and candidly about what’s been going on for me these past few  months and what I did to get myself back – you can check it out below

I’m back!

And of course, comments are great! I’d love to hear if you’ve ever gone through something like this and what you did to get yourself back.

What if “Think Small” was the new “Think Big”?

(This is my little girl – she’s an expert at thinking big and taking small steps to reach her goal – in this case, the park!)

I know that you’ve been told a lot to “think big” “dream big” “go big”, in fact I’ve probably said some of those things, but what I’m wondering right now is if “Think Small” might  be the new “Think Big”.

I’m wondering this because the more women I talk to the more I hear the phrase “I feel like I’m not doing enough” or “I just can’t seem to do enough”. Now I think this might be the little sister of the more personal “I’m not enough” syndrome but it can be as equally insidious and has similar symptoms.  Symptoms can include anxiety, stress, sleeplessness, moodiness, crying, chronic exhaustion, snapping and feeling like you just can’t handle everything you’ve got going on in your life anymore without exploding or imploding.

What happens when expectations and reality collide?

I know this one well! In fact in May of last year this hit me hard. I was a full time stay-at-home/work-at-home mom with very little external support and I had BIG expectations of myself. For some reason I thought it was reasonable to think I could be this amazing mom, super successful business owner, athlete, wife, etc. and do everything to a super high standard and when I failed or felt like I wasn’t getting there fast enough or doing things good enough I let that get to me.

I was feeling like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and there was all of this pressure. Needless to say, my melt down wasn’t pretty but it was necessary as it forced me to get very clear on my priorities. And I was able to remember that I get to decide how I want to live my life.

I also came to the realization that what I used to be able to accomplish in a day or a week now takes me a week or a month. No wonder I felt so much pressure – I was totally setting myself up to fail because my expectations didn’t match the reality of my life and hadn’t even realized it.

I’m curioius….Have you ever done this?

Have you ever heaped SOOO much onto your plate stuff is literally falling of the sides. You’re forgetting things, not sleeping enough, missing your opportunity to exercise because you have so many deadlines (often self-imposed deadlines) and simply feel like you’re not enjoying things?

Well it’s time to kick that behavior to the curb!

What if less really is more.

It is your responsibility to set your own life up for success. You have complete control of this and the key is to realize that no matter how amazing or talented or brilliant or ambitious or high achieving or goal oriented you are – you are simply one person. And you are probably wearing  a lot of different hats.   So, if you’ve been inflicted by the “I’m not doing enough syndrome” I want you to do the following:

1) Write down every single thing you’ve done in the past 7 days. Everything. I want you to be specific. If you’ve gone grocery shopping, done the laundry, prepped meals for kids, chauffeured to playdates or preschool, done activities to build your business, worked, exercised, hung out with your partner, slept, nursed…write it all down (if you don’t know exactly to the minute, that’s ok, just estimate it).

2) Add up how much time all of this took.

3) Now write down all of the things you wanted to get done but didn’t for whatever reason.

4) Now write down this number – 168. That’s how many hours there are in a week. Take a look at the number you wrote down for #2.

5) Look at everything you did and how long it took you…is it starting to make sense why things are falling off your plate? There simply aren’t enough hours in the day/week/month to meet the expectations you place on yourself.

You have to align the expectations you have of yourself with your reality. And that means setting realistic and achievable goals.

• This can start with “Thinking Small” instead of “Thinking Big” – maybe instead of aiming to make 6-figures off your first launch (think big) you aim to learn as much as you can this first time around and shoot for $5-10 000 (think small)
• Maybe instead of working like a dog every single available minute of the day in order to ________ (fill in the blank) you see how many times you can make your kids belly laugh today
• How about instead of trying to lose 30 pounds by Christmas you aim for making healthier choices on a consistent basis and feeling grateful about the body you have and all of the amazing things it does for you

Do you get the idea?

I think dreaming big and holding a big vision for your life is awesome and important but not when it creates so much pressure on you today that you lose the ability to enjoy the moments. So, continue to dream big and think big and all of that good stuff but allow yourself to take small steps to get there. It will make the journey 100 million times more fun. And of course I think, the way we reach our dreams matters.

Drop down into the comments below and let me know what you might be willing to “think small” about!

Modesty & Business Do Not Go Hand in Hand

Bootcamp

I’m SUPER excited!!

Entrepreneur Bootcamp for Women starts next Wednesday and I’m right in the middle of the launch for it now. Talk about a learning curve…I’m hosting preview calls , inviting people to be affiliates, sending emails to my list and hoping that I’m not annoying anyone yet.

And while all of this is new and exciting it’s also a little bit scary and nerve wracking. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been getting to me and I finally realized it. I’m talking about this program a lot which feels like I’m talking about myself a lot. I don’t know about you but I grew up being told that it wasn’t polite to brag and that being modest was important. But if I was to follow that advice in my business…well, I’d be out of business.

I was talking with my coach the other day while I was having somewhat of a panic attack and feeling all “salesy” and uncomfortable. She asked me why I was doing this, why did I create this program and why am I running it? My answer was easy – I found starting a business to be a shitload of work. There was SO much I didn’t know and I had to learn it the hard way and it took a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of money. I want to help make the process easier for other women entrepreneurs who are in the exact same place I was a few years ago. I want to make their experience easier and more fun!

She then asked if I believed in my program. “Wholeheartedly,” I said. “It’s exactly what I wished I’d had when I was struggling to learn everything including the stuff I didn’t know that I needed to know”.

This conversation has allowed me to feel really proud of the program I created. Entrepreneur Bootcamp for Women rocks and although I still feel slightly uncomfortable trying to get and create so much attention around something I’m involved with, I also know it’s how I can help people. If people don’t know this program even exists then I don’t get to make a difference, I don’t get the chance to help someone out.

Sing it from the roof tops!

So if you have ever felt awkward around making a “big deal” out of something you offer, I encourage you to take a stand and remind yourself that what you do is important. You do what you do so you can make a difference for others. If people don’t know about you or your product/service then they can’t find you and you can’t help them. If you’ve got something great to offer I challenge you to sing it from the roof tops…because it is a big deal. If you don’t make a big deal out of it, who will?

Your first step can be to drop down in the comments section below and write about one awesome thing you offer (product/service).

Jen

ps. If you’re at all intrigued by EB4W join me tomorrow at 2:00pm MT for a free preview call http://jenniferpowter.com/businessbootcampnow/

When The Pressure Creeps In, The Joy Seeps Out

Here’s a little story for you:

Marcy loves to run. She’s been running for years and does it for the health benefits and plus the fact being out in nature just makes her feel good. She feels free when she runs. It’s her “me” time and is a hugely satisfying part of her life.

Marcy went for a run with a friend one day who suggested that she enter the upcoming local 10km race. Marcy thought that sounded fun so she ded. Much to her surprise she won her age category and is the third female finisher overall. Her friends and family can’t stop congratulating Marcy on her amazing run and as encouragement they suggest she should get “serious” about running…you know, really try.

Marcy, thrilled by the feelings of success she’s experiencing decides that she’s going to up her game and get serious.

Fast Forward One Year:

Marcy has completed numerous races and has done very, very well but isn’t satisfied with her results. She wants to be faster. She wants to win. She wants to be the best. She looks around at what the other runners are doing trying to figure out what they eat, when they train, how they train, and so forth. She knows she’s putting pressure on herself but she also knows she’s capable of so much more. So, she works harder, trains harder.

Fast forward another year

Marcy is miserable. She’s sick a lot. Her relationships feel stressful lately. And, she now hates running. What used to bring her such joy now feels like a burden. When she knows she needs to go for a run she avoids it, procrastinates, tries to make herself busy with other things so she doesn’t “have” to go. In the end she goes for a run but it doesn’t feel fun anymore.

Last fast forward

It’s a year later and Marcy has quit running. She’s moderately depressed and wondering why she didn’t succeed? She can’t seem to see how amazing her results actually were. In no time she went from being a recreational runner to a highly competitive athlete who was winning all sorts of races. Instead of feeling dejected, Marcy could feel proud of her achievements but because of the pressure she put on herself and the goals that she set all she sees is what she didn’t do/achieve/accomplish.

Has this ever happened to you?

Think about it. Think about your relationship, your business, your parenting, your own personal goals. Have you ever stopped and wondered if the pressure you’re putting on yourself is reasonable? Don’t get me wrong…I’m all for having BIG goals but I’m also all about having  a solid plan for going after those goals.

But when the goal becomes to have more, be more, get more, achieve more, the reasons that we’re doing our thing in the first place can get lost becuase we’re now focusing on the whole faster, further, smarter thing.  We start to create expectations for our self and start to focus on the outcome way more than the process, the journey of getting there.

And we put pressure on ourselves in all sorts of ways:

• Time pressure
• Money pressure
• Appearance pressure
• Status pressure
• Perfection pressure
• Keeping up with the Jones’ pressure (who are the Jones’ anyways?)
• Peer pressure

Here’s another little story:

I registered for Ironman Canada without knowing how to do front crawl (properly). Now if the race had only been two months away I can’t even imagine the pressure I would have put on myself to learn how to swim and be fast and master a stroke that I’d never spent much time learning.

But it wasn’t two months away, it was a year away. And I took a swim class. And then another set of swim classese. And I had a coach.

And I had little goals that I set for myself so that I wasn’t constantly thinking “Holy shit, I have to swim 4 km (2.4 miles).” I also didn’t pay a lot of attention to the faster swimmers. I focused on my own progress. Some of them had been swimming for years so of course they were faster than me, and yes, they looked a  lot “prettier” swimming in the water than I did.

But you know what? I did it. And I learned a whole lot about how to swim and how to get fast at the same time. And most importantly, I loved every minute of my journey.

When you notice that the joy has seeped out of something that you used to love to do, it’s time for a check in with yourself.

Ask:

• Are my goals reasonable?
• Have I somehow convinced my self that my worth is dependent on the outcome I achieve?
• What are the expectations I have of myself?
• What assumptions am I making?
• Do I need to adjust anything here to help keep this goal fun & enjoyable?
• Can I turn the “pressure” down at all? If so, how?

Not sure how? Here are a few suggestions to decrease the pressure:

• adjust your goal
• adjust your expectations
• check in with whatever assumptions you have and find out if they’re valid
• create a plan, have bite sized goals instead of one big lofty one
• stay curious about the outcome instead of attached to it

Because here’s what I know: When the pressure creeps in, the joy seeps out. And that’s just not a fun way to go after the things that we want in life.

Please drop down into the comments section and let me know if you get what I mean about “pressure” – would love to know if anyone else feels this way sometimes.

Jen

Time or Energy- What’s More Important?

Our days are 24hrs long and no matter how much we might wish we could press the pause button or somehow magically add a few more hours to our day, it’s just never going to happen. So we aim to become very efficient with our time.

We create to-do lists a mile long – we use our iPhones, blackberries, pop up reminders, syncing of calendars, post it notes, and scribble on the back of our hand to remind us of everything we need to do. For a lot of us, it feels like demand exceeds capacity.

It does for me anyways. I have two young kids and a husband, run a business, keep a home, manage friendships, exercise, cook real food, look after the lawn, plan play-dates, book vacations, look after the finances, and on and on it goes. I’m the first to wish that there were a few more hours in the day. And then I think about that and imagine on the days that I feel like crap, the days that I’m tired and grumpy and definitely not my best self, having to get through an extra three or four hours would actually just suck.

What I do want is to have enough energy to be fully present in whatever task I’m doing in the moment so I can do whatever I’m doing well. I want to feel good during my day. I want to feel alive and engaged. AND, I know what I need to do to feel this way and I’m going to share it with you too.

I need to be personally responsible for managing my E.N.E.R.G.Y.

• E = Exercise
• N = Nutrition
• E = Emotions
• R = Relationships
• G = Goals
• Y = You

I’m in the process of creating an awesome model to represent this concept but in the mean time just take this in. All of these components are absolutely necessary to live a fully and energized life. If you ignore any one of these things you may not notice the effect right away – but  the short term decisions that we make in the moment to provide us with some sort of convenience often have long term consequences.

So in the next few days I’m going to be diving into each one of these components and explaining why it’s so important, typical things that derail us, and practical solutions for making space/time in your day to focus on you.

Why? Simply put – because you matter!

Even with all of the other stuff on your plate, you matter. And when you’re not looking after you…well, none of the other stuff does well, or as well as it could if you were at your best. And I want to help you truly feel at your best.

So – check back often this week to see new blog & video posts. And, if you’re interested in hearing me talk more about this then mark your calendar because on Tuesday May 25 @10am MST I’m going to be on Lara Galloway’s The WoMEN: What Women Entrepreneurs Need Teleseminar Series. Lara is awesome and her show is awesome too!

Gotta comment or a question – drop down to the comments section below and write away! I’d love to hear from you.

Jen

Entrepreneur Bootcamp for Women

Starting May 12th

It’s Time to Kick a Little Business Ass

I am so excited about this program and I want to share a little bit about it, especially how it all rolled out because let me tell you, it was old school. But let me back up a minute.

It started when I was talking with a friend and we were remarking how awesome it would be if we could go back in time with everything we know now and start our businesses over. I knew I couldn’t do that for myself but the idea kept rolling around in my head so I wrote down everything that I’ve learned and all of the stuff that I wish I’d known. Things like “list building”, “wordpress”, “marketing funnel”, “autoresponders”, “shopping carts” and so on.

Yes, if you’re laughing right now I get it, but I really was that business naive. Then I checked in to see if anybody else brand new in business was wondering about these things. They were. And I wanted to help them.

The title just popped into my head and I liked it – it would be a business bootcamp: intense, fun, learn a lot, grow, push limits and so on. I decided to do it.

I picked a date and started to market it word of mouth. That’s right. Word. Of. Mouth.

My website wasn’t even finished, I didn’t have a merchant account or shopping cart sorted out yet, but I felt really excited about being able to offer this – so I didn’t let that stop me.

A friend of mine suggested creating a facebook event might be a good idea and at least make it easy for people to pay. So I did that too.

And guess what? This program is almost full! I have 2 spots left.

Moral of this post (and really, the huge learning for me): don’t wait, do something. If there’s an area of your life that you’re holding back in because you’re not sure what to do or how to do it, just start. Keeping everything in your head makes for crazy making and is a way to beat down self confidence and it keeps you in nasty place called “stuckness”.

Taking action makes you feel like a super hero.

I’d love to know if there’s anything you’re willing to take a step towards. Please share below in the comments.

Jen