The Business Bliss Challenge: Rekindle The Love For Your Business In Just 7 Days | Find Your Flow

Okay, you guys.

We are on a mission to help you fall back in love with your business in just seven days or less.

I'm your host Jennifer Dawn. And today we're going to be talking about a topic that's near and dear to my heart. Finding your flow as entrepreneurs. It's so easy to fall into the trap of hustling 24 seven. You guys know exactly what I'm talking about it talking about, right? We think that if we just work harder and longer, that we will finally get to the end of that rainbow and we will achieve success. Okay. But the truth is that approach is a one way ticket to burnout city.

I've been there many, many times. The real magic happens when we actually learn to work smarter and not harder and tap into our natural state of flow. Now, I know I am not the only one who has experienced the pitfalls of that hustle, hustle mentality, right? You've heard, if you stop for lunch, you are lunch, right? And as Americans, I think this is even more in our culture that we just sort of grinded into us that we have to drive, drive, drive, hustle, hustle, hustle.

Right and but you know that that belief of grinding non -stop It's not the only way to get ahead in fact if you look around and I have looked around there's a lot of people who are very very Successful and some of the most successful people they don't work that much. Okay I've had my share of 16 hour work days. I've skipped a lot of meals I've had a lot of sleepless nights in the name of success, but here's the thing that kind of constant pushing and striving, it's not sustainable. It leads to exhaustion, resentment, and eventually complete and total burnout. And I know some of you have been like me that like, I know I'm burned out, but I still show up and I kept driving and driving and driving. But here's the thing. When we're burned out, it kills our productivity. We end up making a lot of mistakes. We have to come back and redo stuff. We're not putting our best energy into our work. And we're robbing ourselves of ourselves of our creativity and our ingenuity and frankly and then our happiness just takes a major major hit. So what's the alternative? Well, find our flow flow state, you know, like in the zone. This is that state where you're just immersed in what you're doing. Time seems to fly by and guess what? Your best ideas, your best work just pour out of you like almost completely without any kind of effort. When you're in flow, you are actually tapped into your zone of genius. You're leveraging your natural strengths and talents. And guess what? Work is going to start to feel so much more like play and fun, right? And fun. It's okay. You guys have fun. I give me permission to have fun. Not only does this lead to better results in your business, but it also allows you to experience that joy, that fulfillment, that satisfaction. And of course you guessed it bliss. That's what we're here for. The business bliss challenge. Okay. So,

How do we actually find and harness our flow? Well, in my book, the Apple Stand, how to rekindle the love for your business. I really dive deep into this topic, but I'm going to share a few other things with you today that are actually not in the book. So first, get clear on your unique strengths and the activities that really light you up. Like what comes really easily for you? What do you just get lost in for hours? These are going to be clues to your own flow state.

Once you identify those things, I want you to look for ways to incorporate more of them into your work. This was a huge insight for me because I realized that when I am coaching and teaching and training, that truly is my flow. When I'm putting together trainings, when I'm teaching my clients, when I'm coaching my clients, I love it. And I noticed that when I had to stop the, my, my flow in the day and I had to take a sales call. Now you guys, I'm a business coach. Sales are incredible, incredibly important. They're a vital part of your business. But I started to, we can't get rid of it, but I started to notice that when I had to stop and take a sales call, I would get really annoyed because I'm just like, I don't, I don't want to do this. I don't want to get on the call. I'm not the best person for it. I'm not the best sales person. And so what did I do? when I had that realization and I wanted the sales calls off my plate, I hired a sales person, a great sales person who loves sales. And for them, sales is their flow state. So now the salesperson can be in their flow. I'm the coach. I can be in my flow and now everybody wins and everybody is happy. Okay. So think about this in your business. Like, is there something in your business that when it is time for you to do that, maybe you get a little bit annoyed and it really kind of takes you out of that flow state. Now, I just want to say a disclaimer here. We all have to deal with shit in our business. Okay. There's a great book, the big magic from the woman who wrote,

Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Eat Pray Love and she has a chapter in the book called the shit sandwich and look no matter what space you're in no matter how much you love your work there's just gonna be times when you just have to eat the shit sandwich okay so we just all have to grow up and deal with it and it is what it is but that cannot be like every day okay every single day can't be I've got to eat this shit sandwich okay so that's what I mean here by starting to pay attention to things that are popping you out of flow and then you can do something to delegate it or get it off your plate so that you can spend more of your time in the flow state. But just know as business owners, there's always going to be a little bit of something that we probably have to deal with. Okay. So the key here is to minimize those distractions and intentionally create conditions where we can be more in our flow state. All right. Another game changer can be learning to work in sprints rather than marathons. Okay. So in trying, instead of trying to like muscle through our and hours of uninterrupted work, you can break up your day into focus 60 or 90 minute blocks with little short breaks in between. This can really help you maintain your energy and avoid burnout. Before, often in my day in full transparency, I am booked back to back to back.

So I might only sometimes I don't get any breaks and sometimes I might just get three or four minutes, but in that three or four minutes, I do make sure to stand up. I have a set of weights in my office and so I'll just do a couple little reps or do a, do a couple pushups, something like that in my office to just get my body moving. And then before I sit down to start my next call, I will close my eyes, take a big deep breath and just do a tiny like 30 or 62nd transitional meditation to get myself right, to get myself back in flow.

As I move through even the busiest day. Another thing that I did is I changed my calendar so I don't take calls after four o 'clock because the fact is I'm a morning person. That's when I'm in my flow and I like to work. And by the time that the afternoon rolls around by three or four o 'clock, like my brain is tired and I'm okay with that. Later in the day, those are times for me to cook dinner, go see the horses, get on the motorcycle, go for a ride, those kinds of things. Like I don't need super brain power to do that. I don't need the brain power.

power I need when I'm working with a client. Okay, so I just adjust my schedule accordingly and don't work at those times when I know that I'm just not at my best during those times. And lastly, okay, we also need to make sure that we're making time for self care and activities that fill us up outside of work. Now, I know you've heard this. We've all heard it. I've heard it. It's like you need to do your self care, right? And as soon as we hear, you need to do your self care, there's just some natural resistance that will come up. I don't know what it is about human beings, but we're just like, I know I need to do it. I'm not going to.

I'm going to just be resistant to it. Okay. However, one of the things that really helped me to transition this was when I started to understand the connection between filling myself up outside of work and having things so that I'm well rested, I'm nourished, I'm happy doing some things that I love. It actually improved my problem solving because for example, have a problem in my business instead of sitting at my desk and stewing over it. I just go and drive out to the bar.

and say hi to my horse. And when I'm in on the drive, when I'm out at the barn, I'm with my horse, I'm super happy. Sure enough, that solution will just pop into my mind. And I enjoyed the whole process through it. Okay. And so I started to make the connection between if I want to work smarter and not harder, that I actually as a strategy, I need to take that time outside. It's almost like my CEO time that gets me into the flow state.

And when I started to connect it with, well, this is how I actually make more money. I once had a client say, I'm going to play more golf. They loved golf. I'm going to play more golf so I can make more money. And it's true when we start to connect doing those things that we love, we feel better. Our creativity is there. We are more receptive to good feeling things coming in. We're just in a happier state. There are so many studies which actually prove that happier people are more successful. It's not the other way around. It's not.

If I'm successful, then I'll be happy. Okay. And we get this, it's, it's backwards. Okay. We get happy first. And when we get happy first, the success will actually now come to us a lot easier. Okay. So I hope that makes sense. And so that's why it's so important with flow state too, is to make sure that we are literally scheduling time in our day to do things that satisfy us, that fill us up, which is the opposite of over scheduling. how many of you have over scheduled? I know that I've done it.

Many many times and when I over schedule myself guess what it creates overwhelm overwhelm comes from trying to do too much so stop use the best planner ever it has a very very short to -do list and on the the list it's ABCD right A's are my things that I need to do to move my needle forward today B are my important things I got to show up and do C can be done later and D is delegate so it reminds me as I sit down and I plan the day you can also use time blocking so if you look at your calendar and you look at all the things that you need to do, block out the time of this is how long it's going to take me to do this and this and this and block it out. And guess what? If you run out of time, you're over scheduled. It's that simple. If you run out of time, you're over scheduled. This is where time blocking can be such a valuable tool. Now, I personally don't time block because it feels like, you know, everything I'm going to do today because it feels a little rigid for me. So obviously scheduled meetings, appointments are time blocked time where I have to, you know, answer emails and do things like that. But I do like to have that open time sort of free. So I know what a task I need to get done. And I give myself a little bit of flexibility there of what I'm going to do in that open time. But using like your time calendar for the day of like, Hey, here's all the things I think I'm going to get done. Let me block it out and just see, do I really have the time to get this done today is such a powerful tool to make sure that I don't over schedule. Because remember over scheduling leads to overwhelm and that is going to pop you out of your flow state. So your mission today.

Should you choose to accept it is to identify one task or project in your business that usually feels like a slog. And I want you to find a way to make it more flow friendly. And so what that means is that maybe you delegate it to somebody else, like take the time, just record a little video, do the little training, delegate it to somebody else, or find a way to pair it with an activity that you actually enjoy. Like maybe listening to music, music, or going to like your favorite coffee shop and just like working for there and just knocking out something that maybe you have to knock it out, but do it in a fun place. Here's the bottom line. Hustling yourself into the ground is not the path to business bliss. By tapping into your natural flow state and working in a way that actually feels good to you, you can achieve a lot more and have less stress and more joy. So let's keep exploring what lights you up and create those optimal conditions for you to focus and be inspired. And remember, you're in this for the long haul. Hopefully you're as a business owner. Business is tough, but so are you. And hopefully you are in it for the long haul and sustainability and satisfaction are key. Now I want to take a moment and just thank everyone for being here with me today. And I hope you're going to join me tomorrow for day five, where we're going to be chatting all about the power of aligned action. Trust me, it's going to be super duper juicy. Now, if you have a business owner friend who you feel like could really benefit from today's show, please, please, please share it with them. It's so important. And if you could, if you're also benefiting hop over and please leave us a review. It really, really helps us to get more exposure for the show and help more business owners, which is my passion and purpose. Now until then keep flowing, keep growing, keep shining, get out there you guys and have a happy productive day. Bye y 'all.