Let's get started!A very wise woman once said something to the effect of: “You will have balance in your life. Maybe not every day, maybe not even every year. But over the course of your life, you will have balance.” (Note: I can’t remember who said that. She was a panelist at a luncheon honouring some women of distinction that I attended years ago.)
I’ve been thinking about that statement a lot lately, as I work on changing the balance of my life. More than changing the balance, though, this has felt like changing the pattern, the colours and the threads, the shape. I do live a pretty balanced life now, but it IS changing. It looks and feels different than it did last year, and it’ll look and feel different again this time next year.
I recently read an article in The Globe and Mail about Michelle Obama called “Fashion’s first lady” (short link = http://goo.gl/7LF9V ). I enjoyed the article but what really struck me was this paragraph:
“First ladies are often a lightning rod for cultural angst about the choices women have and are intensely scrutinized for the ones they make. But in her choice of fashion, Michelle Obama is an exemplar of how many modern women think and behave. It’s not about Having It All. And it’s not about Having It All Just Not At The Same Time – the popular sequential view of how a woman can organize herself with career, marriage and motherhood, a path that often ends in heartbreak as women discover they cannot conceive. It’s more about braiding various responsibilities as wife, mother, Ivy League alumna and professional, allowing some strands to be thicker at certain stages of life, depending on the circumstances.”
Aha! THAT’S what my life is like: a cord braided of strands that change colour and thickness and texture. Sometimes I change the strands. Sometimes outside circumstances change the strands. Sometimes a strand breaks, when a relationship is severed for whatever reason. Sometimes a new strand is braided into the whole, when a new relationship starts.
And those relationships are with anything and everything: family, friends, your home town, your current geographical location, your education (and the choices you made there), your career (and those choices too). Even with yourself: your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects. I know at different times of my life I have focused more or less on any given relationship, started new ones, ended some. The cord, my life, goes on, a little different than it was before.
Sometimes that cord gets knotted and tangled. Sometimes it flows smoothly. Sometimes it’s weaker than others. Sometimes it feels like it’s fraying, as if bits of me have gone astray like fuzz from a woolly scarf. Sometimes it feels strong and flexible. Sometimes it’s simple, sometimes it’s complex.
I’m working on making it simpler, at the moment. The threads I want to nurture are getting stronger and thicker. The ones I don’t want to focus on are getting thinner and less colourful. Most of them will always be a part of my braided cord, but they won’t be as noticeable. Some I’ll snip and tie off; they won’t continue.
What does the braid of your life look like? Is your cord knotted and tangled, or running smoothly? Are you paying attention to the important threads (relationships), making sure they’re healthy and strong?
Sometimes we need help, another set of eyes and hands, to help us untangle threads. If you’ve ever scooped a fine chain out of a jumble, you know exactly what I mean! For our lives, or lifestyle businesses, sometimes we need a listener, a sounding board. Which strand in your braided cord can you tug on for help?
It’s coming up to tax time here in Canada, and the US. Pulling together year-end reports on revenues and expenses is, for some business owners, the first time all year they take a good hard look at the numbers.
Finally, look around your office and explore ways you can cut back on simple things like office supplies. Can you buy in bulk and save money? Can you reduce your use of electricity, paper, and ink? Can you get a free business phone number with Google, or an inexpensive one with Skype or one of the other VOIP services, and eliminate your monthly business phone bill?
I was working with a client recently on creating a marketing plan and more specifically a content plan for her business. She’s changing some stuff up: dropping some things that haven’t been working, expanding on some that have been, adding some new ones, and planning others. That’s a lot of balls in the air, and we wanted to make sure she at least had them all documented so even if they ended up being on the Not Right Now list, they were ON a list and didn’t get lost.
If you, like me, are old enough to remember those electric percolator coffee pots we all had about 40 years ago, you remember that you put the ingredients (coffee and water) into the pot, plug it in, and away it goes. When it’s done percolating, the coffee is ready. My brain works a lot like that: put all the ingredients in (the information), and plug it in (start the evaluation process). When I’m done percolating, I’ve made a decision.
I love lists. I get tremendous personal satisfaction out of stroking completed items off of lists. And I know from experience if I don’t write something down, it likely won’t get done. Frequently the mere act of writing it down helps me to remember to do it. (Which is why I like pencil and paper, but that’s another discussion.) I’m a visual learner, but from words, not pictures, which is good because I can’t draw — but I can write!
So my intention for myself, this year, is to Pay More Attention to everything I do, whether for me or for a client, and take notes (which I tend to do anyway), and then turn those notes into a step-by-step procedure that I can follow next time.
We’ve been hearing for years that we need to identify and target our “niche market”. Lately the buzz has been around identifying and marketing to our “ideal client”. Some marketers will focus on one concept, and some on the other. What’s an entrepreneur to do?
I really wish that when entrepreneurs decide to start marketing online, they’d learn – and respect – the rules for playing in the various sandboxes. Last week I wrote about one disagreeable practice: tagging someone in a Facebook post when the content has nothing do to with them. This week I’m writing about another disagreeable practice: adding someone to your automated email list when they haven’t given you permission to do so.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to tighten up my spam filters lately. Messages are creeping through that shouldn’t. If YOU add me to your list, rather than inviting me to add myself to your list, my spam filter might well catch your message and bundle it with all sorts of other nasties. Do you really want your message lumped in with the ads for Russian brides or the requests for help in laundering money from Nigeria?
