Time to review quarter one and look at what worked, what didn’t, what you learnt and more.
We’re in the last week of March and it’s the last week of quarter one of 2023 and on Saturday it’s the start of a brand new quarter. I thought it would be really cool to go through some questions that you can ask yourself to help you review quarter one and look at what’s worked well, what hasn’t worked so well, and remind yourself of what your goals are for your business for this year and are you on track with them too?
The first question is, (and I’ve spoken about this before in the very first podcast episode that I created, was about your why) – why did you start your business in the first place and is that why still in sight?
I want you to remind yourself as part of this review, what is your why? Why did you start your business in the first place and is that still your why now or has your why changed? So that’s the first thing to really think about and then everything needs to almost align with that. How has quarter one gone for you? Has it gone well? Has there been any challenges that you’ve faced or hasn’t gone so well and what can you learn from that?
I’m all about reflection and reflecting on what has happened and what you can learn from it because by learning from it, it then means you can move forward with that learning so that if it ever happens again, you know what to do about it. So what can you learn from any challenges that you’ve experienced?
The other thing I really want you to think about as well is your values and how aligned is your business to your values and actually is your business giving you that time freedom and that financial security that you are after? Because that can probably come into your why. A lot of business owners go into business because they want that time freedom. They want to spend more time with their friends and family. They want to do what they want to do when they want to do it without having the constraints of a 9-5 or whatever it is, corporate job.
You can be your own boss and have the freedom of making your own decisions and be able to make money for yourself rather than for someone else. So how has that gone for you in quarter one? Have you made the money that you wanted to make? If you haven’t, why not? What happened? What held you back and what can you do about it moving forwards? The same with your time freedom. Has your business given you time freedom? If it hasn’t, what can you do about it going into quarter two? And also how have you spent your time in quarter one? I am also all about creating a business that gives you time freedom and financial security. And yes, you do have to do the work to make those things happen. However, I am also all about making sure that you are living your life outside of your business because your business does not have to be the be all and end all of your life and everything that you do in it.
Your business does not define you as a person.
I have a very strong opinion on this and I may have to do another podcast episode around all of this as well. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t define you as a person and I want you to remember that and I want you to remind yourself of that as well. Because what defines you as a person is your morals, your beliefs, your values, who you are outside of your business – who are you outside of your business, outside of being a business owner. I don’t want to hear any of the labels of mum or daughter or carer or anything like that. Who are YOU – you as a person and what have you done that’s been really exciting, really freeing? That’s been memory making in this quarter? When you look back on this year, on New Year’s Eve 2023, what do you want to have achieved with your time?
All of this links to my own personal experience of becoming a widow at the age of 34. Something that I wasn’t expecting to happen but it did. And it taught me how precious time is and how precious your life is too. And how your life is for living. Don’t let it pass you by. The time you’ve got now, this very second, you’re not going to get again. So as the seconds are ticking by, (no pun intended), the minutes are ticking by, the hours are ticking by, the days are ticking by, the months are ticking by, the years are ticking by. And realistically you want to be looking at your life and going, is this what I want? Does this make ME happy? Does this make me feel fulfilled? Am I content, can I hand on my heart say that I have a good life?
Other questions you can ask yourself: Do I feel abundant? Do I feel free? If you can’t say you have those those things, what do you need to do to make them happen? Time really is precious; you cannot take it back. You can’t rewind time. Yes, you can set goals for your business for this year, but have you actually set any personal goals? But not in terms of ‘I want to lose weight’ or ‘I want to save this much money’. It’s more things like, I want to experience this, I want to go on holiday here… I would love a spa weekend. I would love to have a long weekend in the Scottish Highlands. I would love to have puppy cuddles. It could be absolutely anything from the smaller things to the most extravagant of things. It could be having a glass of champagne at the top of the Shard in London. Whatever it is for you!
Are you going out and doing these things? If you’re not, what’s holding it back? Is it your own self limitations of ‘I can’t do that’, ‘I can’t afford it’. If it is, some mindset work needs to be done around all of that in terms of what is blocking you, what is holding you back, but also again looking at your business model as well. How is your business modelled? How is it set up? Is it set up to give you that time freedom, to give you that financial security? If it isn’t, it needs to be looked at.
Now is the time to review all of this because as always my main message is time is precious. It goes by so quickly and you may think that you have all the time in the world, but you don’t. And again, this is talking from personal experience and what I’ve been through – becoming a widow and watching my late husband battle cancer for 11 months. We thought we had time, we thought we were going to be able to do nice things together, but we weren’t able to. We thought we had more time and we didn’t. It was taken away from us and I don’t want that to happen to you.
If you’ve got the opportunity to make the most of the time that you have available to you, do it in whatever way possible, in whatever way that feels good to you.
I really want you to think about your business for quarter one and what’s worked well and what hasn’t worked well, but also your personal life too. So outside of your business, what have you done? What have you achieved? What’s made you feel amazing? What has excited you? What amazing precious memories can you look back on and go, “I had the best first three months of the year because I got to do X, y, Z.”
For me personally, I got to go axe-throwing twice in quarter one. If you haven’t been axe throwing, I highly recommend it. It is so good and so much fun. I’ve been on holiday to Italy as well for a week, which was really nice. I’ve started running again. I’ve been trying out new recipes because I really like cooking. I’ve been on gorgeous dog walks, exploring new places. I’ve been out for nice meals… all of this, to me that is an abundant lifestyle.
Another great question to ask yourself if you haven’t already: what does an abundant lifestyle look like and feel like to you? And are you living that abundant lifestyle? If not, what can you do about it?
We are at the end of the first quarter of the year, with only three quarters left. Now it might feel like there’s plenty of time left this year. But time goes by really quickly. Some days you wake up, you get stuff done and before you know it, you go to bed thinking, ‘what have I done today?’ Because you run on autopilot.
It’s almost time to wake up and be conscious of what you are doing and how you are spending your time and is that really what you want to be doing? Then going into quarter two and for the rest of the year, using that consciousness to really think about what do I want for the rest of the year.
You can break it down into the next quarter – what do you want to do in the next three months? What would feel fun? Could it be trying a new exercise class so that you can feel good about yourself? Could it be challenging yourself? How can you challenge yourself in the next quarter, in the next 90 days? Where can you create more momentum in your business, in your life? What’s going to light you up? What’s going to excite you? And then use that to propel yourself forward.
Always make sure you have really nice, exciting things to look forward to. So that at the end of the year on, New Year’s Eve, you can reflect back on this year and go, “wow, I did so much stuff this year. I’ve had the best year.”
Reminder: You want to have the best year every year.
Yes, there are challenges that are going to come up and get in your way; they’re going to test you. It’s going feel like a struggle, but it’s all about your mindset and how you react and how you respond to those challenges, and whether you’re going to let them bring you down or whether you’re going to actually stand up and say no, put boundaries in place, learn from them and move forward with powerful intentions.
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