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Xmas Burnout Prevention Tips

Xmas Burnout Prevention Tips

I can vividly remember a time when I worked in both government and consulting jobs and there was enormous pressure to do a month’s worth of work in three weeks during the month of December. As a small business operator, I’ve learnt this is the same but being my own boss means that I get to plan when I’m busy and how busy I choose to be.

I can remember a time when I felt completely burnt out and was way too tired to enjoy Christmas. My husband worked in a retail job and dealt with cranky customers for six weeks, and frankly he hated celebrating Christmas. He was completely over it.

Thankfully that’s not us anymore. We learnt to embrace our race at our pace. As a business coach now, I regularly share my tips on how to avoid burnout as a practitioner this festive season.

 

Tip # 1 – Plan Ahead And Dedicate Time For Family And Friends First

By booking time for commitments you want to keep with family and friends, you can then choose to work around these times. You get to remain in charge of your calendar and not be dictated of your availability.

Be sure that these special times and appointments are clearly marked in your diary. Over the years I’ve coped a lot of flak from family when booking way in advance in the calendar, but I feel awesome when I arrive to an event, feeling refreshed and have set aside time to be able to contribute to the meal by doing some food preparation and gift wrapping.

Tip #2 – Have A 100 Day / Appointment Countdown Till Xmas Campaign

After you have marked time for you in the festive season, calculate a 100 appointment vacancy count down till xmas. EVERY time I run this campaign, I quickly fill my forward bookings. I use ‘Buddy the Elf’. And whilst I have some grinchy clients who groan when they see Buddy, there are those regular clients who will book a couple of sessions to ensure they can tolerate their mother in laws and visiting family who they only see once a year – I always laugh when people tell me these sessions help them to stay out of prison, for without it their patience and tolerance of others would have taken a vacation to the north pole!

Tip #3 – Meal Planning & Food Preparation

Now I know this sounds ridiculous, but what do you find yourself advising clients – look after yourself first! As a busy working mum who has an active social life, the month of December for me is filled with a huge variety of ‘end of year’ activities, catching up with friends etc. and then there are all the events for my daughter as well. The last thing I want to think about is what to cook for dinner.

So, I plan a month’s worth of meals, which are quick and easy to prepare. I have variety to stimulate my palate and ensure that I maintain my calorie intake. I dedicate half a day each week to do food prep for the week to limit the time I do before each meal. I want to be able to dash into the kitchen and choose less than 10 ingredients and pull together a nutritious meal.

 

Tip #4 – Continue Your Exercise Regime

In order to maintain my high vibe I have to move my body each and every day. So I schedule this time into my calendar. Frankly you may call this ‘control freak’, but I call this keeping myself honest and dedicated to self. It also sends a message to universe that I am committed to self. I am also demonstrating to my clients that I walk my talk. I am filling up my cup first and everyone else gets the overflow.

 

Tip #5 – It’s Ok To Say No

During December, sometimes friends and family may have to wait. But this is my choice because I don’t want to compromise my time with loved ones. I want to capitalise on the time we spend together and not rush it.

Therefore, I have most of my ‘delayed dates’ in January. Instead of spending an hour with dear friends and family in December, I can dedicate an entire day or weekend in January. Everyone wins and I feel so much more relaxed. This means that my vibrational energy remains high to be of service to clients. Those nearest and dearest to me understand I run my own business and feel happy that I prefer quality time with them.

December is a crazy clinical month for me. I make an active decision to work an extra weekend day during this month to support my mental health clients who struggle with the festivity of the season – for whatever their reason. So, I limit what I do on weekends socially during this month and tend to celebrate life after xmas is over.

 

Tip #6 – Make Your Own Traditions

We’ve experienced a family rift because we weren’t gathering on the expected Christmas day event. If we are realistic, this is just another day of the year. Yes, it’s special for kids, but frankly you make it what you want to make it.

My husband almost loathes Christmas after working in retail for nearly two decades. So he hates shopping, even for groceries during this time. So we do things that are away from the crowds. We spend quality time with people who make us laugh and make our hearts sing.

There is always silliness with my crazy festive hats. There’s also laughing at my dancing, of which it is intended. There’s always friends around my table rather than immediate family who are spread three corners of the state. Our extended families all work either for themselves or shift work. So to get us in the one place on the one day is a logistical nightmare.

Just do your best. If some year’s this doesn’t appease someone, remind yourself that their complaint is theirs and not yours. Just please you and respect others.

Embrace your race at your pace. Plan ahead so it’s more likely you can cruise along the festive pathway rather than careen towards a cliff!

What are your current Goals?

What are your current Goals?

I’m a bit of a go getter. In fact, those who know me often laugh at my struggles to sit still. There are times I would even question whether I am high functioning spectrum quirkiness as my creative brain rarely sits still.

On the other hand my gorgeous friends and family openly admire my tenacity to go after what I want. I’m sure this is how I naturally attract colleagues and coaching clients, I’ve been there at the start and built my business up from nothing. I’ve tried dozens of different things in an effort to achieve success. I’ve bombed out a lot, but gosh I’ve learnt so much about myself and business systems along the way. It’s taken a while but I figured out my ‘why’!

For the most part I have ticked off the really big goals in life – getting married and having children and building a successful business. I don’t refence my business as small anymore, because for me, my business is an extension of who I am. What you see is what you will experience within a clinical or coaching session. And when you purchase one of my coaching bundles or services, that too is where I share all my ‘lessons learnt’ because I want you to succeed as much as I have.

So one of my remaining goals for the remainder of 2019 is to be fully booked and promoting client bookings into the new year. Additionally, based on my clinic client load, I am also highly motivated to be of service to those struggling with stress during the festive season, so that they too can experience joy.

I am a huge fan of the Law of Attraction, and, utilising those principles to manifest what I want in life and business. For example, this morning I counted how many available appointments I have between now and Christmas, and I’m still shaking my head that it’s already September! So I’m down to 168 vacancies remaining for the year.

 

Part of my normal business strategy, as soon as I hit 150 vacancies, I begin my familiar ‘Buddy the Elf’ campaign to ensure future bookings for regular clients. I have successfully used this campaign several years in a row. I have all the copy (content words) and the graphics simply need a date change and that component of work is done.

More importantly, my regular clients are familiar with this type of post within my social media pages, and, utilise this as a cue to book their sessions in advance to ensure they get the day and time they want. This system now runs itself. And small business should be all about smooth systems, so that when you want to do something new, or hitting a familiar time period of intended sales (like Christmas), the processes are in place to support you achieving success.

I am a huge fan of the Law of Attraction principles. I commence the process of manifesting abundance by first visualising the dream. Using the example above, a fully booked clinic calendar. That is the dream afterall, to be successful – to make the sales whilst not killing yourself in the process. Refer to my Blog – Manifest Your Dreams for details on Law of Attraction.

Once I’ve visualised a fully booked clinic calendar, I set about creating a launch strategy. This is where I refer back to my ‘why’. What service am I providing and why am I so motivated by it? So using the example above, creating a marketing strategy for the upcoming Christmas festive season (as early as September) means I generate time for myself to do the following:

  • Create graphics with quotes;
  • Create copy to associate with each graphic; and then
  • Create and schedule social media posts.

The launch strategy incorporates reviewing dialogued shared with my by clients in relation to the festive season. You see part of my systems includes making notes of stress symptoms experienced at specific times of year, and then marketing to my niche audience – using their language.

I find the trick with marketing is to use a formula when creating copy. Actively ask your audience about their stress symptom, and we could call this a negative question. Then ask whether they want to feel the opposite (ie how they will feel after receiving your service). Then suggest your service to resolve their problem. It might look something like this …

“Do you dread the thought of spending time with extended family at Christmas time?

Are you Wanting to put the joy back into your festive season?

Consider a kinesiology session today to defuse the stress associated with this time of the year, to enable you to feel empowered to set boundaries on what is acceptable behaviour for you and your family.”

So if your goal is to smash the remaining quarter of this year, get busy with your marketing strategy now. Check out my Festive Graphics Bundle now available to support you in quickly creating your marketing strategy for Christmas 2019! There’s enough graphics for a month’s worth of posts, an instructional video and a bonus guide on how to manifest clients this festive season!

Visit my webpage for the newly updated business service section and check out the Festive Graphics Bundle, click here – https://www.karenhumphries.net.au/business-services/

Manifest the Dream

Manifest the Dream

You’ve probably heard of the ‘Law of Attraction’ before, how people manifest crazy abundance into their lives. Have you ever stopped and wondered how they actually do it, or are you stuck in your stuff and just ‘wishing’ you were like that?

What if I were to tell you that everyone on the planet is capable of utilising the Law of Attraction (let’s call it LOA from here on in). And it’s based on a couple of simple principles, and a little daily dedication to self.

But firstly before we get into how to use it, let’s explore what it is exactly.

The Law Of Attraction is defined as the attractive, magnetic power of the Universe that draws similar energies together.

It manifests through the power of creation, everywhere and in many ways.

Even the law of gravity is part of the law of attraction.

This law attracts thoughts, ideas, people, situations and circumstances.

So in other words, the Law of Attraction is just like having the power of gravity. You get to consciously choose what you want to attract into your life. Additionally, your subconscious plays a role as well, and if you don’t reign in the negative self talk, guess what? Yep you’re manifesting negative into your life.

Here’s my top tips on how to attract and manifest abundance in your life.

 1.  Your Mindset Must Be Positive

One of the main principles of the Law of Attraction, is that what we think internally we create externally. Sounds a little deep right, but it’s true. You are creating your future with every single thought: either consciously or subconsciously.

You can’t take a break from it and decide not to create because creation never stops. Remember, thoughts and feelings aren’t designed to squat in the presidential suite of the hotel (ie your mind), they are designed to come and go.

Like attracts like. If you are feeling grateful, enthusiastic, passionate, happy, joyful, appreciative, or abundant, then you are sending out positive energy from your mind into your body and the space around you. Remember you’ve heard me talk about the scientific research by the Heart Math Institute, who measured the heart resonance vibration can be recorded 6 metres outside of the body. So if you’re feeling great and groovy, people around you are going to pick up on that!

On the other hand, if you are feeling bored, anxious, stressed out, angry, resentful, or sad, you are sending out negative energy into your body and the space around you. People pick up on this vibe as well, and sometimes negative energy is palpable.

Once you understand the Law of Attraction, and how it works, you can begin to consciously and intentionally create a better life. The universe is like a waiter at your favourite restaurant. If you order ‘something nice’ the universe has no measure of your likes, it will just dish up an experience. However if you are focussed on your favourite dish of all time, and will relish every flavorsome aspect, then that is exactly what you are manifesting.

2. You can choose to respond differently to the situations that arise during your day.

One of the fastest ways to change from negative into positive, as I advise my clinic clients, is to utilise the ten second rule – take a slow deep breath in for count of three, hold for count of three, release count of four. When triggered by someone or something, take a slow deep breath.

The purpose is two fold. Firstly the long slow breath buys you time to observe rather than react and calm your nervous system response from stress to conscious action. Secondly use this time to ask yourself any of the following questions:

  • “what am I feeling?”
  • “what is being triggered in me?”
  • “how does this relate to me?”
  • What am I responsible for learning right now?”

By observing instead of reacting, we are avoid regret later down the track. We get to consciously own the negative pattern being run and choose to change an aspect of it.

You can choose to think differently.

You can choose to focus and think about the things you want more of in your life.

You can choose to experience more of the things that make you feel good.

You can choose to deliberately participate in the creation of your future by managing your thoughts and feelings.

Society dictates we have to be and do everything to be a success. But there is no energy invested in being accountable for who we become in pursuit of this so called perfect life. If we were to step out of this perfect paradigm (which frankly doesn’t exist), you could look at life of lessons learnt and lessons to be learnt, instead of focussing on all the stuff you think you ‘need’ to acquire.

Take a moment to imagine how different your life would be if all of your experiences were a measure of lessons learnt rather than failure?

3. Ask for what you want!

The Law of Attraction principles teach us that you’ll attract into your life whatever you give your energy, focus, and attention to—wanted or unwanted. So it’s clear that you must become more deliberate about what you think and feel. Be intentional if you will and practice feeling all the feels as if you already had the thing you want.

At the end of the day, we don’t manifest stuff, we manifest the life we want. Joy. Happiness. Gratitude. Practice that!

So ask yourself these questions:

  • How would you feel once you’ve “arrived” at your goal?
  • What would you be doing throughout your day?
  • Who would you be spending time with?

The more you focus on, think, journal and talk about what you DO want (instead of what you don’t want), the faster you will manifest your dreams and goals. So take out of play all the distractions like commercial radio and the news.

4. Believe and receive

I get asked whether this is an ego thing, to believe you’ll get what you want? I respond with ‘belief’ means maintaining a positive expectancy and connection with the feel good. It means going about your day with certainty, a faith if you will, that you’ve put your future in the hands of powers that are greater than yours. It’s more than that, it’s also deciding with conviction that what you want will absolutely happen and remaining connected to your vision of the dream.

5. Become the vibrational match

This sounds easy and can be with strong commitment to shifting negative Nancy mindset. The easiest way to become a vibrational match for what you desire, is to focus on creating positive emotions of love, joy, appreciation, and gratitude throughout your day. This can be easily achieved with affirmations.

Don’t fall into the trap of simply stating “I love myself” if that really doesn’t resonate for you. Stick a prefix infront of it to ease into the practice. Statements of affirmation can be commenced with “I” and including the following verbs:

  • I am willing to learn to love myself
  • I am willing to accept how to love myself
  • I am open to learning how to love myself
  • I am learning to love and appreciate myself
  • I am able to change I order to love myself

Note all of these statements are ‘now’ based and not future or past tense.

So when you do your affirmation, take a moment to practice feeling the emotions you would be experiencing if you already had what you wanted. Herein lies the power.

 

Connect the affirmation to the feeling.

If you can’t imagine what loving yourself feels like, imagine what you might look like when facing yourself in the mirror.

What would your reflection look like if you loved all over yourself.

Remember, it’s important to catch yourself when your emotions turn negative and turn them to positive emotions.

6. Keep a Gratitude Journal

A gratitude journal is the place you document what you are grateful for each day. Allow your imagination to run wild with the infinite possibilities of where your gratitude can take you, and, allow your heart to open. It is the magnifying of gratitude that enables us to manifest miracles. Why? Because we are connected to the ‘feel goods’! The more we connect to that good juju, the more we have capacity to manifest more.

Remember you are capable of so much more than you ever dreamed, and using the Law of Attraction allows you to become the master manifestor in your life. You really can choose to change and bloom from within!

References –

Canfield, Jack : https://www.jackcanfield.com/blog/using-the-law-of-attraction/

Gray, Kyle (2017) “Light Warrior”, Hay House, UK.

Hurst, Katherine: http://www.thelawofattraction.com/6-law-attraction-exercises-can-lunchbreak/