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!

Given my own health journey, I completely understand the resonance of chronic illness and the challenges that go with that. I understand the depth of despair and sadness being experienced by someone who feels stuck or afraid to move forward on their journey path. Because I’ve been there. I think that adds to the uniqueness of what I offer as a practitioner.

When I hold space for a client, it’s from a space of compassionate understanding of what it feels like to be unwell and unmotivated. I understand that deep dark hole and not knowing how to pull myself up an out of negativity – because I’ve been there. It’s so humbling to have clients who choose me to be of service to them.

I am constantly working on myself to ensure I remain energised, grounded, centered, focused, balanced and protected. I have a number of simple spiritual practices that I incorporate into my working life, and I’ve shared them below.

4.  I spritz my work space with aromatherapy oils

I spritz my work space after every session and use a product by Australian Bush Flower Essences ‘space clearing’. Everyone has their own stuff and energy associated with it and it quickly builds up over a day.

I also have aromatherapy in a cold defuser in the waiting room. Most days I use a drop of lavender because it’s a biochemical mood balancer – if you’re up it shifts you down and if you’re down it tilts you up. I add eygptian geranium to the mix to allow clients to open their heart space up and utilise their own resources to love all over themselves.

5.  Resonate Essence to manifest my intentions

I met the incredible Rachelle and Mel at this year’s AKA conference and absolutely fell in love with their products. Now their products feature in my morning rituals to manifest my intentions for the day.

6.  Get journaling

I journal out any speed wobbles and express my gratitude at the abundance already in my life.

Dreams don’t just happen. Your dream life evolves because you are committed to implementing the small actions which create the feelings which resemble the life of the dream. The more positive actions you take, the more you are living the dream and chasing your own rainbow!

I’ve been actively practicing kinesiology for over six years and dabbling in the modality for twelve years. I’ve been in my business full time now for two years after migrating from a 25 year career in the waste industry. I now have the near perfect balance between work and life. And life with a tweenager is certainly full, so I need a job which provides me flexibility to work around being a mother.

I find that the modality of kinesiology isn’t just a series of techniques incorporating muscle monitoring. It’s a lifestyle, and for me almost a religion! Kinesiology has gifted me the ability to look deeply within and easily connect to my true self and journey path. It’s also been one of the best modalities which provides a foundation of structure for a clinic session, and yet include new information and teachings as I gain them. This modality supports me to remain courageous and face all the stuff for which I need to be responsible for. It also supports me to open my heart space (ie chakra) and increase my capacity for unconditional love.

Even though I am a sole business owner, I absolutely love working for myself – now. The initial days were challenging, because it’s hard work doing everything yourself. I figured out a lot of things along the way. Firstly, I quickly realised that I needed to work hours that aligned to the needs of my family. I see so many of my business coaching clients fall into the trap of booking clients outside of set hours and exhausting themselves, as I once did.

Secondly, I realised that I needed to set my intention to be of service to everyone who walks through my door. In fact, I “call the clients to me” so to speak, using the Laws of Attraction. I write love letters to the universe. I manifest who I want to work with, my ideal client. It took a bit of research, but identifying my niche was vital to be able to create the right copy and marketing strategies to grow my reach.

Sounds a little weird, but in this day and age I believe you can’t create a business and simply expect the clients to come. You have to give a little of yourself in the process to engage that Know-Like-Trust factor before they commit to you. You have to align to the aspects of your dream work life and this includes the clients you ideally want to work with. Call in the clients you know you can be of service to, and, resonate with. Call in the clients who’s journey path you understand. What better way than to align your energy to those who you can best serve?

Then there was the discomfort at asking for money at the end of the session, because my self worth was a little wobbly. I loved supervised clinical practice for dealing with this. It also helped that I’d done corporate consulting work for nearly a decade prior, and, understood the need to be renumerated for my time and expertise. Believe it or not, when I first started out, I was still uncomfortable in my own private practice asking for payment!

I’ve overcome an enormous fear of being judged, by becoming publicly visible in my business. And I will even admit to the ocean of frustrated tears which have been shed that were associated with technotarditis. Frankly the depth of technology available to make our lives easier is overwhelming, but you need to understand the basic processes of your business first.

I was recently asked what would you like to share with your fellow Kinesiologists? I love this question and there’s a couple of tips I regularly share with my coaching clients. In the first instance I always tell my clients – Embrace Your Race At Your Pace!

Never get caught in the trap of comparisonitis, which often hits when you’re fatigued or frustrated. Stick to my business plan and assess my statistics. Reflect on other’s peoples work for ideas, graphics, styles of copy, but don’t try to become them. Just be you!

For all practitioners I recommend collaboration so you never feel isolated or alone. It’s important to feel part of a tribe. I’d like to advocate belonging to an association which easily enables collaboration across a broad spectrum. Events like conferences, webinars, online learning, facilitated advertising of registered training providers, regional gatherings are just some of the obvious things that our professional industry associations do.

But think of belonging to your association as a legitimate way to demonstrate to your clientele that you belong to a professional network, which isn’t just an online Facebook group. But an organisation with a charter and mission and dedication to it’s members and your given modality.

Online forums provide fabulous connection but it’s not for everyone in terms of geographic or actual desire access to utlise technology. I get that. So the beauty of an association is that it should provide a range of platforms to engage you – conference, magazine, online presence, as well as support when you need it.

In a recent blog (Top Five Biz Tips) I shared my top five tips for embracing and building your business. A summary is below:

1. Ensure you meet your needs first.
2. Accept the ‘to do’ list will never end, and just continue to plug away.
3. Get a mentor.
4. Have a strategic plan.
5. Be prepared.

With a little planning, and an open mind to confront your fears, you too can achieve anything you set your mind to when it comes to running your business. You can choose to change and bloom from within.

I often get asked how did I get into kinesiology? I generally take a very deep breath and slow down my mind and smile, because the additional of kinesiology to my life has been an incredible series of chapters in my book of life!

I generally respond with “my first experience with kinesiology was with Dr Charles Krebs in the late 1980s”. My brother was dyslexic and failing mid-range high school because he was struggling to read and write. My mother was open minded enough to try anything to support him to be able to read and write. Six months later and he was not only passing, he was top of the class with an almost identic memory. He went on to dux year 12 and then the entire science faculty at his university institution upon completion of his degree. Kinesiology unlocked his true potential.

For me, my initial reaction was to release anger, and lots of it. My poor mother wasn’t inclined to take me back in a real hurry! I was angry in my teens with little memory of my childhood. I thought that was normal. Turns out, early childhood trauma can cause people to ‘shut down’ memories – who knew??!!!

We all have stuff – right? Of course we do! We inherit the patterns of whatever and wherever our parents were (in their stuff) at the time when we were conceived. We are also affected by our environment– the food we eat, the technology we use, the people we interact with and our experiences. Is it any wonder we get stressed! The thing I love about kinesiology is the ability of the modality to bring a person back onto their line of recuperation so they can recuperate themselves.

Over the last decade, I returned to kinesiology due to a health crisis, triggered by stress that was held in my body with an association to some genetic patterns. I had reached a point whereby I was no longer be able to utilise western medicine fully. I also had a realisation during this time, that I was responsible for my health.

I sought out a modality whereby the stress could be defused, and I could power myself forward on my journey path. I liken the process of this awakening and evolution, similar to the joy of catching a rainbow for a moment or two. I am now motivated to chase rainbows all the time – because I want my life to be positive and filled with energetic joyous gratitude. My wish is that I can share this ability to have joy in life with all I encounter. I am living proof it’s possible.

Kinesiology has gifted me the release of a chronic illness, namely Crohns Disease. That said I am now very conscious about my wellbeing and take exceptionally good care of myself. Kinesiology has become somewhat of a lifestyle, because it’s afforded me access to so much more science, just from a different aspect and point of view. It’s given me health, a child, a happy marriage and loving relationships. It also continues to deliver me a lifestyle whereby my pace of work to life is balanced and well managed.

I get asked a lot about my brand – Blooming From Within. It has a story, and everything I do is aligned to it. It’s both my motto, my catch cry. It serves as my constant intention and affirmation. My brand and business name are both one and the same. The logo of my business serves the purpose as the visual element used by my target audience in all correspondence and social media.

By definition, a brand is meant to be the overall experience of a customer, that distinguishes an organization or product from its rivals in the eyes of the customer. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising. Philip Kotler et al, in the book Principles of Marketing define a brand is as a “name, term, sign symbol (or a combination of these) that identifies the maker or seller of the product”.

LOGO

Be sure to have a logo by which your audience and clientele can recognise you. If you are in the process of organising you brand logo, try and keep things simple.

When I consulted a ‘visibility’ mentor, her suggestion was I can utilise these brand colours in all sorts of things like email footers, letter headers, flyers and of course social media. Your audience will come to recognise your colours, especially with your brand.

I tend to specifically utilise these three colours when creating social media content. Frankly it makes life so much easier not having to choose different colours when creating content. That decision has already been made.

You never know in advance where you might utilise your logo. When you acquire multiple versions of your logo at the time of design, it saves you time and money in the long run.

When negotiating the creation of your logo, include within your scope of work, (ie request the designer) to prepare you with the following options:

• scope to include at least 6 graphic based editorial revisions – this allows you to edit the draft and achieve exactly what you want.
• take your time! Print out various versions of drafts and hang them in your work space so that you are constantly looking at the options. This allows you to resonate with the right choice.
• Request files be created graphically so that if modifying the size of your file, you don’t loose graphics integrity.
• Request your designer to send files electronically in format compatible to your computer, not the designer’s hardware! This may be winzip, dropbox etc.
• Make backup copies

Have a main jpeg logo for your business card and email type links.

Then have variations such as white, black and transparent versions. This will enable you to always ensure every single thing that you produce. Note the colours used in the following graphics all incorporate my logo colours.

TELL YOUR STORY

I started working in my business as a massage therapist whilst simultaneously being employed by an international corporate consulting firm. The stress was through the roof and I had begun my personal transformation through taking my initial spiritual journey steps. Short version of my story was the realisation that I in order to change, I had to take responsibility for my ‘stuff’. I had to choose to change in order to ‘bloom from within’.

The flower within the actual wording of my logo is significant of the spiritual journey as well as the logo. The font for ‘BLOOMING’ is intentionally bold, and, intended to be a call to action. The font for the word ‘within’ is intended to reflect our individual uniqueness.

References

Philip Kotler/Gary Armstrong, (2017) “Principles of Marketing”, Pearson Education Australia.