234: Holly Worton ~ How to Create More Ease & Flow in Business

by | Jan 15, 2018 | Business, Podcast Episode

Today’s Guest

I’m back again, with another solo episode! Today I’m talking about how to create more ease and flow in business (and life!). Ease is something I’ve really struggled with over the years (yes, I’m aware of the irony of that statement). I tend to operate from a place of pushing, rather than allowing, despite the fact that ALLOW was my word of the year for 2017 (I talk more about that in this episode). So it’s probably no surprise that a lot of the work that I do, both with myself and with clients, involves helping them to take action more easily. They say that you teach what you most need to learn, and that’s certainly true in my case! I hope you enjoy this episode.

 

Listen to this episode

  

What You’ll Learn

  • How to create more ease and flow in your business and life
  • Why it’s so important to get energy moving to create flow (and how to do that)
  • How mindset work can help you in creating ease and flow
  • Why certain types of structure can help to create flow (yes, this sounds counterintuitive but it works)
  • How to take inspired action, rather than acting on shoulds
  • Why you might need help with some of this, and why you don’t have to do it all on your own

Things I Discussed

Connect With Holly

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly:   Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast episode 234, this is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode. Today, I am going to talk about how to create more ease and flow in business, this is something that is really, really, important to me. I often work with clients on making business easier by transforming their business mindset, and when I work with both belief statements, but also with heart-centred-energy work, a lot of times the language we use involves making business easier and making specific tasks easier; and I honestly believe that by working on our mindset we can make business easier. That’s not to say it is super easy, and you can just kick back and do nothing, but we can do a lot of mindset work to make business easier.

            So, before I get into today’s episode I wanted to mention, again, the new format of the podcast for this year. As always, this is an experiment, I look forward to hearing what you think about it, but I have decided to stop having interviews on the podcast. I do however really enjoy doing interviews with people so I have started to move the interviews over to my YouTube Channel, and I will be doing interviews over there. So, if you go to: https://www.hollyworton.com/YouTube you can find the latest interviews and other videos that I am doing. I want to start to get back into doing more videos this year, I know I said that last year and it didn’t happen but I do really enjoy video, it is just a matter of getting them into the schedule and making it happen.

So, what are we going to talk about today? We are going to talk about some very practical tips, things that you can actually do to take action to create more ease and flow in your business. And because everything is of course related these actions can also help you create more ease and flow in your life, because business is not separate from life. Let me just launch into this. One of the things that you can do to create more ease and flow in business is to get energy moving. So, moving energy to create flow in business and life, and one of the ways that you can do this is to declutter. Now I know decluttering is a thing, you have heard of it you have probably done it, but when was the last time you did it? Decluttering is not the kind of thing that you can just do once and let it sit and think that it is done. It is something that you have got to do on a regular basis and how often you do that is up to you; it really depends on your individual situation. I have tried in the past to set up regular decluttering habits and it has not really worked. Decluttering tends to be the kind of thing I need to do when the mood strikes me, and then once it hits it is just so easy. So, for example, one of the things that I recently mentioned in the Facebook group was that over the holidays, at the end of last year, I was planning to do some decluttering. I wanted to declutter my office and I wanted to go up in the loft and declutter some stuff there, and it didn’t happen; and I was really disappointed with myself that I wasn’t able to do it. But then shortly after the New Year it was like I got bit by the decluttering bug and I just went through so many things. I went through my office, I went through old clothes, and I just did a really good declutter. Afterwards I went through the whole house and I saged it, and it still felt like it wasn’t enough and so I lit the palo santo and I went through the house doing that and it just felt great and I really felt more energised myself, and it just really rekindled a lot of kind of energy of excitement for the coming year.

So, I know by the time this comes out it is going to be mid-January, it is not too late to declutter, you can declutter any time of the year and I find that it really moves that energy around and it is something so subtle because just literally removing unwanted objects from my house and tidying things up; but it makes a big, big difference in your mindset, because it does get that energy moving and it helps to see things more clearly and helps me to focus more. So, decluttering I cannot recommend it enough, if you haven’t done it lately do it. Start with whatever is easiest, don’t feel like you have to do your entire house: start with one room, start with your office; or, start with the kitchen; or, start with your loft; or, start with your bedroom closet. Start wherever it seems easy and just do one thing and I find that oftentimes if I just go in with a goal of doing one room, or one part of my room, it really gets that energy going – I am going to say again – and really makes me want to do the entire rest of the house. Or at least a second room and then a third room. So, decluttering, moves energy and it really helps you see things more clearly, I think. So, that’s one thing you an do and that creates more ease and flow in your business because it is just moving things. So, that’s one thing.

The second thing is to allow time and space, oftentimes we are so busy, we are moving, we are hustling to get things done and we don’t take enough time to just allow things to settle, to have quiet time, to think. Or to not even think but to allow thoughts to pop in that perhaps we wouldn’t be able to pay attention to when we are running around. And I know that for different people, depending on what your lifestyle is like, this is going to be easier or more difficult, depending on your circumstances, but even five minutes, ten minutes; that can make a huge difference. And the way that you do this is up to you, it is whenever it is convenient for you, if it is morning, evening, afternoon, after lunch, whenever, find what works for you and do it.

Now, Amber De La Garza who has been on this show, and I keep mentioning her because I love her work, and I love her podcast, and I will link to her podcast again in the show notes, she recommends having both a morning and an evening routine. Now, I have a morning routine, I do not yet have an evening routine, but it is definitely something that I have been wanting to add to my life because I think it is important to both start and end the day with a particular intention and just really kind of winding down, or winding up, into the day. I really want to get that evening routine going, so check out the link about morning and evening routines; but this could be something like doing gratitude work, writing in your journal, meditating, or just sitting for five minutes, or ten minutes, in silence and just seeing what comes to you, seeing what pops into your head. Oftentimes, this is where we get intuitive nudges to do something new, this is where we get new ideas, where we see things more clearly that we couldn’t have seen before. And by allowing this intuition into our lives, and paying attention to it; you can’t pay attention to it if you are running around all the time, you need those quiet moments, you need to give it time, you need to give it space to speak to you. When we allow for these moments we get these fantastic ideas that we didn’t have access to before that can really put us on a new path, or help us stay to the right path, or go to places that we wouldn’t have necessarily thought of going before. And this can also help us to create ease and flow in our business and life.

Another thing, no. 3, is mindset work, so shifting your beliefs, shifting your subconscious beliefs and shifting your energy around a specific topic, or specific goals; that will make a big difference in creating ease and flow in your life and in your business. If you are like me, you may have a lot of beliefs around needing to engage in hard work in order to make money, in order to make your business work. You might believe that things need to be difficult that you really have to put in the effort, that you have to hustle, that it has to be really hard. And it doesn’t necessary have to be that way. Now you may be aware of having these beliefs, consciously; or you may be unaware of them. And that’s why it is really useful to employ techniques such as muscle testing in order to test and see which specific beliefs you have at the subconscious level, that you might not even be aware of. So, I have got videos for that and I will link to that in the show notes for this episode. But, shifting your beliefs around ease and flow is one of the easiest ways, one of the fastest ways, to create more ease and flow in your business and life. And you have got to get clear on what your goals are, what the actions are that you need to take in order to achieve those goals and then work on creating belief statements, or energy work, around specific beliefs of ease and flow around taking action. What do I mean by this? For example, it could be something as simple as:

  • It is easy for me to market my business.
  • It is easy for me to sign up new clients.
  • It is easy for me to take action on the important things I need or want to do.
  • I have an incredible amount of ease and flow in my business.
  • My business is full of ease and flow.
  • My business and life are full of ease and flow…

You get the idea, that kind of thing. So, if you work with belief statements, and I know that a lot of the listeners do, these are the kinds of things that — if you haven’t done this before — I highly recommend that you try it, and if you have done this before re-test those beliefs, because if you work with specific belief statements you may know, sometimes you need to revisit those statements. And it is not because you have lost them, it is not because they have stopped working, it is because you are coming at those statements from a different perspective, or at a different level. And sometimes you need to rebalance those statements and it just helps shift things, perhaps you shift into a new reality, a new level of working with those beliefs. So, mindset work, this is the business mindset podcast, mindset work is my thing, that to me is one of the most important places to start.

No. 4, allow. Now this was my word of the year for 2017, and I was really difficult for me, because I am so used to, even though I talk about ease and flow, even though I do work with myself to make ease easier, I still have the tendency to push, to make things work. And I think that part of that is just my natural tendency, part of that is my experience from my first business and part of it is everything we see in terms of standard business and marketing advice, has to do with push, it has to do with hustle. The ‘you’ve got to make it happen’, mentality. And, I said this just a couple of minutes ago, but I do think there are ways of taking action without that kind of pushing energy. Now, if, the hustle, if the push resonates with you, do that. I’m not saying it is bad, I am just saying it doesn’t work for me, it just stresses me out, it burns me out; and it might not work for you, and my motto is always do what works for you.

So, allow was my word of the year 2017, and I really struggled with it, I had received some guidance from the guides, I think it was at the end of the previous year, 2016, that I needed to start allowing more. I needed to relax, I needed to stop pushing and I needed to start allowing stuff to happen. So, that’s why I made it my word of the year. And it was just really difficult because I had to resist my natural tendency to push and just kind of push back. And it really took an entire year, I think, to find that balance between taking action, and taking inspired action, but also sitting back and allowing. It was really, really, difficult for me. So, I don’t have the definitive answers on that. Towards the end of last year, I think it was around October, I started to hate that word. I just felt ugh and I got rid of it. I had actually made myself, or I had bought it on Etsy and had it commissioned, a little copper bracelet with the word ‘allow’ to remind myself, because I knew it was so difficult to remember to just allow the time and space. And I ended up, I left it in a forest {laughing} near Avebury, because I was so sick of it, I was so tired of that word. I just remember, I did this little ritual as I went along, and I just said: I am done with this, I am done with allowing. But, really, I am not. I think that is going to be a life-long lesson for me. So, even if you resist it, this is the point of you telling me this story. Even if you resist allowing, try it. And this goes back to allowing the time and space and just stepping back sometimes and taking your foot off the gas and allowing stuff to unfold. Because I find that when I push, push, push; sometimes I end up pushing myself off my path, off my track, off where I want to be headed because I am so intent on doing stuff and taking action and making stuff happen. But, when I slow down, and I allow stuff, I do find that’s often when the magic happens. So, I resist it but I am recommending it to you because it can be good when you can allow yourself.

So, next, is respecting your cycles. So, whether or not you are a woman, cycles exist. We have the cycles of the year, we have the ebb and flow of the tides, we have moon cycles; life has cycles. And if you are a woman you have even more obvious cycles that come around every month. And, it has been a while since I think I have talked about this but you may have heard me mention one of my favourite books, by Lisa Lister, who was also a guest twice on this podcast, on episodes 91 and 176 and again I will link to those in the show notes. She wrote a book called ‘Code Red’, which is a really good book on our menstrual cycles, so if we organise our lives around our cycles and how that can lead to making things easier. And, this was a big breakthrough for me, I think it was, I forget when the book came out, 2015 or 2016. And, I had read a similar book by a different author a couple of years prior, and I didn’t get into it the book was dry, I didn’t like it. Lisa has a way of making cycles fun and I recently noted that there was some weeks of the month where I was super focussed and I just got stuff done naturally and easily; and there were some months where I was just like: ugh I couldn’t get anything done, it was so hard to focus, and all I want to do was read or take a bath, or go for a walk, but I would try to push myself during those weeks. After reading in Code Red that if we respect our natural cycles it makes it so much easier to get stuff done during the times when we are naturally more productive. So, generally in the first week of the cycle it is hard for me to get stuff done, I am just not really focussed. Second week I am a machine I just naturally go into hyper-focus mode, I get stuff done, I am really creative, I love work, I love getting stuff done. Third week also good for action. Fourth week, kind of running down again. I have learned that by respecting myself on those days, and on those weeks when I am not really feeling motivated, it helps me get even more stuff done during the weeks when I am naturally super-hyper-focussed. So, I really recommend that you get that book and I will link to the book in the show notes. Read it, start tracking, pay attention to when you are naturally focussed and when you are naturally not focussed. And try playing around with that, put that into effect and see how it works for you.

And, I also think it is important to point out that sometimes we are naturally focussed in the mornings, sometimes we are naturally focussed in the evenings, everyone is different. And it is also important to pay attention to when you naturally find it easy to focus and get stuff done and plan your days – if you can – around getting tasks done during those times and then maybe leaving the other times for more creative stuff when you can just play around and have fun. Pay attention to when you naturally get stuff done during the day and try to change your work around that. I am not good in the mornings, so I don’t usually start working until 11am, because I just can’t, I don’t get anything done. My brain works really well in the evenings, so I tend to do really great work in the evenings; that’s when I tend to play around with stuff, find something new, maybe go off on a tangent, maybe design a new, I don’t know, podcast or something, and just lose myself. Maybe I only spend a half an hour on it, but I just get stuff done that needs to be done, but maybe I didn’t realise that it needed to be done; evenings are great for my brain. So, pay attention to when you focus most easily, when you are most creative, when you get stuff done. And try to plan your day around that. That will help you create more ease and flow and respect not just your monthly cycles, but your daily cycles. Cycles are important.

Next, I think that having really good systems, or processes, can help you create more ease and flow in your business. So, I am a massive fan of time-blocking. And, this is something that Amber talks about a lot and I will try to find the specific podcast episode of hers where she talks about time-batching. So, basically, I just block out time in my calendar on a regular basis to do certain tasks. So, repetitive things like creating solo episodes on my podcast, those get blocked out on my calendar, every other week I have got a time, usually on a Monday, to do that. I have also got every Monday morning, I have got time blocked out to promote the new podcast episode for that week, I have also got time blocked out every Monday to write an email newsletter; now if you are on my list you know that doesn’t always happen, but sometimes it does. I have also got time blocked out to…let’s see I am going through my calendar as I do this…it is mostly podcast stuff, but also going through, because I like to keep track of expenses, so I do that once a month. So, I find it really useful, to have specific amounts of time blocked out as recurring events on a regular basis to get stuff done. Mondays are often my days for doing stuff like that in my business, but sometimes on a Monday I don’t feel like doing all those things, but because I have the time blocked out on my calendar as a task that I need to do, I can drag and drop it anywhere I want. So, for example, yesterday I was supposed to do this episode, but I wasn’t really feeling like doing this episode, and I don’t want to record a podcast episode if I am not in the mood for it, because it is not going to come out well. So, I just dragged it from yesterday to thisTuesday, dragged it from Monday to Tuesday and I am doing it. But, I didn’t delete it, I dragged it and dropped it somewhere else and I actually did the same thing with a couple of other things because I just was not in… I worked yesterday, I got stuff done, but I was just not feeling like doing certain things. So, I dragged them to later on in the week, I dragged a couple of things to Wednesday, I dragged something to Friday, based on time that I had free in my schedule to do this stuff. So, I find that time blocking helps me create more ease and flow in my business, because I know the stuff is going to get done, because I have got the time blocked out in my calendar for it. But, if when I sit down to do it, I am just not feeling it, drag it to another day. So, it still gets done, I can allow myself to do the work that I feel like doing at a later date. So, I really, really recommend time blocking and using an online calendar. I use google calendar to do this makes it really, really, easy, because you can just drag and drop around.

Another simple system or process that you can do is email templates. So, I have standard emails written for when someone invites me to speak on a tele-summit; when someone pitches me because they want to be on the podcast; all kinds of things. I just copy and paste and maybe customise it if they have asked me specific questions that need to be answered, but creating things like that, emails that you know that you have to respond to, kind of the same kind of email over and over, that makes it really, really, easy to have more ease and flow in your business, because you don’t have to write the same email 35 times. So, look at what systems, processes, things you can do to make your business easier for the admin stuff that you have to do, but maybe you don’t love to do, make that stuff easier because it will make it faster for you to do that stuff, which will free up time for you to do the things that you love. Or, hire someone to do it for you. You could get a VA to respond to those kinds of emails. I find it easier to just copy and paste and do it myself, rather than having a middle person taking care of that for me. Systems and processes, I find, give me the structure to have more ease and flow, because they give me the confidence that the stuff that needs to get done will get done and they allow me to be flexible. So, I know a lot of people resist a certain amount of structure in their day, but I find that having that structure gives me more ease and flow, rather than making it too structured, because like I said you can drag stuff around. And allow yourself to be flexible with your calendar in the ways tat you want to be flexible.

So, the next thing is taking inspired action, so taking the right actions. This is something that I have learned through doing lots of mindset work and developing my intuition and working on my business from a place of intuition. Now you may remember that a couple of years ago I write a book called ‘Business Intuition’ and I will link to that in the show notes, and that’s because intuition is such an important part of my business and life, and I really couldn’t live without it. Which is interesting because for most of my life, I really was not an intuitive person and I did not live from a place of intuition; so, I find it really fascinating that’s it’s such an important part of my life now. So, inspired action. Inspired action is not the stuff that you do because you ‘should’ do or you have to do it, or because someone told you have to do it. It is the stuff that your gut tells you, deep down, that is right for you. You may not understand it, it may not make sense to you, but it usually does in the future when you look back on your path and you think: ah now I know why I did that. So, when I do stuff in my business, aside from the regular things that I need to do like emails and podcasts and things like that, when I take other action, I think a good example would be episode 201 of last year, I have called it ‘the woo episode’ where I talked about how to let go of fear of expressing your woo. And, I invited a handful of ‘woo’ friends on to talk about the weird stuff that we do in business and how we make that kind of an open part of our business and lives. So, that was something that came to me intuitively, in a quiet time, it just popped into my head and I thought: that sounds like fun. So, I put it together, emailed the people that I wanted to talk to, made it happen and that was something that was totally unlike my standard podcast episodes, but I loved it. So that’s what I mean by inspired action, it popped into my head and I did it.

Taking inspired action, I find, can create more ease and flow in your business because you are operating from that place of intuition, taking action on those intuitive nudges and that can lead to great magic in your business and life and can take you down paths that you might not have gone done if you had been operating from a place of ‘logic’ and things that make sense. So, I find that taking inspired action really, really does help create more ease and flow. Same happened to me with my books; a couple of years ago I wrote a bunch of books and I continue to write books, I have got a couple that I am working on right now that will be released this year. And, I just got this intuitive nudge to write a book and release it. And then I got an intuitive nudge for a second book, and then a third… I just kept feeling like I had to write these books and you know every once in a while I will get an email from someone who has read, whether it is my business mindset books, or my walking books, and they say: ‘that was really helpful to me’. And it’s people I have never heard of before and I love it because those books have helped me to help people and to reach out to new people who have maybe found me on Amazon and not through my regular marketing efforts. So, if you have a book in you, if you have ever thought about writing a book, just do it. If you have any questions just email and ask me. There is a podcast episode on: how to get a book out of your head and onto Amazon, I will link to that in the show notes. Seriously it is a great way to reach a new market of people. Do it. And if you have any questions ask me. So, again, inspired action. Another great way to create ease and flow.

A lot of the techniques that I shared in my Business Intuition book can also help you create ease and flow in business and life. So, stuff like meditating. Physical exercise, I find that repetitive exercise, whether it is running on a treadmill or stuff like that, can really help me get into a state of flow because I am not thinking. And I said running on a treadmill, as opposed to running outdoors, because when I am running outdoors I have to be aware of: ‘don’t trip on that log’ ‘don’t get your head caught up on tat branch’ ‘there’s a hill’… You have to think about things. But I have always found that running on a treadmill, there are no dangers. It is not going to rain on you, you are probably not going to trip and fall; you are just running like a hamster on a wheel. And, I found that that would help me get into a state of flow. So, there are so many things that you can do. And check out the Business Intuition book because it has got a lot of tips, more than I can mention here, on how to ignite your intuition, but also help you create more ease and flow in your business and life.

Now, I also find that getting help from someone else can help you create more ease and flow in your business. So get yourself a coach, maybe get a coach who focuses on helping you get more ease and flow in business, or can help you create a plan to get more ease and flow in your business, or someone who can just give you that structure. So, if you find that you don’t have systems and processes in your business hire someone to help you get those, because that will help you get more ease and flow in your business.

So, think back to some of the things that I have mentioned today and I will go through the list again in just a minute. Think over those things and think where you might need help and then get help with them; either from a professional, or ask a friend, if you know who is really good at systems and processes, or meditation, get help from people. You don’t need to do this on your own, or ask me maybe I can help.

So, again:

  1. Energy: we talked about decluttering, to get the energy flowing;
  2. Allowing time and space by creating morning and evening routines;
  3. Doing the mindset work;
  4. Allowing;
  5. Respecting cycles;
  6. Creating systems and processes;
  7. Taking inspired action;
  8. And then just doing things to create ease and flow in other areas of your life; and
  9. Getting help.

So, those are some of the things that you can do to create more ease and flow in your business. And, as someone who ha been through burnout on more than one occasion, I find that it is really, really, important for me to focus on ease and flow rather than push, push, push. Because that push energy, that hustle energy really burns me out. And, ease and flow is something that I really, really resonate with. So, if you also resonate with the concept of ease and flow, give it a try, try one of the things that I have mentioned today; you don’t need to do them all. Try one and see if it works for you, if you like it great; if you don’t try something else. Don’t try to implement everything at once, otherwise that might lead to burnout. Pick one thing and do it and again go with what your gut tells you. So, go through that list, think of what speaks to you and try it. But try what’s right for you, and what feels right for you. Because your gut knows what’s right for you. I always say my gut is smarter than my head and that’s because intuition has become such an important part of my life.

So, if you have any questions please get in touch, let me know. You can please drop me a line and let me know what you thought about this week’s episode. You can email me at: [email protected] or find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and get in touch. I would love to give you a shout out on the show if you would like. Also, I would love for you to join me in my private Facebook group: Business Mindset Alchemists, so we can continue the conversation there. Podcasting is really a one-way conversation, I have just been talking at you for the last 36 minutes, almost 37, and I would love to hear from you. So, please — if you feel inclined to join the Facebook group — head over to https://www.hollyworton.com/group and ask to join and I will approve you.

Finally, if you have been listening to this show for a while, or if you just heard your first episode, if you are drawn to learning more about mindset work or if you would like to learn more about how you can work with me, or if you are just have some questions, please get in touch and head over to https://www.hollyworton.com/call and you can book in a call with me to learn more. I would love to work with you, and help you transform your mindset using heart-centred energy work. And thank you so much for listening, if you enjoyed this episode please leave review on iTunes it would mean the world to me. I love seeing new reviews pop in.

So, as I mentioned, we have a new format for the show this year, so I am going to be inviting, in the same way that I do monthly co-hosted episodes with Jo Casey, I will be inviting quarterly special co-hosts to join me for three episodes, once a month for three months, to talk about business stuff and mindset stuff. So, next week, you will get to meet, she is not new, you have heard on the podcast before, but I am going to leave it as a surprise. You will get my first co-host for quarter one, and she will be joining us one a month for the next three months; so I hope you enjoy that episode. The topic is very aligned with this week’s topic, so I think you will find it really interesting.

So, that is all for now, thank you so much for joining me and remember to visit hollyworton.com/234 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you.

 

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