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I’m back again, with another solo episode! Today, I talk about how to spring clean your business. We’ve recently had the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, and that inspired me to think about how we can spring clean our businesses…and how we can plant the business seeds we plan to grow in the coming seasons.

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What You’ll Learn

The three steps to spring cleaning your business
The three foundation questions you need to ask before you get started with cleaning
How to declutter your business + your business mindset
How to plant the seeds and commit to care for them as they grow
What to do if you “forget to water” your business seeds + how to get back on track

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 245. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode.

Today, I am going to talk about how to Spring Clean Your Business. And, this is a topic that came to me because I have been thinking about how I can incorporate the wheel of the year into the podcast episodes. So, paying attention to the seasons, the solstices, the equinoxes and the other celebrations throughout the year and how I can incorporate these into the episodes. So, this going live on 2 April 2018, so the Spring equinox has already passed and that’s a day where daytime and night-time are equal. Time when Spring is starting, I don’t know what its like where you are living, assuming you are in the Northern Hemisphere, winter has been long, the bulbs have been coming out and things are starting to blossom. It is a time of new beginnings, a time of growth, a time of planting seeds and seeing them grow, because winter is coming to a close.

So, I wanted to take that theme and bring that into business. I know different people plan their businesses at different times of the year, most people probably stick to the calendar year, so if that’s the case you are one quarter into your year, so am I, that’s how I usually plan things. But I do like to stop and re-evaluate and take a look at things every few months and see how things are going.

So, in this episode we are going to talk about questions to ask yourself at this stage in the year; to get clear on your foundation; to get clear on who you are, where you are and where you are headed with your business. We are going to talk about how to Spring clean your business and let go of the things that no longer serve you and then finally we are going to talk about planting seeds for the future of your business.

So, let’s start with the first part which is questions. If you are the kind of person who likes journaling I would say sit down with a notebook, sit down with your journal, or if you are not, open up a file on your computer or somewhere that you can take notes. As you are listening to this now or if you come back to it later. And sit down and question: who are you? Now, these are some questions that I have been blogging about since 2011, and I have started mentioning them more in some of the previous podcast episodes. So, my last solo episode, which was 241, talked about trust, and how to trust yourself in business. So, I mentioned, and I linked to some of the old blog posts from my three questions. Who am I? Where am I? And where am I going?

So, let’s talk about that again. Let’s talk about what these questions mean.

So, Who Am I?

This is getting clear on the things that are important to you in business, what are your values? What are your interests?

And I know a lot of these things are core values, core beliefs, core passions and skills and abilities and talents, that usually stick with you for your entire life, or most of your life, but I do believe that it’s important to re-evaluate these. Because, as we get to know ourselves better, and as we peel off the layers of the onion and peel off the fears, the blocks, the limiting beliefs, and get to know ourselves better and get to know ourselves at our true core, our true authentic selves, we can see parts of ourselves that we couldn’t see before, or that we didn’t see in the same light, or that we see from a different perspective. So, I think asking ourselves a question: who am I? And approaching it from these different angles, can be incredibly useful to do on a regular basis. Whether you do that on a quarterly basis, or an annual basis, or just whenever it seems relevant to you. I think that’s really valid and really useful.

So, I am going to link in the show notes again to all of my old blog posts on this topic. I will be coming out sometime this year with a book on business mindset which is going to walk you through these questions as they relate to Business Mindset. So, that’s coming some time this year, but in the meantime, you have all of my old blog posts to go through. So, really get clear on who you are, who are you at the core, who is your authentic self and I know we throw around the word authentic, it has become kind of a buzzword these days but really getting down to (I hate to say that word again!) our authentic selves, it is all about peeling all the stuff that we have taken on over the years, all the masks, all the stuff that we aren’t but has helped us survive and has helped us cope and has helped us get through life. Peeling off all that stuff that isn’t really us helps us to get down to the core. And once we can make contact with that, and get in touch with it, that’s when business starts getting easier and life starts getting easier because we can function from this place of our true selves. So that’s the first question: who am I? The second question is:

Where Am I?

That’s where am I in my business, where am in my life, what’s working, what’s not working? And just make lists of what’s working and what’s not working in your business and your life because everything is connected, everything is holistic. So, if you are trying to make a list of what’s working and what’s not working in your business and personal stuff comes up, honour that and write it down because it is all related. So, question everything here: Where are you? What’s working? So, look at what’s serving you? What’s not serving you? What brings you joy? What feels light? What feels heavy? What things do you just doing? That you cringe at the thought of having to do because you are just so scared of it? Where are you with visibility? How visible would you say you are on a scale of 1-10? How visible do you want to be? And where are you with your mindset? What kind of mindset do you have currently in business?

So, if you go back to the 15 categories of business beliefs that I share in my Business Beliefs book, which are the same as the categories of blocks that I share in my Business Blocks book, look at where you are on a scale of 1-10, in terms of your mindset in each of these 15 areas.

So, you have got: Action and Goals. How are you at goal setting and achieving your goals, and believing in your ability to achieve your goals? How are you with taking action? And what do you believe about your ability to take action?

Next category: Change and Growth: What are your beliefs, what is your mindset around your ability to change and grow your business? And your ability to grow along with your business?

Third category: Clients and Boundaries, I am expanding this category. What’s your mindset around your ability to get clients and to get the right clients. To get your ideal clients? Or to get your dreamy clients, as some people call them. And what’s your ability, or what do you believe about your ability to create and uphold boundaries in your business. I have got a podcast on Business Boundaries that I think you will find useful. So, I will link to that in the show notes as well.

Fourth category: Confidence and Self-Trust. And this is a big thing. So, I have got that episode, 241 on trusting yourself in business, so listen to that if you feel like this is an issue for you. So, think about what are your beliefs? What is your mindset around your self-confidence and your self-trust, as it relates to your business or your life.

Category five is: Creativity. When you are a business-owner, when you are an entrepreneur, you have got to at some level be a creative person, or you have got to get support to create your things, whether it is your services, your products, whatever it is that you offer. So, what are your beliefs, what is your mindset about your ability to be a creative person? About your ability to be a creative entrepreneur? How do you feel about your creativity in your business?

Category six is: Leadership and Outsourcing. So, what is your mindset, what are your beliefs, what are your blocks, around your ability to be a strong leader, to be a good leader, to be a grounded leader? Whatever kind of leader that you want to be in your business? And what are your beliefs, what is your mindset about your ability to outsource the things that you don’t love, the things that you aren’t good at? The things that you need support with. A lot of people have the tendency to try to hold onto everything, to hold onto every little task in their business, because no one will do it as well as I do. And that’s just not true. There are plenty of people who specialise in the things that are outside your zone of genius and that can do them better than you. Sometimes we are afraid of outsourcing because we don’t know how to manage people. Managing people is not easy for most of us, and if you don’t have prior experience in people management, that can be scary. So, what are your beliefs about your ability to manage a team, or manage a VA, or manage someone who could support you in your business.

Category seven is: Learning. And as entrepreneurs and business-owners we have got to be constantly learning things, because that’s part of our growth as business-owners, but a lot of us are hung up on beliefs that maybe we got from a teacher, or from other students as we were kids growing up, and a lot of people believe that they are not good at learning, that they don’t know how to learn new things, that they are really slow learners. So, what are your beliefs, what is your mindset around your ability to learn the things that you need to learn, so that you can build your business?

Category eight is: Lifestyle. What is the lifestyle you want, what is the lifestyle you have and what are your beliefs about your ability to create the kind of lifestyle that you dream of? That you want, that would make you feel however it is that you want to feel, whether it is abundant, or satisfied, or happy, or joyful…whatever it is that you want. Get clear on the lifestyle that you want your business to help you create and what are the beliefs that you need to have in order to create that.

Category nine is: Marketing and Sales, what are your beliefs about your ability to market your business to the right people? To have authentic sales conversations, so that you can sign up the best clients for you?

Category 10 is: Money. And that’s a massive category because so many of us have hang-ups around money. But, what is your money mindset? What are your beliefs around your ability to create the kind of money that you want to create in your business? What are your blocks around bringing in money in your business and having a profitable business? Because sometimes we bring in a lot of money, but then it goes straight out to marketing expenses, whatever; and we don’t have the cash flow that we want. So, think about that, where are you in terms of your money mindset?

Category 11 is: Personal Power. So, what is your mindset around personal power? And that can mean whatever that means to you. So, in my Business Beliefs book, I have got a whole lot set of belief statements that you can look at and see whether or not you believe them. And evaluate, what is your mindset in terms of personal power?

Category 12 is: Strategy, Clarity and Vision. So, how’s your mindset in relation to this? What are your beliefs around your ability to create a successful strategy in your business and have the clarity of vision to see where you are headed in your business? Vision is a really important part of being a business owner; because, you have got to know where you are going in order to get there, in order to set your goals, in order to take action. Otherwise, if you don’t have vision, if you don’t have clarity, you are just kind of wandering around in circles and doing stuff. So, what are your beliefs around your ability to have a clear vision and create a clear strategy to achieve that vision?

Category 13 is: Success and Opportunities. So, what are your beliefs around your ability to be successful in business and in life? What’s your mindset around your ability to see opportunities and accept opportunities, even if they scare you?

Category 14 is: Value and Self-Worth and this is another really big category. Do you value yourself? Do you value your skills? Do you value your talents? How do you value them? So, what’s your mindset? What are your beliefs around your value and self-worth and what you bring to your clients?

The last category, category 15 is: Visibility. And this is a really important one, it is so important that I wrote a book on business visibility. What is your mindset around visibility? What are your beliefs about your ability to be visible? And to market yourself in a way so that people see you, so that you can get clients. Because if you are not visible, you could be the best person in the world at what you do, but if no one has ever heard of you, no one has ever seen you, you are just not going to get the clients that you want. So, look at visibility, spend some time on that one. So, that’s a big issue for a lot of people, myself included. That’s one category where I have probably spent the most time on, because that was a big issue for me.

So, these are the questions, we have been looking at Question Two, where am I. Next is:

Where Am I Going?

So, I talked about that category 12, which is Strategy, Clarity and Vision. This is where you need to look at where you are going in your business? What are your plans for the next 12 months, or from now until the end of the year? What are your plans for your business, your life? Where do you want to be headed? What is your vision? What are your goals? Where are you going?

So, that’s the last of the three questions. So to recap, Question 1 is Who Am I?; Question 2 is Where Am I?; and Question 3 is Where Am I Going? Those are the three foundation questions. Next, we are going to look at:

How to Spring Clean Your Business

And I love Spring Cleaning, so we are going to look at decluttering, cleaning in most of its forms. So, if you are the kind of person who doesn’t actually like cleaning, which I don’t. For the physical cleaning of your office, cleaning of your office, get a cleaner. If you don’t have one because you thought you couldn’t afford one, it is often less expensive than you think… I hate cleaning so get help with you if you think you need to. I have got a weekly cleaner and I love her. It makes life so much easier.

Step 1

So, decluttering. Look at decluttering physical stuff. So, make lists as you are listening to this about what it is that you need to physically declutter? So, maybe it is starting with your office. Decluttering your desk, your drawers, your bookshelves, all the corners of your office. Any horizontal surface that is looking cluttered. Get rid of the stuff, find a place for it. See where you can put the stuff that doesn’t need to be out. I am looking around my office as I say this, my office is really cluttered right now, and I hate that cluttered feeling, it is a bit stressful for me. I like it when things are organised; and they are not organised right now, so clearly this is something that I need to do after I get off this episode, I have got some time later today. So, block out some time in your calendar to actually do the decluttering. And this might take longer than you think. So, start out by making lists of the areas that you need to declutter and then block out the time in your calendar so that it actually happens. So, again, your office, your home, because again, everything is related. It is not like your business is just confined to your office whether that is in your home or out of your home. Having clutter in the rest of your life can affect your business. So, look at decluttering office and home.

But decluttering in business doesn’t just stop at physical stuff, you have also got to look at decluttering the digital stuff. So, look through the files on your computer, see if there is anything that you need to reorganise, or that you can get rid of? Maybe there are photographs that you don’t need? Apps that you don’t need on your computer, on your phone, on your tablet? Look at all the stuff that you can get rid of digitally. And maybe you feel like you are really organised, but you could empty your wastebasket on your computer, get rid of that stuff, clear stuff out.

Look at your inbox, look at things that you could unsubscribe from. So, newsletters that you are no longer reading. Stuff that you are subscribed to in terms of software maybe? Maybe there are things that you have been paying for but not really been using. See if you can unsubscribe from that and find a different solution for it.

Look at your inbox and see if you can get down to inbox zero, and that is such a powerful place to be and such a relaxing place to be, because it is like you feel like you are on top of things. So, look at what you need to do to get to inbox zero, you might need to block some time out in your calendar to just go through and declutter your inbox. It is possible, but it can take time if it has been really, really, disorganised. So, those are other things that you can declutter.

And question everything here. Question whether you need subscriptions that you have been paying for. Maybe there is software that you have been using. Question your goals. So, when we looked at where you are going, what’s your vision for your business, question those goals. Are they still important to you? And create new goals if you need?

Question your routines. So, I plan my day through Google calendar. I have times blocked off for meals, I have times blocked off for my walks, times blocked off for my meet-up group, times blocked off for my kickboxing. Times blocked off for all the stuff that I do in my business whether that’s… actually let me go into my calendar as I am reading this. For answering emails… I have got all the repetitive tasks and things in there. So, I just had a meetup yesterday when I took some women out walking, today I had some time blocked out to plan the next meetup. I have an half-an-hour every Monday to promote my podcast. Did that to record this podcast, that’s in there. To write my email newsletter. I have got time blocked out for all kinds of stuff and I have got it colour-coded, and it is a fantastic system, I really, really, like it and it works for me. But, I am constantly re-evaluating and seeing whether this system works, whether I need to change mealtimes, or I need to change personal time. I have time blocked out in the morning for journaling and personal time. Re-evaluate that. If you use an online calendar to plan your week, re-evaluate what’s working, what’s not working, and what needs to change with that. So, question everything as you are making lists of things to declutter.

Step 2

And then look at decluttering the mental and emotional stuff.

Look at your limiting beliefs, look at your fears, look at your blocks, look at all the mind crap that came up in question two: where am I?

Look at all of the stuff that needs to be cleared from your mindset. And if you haven’t written that down from when you went through question two: where am I? Look at it now. And I really recommend checking out my books: Business Beliefs, Business Blocks and going through those questions, going through those categories and seeing what limiting beliefs and fears and blocks that you have in each of those areas of your mindset so that you can declutter them, clear them out by doing the mindset work. By doing the work to reprogram your beliefs, by doing the energy work to let go of that stuff, clearing past traumas, clearing past fears, getting rid of all that stuff so that you can spring clean your mindset as you are spring cleaning your business.

Step 3

So, finally we are getting to step 3 which is planting the seeds, this is Springtime. Now that you have cleared all the stuff out of your mind and your business and your space, it is time to look at planting the seeds. Planting your business seeds. And then making a commitment to care for these business seeds as they grow. So, what does that even mean? Look at all the stuff that you have decluttered and gotten rid of and see if there is anything that you need to bring in. So, see if you need to look at any new systems, or technology, or ways of automating things, or outsourcing things to make things easier in your business or life.

So, look at what needs to brought-in to get more organised. I have a blogpost that I wrote last year called The Super Tech Recommendation Mega Post and I have actually got a free PDF that you can download, no opt-in required, on that blog page and I will link to that in the show notes. But I talk about all kinds of individual systems and tools that you can use to make your business easier. So, I look at 1Password, which is what I use to organise all my passwords, Acuity Scheduling, which is how I book in clients and manage my time with other people; Amazon S3, which I use for storing files, so if you have ever downloaded any of the free PDFs for each of these podcast transcripts I store them on S3. I look at all kinds of other things: Boomerang for Gmail which is fantastic in terms of keeping your inbox tidy and focussing on only the things that are priority. I look at Canva which I use for making graphics; Camtasia which I use for screen capture videos; Convertkit which I use for my emails; Divi which is the theme I use on my website… anyway I have got a whole list of stuff there and I have got links to everything and I think that it is worth looking at if you want to bring some new systems or technology, or ways of automating your business. Check that out and again the link is in the show notes and I have got links to everything in there in the PDF and in the blog post. So, you will probably find that useful if you are looking for some new business solutions. So again, get organised, get organised with your tech, with your passwords, with your files, reorganise your desk, your office, your drawers. So, if you decluttered everything, perhaps it is time to bring in some things to organise your business and to organise all the physical stuff that you have in your office. Maybe you need a new bookcase, something that is bigger, that can hold all of your books. Whatever it is that you need, now is the time to bring those things in so that you can get organised.

And then finally, planting seeds for your business.

Looking back at that question: where am I going? Looking back at the vision that you have created for your business and your life and your lifestyle. And looking at the things that you need to do to achieve that vision, to achieve that lifestyle. You have got to sit down and create new goals, and a plan to achieve those goals and all the little steps that you need to take. So, this is part of planting the seeds for your business. And then as I said earlier, making a commitment to care for those seeds as they grow into the plants of your business, or the trees of your business! This is really, really, important. So, getting clear on that vision; breaking it down into simple tasks and steps that you need to take; but then committing to take those steps so you can achieve those goals. Some people are really, really, good at doing this, some people are great at: setting goals; taking action; making stuff happen; and some people really struggle with it. If you are the kind of person who really struggles with setting goals, or taking action to achieve your goals, I would say it is probably not just an issue of needing to do more or take more action or do more stuff or to hustle. You might have some mindset stuff that is not quite working there.

So, this is where you really need to look at your mindset, and I always talk about doing mindset work, because that’s my thing, that is where I see the biggest changes happening. So, really get clear on: Who it is that you need to be to achieve this vision for your business. Who it is that you need to be to achieve these goals? What do you need to believe about yourself in order to achieve these goals and this vision for your business? What do you need to believe? And what fears and what blocks do you have to achieving those goals, and that vision, that you need to let go of? This is really important, so we need to release the mind-crap, but we also need to reprogram new beliefs. I always talk about working at the deeper levels, working at the subconscious level, but also working at the energetic level. So, with my heart-centred energy work, I work with people on releasing energy blocks in addition to reprogramming new beliefs and programming that new vision into your subconscious. So, mindset work is important, I know, I say this every week, but if you are really struggling to plant seeds – and commit to caring for those seeds in your business – it is time to go back and look at your mindset and see what’s blocking you, what’s keeping you stuck. What’s stopping you from taking the action you need to take to achieve your goals and to achieve your big business vision.

So, I feel like I have covered a ton of stuff today. So, just to recap, we looked at three steps: so, we have got the foundation, which is the three questions: who am I? Where am I? Where am I going? We have got step 2, which is to declutter, decluttering the physical, the emotional, the mindset. Step 3, which is planting the seeds, planting your business seeds and making a commitment to care for them as they grow. And then constantly re-evaluating your mindset. If you see that you have let your plants wilt, or you have not watered your seeds, or not done the things that you need to do to make your business grow. Happy Spring, if you are in the northern hemisphere. Happy Autumn, if you are in the Southern Hemisphere and I hope you that you have found this episode useful.

As always, please let me know what you thought, you can email me at: [email protected] or find me online and get in touch. I would also love to get your feedback in the Facebook group: Business Mindset Alchemists, if you head over to https://www.hollyworton.com/group you will be redirected you to the Facebook group, and I would love to see you in there. We can talk about this episode, what did you think, what are your challenges, what are your questions…whatever, whatever you feel like sharing.

So, finally, whether you have listening to this show for a while or whether you have just heard your first episode, if you are interested, or you feel drawn to learning more about mindset work, and you would like to learn more about how you can work with me, please get in touch, send me an email or contact me on social media, or head over to http://HollyWorton.com/call and you can book in a call with me to learn more. I would love to work with you, I would love to talk about mindset with you, and help you transform your mindset. This is the work that I love and if you have any questions I am happy to help. If you would like to work with me same thing.

So, again thank you so much for listening, if you enjoyed this episode please leave a quick review on iTunes it would mean the world to me.

I mentioned a lot of things in this episode so remember to visit hollyworton.com/245 for the show notes on this episode so you can get all the links to all the stuff that I talked about.

Next week

And finally, next week I will be back with episode 246, which is a co-hosted episode with Jo Casey, which I think is really good and juicy. So, this is based on a listener question from someone in the Facebook group, who wanted to know how you can tell the difference between alignment or fear. And the question went something like this: So, when you are not making the progress that you want in your business how do you know if you are reluctant to move out of your comfort zone, and step up; or, if what you want to do and think you want to do is out of alignment with your values, in which case maybe you should abandon it. Both of these situations can feel like fear, reluctance or lead to procrastination. So how do you tell the difference if it feels off, but you are not quite sure why. So, this is something that Jo and I tackle on the podcast, I think this is a really, really, good episode, I think this is a really important topic, because it is something that a lot of people struggle with, and I think you will find it really useful and interesting. So that’s all for now I will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening.

245: Holly Worton ~ How to Spring Clean Your Business + Mindset