Balancing Business and Bliss: Achieving Soulful Success this Summer

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of Aligned and Soulful Success. And in this podcast we dive into topics to support empathic, conscious, introverted entrepreneurs who want to have purposeful and profitable businesses aligned with their soul. And the topic today is very timely because I am going to discuss summer. So if you are a parent and have kids at home, this may be more relevant for you, and if you're not, there is still some relevance because we, as most of us who went to school in the Northern Hemisphere, have been conditioned to feel like summer is the time to slow down, to have vacations, to have fun And as a child, we often had time off from school in the summer. And when you have your own business, there is a sense of different energies pulling you right. So you might have the energy of pulling you to like, okay, i need to just leave my business alone for now and just like have fun, i want to spend all the time I can with my kids, and all of that You may all feel the opposite of. I really want to continue working on my business. I really want to move forward. I just don't know how to do that because there's so many social events and I have my kids at home and I have a vacation, right. I do also want to spend time with my family and I want to continue with my business, and so that may be where you're at, or you're a person that's like I just want to run my business in the summer, like I've always run it right, and it's not nothing really that different for me And for you. Maybe you have more energy in the summer, right, and you have more time. Everybody's in a different situation. The commonality is there's going to be a difference in your energy, in the obligations around you in the summer, then for other seasons, what that looks like is different for you. The key is to consciously pick how you want to run your business this summer and not allow your conditioning to decide for you how you've always done things to decide for you or to allow guilt to decide for you. I would recommend to be clear about what it is that you want to create. What are your goals? What is your vision? What are you creating in your business and life? Okay, and encouraging you to look at not just your business, but also looking at your life overall. Like a look at your life overall. What is the experience that you want to create in relationships? What is the experience you want to create with your siblings, with your kids, with your spouse, your partner? What is that? And then, taking all that into account, consciously making a schedule for yourself, starting with like the end in mind. So start with like okay, the end of the summer, this is what I want to create. And if that is more difficult, what are the goals that you set for yourself in the beginning of the year? What do you want to create by the end of the year? And then working backwards? Well, so, if I want to continue that goal, if that goal is still those goals, those desires are still important to me. Where would I want to be at the end of the summer? What would I want to have accomplished at the end of the summer, so that I'm moving towards those goals? Okay, and so then, breaking that down into what time you want to spend working on your business in the summer, what time you want to spend on vacation and with families right, and so we want to be able to balance all that, to do all those things. The challenges come when the summer is over and there's regret because you didn't get the things done you wanted to get done, or you completely let go of your business and you had momentum, and now you feel kind of resentful because you have to rebuild. Another challenge that could come up is you feel exhausted because you were trying to do exactly the same amount of work that you were doing when you had more time. Okay, so this is what we're doing, this is what we are anticipating. This is based on what maybe happened to you in the past. Maybe it's your first year in business and so you're not sure how to handle it. It's always about being aware. It's bringing that awareness, being clear about where you want to go and choosing consciously of how you want to spend your time And being honest with yourself about how much time you have. Okay, so in the summer, if you have young kids, you may have your kids in summer camp. Part of the summer, most likely it may not be as many hours as you would in school, or it could be, or there may be more driving going on. Maybe you have some vacation or vacation plural planned. Maybe you have some summer events that you normally don't have, and so putting that, all that in there, right, putting all that in your calendar, and then from there really looking and saying, well, how much time do I have in a day to focus on my personal tasks and my business? right, so maybe you have some personal goals that you're working towards, so what are those? and putting those in there and your business, and so then really saying, okay, so normally I spend six hours or eight hours, whatever you spend, on my business. Of that, i have this many, if you work with clients, this many hours with clients, and I spend the rest of the time doing these things. So what are my prioritizing here? What are some tasks that I don't need to do this summer that I do on a regular basis? And if you listened to the last couple few episodes, a few episodes ago, i talked about what you really need in your business. So sometimes we spend time in our business learning and taking trainings that we actually don't need. Sometimes we do need training. So I'm not telling you not to do that, i'm just wondering if, based on your schedule, if this is the time for that. So being, if you know what you need to focus on, if part of that is a training in a course or a program, then sending a side time for that And maybe you focus on that and then you work with your current clients, or you pare down your marketing, you market a little bit less than you normally do, or you just decide I'm gonna stay in touch with my current clients, or maybe for you it's like you know what I really wanna focus on marketing. I wanna start building those relationships So when fall comes around, i can start marketing a little bit more. Just really be clear about that, really be conscious about that. Make those decisions based on the situation that you're in the hours available, what you want to create, and you will really then be able to be present when you are with your loved ones in the summer, when you are on vacation, when you are in these things that are part of life that you're choosing. If you most likely, if you don't, if you're not consciously choosing, then you may start to feel stress. You may not be present during those things that you have planned. You might get worried about am I gonna finish that? or you will feel guilty because you're not with your family or kids like you wanted to. Okay, so choose, choose consciously to create this business in the way that you want. You get to pick. It's your business and take into account the pieces and the way you want this to be okay. And so, once you have that in place, put the plan in place and then, of course, as you're going through, you can kind of reassess, right. So maybe you go a couple of weeks in the summer and you feel like, oh gosh, i'm more stressed than I was in the fall or the winter. Let me look at what I'm doing. What can I let go of here? What is really important? What are my priorities? What is causing my stress? So it's not set in stone, right. You can make those decisions and continue to check in, and that's part of being conscious, that's part of choosing how you wanna show up in your business. So I wish it was like a simple answer for the summer. This is exactly what you do, right? Really, it's more about, like any season, the season, how you feel in that season, how much energy do you have in that season, what your desires and goals are, how do you want to spend your time? What other obligations do you have that are enemy? Maybe the word obligations doesn't feel good, but what are some other things you really want to and are choosing to spend your time on? and then, from there, create the rest, create what you want, the schedule you want, focus on the tasks you want and sometimes, if You feel like there's just not enough time, looking at the truth of how you're spending your time and Oftentimes when we do that, we notice That there are some things that we spend our time on that we've just done for so long and we're just repeating, and And there's some things that You Need to just let go of because they're no longer serving you or no longer effective, and some things that we're using maybe as Coping because of the stress, and maybe there's some better ways that are more actually serving you to cope with your stress. But without the awareness we can't make those shifts and changes. So I'm asking you to be really aware and to make these conscious choices so you can have an amazing summer and beyond. So this is Kavita, with Align and Soulful Success. And again I want to invite you to Kind of a special thing I'm doing this summer. It's a 90-minute, one-on-one intensive dive into your business. It will involve a questionnaire where you fill out before so we can Assess where you are in your business and create a plan moving forward. Summer's a great time to do that, and so I usually work with people more long-term, but I want to help more of you. So if that's something you're called to do, i'll have the link available to book that call in the show notes, and if you're not sure if it's for you or you have some questions, you can also reach out With those questions and I'd be happy to answer them. You can go ahead and contact me via my website, and that form is available in the show notes as well. So until next week, take good care. Bye You.