Introduction
Welcome to Episode 3! I am your host, Dr. Moira. I hope you are enjoying our month of podcasts on focus and efficiency. If you missed the first two podcasts this month, that is ok, they are ready and waiting for you on behealthyhive.com and all of your favorite podcast providers.
For those of you just tuning in, the Coaching Hive podcast looks at topics and concerns that impact health coaches along their business journey to guiding clients to improved health and wellness. The Coaching Hive empowers coaches to be focused with their learning intentions while maintaining forward business momentum.
Here at the Coaching Hive, our mission is to be effective, efficient, and have fun so that work becomes a joy, and you have dedicated time for the important things in life like your family, friends, and hobbies.
This podcast is rooted in learning and efficiency. In fact, to be more effective and efficient, each month we will focus on a single topic. That means 12 new learning topics a year AND time to dig in without feeling overwhelmed.
Let’s review a little bit about how the podcast works. At the start of the month, we will introduce our topic and learn a bit about why it is important to you as a coach. In the second and third weeks, we will dive a little deeper and explore the opinions and ideas of other coaches as well as the research on the topic. In the last week of the month, I’ll offer you a chance to challenge yourself. This challenge encourages you to experiment and put into practice what we have been talking about throughout the month in a very specific and detailed way. I’ll even include a PDF to walk you through the “Put It Into Action” process. You may be thinking, “But, Moira some months have 5 weeks” and you are absolutely correct! We will always end our month with the Put It Into Action challenge. When there are five weeks, we will tuck in a book discussion just before the challenge.
I love hearing about your successes and helping you find solutions when you get stuck. I’m always here to offer ideas and encouragement every step of the way.
Just like me, you might be busy; you’re listening to this podcast as you take care of other tasks. These podcasts will always be child friendly, so go ahead and play it through your speaker while you fold clothes, prep your dinner, or make the bed.
Now that we have those details and reminders out of the way and you know where we’re headed, we can continue with our topic!
The Topic
Many times, in the coaching world we can become overwhelmed, we are taking on additional clients, thinking about marketing, juggling a day job while growing a coaching business, and all while trying to be present for our family and friends. It is difficult and without being efficient, overwhelm creeps in.
I was talking with a group of coaches just this week about how important it is to stay on the lookout for signs of burnout and overwhelm. It is a topic that I often discuss and for the past two podcasts, we have been talking about building efficiency in our business and our life. By letting go of multi-tasking and narrowing our focus to specific and meaningful tasks we get more done in a smaller time span and that overwhelm that we feel diminishes.
When we are focused, efficient, and less distracted by the things that don’t require our attention, we also become good role models for our clients. Over the past few weeks, I have been gathering ideas and tips for being focused and efficient from a variety of coaches. In this podcast, I’m going to share some of their best ideas with you.
We are all different though and what works for one person may not work for you. It is important to experiment; find the right process; the right system for your needs. As you listen, some of these ideas you will cross off because you already use them. Other ideas you may cross off because they don’t resonate with you right now. Then, there will be the ideas that make you want to jump up right now and shout, “yes!”. The ideas that make you want to rush out and implement them right away are a great place to start with your experimentation process. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments, combine ideas, or create your own ideas for building efficiency and focus in your business and in your life in general.
The Ideas
Are you ready? Do you have a paper and pen handy? Here we go.
Our first set of tips comes from Nikia. Nikia is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach and entrepreneur. She has been working hard to serve her clients with her Diabetes Prevention Program. When I asked Nikia what her favorite methods were for staying focused and efficient in business, she told me about her love for Trello. For those of you who have never heard of Trello, it is a task management system that not only helps you keep your own tasks organized, but works well if you are collaborating with others on projects. Nikia shares that it helps reduce her anxiety because she is able to review her tasks for the day with just a few short clicks. By knowing what is ahead and what she needs to accomplish she can be fully present with her clients and in her business. I have to admit that Trello is a favorite of mine as well and it even has a free version. Don’t hesitate to check that out.
Our second tip is being shared by another National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, Michele. Michele is a university professor, registered pharmacist, spiritual teacher, and the owner of the Center Within. She “provides holistic coaching designed to accelerate and support personal, professional and organizational transformation”. As you can imagine, Michele has an active life and needs to stay focused. She shares that having an accountability group works well to keep her on track. If you aren’t familiar with accountability groups, they can work different ways, but often you are working with a small group of people all pursuing goals. As coaches we know that having someone to check in with on our progress can be a key component for success. If you are working with a virtual assistant team, like Michele does, she loves ClickUP. I was curious to see what ClickUP was all about and it appears to be similar to Trello, which is what Nikia uses. ClickUP also has a free version and I created a free account. It has a really easy, quick startup process. That might be another option that you check out whether you are a solopreneur or you are working with a team.
Our third tip comes from Ankita. Ankita is also, you guessed it, a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach. She enjoys working with children and their parents to share easy concepts of nutrition and fitness so that healthy living becomes a way of life. As Ankita is working in her coaching business she finds that blocking off one weekday to just focus on the administrative aspects of her business, things like marketing, strategy, accounting, and scheduling helps her to stay on track and focused. I have to be honest, that is how I schedule my week as well. By creating chunks of time to get tasks done, I’m not constantly scrambling or attempting to multi-task, which I already shared with you is NOT one of my superpowers.
Our next tip is a little different from our others, but it is a great reminder of the importance for self-care and self-awareness as coaches and business owners. This tip comes from Romana, a certified productivity coach. I met Romana through the Female Entrepreneurs Association and love her tip geared specifically toward females. She suggests that you honor your monthly hormonal fluctuations. When your body needs rest, plan for that rest and when you are feeling the most productive use that time to create your content for the month. When you take time to really work with your body, you are more productive. You are also showing your clients what it means to honor your needs as a form of self-care. I thought this tip was timely as I was scrolling through Instagram this week and I saw a local health coach sharing something very similar. She would be taking a period pause each month in her business. During this time, she wouldn’t be as active because she would be honoring her need to rest. What a great way to model for our own clients the importance of self-awareness and self-care.
Alright, I have one last set of tips for you. These tips come from Marcia who is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach working with clients to achieve and sustain their overall wellness, healthy eating, and weight control goals. Marcia’s tips really help set the stage for being fully present with a client. Her first tip is to take about 10 minutes before a client session to review what was discussed during the previous session. She is going to review the client’s action plan, and any other messages or data that she has collected about the client since their last meeting. This helps to refresh her memory and helps to maintain a very personalized relationship. The next step she takes is to sit down at her desk in front of her computer about 5 minutes before a client session. She closes her eyes to get grounded and clear her mind of any distractions before beginning a client session. These two tips combined with her philosophy or motto of “Treat each client as if they are my only client” helps Marcia to be at the top of her game with every client interacts with. She is able to see them as unique and special. She is able to treat them with the utmost respect. This motto is important to Marcia and it really guides every interaction that she has.
Conclusions
Now that you have some ideas in your brain for increasing your focus and efficiency in your coaching business, let’s wrap up this podcast. The ideas that Nikia, Michele, Ankita, Romana, and Marcia shared with you today are just the tip of the iceberg. There are any number of ways to introduce efficiency into your business. As I sat down to work on this podcast in my office, I realized that I left my phone in the kitchen. That simple, unintentional, act increased my efficiency and focus. Writing down your top 3 must-do items for the day can keep you focused on those items instead of going down an unnecessary rabbit trail. It is the little changes that can make the biggest difference.
As we are wrapping up, I’ll share just one more tip with you. I worked with a business coach a few years back. Gale is the maven of efficiency. She has a process and system for everything. She shared that she uses the Pomodoro technique in her business. She sets her timer for 25- or 30-minutes and focuses on a task. She doesn’t get distracted or travel down the rabbit trails. Now speaking of trails, Gale also happens to walk several miles a few times a week. I have a sneaky suspicion that at least part of her efficiency is because she also focuses on taking care of her health and well-being.
With that in mind, I’ll leave you with just a few thoughts. Be patient with yourself. Give yourself the space and grace to experiment and find what works best for your efficiency and focus. It will take time to find your magic combination. In the meantime, if you’d like to connect with any of the experts who shared their wisdom on today’s podcast, be sure to check out the transcript for their contact information.
Take Action
If you want to jump right into action after finishing this podcast, be sure to join our ongoing conversations on Facebook, Instagram (@behealthyhive), and Pinterest (BeHealthyCoachingHive). I look forward to your email or comment sharing what you discovered when you applied this week’s information to your coaching business.
You will find that I try to keep these podcasts filled with information to inspire you, but brief to fit your schedule with ease. If you find you want MORE than these brief podcasts can offer, be sure to join The Coaching Hive VIP Wait List. The Coaching Hive is a membership that empowers coaches to take a focused approach to learning with a new topic, master class, Q&A session, and materials each month. We even have a private mentor community to collaborate through the month on goals, trouble-shoot when you feel stuck, and provide motivation and inspiration to keep you going. I hope to see you in the Hive soon and back here next week for another episode of the Coaching Hive podcast.
Thank you so much for listening.
~Moira
