Welcome to a new episode of the Coaching Hive podcast. Before I share today’s episode, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate something small, but fun. Today’s date, when this episode is airing, is 2/22/22. I know this probably makes me a little geeky for having such a big smile on my face, but I love those little moments in life. It is all about appreciating the day, the little things and the big things, and all of the in-between things.
And that brings me to our final episode in the Uniquely Yours series. Building a coaching business that allows you to find freedom is a game changer. Talk about generating more big moments.
Finding freedom in your business is akin to winning the lottery, except the lottery is a game of chance and finding freedom in your business is something that you have 100% control over.
What would you gain by finding freedom in your coaching business? Today we are going to explore that exact question and I’ll share some ideas for finding freedom.
With our theme of simplicity, clarity, and vision for 2022 in mind, let’s jump in.
Introduction
It was a little over a year ago that I woke up and realized that my life was no longer my own. I was constantly sneaking away from family time to grade, staying up late to teach, and missing bedtime to get back to students. Imagine my sweet son’s face each time I said the dreaded words, “I have to work this weekend, tonight, every night this week.” What I saw was sadness, confusion, and even acceptance. Luckily, I was also the recipient of unwavering support and love from my son and husband. We had been piecing together my work obligations for many years so that I could first stay home with my son, later be there to pick him up after school, and more recently to homeschool him. I knew that I didn’t want to miss anything else. I needed more freedom in my work and that came with owning my own business.
Now I bet that many of you listening are shaking your head. You would love some additional freedom, more say in how you spend your time, and even more opportunity to do what matters most to you in your life.
If I were to ask you how you came to your goal of being a health coach, you probably wanted a few things. You wanted to maintain or reclaim your own health, you wanted to help others, you wanted freedom. You wanted to be able to help the maximum number of people on their health and wellness journey while enjoying the benefits of being an entrepreneur, right?
You seized the moment, decided to dive in and launched your coaching business. These are all exciting things. They bring the health coaching world into the spotlight and offer more attention to the importance of health and well-being.
Freedom is at the forefront of your mind right alongside helping others achieve their health and wellness goals. You are really looking forward to investigating what you would gain by finding freedom in your coaching business.
As you continue to build your coaching business, you have lots of ideas, new contacts, exciting opportunities, and the list goes on. You find yourself saying yes to everything and yes to the opportunities that you didn’t even know you were saying yes to at the time.
Suddenly you are losing sight of that freedom that you were working toward because you are helping the world. You are guiding people each day toward their wellness vision, but internally you are beginning to feel worry and concern that this isn’t exactly what you signed up for. You are beginning to notice that your work hours are bleeding past what you had imagined. Your family and friends notice that you say no to them more often than normal. Let’s face it, as an introvert I say no to outings more often anyway, but I’m talking about saying no more than normal for you. Your clients might even be recognizing that you are being stretched thin during your sessions.
You are now experiencing more confinement than freedom. If you don’t manage this quickly and with intention you might find yourself backing away from the coaching business you thoughtfully designed.
Main Section
The problem isn’t that you don’t want your health coaching business to survive and thrive, it is that you still want to have that flexibility and freedom you envisioned when you first started down this path.
I’m not going to lie. Starting a business is a lot of work, but with the right pieces in place you can move from being a struggling health coach to a visionary health coach. And you can do this without relinquishing who you are and what you want from life.
Now the rest of this podcast might be a little unique. A little unexpected if I’m honest with you. Usually this would be where someone might list out all of the things that you need to do to get your business running smoothly and then encourage you to take a step back and look for some of that freedom. I’m not going to do that today.
You probably want more time right up front to do the things you love. You probably want to work just the hours you need to in order to experience success. And you probably don’t want to have a huge push of working all hours of the day. I don’t blame you.
You can find freedom in your business by doing a couple of things. The first is to take your time. Often, health coaches are transitioning slowly from one career to another. If you find yourself in that position, set a goal for yourself that allows for freedom during the transition. Take it slowly. Yes, your business will be slower to grow, but you will grow something you love without burning out.
The next thing to think about in building freedom into your business for years to come is how to leverage your business growth. What features, revenue streams, and services can you offer that don’t require your schedule to be chock full from dawn till dusk? You don’t have to have every service known to man. In fact, by staying focused and choosing what fits your life best, you will not only experience more freedom you will also have more fun.
What does this actually look like? Remember I said that I realized that my life wasn’t my own? I actually transitioned slowly, over about 9 months from that position into the Coaching Hive. This meant that I didn’t work all hours. I slowly cut back in my previous job and added time to the Coaching Hive as I had available. I took the whole first year of the Coaching Hive to get the foundation built. I didn’t worry about growing in huge ways during that first year. I was focused on creating something that not only worked for my clients, but was sustainable and enjoyable for me. After all, if I’m mentoring health coaches and guiding them to create sustainable and enjoyable businesses, it stands to reason that I should do the same. This year is all about growth and creating new opportunities for health coaches, including the Coaching Hive Elite program that will be unveiled in a short while.
Can you imagine what it would feel like to have freedom in your business? How does it make you feel? Are you feeling rejuvenated? Excited? Relieved? Maybe even grateful and astonished?
By creating a business that is uniquely yours, like we have been discussing in episodes 53-55, you have the opportunity to create freedom. You can say no to the things that don’t matter, say yes to the aspects that are really important and say an even bigger yes to living the life you want.
Conclusions
So, although I didn’t give you a laundry list of items today, we did talk about the importance of taking your time, if you are able and really identifying ways of running your business and services that don’t absorb all of your time and energy.
If you find that you are struggling because you don’t have a clear vision of what you want in your coaching business, I’ve got you covered. Very soon, I’ll be releasing the Coaching Hive Mindful Vision course designed to help you gain clarity around your business.
If you are ready to say yes to freedom, get started today by crafting your Coaching Hive Mindful Vision by going to www.coachinghive.com/MindfulVision. With that Mindful Vision ready to go, you can build freedom into your business. In fact, I would encourage you to make freedom a part of your Mindful Vision! If you are trying to figure out where it fits into a vision, try thinking about freedom as self-care.
So, let’s review the big ideas that we have covered in this Coaching Hive series on building a business that is uniquely yours. In episode 53 we discussed creating your own path rather than relying on someone else’s ideas and path. Then in Episode 54 we talked about planning for contentment. The idea was that you can experience a business filled with ease, joy, and satisfaction. Last week, in episode 55, we talked about building in boredom as a way to thrive in your business. And finally, this week in episode 56 we talked about finding freedom in how you design and implement your business vision.
Tip for the Week
To help you stay on track this week lets end with a simple task to keep you focused.
This week pull out a piece of blank paper and write today’s date on the left side and the date a year from today on the right side. I want you to write in different things you’d like to experience in the next 12 months. These are things, experiences, trips, mindsets, etc. that you can engage in because you have freedom in your business.
Once you’ve done that, then begin to think about how you will check off those experiences with the support of your business.
No, maybe just 3 days from now, imagine you streamline a business process and get to experience additional free time to read your favorite book.
Then maybe 3 weeks from now, you’re offering a new group coaching program to replace some 1:1 client slots and you get to go on a vacation.
And maybe 3 months from now you are taking every Friday off to engage in quality self-care because you are building in boredom, freedom, and contentment following your own business path.
If you want to walk your path with the support of a peer and mentor community to help you when you get stuck, cheer you on when you take a step forward, and support you when you are wading through the challenging questions, I’d like to invite you to join the Coaching Hive membership today because every coach should get to build a successful, profitable coaching business and get to do it with others.
I look forward to seeing you back here next week for another episode of the Coaching Hive Podcast where a focus on mentoring and community removes the overwhelm of building your successful coaching business and adds in a dose of momentum.
Until next time, have a healthy, safe, and happy week!
