Audie Cunningham is a surface design and pattern designer, specializing in hand drawn and hand painted florals. Her art blends gorgeous rich colors and thoughtful designs that I personally can't get enough of! After her designs leave her small studio in Wyoming, they're digitized for commercial applications and manufacturing uses, so you might just see her work on a dress in Target or sheets in Nordstrom one day!
Do you ever feel like a 4 year old who just consumed a double espresso and a bag of cookies when you sit down to work? Like, your brain is a pinball machine and your thoughts are bouncing all over the place?
You know the deal, right? I've found I have to treat myself like a toddler and have implemented as many guardrails for productivity as possible so I can stay FOCUSED. Here are some of my favorite tools, apps, and ideas to prevent distraction:
If you live in a place where summer is short and glorious, you might be feeling the pull to just blow off your to-do list and enjoy the sunshine…you know you can't do that entirely, but man. It's tempting.
And if you’re also working another job, this becomes really hard! Here are a few ways to thoroughly enjoy your summer and still stay on track with your business.
I know that I certainly didn't get into working for myself to make things harder. I didn't sign up for less work/life balance. I just wanted to do the work that was most meaningful to me, on my terms.
But I found that I was creating way more stress for myself right off the bat. And man, I felt gripped. Ugh. I knew that this was not the way for me. If I was going to survive, there had to be another way. I wanted to feel excited and engaged with my work. I didn't want it to feel heavy and exhausting. So, I decided to seek out ways to create more ease in my business...here's what I came up with:
There were so many great conversations with rad business owners, but I found an interesting theme came up over and over again: people want permission to do the thing they want to do. Whether it's structuring packages in a way that feels good to them, doubling their prices, or working only from 2-8pm, the women I talked to KNEW what they wanted and what would feel really good...but they also wanted permission to do it.
What should I use for bookkeeping? Best project management software? Where do you order business cards? What should I use for building a website?
It's AMAZING how often I see these questions pop up on online forums—the same exact questions a gazillion times a day. The first thing that astounds me is just how many people are launching new businesses every day—crazy, right?! But the second thing I find interesting is that people just want a dang answer.
You’ve been working harder than ever. Putting all your energy into your creativity and checking tons off the to-do list. You’ve been in the flow, that elusive and magical state of “being in the zone”. Yet, you don’t seem to be progressing toward your goal as quickly as you’d like and it’s starting to feel confusing and frustrating…
Here’s the thing. It can be really hard to figure out what's really the right work.
Many of my clients, especially people who are in a service-based business, are baffled by how to get clients on social media. They feel like they're either being too pushy or it's crickets. It feels like a waste of time to them and they just can't see how being on social media will produce any results.
Now, of course there are LOTS of ways to utilize social media to build your business, but to keep it simple, I'm just going to cover one strategy in this post. It's a strategy that has brought in lots of clients and continues to build my email list.
I'm not one to drop Beyonce into business discussions very often, but this week it happened twice. I referenced 'Yonce (if you will) to highlight the flaws in the beliefs we have about what will "probably happen."
Belief #1: If I do the thing that I really want to do (and that I love to do and am really good at), I'll end up hating it.
Belief #2: If I'm not perfect and put together from the get-go, no one will want to work with me ever. I have to start out super "dialed."
I couldn't figure out a good solution to balancing the two approaches because I didn't want to give up on the big dream approach and truly opening to possibilities, but I also knew that there needed to be some structure and discipline to achieving these goals.
It's all about adding layers to the four major areas in your life—health, wealth, relationships and personal development. The idea is that you only have ONE GOAL in each area at a time, for a total of four goals. Of those four, only one is really massive.
Fernanda Bertrand is a interior designer who works with people to help them design a home that truly reflects who they are. Her clients tend to know what they like and dislike as far as style goes, but they have a hard time putting it together so that it's both beautiful and functional. When I first started working with Fernanda, it was immediately obvious to me that her approachability and warmth gives her clients the reassurance and ease they want throughout the design process, and her skills and aesthetic delivers amazing results!
You're spending lots of time and energy on building your business, and it's starting to feel like your head might explode. Your mental energy is constantly being taken up by this business and you're wondering "will I feel like this forever?"
Because if that's the case, you might just cut and run now!
Knowing why you're feeling this way and how it's going to shift will help you push through the hard times. Essentially it boils down to two main things:
