Blog Episode 2
Back on March 14, 2021, I did a post on my personal Facebook page hinting at how I was feeling the first weekend I started creating systems for my Life Coaching business. The undertaking of starting a new business can be daunting. There are so many different moving parts and elements to it. The financial with taxes, insurance and bookkeeping, the legal with getting registered as a sole Proprietorship, Corporation, an LLC or all the other numerous things a company could become, figuring out contracts, terms and conditions, policies, creating an ethics document for client signature, many forms and documents for consideration.
Then there are the systems. Thank you to my own life coach Susan Hyatt and her team for reminding me of the core questions in what to think about in creating those systems.
What do I as a coach offer?
How do they find me? Website, podcast, blog
How do they schedule with me? Gmail? Calendly?
How do they pay me? Paypal? Cash? Check? Venmo? Zelle?
The number of sites that can help you answer these questions – free and paid is amazing but also overwhelming in what works for you.
Now to give you a little story about the stewed tomatoes. I promise, I will explain how creating systems for my business ties into this food story. lol So when I was a kid, my mom was really good about making meals for us on a regular basis at home. She worked hard to create a menu to give us a pretty big variety even though it landed on a cycle. Of course as a kid I didn’t think of it as a cycle but just her whims for the week. So she was not a gourmet cook but definitely a good cook. Sometimes it mixed processed food with fresh food. Meaning she already had a head start since it wasn’t from scratch but it still had fresh ingredients included. Other times she might cook from scratch if time allowed. So as a kid like all kids, you learn to like certain foods and other foods it may be you don’t like it no matter who prepares it or how or you just don’t like the one version introduced to you. In my case, I just don’t like stewed tomatoes no matter who makes them. However, my mom’s version is what I had to deal with. She LOVED them. Thankfully, it wasn’t an obsession where it was in my face daily. Now in hindsight, it is good for me to note it took me until age 50 before I was willing to like tomatoes in general. Still can’t do cherry tomatoes but you never know, it could happen in the next 50 years.
So I found in my coming up that the weird coincidence of stewed tomatoes always came with a meal that may have one thing I liked, a few things I tolerated because I was hungry and a couple things that were just deal breakers. Thankfully in my older years they finally let go of eat it or don’t leave the table. Can you imagine having that fight with your teenager or older?
On the days this happened, my sinuses literally had an aversion to the meal event. I found I got cranky even before sitting down, I felt tense on top of what ever else was going on that day, I even wanted to just be left alone. Now I am not sure where all of these sensory responses came from but I can say it developed into a habit of my unconscious and an attitude my mom probably didn’t see coming when she cooked them but boy she sure had to deal with it. My apologies to you mama. Now that I know better, I definitely do better.
Anyway, I wish that I had made this discovery of a realization before she passed. Just so she would know me better. I wasn’t being difficult on purpose. I just didn’t know how to articulate my feelings or know what they meant. We get that way in life about a lot of things and in every phase we go thru no matter the event or timeframe. So back to the first day of learning systems for my new life coaching business. Here I was feeling so excited for the things being taught to me in the why and the how, yet the overwhelm I felt, I literally could smell the tomatoes. It was a visceral thing I definitely took note of. How can something I want, have it actually taught to me in the most excellent manner, make me feel this way? I didn’t understand.
There wasn’t anything wrong with with the instruction just like nothing wrong with the tomatoes and they were cooked very well. Was it the amount of work? Was it the type of work? I mean let’s face it, I am a creative type so the legal and financial things aren’t the most fun even though they are the necessary vitamins of a business. We do it (or eat it) because they are good for us. I love organizing, even building my website. I should be in my wheel house for all of this.
More than not, we procrastinate this type of beginning stuff because it doesn’t feel good because we are overwhelmed or maybe we have too much self doubt. But that is keeping us from the good stuff (dessert) and getting started on our dream which is our business and what we want that to mean.
We do this in other things in our life as well. Communication with our partner, going to the doctor, exercise, setting boundaries with our kids and being their parent, not just a friend, putting off travel because of the excuses that keep us grounded at home because of the stories we tell ourselves.
In coaching, I can help you create the plan to help you get over your stewed tomatoes excuse. We have choices. We can sit at the table all evening with our parents mad at us or we can make a small effort to move forward with turtle steps and acknowledge growth and learning are happening within ourselves.
I still need to learn myself, especially when it comes to food, but I now have the tools which I can share with you to turnaround the mindset that prevents us from moving forward.
For more information contact me at:[email protected].