186 - Practical Steps to Improve Time Management
Episode 185 of the Life Coach Business Building Podcast
Does it feel like there always needs to be more time to do what you want or need to do in your business?
I’ve felt that way plenty of times. I always said, 'I don't have enough time.' I felt trapped by time. I didn’t have the time to do everything I wanted for my business.
I knew I needed to break the cycle of letting that be my go-to thought, so I got lots of coaching. I even set the intention to solve this when I attended a recent event hosted by Tonya Leigh, founder of the School of Self-Image. During this event, I was able to work through this limiting belief and shift into one of abundance.
And so for this week’s episode, I will be sharing about my transformative experience at the SOSI South event in November, led by Coach Tonya Leigh. We’ll explore ways to stop obsessing about time, focus on just being present, and look for possibilities to make time work better for you.
Stay tuned until the end for insights and practical tips on managing your time, intentionally showing up differently, and creating more spaciousness in your coaching business and everyday life.
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Transcript:
Preview: All of the to-do things on your list, is it necessary? All of the things that you do in your business, all the things that I talked to you about doing, are all of those particular tasks necessary for you? You don't have to do all of them. So, what are the things that you choose to do that you can comfortably do, that you can be present in, that you can do efficiently that will help to create the results you want in your business? How can you feel more spacious in your everyday life? How can you feel more spacious as you coach clients?
Intro: Hello, I'm Debbie Shadid, the host of the Life Coach Business Building podcast. If you are ready to have more clients in your life coach business, then you're in the right spot. Each week I'm gonna teach you super simple strategies to grow your business without feeling overwhelmed and without spending money on paid ads. If that sounds interesting. Stick around and let's get started.
Welcome. I want to talk to you guys today about an experience that I had at an event that I was able to attend in November. I am a follower and a fan and part of the School of Self Image that is led by Coach Tonya Leigh. If you do not know who she is, you should definitely go check her out and I will leave all of her details in the show notes.
I was able to attend an event that she hosted in November called SOSI South. It was a two day event where I was going to have the opportunity to work on myself, not on business, but on me. And I want to bring this conversation to you because I think that you're going to relate. I set the intention when I decided to attend this meeting to solve one problem, and I think it's a common problem that many of you have. And so I want to share my takeaways. Thanks to Tonya, I actually got the result I was looking for as she led us through two days of coaching and questions and teaching and really helping us explore kind of our next level.
So I set the intention. The intention was I was going to solve my mindset drama and mindset block that I had about time. Now who can relate to this? I don't have enough time. That was like a broken record in my mind. I have been getting personal coaching from my regular life coach all year long about this same story that I kept telling myself. So that's the intention that I said. I thought I want to break the belief that my life, my business is limited by the time that I think that I have. I felt like my business was contained without any possibility of growth because I'm “maxed out”. So how many of you feel that way?
My focus had been all year long on not having enough time and I have to say that the “not enough” theme went into many other places. It was “not enough sleep”. “I didn't get enough rest”. I didn't have enough this, enough that. Can you guys relate? I think I was in the habit of thinking just that I didn't have enough time.
Have you ever had an automatic thought like that? I wonder what your go to place is. So every time somebody presented an opportunity to me, I would think, Oh, I don't have enough time or when I thought about growing my coaching business, which by the way, has grown phenomenally fast and so fortunate and so blessed. But I have such a big vision for my business. And as I thought about how to expand, I kept thinking. I don't have enough time to serve people at the high level that I want to serve them at and grow my business and be a grandmother and be a wife and play pickleball and do all of the other things that I wanted to do.
So how could I rethink about time? I want to ask you to ask yourself this question. What would help you feel better about time? I had to say, Well, I need time away to feel better about time. I needed time to think to get away. Do you give yourself that time? That was the opportunity that I had at SOSI South. I intentionally gave myself time to solve this problem. And I love going to retreats. Look, I love coaching. Period. If you are not working with a life coach, you should be. I love taking that time, the time away, the time away from my business, the time to not be obsessing about everything else that needs to get done.
I wanted to plan ahead and I want to be in the moment. That is how I feel better about time, when I have a plan, when I can be living in the moment, and when I feel like I'm not rushed. So we spent two days learning. Tonya asked so many incredible questions. She had so many segments that we're all really themed around having your best life, but I kept bringing myself back to the same intention. How does this particular session, and I don't want to give away all the secrets because you need to work with Tonya Lee in the school of self image. So go there and join. But I needed to bring every single topic back to the same intention. How do I help this one topic solve my mindset block with time?
So during one discussion, I answered a question that Tonya asked from the stage. And I said, Oh, I don't have enough time. That's my problem. And she said, Well, that's interesting. How can you expand in the time that you have? How can you expand in the time you have? Now I'm sure I'm not getting this exactly right. But that was like, Well, what do you mean expand? I'm already full. I'm already doing everything I can do, but really what else could be available for me? How else could I think about that?
So I'm going to challenge you. How else could you think about time? If you also have this, I don't have enough talk going on. How can you figure out how to make time work for you? What if you had enough time? How can I? Those were questions that I had to journal about and think about. And I had to figure out how I could feel abundant with the time that I had.
Now I want to tell you the biggest takeaway that I had. I did get to the point where I realized, wait, I have all the time that I need. I'm not actually in a race. The only race I have is against my own time clock. And what was the reason why I had that? It wasn't actually getting me anywhere faster. In fact, the big takeaway that I had is that the time clock that was ticking in me was actually keeping me from being present in my life. So I was thinking about other things while I was trying to do the one thing that I had time to do.
So, if I was with my granddaughter, I was thinking about work. If I was at work talking to one client, I was thinking about the next thing. How many times have you done that? So I realized that I couldn't feel abundant with time because I wasn't even giving myself the opportunity to be present in the time that I had. So it really got me thinking I could stop obsessing about time and focus on just being present in the time that I had. And I'll tell you, this is the power of coaching. In a moment like that, I felt free of the burden. I did have time to accomplish whatever I needed to accomplish. I realized time didn't have power over me. I had power over time. I think I had shut off my own intuition by overworking, by not resting, by pressing myself, by being so rushed. I was checking email. I was hurrying up in everything I was doing. I was multitasking. Now, what value is there in any of that?
So what did I do? I decided how does a Debbie who is present in her life and who feels calm and feels connected with the time that she has, what does she do to intentionally show up differently? I'll mention to you in my business that meant that in an email maybe I take one extra minute to just not check it off that I answered that email. I'm the overachiever, check it off and get it done. But to take one extra minute to really add one sincere hello how are you doing, right? You can type that out. But if you're not really connected at that moment, you know, the person receiving it knows it. They see that you're in a rush when you write it.
So I thought I'm going to slow down and answer emails just in a little more thoughtful way. When I drop into my Facebook groups and I have two client Facebook groups and I have a speaker group for my summit and I have an attendee group for my summit attendees, I have lots of things going on, but I thought, you know, instead of making the goal to answer every single question in the Facebook group, I'm going to be more thoughtful in the responses that I have with the messages that I do answer.
In my coaching practice, I thought, stop looking at the clock. Yes, I have a schedule to keep just like you do, but be present when somebody is talking to me. What about just enjoying my 1st cup of coffee of the day? Instead of thinking, all right, hurry, hurry, hurry, get on with your day, get the things done. You know, I was always trying to figure out how to get dinner plans, get a load of laundry going, get the dishwasher unloaded, get myself ready and get all to the office as quickly as possible. So, what if I didn't have to do all of that in that time frame and I want to say, all of us work for ourselves. All of us create our own schedule. All of us are in charge of the freedom that we feel. So I decided I wanted to listen to my daughter, really listen to her. I wanted to be with my granddaughter without anything else going on. I wanted to just pour into my clients by just paying attention to them. They weren't not getting the attention that they expected. But I wasn't right there present with every word.
So look for the possibilities in your own schedule to see where there is more time. Where can you be more present? Where can you slow down the race that's going on in you? So where do you have time? How can you make time? One of the things I recommend is really just looking at what you're doing and asking yourself, Is it necessary? All of the to-do things on your list, is it necessary? All of the things that you do in your business, all the things that I talked to you about doing, are all of those particular tasks necessary for you? You don't have to do all of them. So, what are the things that you choose to do that you can comfortably do, that you can be present in, that you can do efficiently that will help to create the results you want in your business? How can you feel more spacious in your everyday life? How can you feel more spacious as you coach clients?
So think about your extraordinary goal and think about your 2024 and look and isolate what it is you need to change. For me, thank you, Tonya Leigh. I got that shift that I needed about time just by realizing I had all the time. What I didn't have was presence and peace with the time that I did have. So look and see for yourself before you start this new year. What is it that you need? What is it that you need to solve? How do you set the intention to stay after that one thing till you get to a place where it's released from you?
Again, I had spent months. And I'll do another podcast talking about my personal life coach, but I spent months talking to her about time. She'd heard me talk about it like a broken record. Oh, I don't have time to do that. I don't have time. I'm too busy. I'm too busy. And then finally, I took the time and I invested in myself to sit down and spend time away and the opportunity presented itself with SOSI South to be able to be there for two days and work on myself and to free myself from this bondage that I had about time.
So what do you need to work on to reach your extraordinary goal in 2024? What do you need to shift your perspective on? Where do you need to stop overdoing, overgiving? That's not really serving you. Where do you need to show up more authentically, more present, more engaged in your life and in your business?
All right. I hope that this was useful to you. Take the time to ask yourself those questions. Take the time to get some coaching. Find somebody who can support you. I want to invite you to register for the Design Live Thrive Summit. Let me tell you just briefly. This year's summit, which is January 12th and 13th, has 27 speakers and 3 guest speakers. We'll be announcing the guest speakers soon, but this is going to be incredible. 27 women are going to come and they're going to teach you about the very thing that I'm talking about. They're going to help you be able to expand your life and be able to solve whatever it is that's going on for you. We have coaches that will be talking about overthinking, about decision making, about really just being able to manage your mindset, so many other things, wellness, weight loss, all the things that you need to tap into and to learn how to create a life where you can design it on your terms. You can live and you can thrive in 2024.
All right. I know that I'm going to be thriving in 2024 because I'm free from the bondage of thinking. I did not have enough time. So, I welcome you to entertain the same idea and join us for the design life summit. Tonya Leigh, thank you. You're an amazing mentor coach. Thanks for giving me the opportunity and thanks for taking me on the journey where I was able to solve the challenge that I had with time. All right, you guys, I hope this was useful and you can create magical results in your life too. Until next time. Bye bye.
Outro: Okay, ladies, that is it for today. Before we go, I want to invite you to head over to debbieshadid.com. I have this incredible Canva training, specifically designed for life coaches where I'm gonna teach you how to use Canva to create beautiful graphics to market your life coaching. All right. Have an amazing week. I'll talk to you very soon. Bye bye.