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Welcome to my business-building series where I take my other area of expertise, building a business plan, and offer authors insights into how to become the CEO of their writing business.
In the summer of 2020, I’m not gonna lie, things were bleak. For most of us.
Business was hard. It was hard to convince authors that parting with their budgets was going to actually give them back a better business and more money, because, duh, pandemic!
And my writing had hit a brick wall. Full stop.
I was in ‘the bad place’. (Any fans of The Good Place here? Forking right!)
And so I did what any self-respecting single-mom, business owner did…I became obsessed with Instagram.
And when I did, I reconnected with a few business owners that I’d followed in the past and purchased from them. One of these business owners, Courtney Foster-Donahue, who, side note, taught me everything I know about Facebook Ads, funnels, OBS, and most recently something she trademarked something called a Pocket Product, talked about one of her clients who had created a Pocket Product that helped women build healthy habits and routines with her miniature product called Right Now Routine. That someone was Shunta Grant.
And this is where my business rejuvenation story begins.
I snapped up Right Now Routine in June and with the methods Shunta taught, the community she offered, and the follow-up group learning experience, I changed the way I thought about being a business owner and the tasks I needed to be performing.
And this, my friend, was the fundamental shift that I owe to where I am today.
It wasn’t a product. It wasn’t a system. Although, both of those would come from it.
But it was a mindset.
I am a #1 Achiever.
For those Becca Syme devotees, you’ll get what I mean, but even if you’re not into the Strengths Finder program, you can assume from the words number one achiever that I like to do things, to get things done and be recognized for it.
I love to work. A lot.
So much so that I had burned out BADLY in 2018/2019 and hadn’t written or published a book in the same amount of time, which was so against what I believed I needed to be doing in order to succeed.
Here’s what I shifted.
Inside of the Right Now Routine program, I created a new daily routine. I decided that I was going to move my evening workout program from 7:00 pm to 5:00 am. Ew, right?
But, for an achiever, committing to a group of strangers with a leader holding you accountable meant there was no way this wasn’t going to happen.
I committed to moving the 7:00 pm workout to 5:00 am for thirty days.
The first few days were easy. The next few days were hideous.
And then suddenly, a week or so in, in early July, it became a habit.
What I found was I now had an entire night free since I had now successfully moved my workout and the dreaded lead-up to the workout and the exhaustion after the workout to the front end of my day.
Now it was time for Phase 2. Get writing.
Habit number two was to write every day in the 7:00 pm time slot.
And so I did. And because I wasn’t trying to fit writing into pockets of my day where my brain was preoccupied, I had room to breathe into the writing.
And thirty days later, I had 62K. Never in my life have I written a book so fast.
Nor do I recommend it for most people. And I probably won’t go at it so hard ever again, but still. It was magical.
Enter Phase 3.
I had set out on this habit and routine journey to reduce the overwhelm and get more done.
Shunta’s ask for Phase 3 nearly knocked me out.
I now had to stop my Socialvert business at 3:30 pm every day and take a break from working. Spend a whole hour every day doing nothing but relaxing my brain and body. During the day. During the week!
And let me tell you, it was HARD.
So, my achiever wrote a list. This way, I felt like I was accomplishing something even though I was still just relaxing.
The first day I felt nauseous not working during the day. Then the same on the second and third day and then it slowly started to shift. And now, I can easily move in and out of work and rest without feeling impending doom.
But there’s a part two to this phase that makes it work and makes my businesses work better.
Because I had a routine and a stop time, I spent my time before stop-work-time, doing exactly what needed to be done and not drifting off into distracting zones where I got nothing done.
If I was going to be done work at 3:30 and then writing by 7, I had to have nothing on my plate by 3:30, otherwise, I’d always chose Holly Darling HQ work over writing.
I am now a focused work machine when I’m working.
Yup, I slip up from time to time.
Yup, I get back into the routine.
Yup, it feels amazing when I do and I don’t beat myself up when I don’t.
But over time, it’s become second nature.
(In full transparency, I don’t work out at 5 am right now. I broke my ankle 12 weeks ago and am waiting for the agony to subside. But I do get up at 5:00 am as if I’m working out!)
So, that’s how I changed my business in 2020.
I’m now happily working on another two books.
The Socialvert is growing wildly thanks to authors like you.
And I’ve cut out all the stuff in my day that made no sense and took all the time away from me.
But the big win is my newfound love of free time and how it makes me a better writer and business owner. It’s all thanks to good personal and business habits and routines.