Last year, I recorded my final Elite Achievement episode of 2022 (one of my favorite episodes to prepare for and record), where I share my top business lessons learned throughout the year. I love celebrating lessons learned because it reminds us that none of us have it all figured out and that we need courage to excel in business. We need courage to try again, fail, and try something new!
To prepare for the episode, I gathered my journals and read through my Friday Rituals from the year to identify my top lessons. If you haven’t incorporated the Friday Ritual into your business yet, this is your reminder that this practice is a game changer. Not only does the Friday Ritual help you close out your week and start the following one focused on your goals, but it’s also a written history of your year highlighting how much you’ve grown and changed. It can show you themes and what lessons you need to keep learning.
So, let’s get to it. Below are the biggest business lessons I learned in 2022.
The most eye-opening lesson I learned was that how I defined success didn’t match how I measured success.
Earlier last year, I attended an Ellevate networking event, and the leader asked three questions that blew my mind. I’ve listed those questions below.
How do you define success?
How do you measure success?
How has your definition of success changed over time?
As I reflected on my answers, I realized how I defined success and measured success was in conflict. I define success as having choices with how I spend my time, who I spend my time with, and how I spend money. But I measured business success strictly by revenue.
To stay in business, you need to generate revenue to cover your personal and business expenses and enjoy some of the risks you take as an entrepreneur. However, by only measuring revenue, I was going against my definition of success which was having choices with my time. I was adding more and more to my plate and saying yes to every opportunity that came my way. Even with this realization, I still struggle not strictly associating revenue with success, but I am more aware that I need to consider other ways to measure my business success.
Sometimes, you need to let it go!
Somewhere along the way, I developed the belief that to be a successful business owner, I had to generate seven figures. And I was putting pressure on myself to achieve this right away. I think there was some sort of association with proving to myself that I had “made it.” Once I let go of the pressure to have this 7-figure business immediately, things started to take off for me as an entrepreneur. I actually had my best revenue year yet in 2022 (I’m still working on the first lesson).
I also let go of my rigid morning routine. For my OG Elite Achievement listeners, you might recall Episode 7, where I detailed my morning routine. This was the morning routine that helped me launch my business. I needed the structure and the practices I engaged in to grow my confidence and conviction to leave my corporate role and start my business. But this year, I started to feel like I was just crossing off things on a to-do list. The routine was supposed to help me jumpstart my day and make me feel energized and ready to attack my goals, but it actually felt like just one more thing I had to do. So, I decided to simplify my routine.
I let go of the need to read my short-term vision statement, write in my gratitude journal, read, and workout while trying to layer on new journal prompts and meditation. This year, I decided to focus on two things in the morning – working out and meditating. This new focus doesn’t mean that I don’t pull out my gratitude journal from time to time or never read in the morning, but I let go of the pressure to do it all regularly in order to be successful. The result was that I read the most books I ever had in a year in 2022! I achieved my goal of 36 books read with time to spare. I also meditated more than I ever had and was on pace to achieve my meditation goal for the year. Before, I struggled with having a consistent meditation routine.
I’m surprised by how much meditation has helped me lower my anxiety, be more present, and navigate personal challenges. I guess that’s the impact of meditation. You don’t realize it’s working until you go through an intense experience.
I can’t help but wonder if my consistent meditation practice also taught me the power of the pause.
Several times throughout last year, I resisted the urge to say yes on the spot. Instead, I evaluated how the opportunity aligned with my current priorities and if it supported my vision. Somewhere along the way, I learned that to be successful, you have to take quick action. And yes, action is required to achieve your goals, and when we hesitate to take action, it’s usually due to a lack of confidence or fear. But knowing what to take action on is critical for progressing towards our visions.
I’m good at getting stuff done and executing, so my challenge is making sure I’m getting the right stuff done, and this requires not acting on every idea or piece of feedback. I started writing down ideas and coming back to them during quarterly reviews or coaching sessions to evaluate their importance. The result is that I felt a lot less stress and pressure this year in my business.
I also paused when answering some emails. Do you ever notice if you get disappointing or frustrating news via email, your emotions tend to take over? It’s hard for me to think logically in these moments, and usually, my first thoughts are to walk away, give up, or run from the conflict. I frequently broke the productivity rule of never touching an email twice and allowed myself space to think and process after reading an important message before replying and hitting send. Sometimes, I just needed a Peloton ride to clear my mind, and sometimes I needed a couple of days. A little bit of space allowed me to respond more favorably.
I took my first break from releasing new podcast episodes to free up time to re-fresh the show, switch podcast production companies, and plan future episodes. I remember thinking I would lose all of my listeners if I didn’t release new episodes for a month, and I’m happy to report that my fear (like most of our fears) didn’t come true. The pause gave me the space I needed to gain clarity and energy for new episodes, but to achieve this, I had to let go of the pressure I was putting on myself to release two episodes every month.
I’m adjusting to NOT being in hustle mode all of the time. A few years ago, I read the book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, and it’s a concept I think about often. I’m learning to work differently and to appreciate slowing down to speed up.
I also learned a lot about managing feelings of overwhelm and getting stuff done.
I know the feeling of overwhelm all too well – my body feels tense, and I feel the need to speed up. My focus is all over the place, and I usually think it’s a good idea to scroll Instagram. When I recorded this podcast episode, I was coming off of a month of travel – three business trips to facilitate planning days and one personal trip to be with family over Thanksgiving. It was the busiest travel season of my life yet.
Going into that month, I relied on a brain dump to get everything I needed to get done or wanted to get done out of my head and onto paper. This process helped me visualize what needed to happen, prioritize, eliminate, and assign deadlines. Each week I re-wrote the list, and before throwing the old list away, I crossed the things I got done off, which seems pointless since I no longer needed to remember them. Still, any achiever can relate that there is nothing better than the satisfying feeling of crossing something off your to-do list.
You can accomplish a ton in a short amount of time with a focused list and a plan. If you haven’t started the Friday Ritual yet, here is another reason why this ritual rocks. Each Friday, I write down my wins, which grows confidence, and my lessons learned, but I also write out my priorities for the next week and look at my calendar to determine when I need to complete these tasks. I often feel like they all have to get done today (must be the achiever or perfectionist in me), and the truth is they don’t.
As a small business owner, I am constantly making decisions. Decisions around how to best coach my clients, who to connect with to grow my business, what content to feature, what podcast topics will interest my listeners, what books to read to keep growing, and what direction I want to take my business in, to name a few. After work, it’s onto what to make for dinner and negotiating with an eight-year-old and her homework. At times, it feels like I can’t make another decision and that can hinder business growth. I call this decision fatigue!
Throughout last year, I had to make what felt like, at the time, big decisions for my business. I learned I needed to give these decisions a place and time on my calendar. Otherwise, my anxious mind would take over, and I would constantly ruminate and overthink. I’m not great at thinking alone so I would often make a note of these things to think through next to my coaching invites so I could discuss them with my coach. Noting the things I needed to think through on my calendar allowed me to move on and stop thinking about the decisions until it was time to think about them. It’s important to reframe and remind yourself that you don’t have to make every decision today.
Planning ahead works great for productivity and overcoming feelings of decision fatigue, and it’s critical for overcoming sales fears. I learned this year that when I use the excuse, “I don’t have time” as it relates to business development or outreach, it usually means I need to create a plan. A plan of who to reach out to, when to reach out, and why I am reaching out. When my outreach is planned out, I can execute. Consistent outreach is important in a service-based business because when new business opportunities come in, the business that comes off the books doesn’t hurt as badly.
New business conversations create energy and momentum in your business. Consistent outreach sends the message to the universe that you are growing and open for business. I was reminded of this message recently when my work with a handful of clients was complete – some expected and some unexpected. During my travel month, I hadn’t been doing consistent outreach. My initial reaction was frustration, and then I realized I could get back into control by getting back to outreach and scheduling new potential client conversations. I need to remember that I feel better when focused on business development!
I read multiple Friday Ritual entries when preparing for this episode that reminded me, follow-up works.
I must need this reminder because I also mentioned follow-up works in my top lessons podcast in 2020 and in my 2021 episode I said, “I’ve been surprised at how much following up actually works. Let’s be clear, following up does not mean I always get a yes, I still get some no’s, and I still get some not right now’s. But so often, we stop ourselves from following up because we worry.”
Fortunes are made in the follow-up. I don’t remember where I read or heard this, but wow, is it true. I think about some of the clients I’m coaching today that give me a ton of energy, and these clients told me no when I first reached out, but because I followed up at the right time, we are now working together. It’s not always easy to follow up because you have to get out of your own way. You can’t think about fears such as, what will they think of me? Or, is it too soon to follow up? The best way to minimize these fears is to have a process in place for following up. Decide ahead of time how often you want to follow up with someone who said no.
Another lesson I learned last year is that perspective evolves.
As a content creator, I share what I believe to be true at the time. I surprised myself when I was on another podcast last year, and the host asked me about vision timeframe. I used to be hardcore about having a 10-year vision, and during the interview, I said something about how the timeframe is less important than simply having a vision and that you might have a 3-year, 5-year, or 10-year vision. I sort of zoned out of the interview for a moment and thought, what did I just say? I usually answer that question with a confident ten years! But I’ve been on a journey to work in flow, pause, and let things go, and as a result, my perspective on vision timeframe evolved. I’m sure this won’t be the last time my perspective evolves on something I create or talk about.
I’m most proud of the lesson that there is so much power in trusting your gut.
I felt there was a huge opportunity to create and facilitate planning days for my clients. I’ve done them on a one-off basis, but I wanted to systematize the process last year. I worked on my podcast notes for this episode on a flight home from my final planning day of 2022, and I felt so energized and excited about the impact I made for my client.
I’m beyond grateful for my coach for helping me think through these planning days and encouraging me to trust my gut and bring this service to the marketplace. I facilitated planning days with leadership teams and financial advisors to clarify their visions and goals for 2023. If you are reading this and want to learn more about planning days, contact me here. I am already booking 2024 planning days!
There you have it, my top business lessons learned in 2022. If you are in the process of setting your goals for the remainder of 2023, download my favorite vision questions that will help you draft a long-term vision and my breakout plan, which will help you plan and prioritize how to achieve your most meaningful goal.
With that goal achievers, I hope 2023 has been your best year yet!