As a new found entrepreneur, you started your business with the intention to be the boss of your own time, to live in your passion and create a life of freedom, amiright? The phrase, “ living with intention,” has been so popular these days, but what does that really mean, why is it important and how can you integrate that into your business? I am going to walk through the 4 ways to create an intentional business that fits your lifestyle, so you can make the dream of living a life a freedom, a reality.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines intention as, “what one intends to do or bring about,” as well as, “a determination to act in a certain way.”
I believe that in order to truly live out your intentions you need both a plan to bring something to fruition and a commitment to act or take action in a certain way. One needs to come with the other.
Intention-setting is a way to live more intentionally and genuinely make progress toward the business you want to create.
What is the difference between an intention and a goal?
Goal setting is creating a specific resolution. It is defining what success looks like for achieving a milestone.
Intentions, unlike goals, are more forgiving. They aren’t there to highlight what you don’t accomplish or to force you to do things you think you should do (and don’t want to) but to give yourself permission to do what you love. When you live intentionally, you do things on purpose.
Why is having intention in your business important?
When you live in intention you realize that you only have one life to live and therefore you take steps to make the most of your life.
Creating intention in your business allows you to enjoy your work more, lessen the tasks that do not serve your lifestyle and take more purposeful steps toward achieving your goals because they hold a higher purpose, to make your life fulfilled.
When you create an intentional business it reduces your overwhelm and makes your actions more purposeful. It helps to redefine what is important and how you focus your efforts. By practicing the art of intention you are giving yourself the ability to grow your brand and increase your level of impact.
Here are the 4 steps to creating an intentional business that fits your lifestyle.
- Clarity
- Strategize
- Redefine
- Execute
Clarity
Think about what’s important to you.
- Where do you want to be?
- How do you want to live?
- What would your ideal day look like?
When you start to get clear on what you want your life to be like personally, you can bring those values into your business model.
After answering these questions, now ask yourself what’s important to you in your business.
- Where do you want to be in your business in 3 years?
- How do you want to work and what is your ideal schedule?
- Where are you now and what would it take to bridge the gap?
Your business should support your life, not burden it. By first thinking about what you want your life to look like, you can build your business to serve that life.
Here is a couple examples:
- If you want to travel often then you need to be able to structure your work events to give you free time to do so. You may need to batch your work so you can enjoy your time off.
- If you want to have more time with your family then you may need to evaluate your working hours, work less hours or refine your client load and when you meet.
Whatever life looks like to you now and in the future, having that vision will allow you to work toward with intention and balance out those changes.
Once you are clear on how you want your business to look like and function, then it is all about clarity of brand:
- message
- audience
- guidelines
- story
With a clear and impactful brand you are able to:
- Communicate the quality and value of your services
- Grow a community of loyal and engaged people
- Attract your ideal customers
- Charge premium prices
and ultimately GROW YOUR BRAND.
Redefine
Hustling, filling your calendar, and packing your days with busy-work, is not the way to get to where you want to be. Being intentional with your time means slowing down to give yourself time to think and reflect.
Knowing “where you are now” is the second step to creating an intentional path on how to get there.
Think about it this way. Once you understand what you're currently doing and how, you can determine what needs to change in order to get where you're going.
Essentially you need to make sure your car is ready for the road trip before you leave the driveway.
Pay attention to how you spend your time. What is working for you and what isn’t? If something isn’t working for you, take steps to change it.
One of the easiest ways to evaluate where you're spending your time is by using the Eisenhower Method. Basically, you put all your tasks into 4 quadrants. Click to download your free template!
From there you evaluate what needs to be done. The goal is to simplify your schedule and align it to your intentions of what really matters and is important in your business.
You can do this through the RADE method:
-
Reevaluate the task
- Take a look at the current process associated with each task and re-evaluate it. Are there patterns, what repeats? How can this be adjusted to be more efficient? Are there tools or resources that may be able to streamline this process for me? Which processes give me the most bang for my buck. If there is no change that can be made then leave the task as is.
-
Automate
- Is there a way to make this repetitive process automated? All automation is, is taking regular tasks and creating systems around them that work completely or almost completely on their own (FYI a system can be as easy as a task list). Otherwise ask yourself if there may be a software that could provide automation for this task?
-
Delegate the task
- When you look at the person doing this task, is it their specialty? Is there someone who can do it better, faster or by giving time back to you, could you be doing something else that gives you a great return on investment of your time? Ask, is it absolutely necessary that I do this task?
-
Eliminate the task
- When you look at the things you are doing, what would happen if you stopped doing them for a week, what would happen. Would they be missed?
Sometimes the answer is letting go and eliminating some of the things you are doing to make room for the life you want and a more curated focus.
One of the hardest things to do, but most impactful as a business owner is to, "say No."
This may be refining your activities or saying no to opportunities if they are not compatible with your ideal client or current strategy.
Another one of the biggest opportunities I see with clients is when they change to relying on systems and streamlined processes, they begin to have more freedom and the ability to work less without impacting their bottom line.
Download the free template to categorize your tasks and see where you can get more time back! Oh, and you may also be interested in my blog How to Get Your Time Back.
Strategize
At this point you have mapped out what you want your personal and business life to look like.
You have essentially identified the, “where” you want to go and now it is the, “how” to get there.
You’re the designer in your business, so you get to decide what it looks like. You may want to take an unconventional route and that is totally okay as long as you define your path in getting there.
It’s time to move forward with a business model that not only makes sense, but that also fits your lifestyle and gets you excited about the work you do.
The art of intention is setting forth both the mindset and goals of getting somewhere. Here are your steps to creating a strategy with intention:
- Create goals that ladder up to your vision of where you want to take your life and your business. Typically I tell clients, three is a good number.
- Within each goal, create the events or , “milestones” that need to be achieved along the way.
- Identify the quarterly, weekly and daily activities that need to occur to get there.
Although this seems tedious, the interesting part is you most likely are already doing these activities, but you have not intentionally categorized them in this way.
Why is this important?
You're in business to make money. Everything you do should have a purpose.
Everything you do should ladder back to a goal that will make you money. Getting intentional with your strategy is a major step in creating a process that enables your growth.
Be flexible
No goal is ever set in stone, you need to be able to flux and change as life requires.
When you're creating your strategy, make sure that it has a level of adaptability to it. If you build your strategy with the ability to adjust and change, you will be more flexible when necessary.
This means that when you need to tweak one area of your business, your whole strategy will not fall apart.
Execute
The ability to take action is the most important step. As the creator of your brand you can do this in a way that feels good to you.
If you are okay with slow, but steady progress, then you should work in that way.
If you want to scale fast, and that means bringing on more resources to help, you do you. As the owner, you get to decide what your pace of implementation is, no one else.
The point is to execute and however you see fit is great as long as you follow through.
All of these tactics are those I embrace in my coaching / consulting program, “Reinvent Your Strategy.”
We work through each of these pillars in an intentional way that is right for your business. My clients come to me when they need:
- to get unstuck from a problem they are facing.
- to curb the overwhelm that comes without having direction, a coach or a solid plan in place
- streamline their sales process
- to map out a plan for their growth or large projects they are pursuing
- Set clear and intentional goals for the upcoming quarter
- to work through mindset challenges that hold them back from making more money.
- to manage the fears and doubts they have as they are rising to the next level in their business
- identifying ways to grow more while working less
They find that the ability to work at their pace and have a 1:1 coach that meets their vibe and gets the in’s and out's of what it takes to scale brings both clarity and comfort.
Isn't coaching expensive?
The investment becomes just an exchange of energy rather than that of an expense because my clients know that the return is upwards of ten times what they would spend.
For some, they don’t like stocks, gambling, even messing with their fluid income, but they know that investing in a coach is an investment in themselves.
It gives them peace of mind, personal development, and greatly outweighs the risk of going it alone without direction.
If this is you and you're looking for someone to meet your vibe, grow your business with intention and create a plan for growth, let’s chat.
My no b.s. approach will set you at ease and for those of you that feel intimidated by the phone, this is a no pressure, no hard sell call. It allows you to tell me where you are at, what your biggest blocks are and for me to give you feedback.
