Well, what a fantastic break!!  Clearly my new year’s wishes are somewhat belated, but I finally had to settle back into my little work at home role.  One of the other benefits of working from home – I pick my holidays!!

I hope that you all enjoyed the silly season as much as I.

I was blessed to be able to spend a real chunk of quality time with my family – from my 9 month old Georgia Rae, right up to my Great Aunt and both my Grandmothers.  4 generations still at the dining table and I’m 35.  I am really lucky, as are my children who are getting to experience the joy of being spoiled rotten by not only their grandparents, but great grandparents and a great, great aunt.  Great!  We celebrated Aunt’s 90th birthday in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and my father’s 60th on Saturday night.  A very busy few weeks, but very exciting and lots of fun.

A great finale to 2009 and even better start to 2010.

There are so many messages about our goals and plans for the new year and new decade – so I won’t push the goal-setting, vision creation etc. etc. (this edition anyway! lol).

I will say just a little thing…  LOA is at work, business is already off to a flying start, before I returned!!  Imagine what can happen with appropriate action…

I attended a meeting on Sunday afternoon and was so pumped up when I got home after spending time with other people in the field, sharing in their successes and learning from their experiences.  Remember to think big – it takes no more effort to create something big, than the effort to create something small.  I saw living proof that even the ridiculous and seemingly inappropriate or unachievable goals actually can be reached with some hard work and a strong vision.  Don’t worry about the “HOW” if you have your “WHY” firmly in your sights, the rest falls into place.  I was very blessed to meet the “best” (literally) in the business and am very grateful for the time that this gentleman spent with me and the knowledge he imparted.  I am now positive that I am attracting everyone and everything I need to create the success I desire.

Back to the topic at hand – here is a taste of something really nice to lead us into the future “The Shift”. Enjoy!

Need someone to keep you motivated, boost your enthusiasm and help you achieve your goals?  Need a hand to balance working from home with your children and chores? Maybe you need some fresh guidance to get your business on track.   Feel free to contact me for more information. Take advantage of a free 20 minute consult.

Ph: +61 7 3102 3533
Skype: lisacplunkett
Email: info@workathomeandparent.com

I went to an information evening last night and really enjoyed getting out, meeting people, actually a highlight was speaking with adults!!!  But I didn’t realise how much I missed it, until I was in the midst of it.

Funnily enough this morning, I open my emails and another WAHM I connect with was saying something along a similar vein.

I wasn’t feeling isolated or lonely, nor deprived of social interaction – until I actually had some.  Cyberspace is a friendly place to work, and the comfort of my own home is very convenient, but there is something to getting frocked up, putting on a face and meeting real, live, breathing adults that really reminded me how much I enjoy socialising and networking “in the flesh”.  What’s more,  I had a room over about 150 people – right there in front of me, interested in business, making money, improving themselves and their situation.  There were a large number I could learn from and conversely, a large number that could learn from me.

There is something inspiring about reading a person’s facial expression, seeing their body language and the easy flow of conversation over a coffee or glass of wine.

I know networking and getting out into the real wide world is very important in any business, you shouldn’t just rely solely on the net, but without a partner to babysit and not wanting to impose too regularly on friends and family, I have been a bit slack in that department.

Last night and the little reminder message this morning were just a kind reminder from the universe that I need to continue to interact with real people, not only for my business, but for me, as a woman and individual.  It’s good to chat to people, get a different (and sometimes more honest) perspective to bring you back to reality and remember that all we do in our little online and home office worlds manifests in the outside world as well.

We have to remember that we are more than just a robot, feeding the family and working on the computer when we have spare time.  We have to get out and have fun and do something outside of being glued to the screen all day.

There is a huge client base in your local suburb, just waiting for you to tap into it as well.

I guess I’m just saying, it’s easy to forget the real world sometimes as we can get quite encapsulated in our little routine and work at home environment.

ACTION

Don’t forget “real” people.  Attend local Chamber of Commerce Groups or other groups of interest to keep up your social life or extend your business network.  There is a large market still not online that we shouldn’t forget.

Join a group just for fun – nothing to do with business but to get you some external stimulation and friendships that can be a great relief from working at home and balancing the children.

Need someone to keep you motivated, boost your enthusiasm and help you achieve your goals?  Need a hand to balance working from home with your children and chores? Maybe you need some fresh guidance to get your business on track.   Feel free to contact me for more information. Take advantage of a free 20 minute consult.

Ph: +61 7 3102 3533

Skype: lisacplunkett
Email: info@workathomeandparent.com

World Renowned Author and Business Woman Elinor Stutz wrote this article for one of her publications this week.  Thanks to Elinor for the great article and Thanks to Malathy Drew of Heart-Centered Networking and the Whispering Energy Collaboration for bringing it to my attention.

————————————–
Based upon my own recent experience, I wanted to ask each of you, Are you familiar with the power of collaboration?

Before you enter into any type of business agreement you must know your own rules for conducting business. Where do you draw the line in the sand and say “No, this business isn’t worth it.”?

After you develop your rules, find others who similarly approach business and offer services that complement yours. Interview several until you find the right fit for a collaborative effort. By combining forces, you attract each other’s clientele as well as new prospects who are attracted to your new combined effort.

Imagine finding a select group of people who approach business in a similar manner and who complement one another. Now add teaching classes on your specialty within the group to bring everyone up to speed. You soon have a very savvy group to interact with as a sounding board and as a marketing team.

The right group will become a magnetic power of attraction reaching markets far and wide helping you to increase business.

I am fortunate to have found Whispering Energy, aptly named. Our combined energy has attracted much attention for us as individuals and served us as a whole. We each believe being in business is meant to serve your clients and communities at large.

Final advice comes from my book, Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Realationship Building That Gets Results:

1. Plan quiet time to think about your business
2. Think B-I-G
3. Listen to your intuition

In closing, work to make it a Smooth Sale!
Elinor Stutz
http://www.smoothsale.net

Stick with it!!!

Things don’t just happen overnight and just when you are ready to throw in the towel – that is when it is most important to keep going.

Consistency is the key – in all aspects of what you do.

Your routine – remain consistent, establish a routine for your tasks and actions, they then become habit and you will find that you will be rolling along, getting things done without having to think about it.

Blogging – set yourself a timeframe and don’t let the time lapse beyond your planned timeframe between blogs.  I aim for fortnightly (which is not very frequent), this is because I know that is an expectation I can place on myself that is realistic.   If I fit more in, that’s a bonus for me.  I have more than one venture, so need to consider what I can achieve for each project as well as my children.

Content Writing, product development, packaging (whatever your business ‘does’) – even if you have submitted everything you need for the moment, or are completely up to date, keep going.  There may be a time when you need to take time off and you will have reserves there to draw on.  It also keeps you steady in your routine.

Social Interaction – comment on other people’s walls and profiles, keep your correspondence up to date and your relationships fresh.  Make a habit of saying hi to people on a regular basis.  There is no point having friends on Facebook, Followers on Twitter and forming the relationships if you are not going to nurture them and work on them.  You may never use the relationship for business purposes, but even then, how fun and interesting is it to be pen pals with someone on the other side of the world.  Remember too – any conversation or interaction can give you an idea for something that relates to your business.  Don’t write off people, because they aren’t connecting with your for business.  Who knows where they may be down the track, that may change.

Administrative Duties – boring snoring!!  I know, but a stitch in time saves nine (I use that phrase a lot) a little bit every day stops you have a really big pile at the end of the month.  It’s also easier to remember the details if you do things straight away.  This keeps your office tidier and more inviting to work in as well.

Self Empowerment – a really really really big one.  Can you see the emphasis here?  This is the most important.  Keep up your motivation, renew your belief and faith in yourself and your abilities, keep up your education constantly.  If you believe in yourself and your capabilities feel fresh, well informed and full of vim, you will continue to carry out all of the other tasks you need to with consistency.  This will be taking you step by step closer to your dream outcome.

Don’t forget your vision – this is its own motivator.  Revisit your vision board, vision book or whatever you have your pictures in every single day.  Consistently remind the universe this is what you aim to attract.  Meditate on your dream daily.

Moral to this story:

Consistent efforts will reap consistent results.  Running hot and cold with your efforts will result in delayed results.

ACTION

Ensure you have your timetable / or daily schedule in hand.  Take control of yourself and stick to it.  Be sure to have a vision board or vision book.

Need someone to keep you motivated, boost your enthusiasm and help you achieve your goals?  Maybe you need some fresh guidance to get your business on track.   Feel free to contact me for more information. Take advantage of a free 20 minute consult.

Ph: +61 7 3102 3533
Skype: lisacplunkett
Email: info@workathomeandparent.com

I had a client this week that was really out of whack.  He’d lost his vision and gotten way off track.

What do you do when your get up and go has got up and gone, you’re thinking this is just too hard and you really don’t know how you are going to do it?

Everything is a trauma, nothing is going right, your computer is not working blablabla.

I personally have overcome trauma, overcome  grief, disadvantage and lack of finance.  I don’t say that to bignote myself, but like all of us, we’ve all had our setbacks and honestly, some things you wouldn’t credit a person could emotionally survive.

And yet, we come through…  You know, once things are going wrong and there have been  some hiccups where things are slowing you down, it’s very hard to get going again.  If you lose momentum, it is terribly difficult to regain it.

But you must!!!

First of all you need address  why you are thinking this is too hard and is this really true?  What has happened to shift you from forward to slow, stop or reverse…  I

Look behind your thoughts and feelings.  How can you disect this and change this from negative to positive.  Don’t just throw around some empty affirmations.  I am a believer in affirnmations, but you need to believe in the actual affirmation for it to work.   I cannot tell myself I am Elle MacPherson,  it is not realistic to me so therefore I can’t trick myself into believing it – you must be authentic.  You really need to look into this and find the positive, seek genuine ways to discredit your negative slump.

Get a hold of your schedule (no doubt there will be a week or more of tasks now that you are behind in).  Take some baby steps,  break it down.  Treat yourself like a fragile child if needs be.  Set tiny tasks and reward yourself.  Before you know it, you’ll have completed some of the tasks and you’ll feel that ball start to roll again.

Time management is fantastic but if your motivation is gone, your time management, schedule and everything else can go out the window.  Your schedule gets thrown out.  You can be distracted, look at other things, it doesn’t matter what your plan is, you won’t look at it.   It doesn’t always start through a lack on your behalf.  This is the single largest danger of working at home with children – things happen and you have to stop work to attend to them.  A week with feverish children, sleep deprivation and an untidy house can very easily snowball.

You need to do whatever you can to get you back on track.  It might be another person to check in with each week / fortnight whatever – your accountability partner, having a coach in place.  You need to have measures in place to keep a check on yourself.  If you don’t have any of these, you need to do everything you can to get that “zing” back.

Remember your goals, remember why you are doing this, remember your desired income, your ideal client, remember your children – you don’t want to go back into the workplace.   No work equals no income.

Do some meditation, an energy workshop, whatever you need to do to boost yourself back up.  It doesn’t matter what it is – get your picture / vision board out and look at it, have it in front of you and get your passion back.  This is what you wanted to do – you started it and you need to keep it going.

Moral to this Story:

This happens to all of us!!  Sometimes it sneaks up and we’re in the midst of a slump without even realising it.  Just know that you can overcome it and get back on track.

ACTION:

Have a very clear vision.  Put together a vision board, have some tools ready, just in case you find yourself in a slump.

Full article following this week with more tips and tricks.

Can you be a professional and have vegemite on your pants, a baby on your lap drinking a bottle, a 2yo running around while writing an article with pen and paper because it’s unsafe to use a computer in the vicinity of the kids?

The answer is YES!!

[Dear Lord, that is exactly what I was doing when I drafted this.]

I have just enjoyed a blissful hour while my 2 little treasures had a sleep.  As all good things come to an end, so did their sleep.

So, now I sit, 3mth old Georgia on my lap while I feed her a bottle, Joshua is on the couch with a sandwich (half of which is smeared up my right leg – i.e. the vegemite) and I write longhand leaning on a Dr Zeus book.

I am a huge advocate for separating the “work” from the “family” but when they are this small, it can be quite difficult and deadlines still need to be met.   I know to an outsider, it may not look like I have it all “together”.  If you scratch below the surface however, you will see that sometimes some multitasking goes a very long way.

Whilst others may not see the virtue and some days you wish for a suit and somewhere else to go, remember, your “face” is on the internet – nobody needs to know that you’re not in a suit and heels or tie and that sometimes you have to feed the baby while you put together your proposal.

That, is the huge trick.  Promote a professional image and make sure that your finished work is top of the line, no one need ever know how it got that way.

I just had a whole hour to myself and rehashed my blog site, responded to a pile of correspondence, finished designing my Twitter backdrop and had a quick chat with a client.

My biggest tip is to do everything you can to make sure your presentation is neat and tidy and ACCURATE.  We have a multitude of tools at our fingertips – use them!!  Put some pictures on your page, plan the layouts of your documents or pages, make sure that they look professional.   Add visual interest, it really doesn’t take long.  If you’re struggling in a program – use the HELP function.  You will be given step by step instructions on how to do what you want to do.  Spell-check  and read your work.  I cannot stress that enough –  spell-check everything and read it to be sure, spell-check misses things too.   Use Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, get some exciting vocabulary.   The results of your efforts – that  is what the world sees – not your stained track pants or your dirty dishes.

That, my friends, is the beauty of the internet.

You will feel some days like you’re getting nothing done.  Stick with it, you will find your own system of what works just for you.  When that day comes, you’ll be sitting there smiling – grinning even with your child’s food stuck to you, toys spread all over the floor, baby on your lap, feeling absolutely wonderful about who you are, where you are, what you are doing and how you got there.