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- Start your year off on the right foot, download my Content Planner today!
- Save 10% on any item in the Chasing Simple Shop by using the code LISTENER at checkout! Just head to amandawarfield.com/shop/ and again, that code for 10% off is LISTENER!
- This week’s action step: Send me a message on Instagram and tell me what your number 1 goal is for 2023.
- This week’s book recommendation: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas.
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
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Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate
[00:00:00] You’re listening to episode 143 of the Chasing Simple Podcast. I am so glad you’re here. My name is Amanda Warfield, and I am your host, and I, again, am just so pumped that you’re here, whether you’re a new friend or you’re an old, welcome back. I’m really excited about today’s episode. This episode is, as I’m sure you’ve seen a bit longer than my normal episodes.
[00:00:22] It’s just a really fun conversation. This is always one of the favorite episodes of the year. If you’re an old friend, you know that every quarter I do eight conversations over coffee episode where I can just kind of pull back the curtain and talk about what it is that I’m doing in my business. Well, This one, the first one of the year for quarter one is always a goals edition.
[00:00:45] And so what I’m doing in this episode is I’m going over my goals from last year and kind of talking through what they were, what happened, which ones I hit, which ones I didn’t, and then I’m talking about. My goals for this year, and I do this both for both businesses and the personal side of things, so it does kind of get a bit lengthy, but if you want that super peak behind the curtain, this episode is for you.
[00:01:11] With that, we’re gonna go ahead and
[00:01:17] now I do just want to give a quick disclaimer. because this episode is goals based, and I don’t set my goals until the end of Jan or the end of December, early January when I batch recorded all of the January episodes back in November. I didn’t ha, I didn’t have my goal set, so I couldn’t batch this episode with the rest of.
[00:01:45] and couldn’t send them to my editor, and I am now recording this right before it airs, and I frankly just don’t have the time to do a ton of editing myself. And if it sounds not as great quality as it normally does, that is why. We will be right back to your regular, fully edited episodes next week, but that that’s kind of what’s going on.
[00:02:11] I just wanted to be fully honest and transparent with you on that because again, as much as I would love to sit here and edit this episode and make it really nice and professional sounding for you, there’s a reason I handed my episodes off to an editor in the first place, and I just don’t have the time for it, and it’s not as much of a priority as some of the other things on my to-do list.
[00:02:31] But because this episode is so beloved, I felt like it was worth waiting until I could record it and record it well for you, and then put it out there for you. So with that, we’re gonna go ahead and just hop on into the episode.
[00:02:53] How do I run a successful business from my home? How can I possibly wear all of the hats? Am I the only one that struggles with staying organized? What am I supposed to do about work-life balance? How can I create a solid schedule and routine? How do I even stay productive? And the biggest question of all, how do I manage it all?
[00:03:14] And can I really create a business that I love without being chained in my laptop? Welcome to the Chasing Simple Podcast. We’re hard conversations and actionable education meet. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, time management coach, online educator, and crazy Cat mama. My mission is to help overwhelm biz owners get more done and less time so that they have more time and energy for what matters most.
[00:03:38] If you feel overwhelmed or occasionally lost in the rollercoaster that is entrepreneurship, I want you to know that you aren’t. Those things you’re feeling, you aren’t the first or the last to feel that way. The hard things you’re going through, someone else has already been there too. Each week I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and a judgment free community to encourage and equip you.
[00:04:02] So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whenever your drink of choices and meet Mimi here each week for love. Practical tips and advice on simplifying your biz. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?
[00:04:20] Are you looking to improve your content without spending a ton of time and mental energy doing so? Whether you’re looking for help, knowing what to talk about, setting up content systems, or improving your launch strategy, the Chasing Simple Shop has something for you from a year of content prompts broken up by type of content to my launch strategy Minicourse, which will teach you my entire strategy.
[00:04:43] Launching your upcoming online course. The Chasing Simple Shop is the quick and simple way to take your content to the next level, and you can get 10% off any item Just for being a listener of the Chasing Simple Podcast by using the Code Listener at checkout, just head to amanda warfield.com/shop. And again, that code for 10% off is listen.
[00:05:08] let’s start with last year. So my word of the year last year was shift . And man, it is always ironic feeling when you look back on your word of the year. If you, if you have ever, or if you do choose a word of the year, I’m sure you know what I mean. But if you don’t or you’ve never done that before, choosing a word.
[00:05:34] You usually have some sort of your own vision and intention for what that means in your life for the year. And then life tends to throw you things that still seem to fit under that category. And it just is always something. So my intention last year was to start shifting my. My mindset and my focus away from my businesses so much because I have a real struggle with finding my worth and my work with finding my worth and how successful my business is at any given point with finding my worthiness on if I’m actually hitting my goals or not.
[00:06:15] And I have a very strong tendency to. the rest of my life, my relationships, myself, taking care of myself has been on the back burner for so long, and this was really exacerbated by the pandemic because, you know, it was one the, just the overwhelm. The overwhelm, the game with the pandemic made it so that I wasn’t inclined to do a lot to take care of myself.
[00:06:45] It made it so that I really struggled to find a, because we moved back. I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times at this point, but if you haven’t, we moved back home f to South Carolina to Aiken right before the pandemic started , and I didn’t have a church home yet, and so finding a church home became really hard, which for me personally, that is a really important part of who I am.
[00:07:11] I. I tend to pour a lot of time into my church community, and I tend to be really involved there. Uh, it’s just a large part of who I am. Um, and it’s especially important to me because my husband’s not a Christian, and so it’s how I get that that side of me filled up, like that part of me really filled up and it, it really does form the foundation for how I feel about life in general, typically.
[00:07:38] So, Wasn’t, it wasn’t happening. Uh, recreation, not really happening because we weren’t leaving the house. Family, friends, relationships, nothing. I, it was so hard to give all of those things my attention because it just felt so overwhelming to try to work around the barriers that the pandemic put up. And, you know, we all did the best we could with those boundaries and barriers and.
[00:08:05] some things got cultivated to some small extent, but not as much as I would like. And because of that work really filled in that gap and it didn’t help that, that was when my business really took off was during the pandemic. Um, coincidentally I think not actually because of the pandemic necessarily, but just coincidentally that’s when my business really finally gained traction and.
[00:08:32] because it was, when it was gaining traction and I, I, I had all this extra time and space and mental energy to fill it, just filled it. And I have always struggled with perfectionism and feeling worthy and enough, and it really just led me into this situation where at the end of 2021, I said, this is enough and I am going to shift my focus.
[00:08:57] My business is not gonna be my main focus. , I still am going to work, right? And I’m still going to take care of it. And, and I want to grow it still. I’m not done with my business, but I wanna pour into myself was my big thing. So that was my word of the year, and that was my intention with it. Well, they were a lot of shifts in life last year, um, that I didn’t see coming and that they, they hit hard and.
[00:09:31] Yeah. Just cutting people out of my life that needed to go. And there, there was a lot, there was a lot that happened. Um, and so without going into all that, because it would just be a very long conversation and not actually a fruitful conversation. It was a lot and there was a lot of shifts that I didn’t see coming and I didn’t.
[00:09:51] That I had to kind of roll with the punches with. So word of the year, always ironic, but that was my word of the year last year and it truly, truly was lived out. So that was interesting. My goals for last year, I’ll start with the business ones because I’m sure that’s what you’re most interested in. For the marketing agency, for Amanda Warfield, llc.
[00:10:14] My revenue goal was 50,000. I. either right under or right over 45,000. So really close to that goal. Really excited about that. That was in 2021. Let’s see, my revenue was about 28,000, so a pretty good increase. Um, pretty excited about that. And my other goals were to not have any new offers last year, which didn’t actually pan out.
[00:10:45] Uh, I ended up opening the shop, which has a bunch of new offers in it and yeah, that, that, that didn’t. that didn’t stick around, but because I opened the shop, I actually feel really excited about not really creating new offers this year, which we’ll get into in a moment. So didn’t happen last year, but it, it’s not a goal this year, but it, I think is going to.
[00:11:10] be more in alignment this year, I’ll say that I also had a goal of two speaking opportunities per month, which I did hit. They varied more like I averaged two per month. Some months I had like four, some months I only had one or none. But I did end up doing about two per month and that’s something that I’m upping this year for sure.
[00:11:31] It was nice, it was a good goal, but it honestly didn’t feel like it was enough. So I not only, and we’ll get to this, I’ll up ’em. . I also will wanna do more intentional speaking opportunities next year. And then I had a goal to grow club content batching, and I didn’t hit the number of students I wanted. I wanted 21 new students total, but I’m pretty happy with where that landed regardless.
[00:11:57] So those were my four big goals for the marketing agency last year, the travel agency. , I learned a lot last year. I’ll say that my revenue goal was 26,000. I don’t even remember off the top of my head what I hit, but it was nowhere near that, uh, not even close. 48 clients. I think I signed seven. I wanted to get my website set up and my email funnel set up.
[00:12:25] I did do that. My website was launched. It looks incredible. I think it looks incredible. Um, I’m really happy with it. I’m still really happy with the email funnels that I have set up, and I just did a basic, here are the segments that I think I’m targeting, and here’s a welcome sequence, and that was really it.
[00:12:41] And I’m just walking people through the welcome sequence and then into my newsletter. But that is the basis for building off of what will come in the future. And then, I had really hoped to save for a down payment to buy a property. I think I’ve talked about this on the podcast a couple times now. We originally intended to kind of do some Airbnbs.
[00:13:01] I don’t think that’s, that’s not a, a track we’re probably gonna take any longer. We’ve decided, and so that that goal did not happen and has been completely thrown out the window. My other goals, so first one on the top of my power sheets last year, health and wellness, and I. wanted to be someone who took care of themselves.
[00:13:23] I wanted to find a therapist, was a big goal of mine and I did do that. I’m still continuing on with therapy this year. Like I said, with that shift that happened, all the shifts that ended up happening, really glad I did that right off the bat last year. Um, and I made progress. with taking care of myself.
[00:13:42] You know, I’ve started to be better about drinking more water, about actually feeding myself breakfast. I skipped breakfast for like my whole life up until now, and healthier snacks, healthier eating, working out more. And not for the sake of like being thin, but just for the sake of feeling better. And I did notice that I, I, I’m not as,
[00:14:06] I’m still tired a lot, but I’m not as tired as I used to be and I just feel better mentally. So that went well. I still have a lot of work to do. I’ve talked about this on the podcast, um, either in past episodes or upcoming episodes, but they’ve been recorded already about just my journey with burnout and what that ended up looking like and how I got to this place of overwhelming myself because.
[00:14:31] You know, I, I started off last year really wanting to be present and to take care of myself and to not tie my worth to my work. But what I ended up doing was I set up all these boundaries to take care of myself better, and then I didn’t scale back on my expectations for how much I was gonna get done.
[00:14:51] And so that, that led to some difficult things. I’m still working through that, frankly, as I’m. Recording this on January 11th. It’s my first official week back in office, and I’m feeling like I may have, I may need to scale back even further than I thought. So that’s a work in progress, but that was something that I wanted to really hone in on and take care of.
[00:15:13] It’s myself, and that meant moving my body more, drinking more water, feeding myself food that’s gonna fuel me versus just, and don’t, don’t get me wrong, I’m not, I’m not great. But I made improvements. I’ll say that.
[00:15:30] marriage wise, I had a goal of just like quality time, making sure that we were getting out and taking trips and we took so many great trips last year. We did have an issue where one of our trips to our trip to Hawaii got totally canceled the day of, which was so upsetting. But we had, we spent a week at, at the beach in Charleston, which is, you know, where we lived when we got married.
[00:15:51] And uh, it’s just our faith. It’s where we met actually too, and. It’s one of our favorite places. The food’s incredible down there. I love the beach and the, the hot weather. And so we spent a week down there. We did a week at Disney World, which was the best. I did Disney quite a few times. I traveled for speaking engagements.
[00:16:10] We went to um, Columbia, South Carolina, which is where we both went to school and isn’t that far, but we spent. not a whole week, but you know, four or five days there. Just kind of getting to enjoy the city as tourists and that was really fun. Uh, we had some other trips in there too, but that was something that I really wanted to focus on last year is just quality time with Russell, because again, with the pandemic, we had spent a lot of time together.
[00:16:35] but we hadn’t been spending a ton of quality time. Oh. And we, I started golfing also was another thing that’s something that Russell loves. He does not do all of his golfing with me. He does a lot of golfing with friends and then even just by himself. But I started golfing as well, which also it led to more quality time and taking care of myself and being outdoors and more active.
[00:16:55] So that was, that was a nice improvement to actually start spending better quality time together versus just time. with friends and family, same kind of thing, better quality time. Being more intentional about checking in and being present. That can get so difficult, and I am the worst about seeing a text message come through and then responding in my head and never actually responding.
[00:17:22] So that was something, I’m still bad at that, but continuing to just cultivate relationships and being intentional about relationships with my friends and my. spiritually. I really wanted to find a new church, like I said at the pandemic, made it so that I didn’t have a home church. Um, I attempted to go back to the church that I grew up in and just, it wasn’t the right fit any longer.
[00:17:47] And so I knew I needed to find another church, but I really struggled with that entire process. Um, there was a lot of grieving that had to happen. one for leaving the church that I had in Washington that I loved so much, and then two for I’m a weirdly loyal person, and so the idea of not attending the church that my entire family goes to, that I was baptized in, that I was confirmed in that I grew up in that we got married in.
[00:18:22] That was a really difficult thing for me to wrap my head around and accept. And so that took honestly months of me saying I was gonna try a new church. And it just felt, it felt disloyal. Um, but I did, I did about, you know, may June start attending another church and it was a really great fit right off the bat and I’m really, really happy to be there.
[00:18:46] So that was one that I can, I can say yes, I definitely checked that off. That feels. , um, our finances, I didn’t really have a goal necessarily. I wrote like comfort, not excess, but really I just had some tasks that I wanted to do. And that really comes down to like every year we just reevaluate our budget in January and say, okay, what changes are we making?
[00:19:07] Um, and then recreation more rest, which. Kind of goes along with the health and wellness thing. I wanted to start doing hobbies and pursuing hobbies and just having time and not feeling guilty for resting and all that fun stuff. So those were my 2022 goals and how they turned out. So if you listen to this episode last year, now you’ve got that full circle of that’s what I intended and this is what actually happened and how I feel about it.
[00:19:35] I will say before I move into 2020, . I have always been a major proponent of power sheets. I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about them more than once. Probably. I decided around October that I was not gonna use the goal planner for 2023 in September. We did a lot of traveling. We did um, like eight days at Disney.
[00:20:05] And then I also did. . I went to a conference, Sobo, which was in Charleston, which was great. Uh, spent a week in Charleston for that in September, and then it was a little more than a week because I ended up having to extend my stay for, um, a funeral. But two weeks out of that month I was out of town. And then we also, our season ticket holders for our school for football.
[00:20:31] And so there were weekends where I, it was just a lot. And I ended up not using like. Accidentally not using my power sheets in September. And then about mid-October, I realized that I had never filled out the October form, and it got me thinking about whether or not the power sheets were good for me. And I’m not saying whether or not power sheets are good.
[00:20:58] That’s, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying for me right now in this season of life that I’m in, When I first started using power sheets around the time I started my business, they were everything that I needed. They helped me learn how to set goals. They helped me align my goals with what I wanted and where it was going.
[00:21:17] They helped me figure out how to get things done. They were great. at this time in my life with everything that I went through and learned this year about taking care of myself and with the way I tie my worth and my productivity to checking things off and accomplishing things, not just in business, but also in general.
[00:21:42] It, I realized that it was not, it was not the move for me, and so this. Because what was ended up happening was even though power sheets tells you, again, this is not a failing of power sheets or cultivate what matters or anything like that, this is a, an Amanda failing, even though they tell you don’t use all the lines, I, I have this compulsion to use all the lines and then I don’t check off hardly any of the goals and I get frustrated and I feel like a failure and it’s this cycle every single month that just wasn’t healthy for me.
[00:22:13] So I personally am not using. A goal planner at all next year at all. I wrote out on in good notes a digital piece of paper, what I wanted my goals to be, and I broke those down and put them in my um, , my Trello board with my action steps, and I’m gonna manage my projects that way. And that’s, that’s just kind of it.
[00:22:47] I’m not doing, I’m not doing a whole goal planner this year. So that’s, that’s where that lands. Um, and that’s, that’s why I, I just, I know it’s not healthy for me and I’ve set goals. , and that’s all I’m gonna set. I’m not gonna set extra because I feel like I need to fulfill a category or because I have lines that I need to fill for the month or anything like that.
[00:23:10] So my word of the year for 2023 is servanthood. And this came to me in church one Sunday. Um, as I kind of let all of my words of the year do, I just let them come to me and then kind of feel ’em out from there. But what I really wanna focus on this. is serving others. Serving myself well by taking care of myself and continuing with that practice, but also with serving others well.
[00:23:40] I want to make sure that in business, I’m serving my students and my clients and my audience. Those of you that listen to this podcast, that follow me on TikTok or Instagram that I’m. serving well and focused on the serving aspect more than the other side of things. Yes, it’s still a business, obviously.
[00:23:57] I’m very passionate about that. I know, again, I’m not sure if it’s before or after this one because like I said, I’m recording this episode differently than I normally record my other episodes. But if you haven’t listened to all of the episodes either, I don’t, around around this episode. , it could be as far out as February.
[00:24:17] I talk about the fact that, you know, we can’t be squeamish about selling because we’re a business and we have to own the fact that we’re a business. And I’m not saying that I’m not gonna do that, but I also do want to really focus on serving well, but also in my personal life, you know, serving my husband while serving my family members, while serving my friends.
[00:24:40] Well, just getting in that mindset. , how can I help others and how can I put others in the, the viewpoint view what I’m doing through a lens of helping others, uh, versus helping myself or whatever other thing. And again, that’s not to say. . I feel like people are gonna hear this word and be like, what’s wrong with you?
[00:25:10] Uh, it’s very nuanced. I, I’m still gonna take, serve myself well and take care of myself, but I do think as a culture we can sometimes shift too far into, it’s all about me and you can take it or leave it and I’m me and this is how I am. And if you don’t like me, get out. But also, relationships are a two-way street.
[00:25:31] Y putting in work to be there for others and serve them well, I think is important. So that’s my word of the year for this year. And then my business goals, um, I’ll start with Amanda Warfield again, just because that’s really the one I feel like you’re most invested in since this is the podcast for that business.
[00:25:53] But my big revenue goal is 70,000 for this year. I’m aiming. For a hundred thousand. So when I did my revenue mapping inside of the content planner this year I revenue mapped for a hundred thousand. But my goal is 70,000 other goals I have. I want to sell or book 20 v i p days of my launch strategy, v i p days.
[00:26:21] I want to improve the. , I launched the book, of course, um, rebranding. And then I really wanna focus on my networking, my funnels in taking work locations quarterly. Uh, I don’t know if it all actually do that quarterly or if it’s something I’ll start later in the year, but I wanna get in a rhythm or at least start getting a rhythm of that.
[00:26:45] So the launch, v i p days 20 is my goal. And if I hit that, if I don’t, like I said, I have a, an aiming for revenue goal and then also an actual revenue goal, but my ongoing one-to-one client spots are totally full. And so this is the best way that I can help serve on a one-on-one basis instead of just being like, sorry, I don’t have anything, go to the shop.
[00:27:09] But there are a lot of people who want that. Like, here’s my product and my offer and I need you to tell. , what to do for my launch and what to say when, and I need the launch strategy and the marketing strategy help me out. And because I’m not taking any more ongoing clients, the v I P days is the best way to do that.
[00:27:26] So got a goal of 20 of those. Again, that 20 came from the revenue mapping. It’s not a random number that I pulled out of a hat. The improving the shop. This one really ties back to that servanthood idea of, okay, how can I serve others well as I run my business? And so what I’m doing, I opened the shop last year.
[00:27:47] This year I’m going through and every single month I am improving one of the items in the shop and giving it just like a total overhaul because a lot of it. . When I opened the shop, I took things that I already had and I didn’t improve them. Then it was a, I just needed to get the shop open and kind of see how things go and which products people are interested in, which ones are getting clicked on.
[00:28:08] It was really data finding for the first six months or so, uh, since I launched it in July, it was really data finding and so now it’s like, okay, I need to go in and improve. The ones I know, I’m gonna keep, get rid of some products and month by month I’m just gonna one at a time. Give total overhauls to the different items and different offers in the shop to make them better and to serve all of my people better.
[00:28:34] Launching the book, I feel like that one’s pretty self-explanatory. I still need to name this thing. I am so bad about naming things. July 26th. Book’s coming out. So exciting. I just don’t know. I don’t know what I’m gonna call it yet, and I need to figure that out soon. It goes to the editors soon, the first of my editors soon, and the ball’s really moving with it.
[00:28:56] So I’m, I’m excited. It’s, it’s in this moment, it doesn’t feel real. I think it felt the most real when I was actually doing the writing, but also because I wrote it in a week basically. That part was so short-lived that it just feels like a dream Sometimes they’re like, oh, I’m actually writing a. Or I’ve written a book, but now I’m actually, I’m gonna launch a book.
[00:29:18] I, it’s crazy, crazy, uh, rebranding. It is time. It is time. If you’ve listened to the episode where I talk about what I would do differently if I was starting my business over, I’ll link to that in the show notes. I don’t remember what number it was off the top of my head, but if you’ve listened to that, you’ll, you know that I talk about the fact that for the travel agency, I, right off the bat, Did professional branding and professional brand photos.
[00:29:44] I’ve gotten brand photos done for this business, but the branding is still my original branding that I created five years ago, six years ago, maybe. Five years ago. Five years ago, I created this. I don’t know anything about branding. And while I don’t dislike it, it’s time for it to be a little bit more professional.
[00:30:05] So before the book comes out and before we start creating the book cover, it’s time to rebrand. So that’s a big goal this year and I’m hiring someone to do that. And then, uh, networking. I don’t like networking. I know it’s so important and I do my. But this year I really want that to be a focus and not, again, if you heard me talk about this, I don’t mean like gross networking.
[00:30:29] I literally just mean building relationships with other business owners because it’s important and we can’t do this alone. And. . Honestly, it’s really nice when someone comes to me and they’re, they ask me if I have someone for a certain topic, I can send them to other people. I really like doing that. It just feels good to be like, oh, you need my friend so and so.
[00:30:49] I know for a fact all the time I get asked who edits my podcast, and I’m always so happy to, to send people off and say, oh, this is my editor, or Here are a couple editors that you should check out. It, it. It feels good, and it also reminds me that I don’t have to do it all. So networking and just building more relationships with other people is something that I want to work on this year.
[00:31:13] Quarterly rotations, like I said, that one’s pretty self-explanatory. I would love to get in a habit of at least once a quarter going away and working on a project of some sort. Whatever I happen to be doing, at the very least, I plan to book something for early December next year for. or maybe October. I haven’t decided at some point in q4, I’m going to go away for a.
[00:31:39] hopefully to Disney. We’ll see. Go away for a week and do my 2024 planning. So at the bare minimum, I’m gonna book that one. I would like to try to book some others if I can, but we’ll see. And then funnels, overhaul, everything is just kind of a mess. , um, E everything is kind of a mess because my. Has just continued to to change and grow and become more niched down really.
[00:32:07] And it’s time to make some updates to my backend funnels. So that’s something that I hope to focus on this year, but it’s also one that if it doesn’t happen until next year, I’m not upset. So those are my business goals for the marketing agency, for Amanda Warfield, llc, the Travel Agency. Very, very simple goals.
[00:32:25] Something that I learned after last year is that this business, I don’t have the capacity for it to be more than a side hustle. Uh, I, I just don’t, I don’t have the time and as much as I would love to put more time into it, I’ve gotten to the point where I am just serving clients is all I’ve had time for.
[00:32:48] And yeah. , I ended up having, I think about 15 clients with trips last year, even though I signed seven new, I had some from last year that had signed the year before. And then, yeah, and it, it was a lot. Um, it, it was a lot. So I don’t have a ton of goals for this business because, or I have some, but they’re really just like, they’re not your, your, your typical kind of goals, I guess, and we’ll get into it, but I, I.
[00:33:22] Relegating this business to a side hustle and sure, I’d love to grow and scale it, but I’m not going to, I don’t think, be doing the type of efforts that I’m putting in for this business. I’m not gonna be really focused on getting a podcast or speaking on stages or writing books for, like, that’s not gonna be, it’s a side hustle and it’s fun and I really enjoy doing it.
[00:33:43] And I’m very passionate about Disney and I love going myself, but it, it’s, it’s a side hustle for. , and that’s kind of what, what it is. Um, I, because I’ve only had time to keep my head above water, so goals, revenue. Um, my goal is 12,000 and I don’t even have a shooting for goal. It’s just 12,000 . That’s, if I can hit that, I’ll be really happy.
[00:34:12] Um, I wanna sign 12 clients. and I want at least one of those to be a cruise client. So, hey, if you’re looking to go on a Disney cruise in 2023 or 2024, hit me up. Um, I want to determine my niche that business. . And that’s part of, I think why I ended up frustrated with it this year is because I didn’t have a ton of time for it.
[00:34:36] And I also, I don’t know what my place is yet. Um, and this is something that unfortunately just takes time and playing around with messaging, and I haven’t been doing that because I didn’t have the time and. That’s something I’m gonna do this year is I’m just gonna play around with my messaging a whole lot and try and figure out what my niche is.
[00:34:58] I know what people like to hear about on TikTok, um, , people love when I talk about Russell’s five year goal for some reason or five year rule where he will only go to Disney once every five years. They love that. Um, and just the, the content where I talk about the fact that I’m a Disney adult and my husband is.
[00:35:20] that gets a lot of views. I don’t, I don’t know how I can translate that into the business though, so I’m doing a lot of figuring that out. So if you’re in a place where you’re like, I can’t figure out my niche. I’m right there with you. I have a business that I fully understand what my niche is, and I, I’ve figure like it, it is nailed down lockdown.
[00:35:41] And even still with the second business, I just. It’s a process. It’s a process. So I’m right there with you if that’s where you are. Third goal is to open my shop, my digital shop for that business. That is, that was a goal last year and I didn’t get to it once I decided that I wasn’t going to save for a property.
[00:36:02] That is a goal that I ended up setting for myself last year was to open a digital shop. And I just didn’t get, I didn’t get to it. Um, I kept trying. To put aside the time for it and it just didn’t happen and didn’t happen, and it didn’t happen. So that’s a goal for this year. And a, a goal slash hope slash task that goes along with that is to carve out one project date each week for this business.
[00:36:26] And that’s where I was really struggling was that last year I would, so if you heard me set up my schedule, quick overview. First workday of the week, I do client stuff. Second is typically projects for this business. Third is typically projects for the travel agency. And then fourth is typically administrative type tasks.
[00:36:49] And fifth, if I have a five day work week is extra marketing stuff basically. And sometimes I take out that like it just depends and I play around with it because Russell’s schedule is so crazy. Um, and so I kind of have this evolv. chunk of things. What ended up happening last year more often than not, is that I would spend my client day focused only on Amanda Warfield clients, and then I would spend the project day for the travel agency.
[00:37:22] on clients instead of on projects. And so alls I had time to do was work on clients and I never could make progress on the projects that I wanted to do. And it’s not like I had a lot, but that was a whole thing. So that’s a goal for this year, is to actually carve out that project day each week. I’m not far enough into the year yet to know exactly what that’s gonna look like.
[00:37:44] My hope is that once Russell’s schedule settles, which will be soon, I’ll be. To just kind of stick more closely to clients, project, project, whatever. Um, but what I may end up needing to do is separate my client days and have a client day for each, and then just have one project day each week. But that project day do like an AB system.
[00:38:09] So one week I work on I Major Warfield projects. The next week I work on. Travel agency projects. I don’t love that idea. The, the, the accomplisher in me does not love that idea at all because I know that’s gonna significantly cut down how, how much I can get done for this business. And it would also allow me to get more done for the other business.
[00:38:28] So I have to figure that out, that balance, because again, this one’s a side hustle, so I don’t know if I want to cut back a whole day for this business each week in order to. To the other. I’ve gotta figure that out. But that’s a goal. And then two more SEO focus, Pinterest focus, because that is going to be, when it comes to my marketing strategy, like my growth strategy for that business is really just really simply just like seo.
[00:39:05] Um, TikTok is another one, but SEO is gonna be my big growth strategy for that. And. bringing people in kind of organically at some point. Maybe I’ll play with ads. I don’t know. We’ll find out, but. . Yeah. SEO and Pinterest and bringing people in. It’s a long-term strategy, so I wanna start it now. Wish I had done a better job about starting it.
[00:39:30] I mean, I attempted to last year, but this year there’s gonna be a lot more focus on it. And then the final one is to hire va. I would feel so much better about so much in that business if I could hire a va. I don’t have the funds to do it at this moment in time, but I’m really hoping to add at least five hours a month.
[00:39:49] Of VA work to that business, because I did that in 2022 for this business, and it was one of the best decisions I made, and it would just help I, I’ve struggled. With consistency last year with the blog, um, and Instagram and TikTok, which a VA wouldn’t be able to help too much with TikTok, but they could certainly help with the blog and with emails and Instagram and that would be a huge weight off my shoulder and would make it, cause that’s the other thing, if I wasn’t working on clients, I felt like I needed to work on.
[00:40:23] So I wasn’t making moves, so I didn’t have time to move the needle in my own business, which is what I talk about all the time. And I, I know the importance of it. And a VA I think is gonna have to come in. I have a better system set up this year for content, but um, I eat doing less as I preached all of my students in club content matching, but that, that’s going to.
[00:40:49] A very, very hopeful goal. I’m really, really hoping I’m gonna be able to, to bring in a VA just for those few hours. Cause it’s gonna make, it’s gonna take a lot off my plate. So, okay. Those are my business goals. I’m gonna run through my personal ones really quick because we, this is already a much longer episode than I typically do.
[00:41:09] So 2023 personal goals, uh, become a published author, which as long as I stick to. Pretty simple plan for getting this book out there because it’s already written. Should be no problem. Visit three different Disney parks, which I’m going to Disney World literally very soon this month. Um, and more times than that I’m sure, because I wanna use manual past I, we are planning a trip to Japan this year.
[00:41:38] We’re gonna go to Tokyo, Disney, and then for my birthday, we’re going to. Disneyland. So that’ll be again, a no-brainer, but it is something I want to do. And the next goal visit first International Disney Park. We’ll be checking that off. Have a plan for doing that already. This one is fun. Um, I want to be able to squat Russell, like put him on piggyback and do a squat.
[00:42:03] that’s a goal. I wanted to create a fitness goal that wasn’t wrapped up in weight. And so that was what I came up with, um, because I don’t want it to be just about. The way I look, I want it to be about what I can accomplish and the way I feel, and it’s really, it’s really easy for me to slip into that mindset of I, ooh, look how slim I look.
[00:42:21] Ooh, you can see my muscles popping out, which is cool and it’s fun, but I don’t want that to be the only thing I’m doing because it’s not something that’s sustainable because the second I get bloated and I don’t feel skinny anymore, I don’t care about working out. So that’s something that I was like, what can I.
[00:42:39] that will put me in a better mindset for why I’m working out and help me track whether or not I’m doing it. So that was, that was that goal. I wanna squat Russell. Um, honestly, just to say I can , um, other goals. I want to hire house. It’s a major goal. Again, that’s one. I don’t know. When we did our financial stuff together, we didn’t budget for that, so that may or may not happen, but I would love to be able to do that and then save for some sort of down payment or start saving, whether we do land and we build or we buy somewhere else.
[00:43:22] If that’s gonna happen in the next five years, we kind of need to start saving for a down payment now. Those are my goals. I, I split my personal goals into goal, project, habit, um, projects I wanna do living room remodel, which we hired an interior designer I’m super excited about. Put in a fire pit area outside in the backyard, replace our garage doors because, I really want insulated garage doors so that the garage with the gym is not so cold and not so hot when we’re trying to work out, because that always affects whether or not we’re getting a workout in.
[00:43:56] And then I also want to create, I say this every single year. Every single year I wanna create yearbooks, like picture yearbooks. And I’ve seen so many people do this and I love it, and I, because I have an iPhone, but a Windows laptop, it. Just frustrating and I have not made it far. So 2021 and 2022 yearbooks.
[00:44:19] That’s my goal this year. And then my, my one loan habit that I have for myself is to start cycle syncing, and I am starting to cycle sync both my things, but also my workouts. So I’m not gonna go into all the details that I’ve learned cuz that’s just potentially another episode or I can find someone to send you to.
[00:44:42] But cycle seeking my workouts to see if that makes working out easier. Because again, when I’m on my my period, I don’t have any interest in working out. So if I’m being gentler with myself and maybe working with what some of these different things that others recommend that have done this before, that have cycles synced, maybe that’ll help.
[00:45:01] and then I really, really am interested in cycle syncing my work tasks. Um, for example, this week I am on my period and I also have had. Multiple days full of meetings and I’m exhausted and I’m drained. And it’s not been an awesome week because I’m so drained by the end of the week. And it’s not that it’s, they’ve been bad days, um, but I just think that I could plan a little better what tasks I’m working on when.
[00:45:38] So that’s, that’s my final kind of goal or habit for this year. I would love it if you would send me a message over on Instagram and tell me what your number one goal is for 2023, or if you wanna share more than that, I am all ears, but at least tell me what your number one goal is. I would love to know.
[00:45:56] And your book recommendation. For this week, I’m going to recommend the Throne of Glass series. , and I might have already recommended this to be honest, but I finally finished it since recording episodes. Um, finished all seven books and it, it’s so good. Uh, thrown of Glass by Sarah J Mass. If that recommendation comes up later, sorry.
[00:46:25] But it’s so good. It’s worth repeating. I, it just felt, it felt to me like a great balance of fantasy. and romance without being too spicy. It, it was a good balance, which I, I love the Accord. A Court of Thorns and Roses series. That was my first series that I read of hers and it’s incredible. But it kind of, the last book got to the point where I was like, Hmm, they’re, they’re, I’m just like skipping some pages.
[00:46:56] This isn’t even, it’s too much. Um, a lot too much. But this. Is the first series that she wrote and it’s complete. I’ll say that too. I am always nervous about fantasy series that I love that aren’t complete like of Court of Thorns and Roses is not complete. And I don’t know when the next book will be out if she’s even working on it because now they’re doing a TV show and it’s a whole thing.
[00:47:22] Um, , but it’s a complete, so you can, I don’t think I’d recommend reading them all back to back to back like I did. I did that strictly because that’s how they came out from the library and I didn’t have, I ran out of time. Um, but you, you could read all of them and have a complete storyline. So anyways, a court of not, of court of thorns and roses, , that one too thrown of glass by Sarah j.
[00:47:47] Definitely recommend and I will link to that in the show notes. All right, my friend, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening all the way till the end. I know this was a much longer episode than normal and I appreciate you being here, and until next time, I hope you’ll go out and uncomplicate your life in biz.
[00:48:06] Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. If you loved this episode, it would mean the world to me if you’d leave a rating and review. This is a great way to help spread the word about this podcast and help other wonderful women like yourself find it. You can find this episode show notes as well as tons of other great resources over@amandawarfield.com.
[00:48:24] And if you aren’t following me on Instagram yet, I’d love to connect with you over. I’m at Mrs. Amanda Warfield. Shoot me a DM and tell me what you love most about this episode. Thanks for being here, friend. I’ll see you next time.
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