Do you love your business? You should. Right? Well, sometimes we just don't, it's my hope that this, the My Daily Business Coach podcast, helps you regain a little of that lost love by providing tips and tactics, tools, insights, inspiration, all the good stuff to help you actually enjoy running your business. In addition to actionable tips and tactics that you'll be able to execute immediately, you'll also hear from creative, small business owners around the world who've been able to sidestep the hustle and build a business that merges their passion with their purpose and provides a profit. I'm your host Fiona Killackey, founder of My Daily Business Coach. Let's get going.

Hello and welcome to episode 165 of the My Daily Business Coach Podcast. We are officially into 2022! I hope that you are having a beautiful and happy and safe and healthy new year. And I really, really hope every single person that listens to this podcast, that 2022 is a, just less stressful and overwhelming year than the previous two years have been. So today, it is a quick tip episode, and I'm going to make this really quick because I hope that you are spending some time with loved ones. You know, if you're listening in real-time, on the 4th of January. And so I just wanna give you something to really consider honing on and then get back to the rest of your day. So today, before we get stuck into that, I just want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on the beautiful, beautiful land that I get to live on and record this podcast. The wandering people of the Kulin nation and I pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been seated. And I also pay my respects to the elders, past, present, and emerging of any other indigenous or Aboriginal communities that may be tuning in to this podcast. So, as I said, it's a quick tip episode. Let's get stuck in, shall we?

So, as we are into a new year and as somebody who works with thousands of small business owners, I know that this small change in the calendar, this idea of, you know, newness can actually elicit a lot of hope in people and it can feel like it's a fresh slate. "Fresh slate, clean slate." It's a fresh new year and it's a clean slate. And so I know lots of the people that listen to this have, you know, told me about vision boards and their one word and those kinds of exercises that people do. And I absolutely love doing them. I actually have a ritual with my eldest son. He is eight, almost nine, and we sit down and we do our vision boards together. And I was doing mine for years. And then one time he said, "What is that?" And I explained it to him and he said, "I wanna do one. "

And so he's been doing them with me for probably the last four years. And he loves cutting things out and kind of really thinking about what he wants in the year ahead. And he loves, even more, to come back at the end of the year and kind of tick off so many things that happen just weird, sometimes coincidences universe magic, I don't know, but other times, you know, it's things that he's really committed to such as, you know, getting better at basketball or doing more swimming or going for more bike rides or, other things. And I think as a mom, as a parent, it's really beautiful to see what is important to him, what he's prioritizing for the year ahead. So I love, love, love that stuff. But another question that I often ask clients is "What is the one thing?" Now, if you've been listening to this for a while, or you ever worked with me or come to a talk or anything like that, you'll know that I often talk about having three goals, just three, you know, not going crazy into shiny new object syndrome and having these three goals, but within them even, and not necessarily related to the goals, but just what is one thing that you want from 2022, really?

That's the question for you today. To really think outside of everything else, What is just one thing? And for some people, it may seem small. It might be, I want to shop more on Instagram. For example, for other people, it might be a bit bigger. Like I want to launch a data podcast. And if that's you, and you wanna really get into this quick, understand the process, we do have a, how to start a podcast course. And you can find that mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop, but yeah, you know, starting a podcast is a bit more, not necessarily even more work than showing up on Instagram, because it really depends where you are in your life. And this is why it's so important to really hone in on what is your one thing? Like, what is it that you really, really wanna focus on? So I know in 2021, I want to focus on health.

It was a really important thing for me. And I did, I saw a kinesiologist, I saw a Tarot reader. I went to my GP and I got all my checks for heart disease. And I mean, pretty much everything, anything that runs in my family. I said, can we check for that? And surprisingly, everything came up really well. And I was like, oh, okay. Because I had put on quite a bit of weight. I also lost a bit of weight last year. I'm still on that journey. And that's my own journey. I'm not for a minute saying people need to lose weight to be healthy. I don't, I think that you know, I know plenty of people that are thin that are not healthy, so, you know, and vice versa, but I, yeah, really wanted to focus on health. And so I went for more walks. I started meeting friends to go for walks.

And obviously, that also was in line with a lot of the lockdowns that were happening here in Melbourne. But I looked at health from all sorts of perspectives. I looked at putting more time between coaching sessions. I looked at doing three-minute meditations before coaching sessions. I looked at it really, you know, honing in on my end-of-day ritual. All, I looked at laughing a lot with my kids, choosing what I was watching so that, you know, choosing not to spend, you know, the evening scrolling, like horrible stories on the news app. I deleted a couple of news apps. I moved my social media, well and truly to the end of my phone within a folder within a folder. So it is actually quite a chore to get into it. I honed in more on my kind of limits around social media. I already had limits, but I went even further with those.

And so it, wasn't just, I know sometimes people can hear, oh, you know, someone wants to work on their health and, which is really wrong, but we all sort of look at "Oh, they lose weight" or "They're trying to get fitter "rather than look at the whole thing. So I looked at, you know, spiritual health, mental health looking at, you know, things that I'd learned about grief and really working through that more about, you know, losing my parents. So I really looked at health from a really big lens. And, I read a lot of books. I did a couple of trials of, you know, giving up dairy and getting into Oat milk. And yeah, just really looked at a whole lot of things. I started drinking a lot more water, so stretching more, just a lot of things. I started doing a lot more walks without listening to a podcast.

Whereas I usually always listen to a podcast or chat with friends, you know, listen to WhatsApp messages from good friends around the world. And I started just taking my headphones out and just listening - listening to the birds, listening to, you know, just really taking in and soaking in nature. And I know my husband has actually been telling me that for years. So when he exercises, which he does every day, he's very good at that. He, you know, listens to music while he skates. But if he's going for a walk, if he's going for a run, he never listens to anything. He just listens to the sounds around him. And we are so lucky where we live to have beautiful bushland and beautiful nature and animals around us. So, yeah, that was the one thing that I really, really wanted to focus on for 2022 and the business did well.

Other things happened, you know, I, I focused on other stuff as well, but I would say that I can confidently tick off that I really focused in on health and also meant, you know, having, having good conversations with people and turning down clients that I thought were gonna just be a, not a great fit for my own mental health stuff. So I just, I think I really focused in on that and that's gonna be something, you know, obviously, you're gonna work on your health forever, and it's a big part of, you know, 2022 for me as well. But I guess I'm trying to give you that example as a sort of saying, when we think about one thing, it doesn't need to be, you know, one business thing. It could be one living thing that actually then leads into your business. I know that even just, you know, with clients now 2021 was the first year that I brought it into pretty much everyone that I work with and everyone knew coming on to really, you know, take a minute at the start of sessions to, I brought in, you know, a mindset teacher.

I brought in different books in the business book club that were more about health and wellbeing as well as business and money and all those sorts of things. So yeah, I would be asking you as you go into this new year. Yes. It's exciting to do vision boards and get nice, beautiful stationery. I'm a massive stationery addict, so I totally get it and plan and plan and all these great things. But, I would also ask you to think about what is the one thing I want to focus on this year. And it might mean that you know, other things get pushed for a little while, but just really coming back to that again and again and again, and also looking at how can he stay accountable to it. So I know what I'm talking about on this podcast, ah, it's gonna be my year of health.

I had so many people send me DMs, like, “What are you gonna do?” And, you know, it's my year of health too. And I actually made a really good friend from this because I went into a Facebook group and I met an accountability buddy and Sarah who is over in the UK and yeah, got into it. And another good friend Ma who I met in my mastermind and we each keep each other accountable when it comes to health and not just, you know, related to weight, but actual mental health, spiritual health, the whole shebang. So that is today's episode.

What is your one thing going to be? What are you gonna focus on for the next year and maybe beyond, but what is it, what is most important to you? What is the biggest thing that you need to really put attention to this year?

So as always, the show notes for this episode will be available over mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/165.

So that is it for today's episode. If you found this useful, I'd love it. If you wanna share it with your community, make sure you tag @mydailybusinesscoach. So I get to see it and the team does as well. But yeah. Thank you so much for tuning in. And of course, if you are like, “I wanna share my one thing with Fiona”, please do. You can always send me a DM @mydailybusinesscoach or send an email to hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com, but happy new year! Thank you for being here and I'll see you next time.

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