#172: 5 Actions To Take Before 2022

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to our weekly Q&A sessions here on the Health Coach Power Community. My name is Michelle Leo. And today I want to talk about next year, like OMG it's happening. And there are some really important things that you want to do before it happens before the, that ball drops on the 31st.

So, I'm so pleased that you can join me today. If you are watching on Instagram. Hello. If you're watching over in our Facebook group. Hello Christie. Hey Deidre. I see you guys. We have so much to talk about, but you know what, when I was planning this episode and I always put a little outline together, you know, know, so I hit all the important points when we are together. Instead of thinking about like the facts and the business building stuff and all of the things that I wanted to tell you today, my mind kept going back to why it's so important and why I'm so like insanely inspired right now to even do this work and for all of us to do this work. And, and here's why. Over the past couple of weeks now, generally December is not like the busiest time of year for signing clients. But for whatever reason, I have signed a couple of new clients in the past few weeks. I've been speaking with a lot of women and it is such an honor. Have you ever felt this way? Like it is such an honor and a privilege for someone to share their story. Like when I'm listening to one of my clients or even a prospective client, talk to me, tell me their story. Sometimes I am just blown away and something that I found myself needing to do, which I don't remember ever having to do before. It is kind of walk out of those sessions and I need to like off gas in a way, you know, I have all of this, like, oh my God, I can't believe this energy.

And then of course we can't just go out and tell everybody about our clients and share all the details. Cause that wouldn't be right. But I want to encourage you to find a way to, I'm going to call it off us, that kind of energy when someone shares some really deep, important stuff with you, by the way, if you're here live and you have a process for this, I would love to hear it. And I'll just tell you in very, very broad terms, some of the situations, some of the conversations that I have found myself in recently that remind me why being a health is so amazing and why I'm so grateful for this career that can, I can feel so much every day. You know, one woman I was speaking to, and she was one of these clients that everything is great. You know, you have these that are like great, great, great, great, great.

Oh my food. No, it's great. Oh, exercise. No, it's great. Oh, I meditate. It's great. And I asked her one simple question about her relationship to food growing up, you know, I just had a hunch based on some things that she said, and the tears came and the story came, which blew. I've never heard such a tragic story from anyone in my life. And I was brought to my knees, like, how am I so blessed to be able to do this work? Right. It, it was, it was really something for me. You know, like when you've been health coaching for 13 years, sometimes I feel like I've heard it all. You know, like there's nothing someone can say to me that I haven't dealt with before, but this was new. It really was. Um, and it took my breath away. Another woman that I was speaking with, she's like, so body positive, she's such a lovely, happy and caring woman, but yet her story includes being abandoned by her own mother.

Again, just knocked me off my feet because I was like, whoa, you know, like we think health coaching, we think like eat more dark leafy greens, drink more water, but there's so much depth to the humans that we're working with. And anyway, I've just really been feeling that this week. So if, again, if you have anything to share on this topic, it's not something I've really talked about before. I would love to hear it. If you're here, like tell me in the comments, how you feel when you're confronted with heavy stuff, important stuff. You know, when you feel like, ah, someone trusted me like this because I don't want to walk into 20, 22 going, you know, how can I get rich this year? I don't think any of us got into health coaching because we wanted to get rich quick slash doesn't work that way anyhow.

But if we can go into it, remembering our intention by why we do this work and why we want to make an impact and the impact we're actually capable of making to me, it's like a whole different story. It just makes the work so much more meaningful and it makes the planning and the marketing and all the business stuff. So incredibly worthwhile. Are you here with, are you here with me on that? Jennifer says she feels like this all the time. Anyone else are we feeling it right now? I mean, call it the Christmas spirit, call it whatever you want, but I am just so in love with health coaching as a profession right now, I needed to share that with you. So if you agree, and if you're ready to start, uh, thinking at 2022, my goodness now is the time. I mean, uh, even a few weeks ago, I sat down with my own business strategist and we do this every year.

We start talking about, okay, what are we doing next year? And we don't want to just, you know, take darts and throw 'em at the wall. Like maybe we'll try that. Maybe we'll try this. Like, there's actually a lot of strategy that goes into it. And, um, it makes all the difference. You know, there was a point in my career where this was more of, um, I mean, at the time I wouldn't have said it was a hobby, but like truly I was not depending on the, the income these days, I do, I am the sole income earner in my household and it matters very much how much I earn through my business. So I can't just throw darts, you know? And if you're in a similar position, I recently actually pulled you guys inside our Facebook group. I put up a poll that said, you know, why'd you get into this business.

And 95% of you, I think said, because I wanted to create a career like a, a good paying career. You didn't just do this for fun. So that does take both heart and strategy. And we want to talk about both Melissa saying she loves coaching, but the time spent marketing sucks energy. It does. And then when we work with the clients, so often I find anyway that the energy flows back in, right, this is why we do the work. This is why it's all worth it. Lisa's saying she's needing this right now. Yeah. Okay. So we all are needing to think about 20, 22 right now. And I want to top line it for you today so that you can get your head on straight about how to make the most of the new year and not just walk into it haphazardly. You know, this is like the last thing that we want to do, but it's easy to happen because we were, you know, we're all tied up in our own holiday plans.

And before you know it January's here and the kids are back to school and you're like, oh, what am I doing this year? So let's start here. Tell me if you're here, live, tell me in the comments, what went really well in 2021, just like we would do with our clients. Right? We don't want them to start with like, tell me everything that's wrong in our, you know, the beginning of a session we always want to start with, like, tell me something good. Tell me something new and good. What's going really well. I want to hear from you, what's gone really well in 2021. And this is an important part of planning for 2022, because you can't effectively plan. If you don't look back and say, how is it going? So, I want you to think about 20, 21. What activities did you do that worked out really well?

What types of income generators did you offer? You know, what, what sort of packages, programs, whatever you were doing to earn money? How did that go? Um, list building? What were things that you did that worked really well for you there? And even outside of the, the hard metrics of like money and list building, what about things you did to support yourself in your business? Um, did you find an accountability buddy? And that's been really working out for you, did you, you know, whatever, um, Leon saying, signing up for HPU is something she did in 21 that's really working out. That's great. Jennifer's saying she got super clear on who she serves. Yes. Right? So what went really, really well and think to yourself, okay. It would make sense to double down here, you know, if something's going really well, even if it was something unexpected that might be a place to put more energy into next year.

Uh, Kirtschen says I started studying at IIN and I raised my salary a lot. All right. That's terrific. So let's celebrate. What's been going well, but don't just celebrate and pat yourself on the back, think, how can I do more of this? How can I do this? Even better follow the energy that's already working for you. Okay. And then part of looking at 2021 is also going to be, what did you earn? What was your net profit at the end of the year? So when you're first starting out, I mean, for many, many years, I tracked my income on a spreadsheet. You do not need to be using QuickBooks. So I don't know what you guys are doing right now, but it is super helpful. You, if you can go back, even if you have to go back through your bank statements or whatever, how much did you earn this year? Just look at the number, the numbers don't lie, you know, and then you can reasonably, and this is the second thing I want you to do before the new year create a goal for 2022.

I'm going to see some of the questions and comments that you guys are saying right now. Um, Lisa says she was able to sign her first high ticket client and was able to help her uncover she had Hashimoto’s and other health issues, which was a huge win I say. So that was amazing. Lisa. So, I don't know for you, but, you know, uh, for anybody we could think about the clients that we worked really well with last year, maybe we want to look for more clients like that. You know, you want to think, how can I get more of this type of person, um, Deidre's saying my five-day challenge was great. Thanks. Thanks to the guidance from HPU. Okay, great. Yes, dear, dear, you had great success with your five day challenge. So, if you did something like Deidre, did you held some sort of free event and it worked like gangbusters.

You're going to want to plan to do it again in 2022, maybe a couple times and do it even better, right? It's every time you run something, every time you have an experience, you learn, how can I do this better next time? And that's brilliant. That's what we want to do. Um, Christie said that 2021 was a learning and building year, she do joined HPU and Julia's activate, and it's given her framework for her business and boosted her confidence for putting herself out there. Okay. Christie, what can you learn from that? That's going to serve you in 2022. And Diane says she also created her first five day challenge and added new health coaching clients, plus many new yoga clients. Well, there is a thing to think about Diane next year. Do you want to be still adding more yoga clients or focusing on the health coaching clients or both?

And how are you going to do that? Right. So reflect on what happens and figure out how you could do more of what went well. We do want to have a goal to work towards. So I was suggesting that you start by you thinking about a dollar amount that you want to be earning, right? That for many of us is important. So you can define your goal for next year based on a dollar amount. Doesn't have to be that though. Uh, it, it is helpful if it's a measurable goal. However, so if you're saying like next year, I want to feel happy and blissful, I want you to feel happy and blissful too. And I want that for myself, but that is difficult to measure. And it's difficult to know if we made our goal, you know, when you have a measurable goal, you can even say like, wow, I hit my goal and I'm only halfway through the year.

So try to pick a measurable goal. If it's not going to be around money, you could say, I want to help X number of clients. If you were in the very early stages of your business, you may even say, you know what? I don't even care about earning money in 2022, but I want to have X number of people on my mailing list by the end of next year. Right. But try to again, pick something that is measurable. I think it'll be more helpful for you and more motivating the third thing that I want you to do before next year. And this is really important. I, I think we tend to brush it off to the side, but I want you to make space for whatever you want to create for whatever you want to, you have to make the space for it by dropping the things that didn't work by dropping the things that didn't feel so good, the things that drain your energy.

So this is something else I would love to hear from those of you that are with me live what's something from this past year that you can to maybe it was a partnership that you entered into. I don't mean a romantic partnership. I mean, some sort of business arrangement. And then you decided, you know, this really isn't working out for me maybe now is the time to say enough is enough. And that has happened to me many times where I've gone into different endeavors, it's worked for a while and then it just doesn't anymore. So you have to make space both, um, on your calendar and energetically, you have to make space for the things that you are going to create by getting rid of the things that are not quite working for you. So, we started by saying, what went well last year, what's something that didn't go so well, what's something you tried.

And it was like, eh, maybe I shouldn't sink too much energy into that moving forward. Um, for example, I know I've gotten on terror sometimes where I'm like, I'm going to try this new social media platform. And gosh, was it this year? Or was it the year before when clubhouse came out? But anyway, within the past or two, you guys remember clubhouse? Well, it came and went. So there was a point at which I had to decide no more of that. You know, that was interesting. We tried it, we learned something, but we're going to let it go. And I know moving into 2022, I have a couple of things that I'm like, yeah, we're not going to do that anymore. Or I used to run my business this way, but I have a new boundary now. So, these are really important because we can't just keep adding.

That would be a recipe for a disaster. Wouldn't it Helen saying she's still employed nearly full time and feeling burnt out. I would love to transition to my business full time. Okay. We have a lot of health coaches who are in that position. I get that question a lot. How do you make the switch? How do you know when it's time to leave the full-time job and, you know, go for it on your own? So the most obvious thing and Helen, I don't know if you can do this, but is to step down. So maybe you go from four hours a week at your full-time job to 30, right? Don't get rid of the whole job right away. And for those of you who are ready to make that leap, you know, what any new business is going to take a couple of years to become profitable, like truly profitable, like a salary that you can live on.

It's going to take a while. That's just true for any business in any industry. So you can take the leap. If you know, you have enough money coming in from another source or in savings to get you through comfortably. Cuz the last thing I ever want any of you to find yourself in as a situation where you're feeling desperate to earn money and you have now put yourself in a precarious financial position. Nuh uh no, thanks. Not at all. Don't do that. so that's something that Helen's going to have to think about. Jennifer said, yeah, she ditched clubhouse yeah. You know, we tried it sometimes there's new things that one seems promising for a while. Um, she said she also unsubscribed from so many lists that were selling her stuff. That's a great one. That's a great example of not only clearing out your inbox and you know, all of these things to take time to look at, even if you're just going to hit, delete, but energetically, are there things that you're subscribe to people that you're following that you need to N and I always say, please, if it's me nix me, I don't care.

Like I would prefer that you have the time, the space of energy that you need for the things that you're doing and you, your life and your business. And if something that, you know, I'm sending you is not helping by all means unsubscribe. So unsubscribe from, you know, different types of marketers out there. Um, if you are subscribed to a lot of other health coaches, email newsletters, or you're following a lot of other health coaches or you're following like literally anybody online that makes you feel bad about yourself in any way, shape or form. Bye bye. time to move into 2022 surrounded by the positive support that we're really craving. Christy said that she left a lot of old groups and has put strong boundaries around social media time. That is another really great idea. Okay. So, I think you guys know exactly what I'm talking about.

We can't just keep adding. We have to sometimes make difficult decisions. Like some of you may remember years ago, I used to do a live radio show with my friends, Lisa Lutan and Andrea Beaman. And we had so much fun with healthy view radio. It was a live show every week. It was an hour long. We put quite a bit of work into finding great guests. I mean, I got to interview JJ Virgin, I mean so many amazing names in the health and wellness world. It was a really cool experience, but a point came in my life where it was like, Hmm, is this still serving? Right. And I had to let it go. So, sometimes the decision is difficult, but you have to do what's right for you and your business. Right? What's the return on this investment of my time and my energy?

Health coach, Janice, Hey Janice. She says it can be too much. That's my new year's resume solution. Get rid of old groups and unsubscribe from emails. yes. I think probably everyone on earth could benefit from a little bit more of this kind of thing. Um, okay. So we have talked about let's recap assessing 20, 21. So looking back, what did you earn? Who did you work with? Like what went it really well and also what didn't go so well, we talked about having a clear goal to design your year around. So, if you want to hit a certain dollar amount, like you have to know what you're aiming before, before you're going to be able to hit the goal. So maybe it's a dollar amount, maybe it's a number of clients. Maybe it's a certain number of people on your mailing list. You're going to also have to figure out which income streams are you going to focus on next year.

So most of us sell private coaching, right? Um, maybe you also have some sort of group program that you run. Those would be two income streams right there. But I know I talk to a lot of health coaches that are like, well, I want to build an online course and I want to sell a product. And I want to design a journal that I sell on Amazon. I mean, we have so many different ideas for income streams. You don't need a hundred, but you need a couple, you need multiple income streams. And I always share this example that when I was pregnant it with my first baby, I was doing private coaching. And I had a detox program that I ran twice a year and both were good income streams, but once I had my baby and unfortunately the situation, I was in was that I had zero childcare, not recommended.

I couldn't do either of those things because I was involved with affiliate marketing and I was making referrals to products and services that I believed in that was something I was able to continue doing. You know, like while the baby napped, I didn't have to keep an appointment with anybody to do that. Right. And I really floated my income based on affiliate marketing in that maybe one to three month old time period. You know, when my son was little before I could start working again. Okay. Let's be honest. I probably didn't start working again until he was like six months old. Um, but having that third stream of income was super important. So, think about which streams of income do you have now, which would you like to add and which do you think will be the best mix for making sure that you have some that are active and some that are passive so they can fill the gaps for each other.

I found that to be a really useful way to structure my business. Now, listen, it's a lot to think about. So, I'm going to be walking you through these steps and more and help you plan out your 2022 calendar. Just like I do. I mean, if you could see, I should have shown you, but on my wall over here, I have one of those big post-it notes. You know, the ones that are like that big stuck to my wall with my whole year plan. I want to So; help you do that. So you know exactly what to work on in what order. So you can make the most of 20, 22. So I want you to register to join me for this upcoming free workshop. It's called make 2022, your most profitable year yet. And you can sign up at healthcoachpower.com/2022. Pretty good. Right? Let's see what you guys are saying here.

Christy said, I will. She said, I will say I refollowed somebody who triggered my insecurity and we actually had a conversation last week and I see her completely differently now in a good way. Well, that's a really nice point when we're unfollow somebody or unsubscribing for something or saying no, it's, it's usually not about that person. Even if we, in our head, it is at the time it's, it's not them. It's just the way that we are like reacting or like the word used getting triggered by them. So I agree like there maybe there is a further conversation to be, but until you feel comfortable and even in our relationships, just people in our lives, right? Like it's okay to stay away from people, places and things that make you feel bad. Don't I know it. Um, okay. Who's saying this, Melissa says I'm more clear on my goals.

Having done HPU I still need to make better decisions on what to spend time on to build my audience. Oh my gosh. You know what we haven't even talked about today? I'm just going to drop this here. Who's starting a blog in 2022? Who's starting a YouTube video channel? Who's starting that TikTok account, right? Like there are so many different ways to build an audience. You can't do them all, but maybe there's something in the coming year that you want to invest your time into and do it really well. Starting that podcast. Like this could be your moment. Siba roots wellness says, yes, need this focus time. Need to focus on income streams. Yeah. We talk about this a lot. There's so many things you can do when you sit down to work, you know, like redo your Facebook page or Polish up your website, but none of that stuff earns you money.

So Siba, I don't know if you're comfortable in telling us, but do you have an income goal for 2022? If any of you have an income goal for next year, then you have to think really long and hard about how you're going to get there. And that's what we're going to do in our workshop. Coming up in a couple of weeks, Helen says, yes, I want to get my blog online. Great. So that's something that you're going to want to make time for in the new year and be thinking, how can this be related to income generating activity? How can I not just write a blog every week, but make sure it is strategically tied to signing clients using affiliate links, driving people to my mailing list, right? Like everything we do, we want to remember, how do I make this into something that's truly building my business. And it's not just like another shiny object, just like another thing I'm going to waste time with.

Right. But blogging can certainly be that. I would say that my whole business began from a blog that I had, that I started in like 2006. So it's really powerful to have consistent content going out. If that's something that's calling you, Odulus, and I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name, but Odulus says that she has an income goal. Fantastic. Right? Like every, what I don't like about goals sometimes is people will be like, shoot for the stars. You're worth it. You're going to make 5 million next year. You know, like if this year you had five people on your mailing and you net like a hundred dollars, you're probably not going to make 5 million next year. You know, like we want to set goals, but we also want them to be achievable and exciting, but also reasonable. So that's part of looking back and I'm not saying that you're doing this Odulus.

I'm just remembering for myself that sometimes when I started out, I had like these big, huge goals, but I had no idea how to get there. And then when I fell short, I was like, uh, I stink, you know, health coaching is terrible and that's not the case. It's just that we need to be, you know, realistic in how far we can get in the next year. But don't worry. I'm going to walk you through all of that in our workshop. Again, you can sign up for free at healthcoachpower.com/2022. We're going to be doing it together one little step at a time. And if you like post-it notes and like colored markers, or like me color coding, a Google calendar, you are going to love this workshop.

Christy's saying that YouTube is next for marketing. That is super cool. So, if I were you Christie, I'd be thinking, all right, I want to start a YouTube channel next year. What do I need in order to do that? You know, and you probably don't need much. We all have a video camera, you know, right on our phone or right on our computer. Maybe you need like a ring light or something, but maybe you need to find a mentor or somebody who has a YouTube channel that you're going to be able to learn from. You know, maybe you need some type of guidance, you know? So you have to think like, what do I need to get there? Um, how are you going to use your YouTube channel? What, how are you going to be using that to take people to the next step? Which hint, hint should be joining your mailing list. Lisa says, is the workshop recorded? Yes, our 2022 workshop will be recorded. It's actually over the course of a couple of days. I'm going to drip out to one piece of the workshop at a time.

And it's all recorded of course, because it's, you know, we're, we're in a holiday time right now, so you can sign up and you'll get the five days of info to look at/watch whenever your schedule allows you to, we're going to be running that the end of the month. So again, that's at help. Coach power.com/ 2022.
You guys, I have loved being here with you today. If you have questions about the workshop or about 2022 planning, please post in the Facebook group. I have a feeling we're going to be talking an awful lot about it. Have a great rest of your day. Everybody I'll see you soon.