Well, this can be an alien concept, when so much of the time we spend wishing for a magical time of year, yet in reality we end up being triggered, a little disappointed, if not overworked and then somewhat under appreciated – sound familiar?
Christmas time and even New Years are prime examples of how imprints of our perceived and entrenched beliefs about this time of year dictate our expectations and what the holidays represent for us each. For me, I grew up dreaming of a white Christmas, a roaring fire, the smell of a freshly cut tree, the sparkle of lights and lots of laughs, traditions and merriment. It was a perfect image I had of happiness and love, a day filled with friends, family, lots of engaging conversation, magic and Christmas movies. Most of the time I actually got a lot of this, but in reality there were other aspects that came with it. Cooking, cleaning, serving, misunderstandings, obligations, and exhaustion for me and others.
My image of Christmas was distorted from movies and my imagination of what I believed Christmas should be, a time when everyone puts aside their differences and lived harmoniously. But in reality who can honestly do that? The pressure we put on ourselves, and more over others, to be able to achieve this is inaccurate and perhaps impossible.
Why should one day be any different than any other? We can decide to put aside all differences, obligations and our expectations of ourselves and others any time when we actually choose to follow through on that singular thought process and intention. It won’t happen automatically, it will take time, but it can be done. And maybe that’s what this time of year actually reminds us of? Our abilities to adapt and change, the holiday season gives us the gift of time, and reflection to be able to make the change and be surrounded by others who are also journeying in the same direction, therefore there’s a greater level of compassion and empathy.
Christmas and the holiday season for me now is more of a stark reminder of the choices I make to be the person I want to be and how if I choose I can temper my behaviours, thought processes and reactions. Even in the time of the most overwhelming emotional world state, which for an empath can be extremely heightened.
So, at this time of year I invite you to get reflective and lower the expectations, by beginning with a light reflection. You can check in on the following to start to support you towards this change of view:
What has your year been filled with, how you have found the majority of your time has been spent? (thinking, feeling & doing)
Have you felt fulfilled and purposeful? When was this?
What feels important for you to acknowledge and address in order to make amends, improve going forwards or be more receptive to in the future? (take each situation in turn to respond, as it comes to mind)
And what do you want Christmas and this holiday season to be a trigger for? Reflection, family time, relaxation, relationships?
What has occurred in this festive season that has enabled you to be more of who you want to be usually (if at all), and how can you invite more of that into your life?
I know that reflecting on the space I’m in, the life I want to live and the legacy I want to leave behind has made me appreciate this time of year in a unique way. I hope that these questions and a little of my perspective will give you pause for a deeper enquiry, to get out of the expectations of Christmas and more into a new way of feeling and being – your way.
Here’s to an enlightening, and happy holiday!
Alison Callan is The Clarity and Success Coach for Aspiring Entrepreneurs, as well as an Internationally Accredited Coach and Mindfulness Consultant, Facilitator, Speaker and #1 Best Selling Co-Author of the book ‘You Are Meant For More’.
Alison is committed to helping You mindfully align with your mission to create Conscious Business with Purpose, Confidence and Ease. So that you live a life you love and deserve with Clarity through Conscious Creation.
Maybe I’m doing something wrong, what more should I be doing…?
These are all the things I hear from aspiring entrepreneurs and I get it. I was once where you are, and it feels yucky, scary and bleak.
I get it, I truly do.
But you know what I figured out? A way to re-think and see weeks with no income as abundant. And you can to.
You see, when you’re in a regular job or career, you likely only got paid once a month, right? So it doesn’t need to be any different in your Business. Especially when you’re starting out.
You are working everyday towards an income in your business, so you need to make sure at the end of the month your wages pay your needs. Sounds pretty logical. And in fact it was the same at your career job. You had expectations, a job description, tasks to achieve and deadlines to do it by. It is no different when working for yourself, although this is usually where we falter.
This ultimately means putting in solid and focused activities towards your perceived outcome, every single day and not deviating from the plan. Now I could go off on the importance of planning, but I will leave that to another post.
For now, you need to be able to see the cycle of your activity as contributing to something – usually your pay day!
You see, you need to go through a period of establishing your business, which goes through the following stages:
Concept, Creativity & Inspiration – this is where you actively come up with your vision for product or service, you feel excited and cannot wait to get stuck in to making it a reality.
Design, Development and Product – you actually make your moment of inspiration a reality and get cracking on building that which you envisaged to produce your dream. This usually feels like a hard slog, but worth it in the end, this is a time consuming phase.
Marketing and Generating Sales – this is the sticky bit, now you have your thing, how do you tell people about it? You might feel lost, or disappointed at this phase, or mildly optimistic. This is your first go round, go gentle and tap into your stage 1 excitement to share that with the world.
Providing Services or Products in the abundance exchange – you start to deliver your offering and receive in exchange, which feels great – but you begin to feel the catch up of what you’ve been through to get here, sometimes it can feel as though it wasn’t worth it. Again, it gets easier the more frequently you do it. And now you have one thing, so you’ll always have it.
Do you see, there’s actually only 1 of the 4 stages where you are receiving income, in the beginning of your Business, or with a new service. The rest of the time you are actively generating activity to lead to the outcome of serving your people and ultimately being recompensed for doing so.
This is why making sure you are taking aligned action in one of these stages every single day feels purposeful.
When you can see this cycle of activity and you get comfortable with your outputs and you keep on creating and repeating, this is when you start to scale your Business.
But for now my gorgeous aspiring entrepreneur you are starting, you are building and you need to allow yourself permission and time to go through this process to truly know what’s working for you and your Business.
When you have one offering that is working well for you and your audience, that is when you can scale. That is when you can build more and spend more time in each of these areas while you have other strategies ongoing in the other service.
You see, you are one person, you are all things to everyone – but mostly you are striving to make a difference and you are doing so.
Just remember whichever phase or stage you are in within the cycle of your Business, you are learning, growing and establishing and these things take time.
Be kind and considerate of yourself and take aligned action every darn day, knowing that you are creating this cycle of activity that is aligned for you, your business and your customers.
One person (thats you) will make the difference you strive to, as long as you acknowledge and respect the process you will go through to get there.
If you want to know more about Business Building and how I can support you, I am opening up Applications to invite in my Ideal Soul Client to join my Conscious Creation Business Accelerator Program.
If you are wanting to be supported, to learn and grow with like minded Spiritual Boss Babes Apply Now for your free discovery call – you honestly have no idea how magical Business can be when you are in the company of total Inspiration, Community and Support.
Alison xoxo
Alison Callan is The Clarity and Success Coach for Aspiring Entrepreneurs, as well as an Internationally Accredited Coach and Mindfulness Consultant, Facilitator and Speaker.
Committed to helping You mindfully align with your mission to create Conscious Business with Purpose, Confidence and Ease. So that you live a life you love and deserve with Clarity through Conscious Creation.
There are a few things I have come to realise that your audience and your potential customers need to know about you and your business, and I’m betting that they currently don’t.
If you are an empathic and intuitive aspiring or conscious entrepreneur this information is going to be key to connecting and growing your audience and building your business.
And if you implement these three things now, you will build your business, without question!
Firstly, I’d like you to think very carefully about how you currently share your products, programs or services with your audience or potential clients now. Are you confident that they clearly know what you offer? And how they can work with you, and progress working with you?
Maybe they know what your programs or products are called, or what you sell – but do they know the Benefits of what you offer?
Tip 1 – Share the benefits of working with you first
Everyone can have fancy named programs over a certain period of time or epic content, but honestly, people need to know what that’s going to give them, do for them or how it will enhance their life or business in order to buy into it.
So always lead with the benefits first. They can have all the other information once they know they need the benefit.
Now, why are those benefits important to you? This is probably something that not a lot of people mention. But in order for you to truly understand these benefits your audience and or potential customers need to understand why you’re the one to get them through – why not go somewhere else, to someone else?
Consider these things and adjust the way in which you share your benefits, it ill start to make an impact for you and your audience.
Tip 2 – Connect the importance of the benefit with your specific why
Now, if you truly want to connect to your audience, and build a relationship with them, have them understand you and form a connection to you, so that they trust, like and know you. Please tell them your why.
Why is it so important for you to deliver this said benefit, what does it mean to you?
Now this is where it can feel too vulnerable to share, but there are ways of showing layers of experience in your own time, but allow your passion for delivering this said benefit to shine through – it makes all the difference to your audience, truly.
This is possibly the hardest part for intuitive empaths in business to give time too, but it is so worth it for yourselves and others.
Tip 3 – Share your value, be the expert that your audience need
It can be hard to acknowledge and appreciate your own worthiness and the results you have created through your epic business. And often times we do not spend enough time savouring our accomplishments.
But our audience and and our potential customers need to know we acknowledge this and honour it as part of the process. Because we are becoming leaders in our fields, experts within our businesses and providing the products and services we do, have and are.
This is more than confidence, this is in fact appreciating your own value and sharing it with the world, knowing the benefits you give and connecting that to how you have journeyed from your why.
You see everything is connected for us, as the business owner, we just have to make that connection for our potential clients and customers and share from a place of undeniable truth in our abilities. Do not waver or shake, stand firm and know the magic you bring through fulfilling your purpose.
Give your potential client and audience the same unwavering faith and confidence in you, and they will be called to work with you.
This is authentic marketing, this is Conscious Business Building and this is a taste of what you get when you work with me.
If you’d like to discuss how together we could Accelerate you and your Business authentically then schedule your discovery call now – I’m looking forward to talking to you.
Alison xo
Alison Callan is The Clarity and Success Coach for Aspiring Entrepreneurs, as well as an Internationally Accredited Coach and Mindfulness Consultant, Facilitator and Speaker.
Committed to helping You mindfully align with your mission to create Conscious Business with Purpose, Confidence and Ease. So that you live a life you love and deserve with Clarity through Conscious Creation.
This is a pep talk and not for the faint of heart, know this comes with much support and understanding, however it needs to be addressed.
Not everyone will want to work with you.
As an empath I get it, it hurts. Rejection sucks.
Especially when you put your heart and soul into your purpose and you feel its not seen, understood or valued as valuable to others.
But if you look deeper into the feelings you are left with, there is always an underlying acknowledgement that it wasn’t meant to be, and you knew this.
I work a little differently to most coaches, and so do my clients. We make sure that we choose our clients and customers as much as they choose us. This however comes with it’s own issues, because when we get rejected it hurts even more, because we thought we had got it right.
Again when we go deeper, we know on a level of personal truth that we weren’t 100% sure about working together either, but Wanted too none the less, interesting isn’t it. You see what we Want, isn’t always what we Need.
Now you can choose to feel rejected and defeated and as though your purpose is no longer meaningful. Or you can acknowledge the fact that everything is an opportunity to learn and grow. That your boundaries within your business are fundamental and qualifying your potential clients is oh so important to ensure you only deal with those who already know they Need to work with you – not Want.
Let’s take ‘wanting’ out of the picture all together. Become detached from the outcomes and trust in ourselves, our services and the results we get to create when we are on our truest path.
None of it is a waste, it is a gentle reminder to keep in aligned action, to believe ever so much more in ourselves, and the clients that we do work with. Because that is where the magic happens when you are with that specific person you came here to work with and for.
Do not allow yourself to get led down the pity pathway and stop all the good you are doing. Even though you might feel the strong pull towards giving up. Instead stand tall, feel your power at being able to naturally attract your tribe of people and repel those you are meant to.
Here are some reminders:
Make it easy for people to see what it’s like working with you, by being visible.
Be transparent with what it takes to work with you.
Qualify your potential clients and customers before committing to them.
Be clear about who you want to work with, and why.
Build a connection, so you can truly see one another.
Never compromise your values or integrity
Be flexible, where you intuitively know the outcomes beneficial for everyone.
Trust your-damn-self! Never waver!
Acknowledge your value, stand by it and shout about it.
And there are even some amazing tools for Business that can support you in automating your pathways for Business which are in alignment to all of the above.
My personal favourites are:
Trello for all your project management needs, and even managing clients and customers jointly.
Acuity* for setting up an intuitive workflow from scheduling to qualifying and receiving payment.
Zoom for connecting and meeting people
Facebook as a social platform to create groups, learning units and start to get to know your audience.
If you are a Conscious Aspiring or Established Entrepreneur who feels this way and wants to be in a place where they are feeling their confidence, their alignment in business, ease in being themselves and doing things their own unique way. This is where I can support you.
I understand what it takes to be in Business as an empath, and how you can remain true to yourself in the process yet be a Success, and allow yourself to feel the Success. If you are looking for a Coach to help you elevate your Business and you’re wanting someone who understands the feelings behind inspired and aligned action.
And you want someone who will value your uniqueness, get behind your dreams just the way they are and support you to enhance them….
…..Without the pressure and the frameworks that everyone else is doing. Then we should talk.
I am starting another Conscious Creation Business Accelerator Program and I am currently qualifying my ideal group. If you’d like to be considered to join me and my amazing Spiritual Empathetic Boss Babes in the Conscious Creation Business Accelerator, then Apply Now.
This Business should be exciting, you should have people you’re serving, you should be making the difference you crave to make and you should be supported in doing so. And I am Consciously Creating the space for this and inviting you to join me
So the question is, are you ready?
If you want to know more about Business Building and how I can support you, I am opening up Applications to invite in my Ideal Soul Clients to join my Conscious Creation Business Accelerator Program.
If you are wanting to be supported, to learn and grow with like minded Spiritual Boss Babes Apply Now for your free discovery call – you honestly have no idea how magical Business can be when you are in the company of total Inspiration, Community and Support.
Alison xoxo
Alison Callan is The Clarity and Success Coach for Aspiring Entrepreneurs, as well as an Internationally Accredited Coach and Mindfulness Consultant, Facilitator and Speaker.
Committed to helping You mindfully align with your mission to create Conscious Business with Purpose, Confidence and Ease. So that you live a life you love and deserve with Clarity through Conscious Creation.
I love going to Business expo’s, it gives me such joy to be around inspiring business owners and entrepreneurs. To observe, to listen to get curious and experience everything that a potential client does in those situations. It’s important to be on the receiving end of a sales script, presentation, learning opportunity to keep growing and developing and interestingly enough, seeing where you can add value and noticing how far you have come.I went to one recently, which inspired this post to share with you what I learned and experienced, which will hopefully have you diving on into attending an expo and knocking it out of the park!
So let me tell you what I initially observed….
Almost everyone at each of the stands appeared pretty nervous, none of them came alive doing what they were doing and it surprised me.
Very few of the exhibitors seemed confident in their purpose for attending, were they selling their service or product, or building a relationship. Their approach seemed a little directionless…
Most of them didn’t seem excited to be there, like genuinely, I felt their uncomfortableness
There didn’t seem to be a plan, an intention, a direction of purpose for the expo and it’s layout, that was easily communicated or understood…
You don’t need a fancy stand or stall to stand out, when you love what you do you glow!
Now do not get me wrong, it was great, they were great and Im hoping they all got what they needed.But it made me see clearly some things they could have all done to up their game, from a customer or collaborators point of view, and I want to share those with you.Because I’ve been there, I’ve been an expo stall holder and it’s nerve racking – there’s more people there than your ideal client and you’ve got a certain amount of time to make an impression and impact. And starting a conversation when you’re an introvert is intimidating and exhausting! And I can so clearly see now how I could have improved my exhibiting skills and approaches before the event. So I am grateful for what I observed yesterday, for what I learnt and for the growth it showed me in myself and my business.
Here are some pointers for you to consider
Set your intention for the day, who do you want to meet, what do you want to learn and what do you want to give?
Get clear on who you want to attract, what you want them to know and how you want to continue the conversation after the expo. If you know this, you’ll be far more confident in your approach.
Connect with each person, do not see them as a prospect or a potential sale. Treat them as a person and be there to share your accomplishments, your expertise as a gift, a conversation.
Ask relatable questions, practise a few opening lines with a difference. Everyone else is asking ‘what you do?’, ‘what brought you to the expo?’, ‘what are you looking for?’. Instead ask what that person needs and try to help them find it. Give more than you expect to get, set the tone for the interaction with you.
Know your why, know your story and share it. It’s all well and good if you have a membership you’re selling to a program but qualify me, tell me why I’d need it & how it would make my life or business better. Choose me! Make me feel wanted and special!
Ask if you’d be open to following up with you. Don’t just take business cards, it’s so impersonal. Go the extra mile and connect. Be the person they remember from the expo for all the right reasons.
Read body language while interacting, be more interested than reciting your stuff. Ask how the persons receiving the information. This is a great way to do Market Research!
Make sure your signs are easy to read and tell me quickly what you do. So I know if I want to chat about it.
You are the expert, have confidence in your accomplishments, be proud of your results or products. Get into this space and connect with people from this space, this is your zone of genius, you’re compelling, passionate & purposeful from this zone – show this You to the expo!
Be your Brand – dress for success, you want to stand out and look and feel fabulous. Do not get lost in the crowd! (But layer because you never know on temperatures)
Consider your giveaways and be clear on who they are for and why, do not make it too easy to enter, you want people winning who actually want to work with you. So also consider if they have to stay until a certain time to win on the day, or buy a low level offering to be in to win. Do not make it a free for all – stand firm in your offerings and value your gift and make sure each entrant is intentional also.
When collecting emails ask if people want to sign up for your email subscription or to hear about offers. This is the best way to know who you’re targeting and have permission to further contact them. Business cards are too simple, get them to write for their commitment to being followed up with.
Request that they like your social media pages, make it easy to find you, maybe have them do it there and then to get an extra entry into your prize draw, think outside the box to engage with people and stand out from all the other exhibitors.
You don’t need a fancy stand or stall to stand out, when you love what you do you glow!
If you’ve not done an event like this it is such an amazing opportunity to participate in, I highly recommend it. It enables another level of growth and discomfort, but I believe the more you experience and expose yourself too the better you and your business become!
I hope this has given you something to think about when you next present yourself and your Business at an expo!
With Warmth,
Alison xox
Alison Callan is The Clarity and Success Coach for Aspiring and Conscious Entrepreneurs, as well as an Internationally Accredited Coach and Mindfulness Consultant, Facilitator and Speaker.
Committed to helping You mindfully align with your mission to create Conscious Business with Purpose, Confidence and Ease. So that you live a life you love and deserve with Clarity through Conscious Creation.
What’s the fuss with Mindfulness? Surely it’s just a fad, fleeting and unnecessary…? Well from my point of view it’s most definitely necessary and if we keep living the way that we are, it’s going to become even more critical to integrate it into our routines in order to be well – emotionally, mentally and physically, while maintaining our expectations, standards and optimal performance.
Life has become quite busy, in fact with the technology advancements the world is a lot smaller, we work 24/7 and we expect things immediately. Yet as humans we have not evolved to this level of constant processing, we need sufficient sleep, a nutritious diet, exercise and believe it or not time to recharge, take stock and consolidate information, plan.
That’s where Mindfulness becomes necessary and what in fact creates the balance we need in the world we live in, to function at our optimum.
What largely makes our humanness and sets us apart as unique, is our experiences and our emotions. Up until now in the main, our emotions have been brushed aside as unprofessional or inconvenient, too difficult to manage, time consuming, something that may, in certain circumstances, even be medicated or suppressed. However, what if we were to embrace our emotions, accept that in fact they can be utilised as an asset in navigating everyday life. Understanding them in the first instance is key, and they are different for each of us, but they do have a significant impact on our being.
Emotions start with a thought, one that can be triggered by any number of experiences, conversations, sound, visuals etc. And given what our brains can process in a second and conjure up, a lot of emotions can be experienced without proper comprehension. Yet once an emotion is felt it has a chain reaction of physical manifestation and even behavioural urges and actions. For example, imagine embarrassment creating a blush reaction and then your arms immediately cross over your body and you have the urge to escape, hide, or change a conversation topic etc. All of this can happen in a split second, without your full awareness if you are not tuned in to the trigger you experienced, thus explaining what caused the chain reaction. Which may not in fact be related to what was occurring then, in that moment, but was of a similar experience to something you previously went through and your brain is recalling in detail what manifested as a result. Recalling connections that appear to make sense, and have been experienced before. Without due diligence of self, and self awareness, which has become more infrequent today with multi-tasking and juggling, it’s possible to get caught up in emotions that tend to rule your day, as opposed to being merely part of it!
Mindfulness enables us to take the necessary quiet time, a pause, or even micro-pause, within the day, that we need to give ourselves the space to process what we are experiencing and start choosing our responses as opposed to habitually reacting. Or trying to ‘fit in‘ with what we perceive as ‘socially acceptable‘ or ‘normal‘, but in fact doing what we feel is right in that unique moment.
Our emotions build up throughout the day and often times they are ignored and as I acknowledged they remain lurking only to sneak up on us at moments of heightened stress, frustration and angst and exacerbate a singular incident due to the built up emotions from experiences that occurred prior. If continuously left ignored this build up creates unconscious habits and feelings associated with certain situations.
By adopting Mindfulness practices or pauses you start to notice the emotions you experience throughout your day and choose to address them and retrain your behaviours towards situations and individuals as a singular event. This gives you a greater control, resilience and you become a force of adaptability. No longer allowing your brains neural pathways to lead the charge, no more taking things at face value. You master a greater sense of self awareness enabling you to rise above adversities more frequently, choosing your responses.
The bridge that Mindfulness creates for us to address our emotions and feelings is so key to leading a balanced and present life. But Mindfulness has so much more to offer to us, than just this one benefit. Mindfulness, within it’s definition reminds us to be observers, curious and kind. To remember to approach situations, people, challenges with a sense of genuine curiosity and kindness for ourselves and others, allows us to be less assuming, less judgemental. And when we change our approach in this way we are open, able to see each incident, conversation or experience for it’s own uniqueness, without labelling it prior to it’s occurrence just because we’ve had prior lessons previously.
It has become increasingly more common today for people to have decided on outcomes prior to experiencing them, which does not allow for learning, growth or the absorption of new information to be assimilated. And we often like to prove ourselves right as well, so making an outcome fit our prior expectations feels good, even if it’s an outcome we would not truly like, the feeling of being ‘right’ is deeply satisfying.
So practising a Mindful approach throughout your day enables you to be observing, curious and reminds you to be kind. It is not a natural state for us to live by all that often but with practice we can re-train ourselves to shift our emotions, approaches and detach from that which does not serve us.
So how can you bring more Mindfulness into your life?
Start your day with Gratitude, when we are in a state of noticing what we are grateful for we begin our days with more energy, positivity and that enables us to be more resilient to what may transpire.
Notice your emotions, become curious as to when they arise, what they are expressing to you. With this knowledge you can start to understand them and manage them so they do not overcome you.
Practise Curiosity, ask meaningful questions and notice how people respond to your interest in them. A lot of times we make assumptions even during conversations and do not ask the obvious questions. You may be surprised that the answers are not what you expect.
Listen to what is occurring around you. Listen in the silence, in the noise and to your conversations. A lot is assimilated through listening, but most of the time we are not present to it fully.
Practise kindness, to yourself mostly – when we are kind to ourselves we are more tolerant, understanding and appreciative of others, as we are our own worst critic!
Get outside, put down the electronic devices and take some time in nature, fresh air and enjoy the space.
Meditate, through simple breathing practises where you focus on your breathe, by repeating affirmations, through listening to the sounds around you while you are still. There are many ways to practise meditation, this will centre you and have you feeling healthier in mind, body & soul.
Remember that you do not know everything, you are still learning and each moment brings new opportunities!
If you are feeling called to reconnect with your inner world, so that you can start to show up in your outer world as the very best version of yourself. Then you need to check out my self study on-line program Me, Myself & Mindfulness. This program will have you using Mindfulness techniques, simply and seamlessly integrated into your life, it will ask you the hard questions that you need to become clear on in order to achieve your own personal sense of Success and have you start to build a life you love and deserve with Clarity through Conscious Creation.
With Warmth,
Alison xox
Alison Callan is The Clarity and Success Coach for Aspiring Entrepreneurs, as well as an Internationally Accredited Coach and Mindfulness Consultant, Facilitator and Speaker.
Committed to helping You mindfully align with your mission to create Conscious Business with Purpose, Confidence and Ease. So that you live a life you love and deserve with Clarity through Conscious Creation.
Alison Callan is The Clarity and Success Coach for Aspiring Entrepreneurs, as well as an Internationally Accredited Coach and Mindfulness Consultant, Facilitator, Speaker and #1 Best Selling Co-Author of the book ‘You Are Meant For More’.
