January is often touted as the “New Year, New You” month where personal development experts (and gyms) get us to commit to new habits to make our lives (and bodies) better. And we do it. More people join gyms in January than any other month of the year. And sales of personal development books, products, and workshops skyrocket in January. This leverage is probably due to the fact that the holidays often cause weight gain or excessive imbibing, which leads to guilt and sometimes physical damage, that then causes us to want to do better, feel better, and make better choices. Really though, do we need a resolution or a certain month to get us going in the right direction? I say no. It can happen anytime you are sick and tired of the old way and ready for something new.
Are you ready for something new? Are you ready for a change? What actions can you take today that will yield results by the end of the year? They don’t have to be drastic changes, just changes. Changes to your schedule, changes to your social circle, changes in your eating habits, etc. Pick an area of your life that didn’t go quite as well last year as you’d like it to go this year and commit to making a habit change that will yield great results by the end of the year.
I’ll tell you about a big change that I’m making, one that’s long overdue. For years I’ve been wanting to change my business model so I could create some passive income for myself. In 2007, 2008, and 2009 about 98% of my income came from doing intuitive readings for my clients. I love doing the readings, but they require me to be present for every single one. If you’ve read the E-Myth by Michael Gerber you’ll know that I basically gave myself a job and instead of owning my business I was simply running it. Doing it, doing it, doing it. Trading time for money is not sustainable in the long run, plus I wanted to branch out and try different methods of expressing my content and serving my readers.
In 2010 I made the commitment to trying a new way of running my business. I created my first audio program, Raising Your Vibration, and released it last January as an mp3 and a CD. That felt awesome, to finally have a product for sale that didn’t depend on me being there. I really wanted to make another audio program but I never got around to it. Why? The readings continued to take up the bulk of my time. Since so much of my income was dependent on the readings, I had to keep that going, but I still wanted to try new ways of expressing myself.
So next I did a teleseminar for the Meditation Mind. More than 300 people signed up for the free teleseminar and I received 100 submitted questions to answer. It was a kick! I’ll be releasing the mp3 version of that teleseminar soon so if you missed it, fear not.
Then I decided to put on a workshop with the women of my mastermind group. That was something we’d talked about for over a year, and finally we were all ready to take action on that. So in April 2010, I did my first joint workshop and spoke for 90 minutes on the subject of intuition and how to tune in to your spirit guides. Professional speaking was something I’d been training for since 2006 and I finally got a chance to do it in front of a live, paying audience. It was thrilling. I wanted to do more, but again, so many readings were taking up so much of my time.
I also dearly wanted to train other people to become professional intuitives, so thanks to the encouragement from people who really wanted to train with me, I made a space to start offering a Professional Intuitive Training program. My first program was a week long and happened in March of 2010. And I finished 2010 having done 4 separate trainings.
I also managed to squeak in one 2-hour workshop in August. I held a gathering in Los Angeles and did Q&A and readings for a small intimate group of 27 people. My fans in Las Vegas begged me to hold a gathering here but again with all the readings I just couldn’t fit it into the schedule.
Well all of this is changing in 2011. I sat down and really looked at all the ways I want to serve, and all the modalities I want to use, and all the products I want to create, and realized that if I continue to do what I’ve always done, I’ll continue to get what I’ve always gotten. 2010 gave me a taste of what was possible and I am bound and determined to run my business the way I want to run it, instead of letting it run me. So here are the changes I’m making and committing to so that I can achieve the results I want by the end of the year.
First, I had to figure out what to do with the readings. In 2010, the readings comprised 78% of my income, and the rest of my income came from the workshops, audio program, and trainings. I’ve been doing readings every week for the last four and a half years. I decided to try a different strategy. Instead of doing readings every week, I am now doing readings just one week per month. This may mean longer wait times for my clients, but if I don’t make room in my life for other ways to express myself, it will never happen on its own.
Secondly, I am now doing an intuitive training roughly one week out of every month. February and March are already sold out, so if you want to get into a training, the next one is April 4-8. Contact me soon if you are interested.
That leaves me with approximately 2 weeks each month to create passive income. I love working on projects that have a beginning, middle, and an end. I hate repetitive work. So in those two weeks I will be taking one day to write all my blog entries for the month and another day to record my Ask Erin YouTube series that I’ll be starting soon. Submit questions, see them answered on YouTube, and subscribe to my YouTube channel now so you don’t miss an update.
With the rest of my days, I’ll be creating ebooks, planning workshops, doing teleseminars, and working on a website upgrade (long overdue I know!). I’ll also spend some time doing administrative tasks like handling correspondence, paying bills, shopping for office supplies, networking, toastmasters, returning phone calls, etc.
I’m also scheduling in personal days. As a single working mother I don’t really have evenings and weekends off since I am actively parenting then, so I decided that to fill my own gas tank I need to actually set aside days during the month where I can take off to see a movie, get a massage, go out with friends, or just sit home, relax, and read a book. Guilt-free! So a couple of days per month I will be taking off on a weekday in order to restore myself.
I’m looking forward to an extremely productive year, doing things a little differently than I’ve been doing them so I can see the results. There may need to be adjustments but if I don’t try this I’ll never know what I’ve been missing.
Is there anything you could change in your schedule that would take you further towards your goals and enrich your life more? What habits could you adopt today, what commitments could you make, that if you just kept doing them would leave you better off at the end of this year than you were last year? Really think about it. Then make the change. New year, new way! That’s my motto.
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