5 Things I want to Stop Doing in 2021 (as an Online Business Owner)
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video transcript:
5 Things I want to Stop Doing in 2021 (as an Online Business Owner)
Welcome back to my channel. If you’re new here, hi, I’m Louise of Louisehenry.com. In today’s video, I thought that we would just sit down and have a little heart-to-heart. I’ve got my coffee (of course – when do I not?), and I’m going to share with you five things that I want to stop doing in 2021. Hopefully this gets you thinking about things that you also want to drop for the New Year, so that we can go after and achieve our big goals.
#1 – Working “In” The Business
The very first thing I want to stop doing is telling myself that, because something is only going to take two minutes, I’ll just do it myself. I think this is a really familiar trap for a lot of entrepreneurs, and this keeps us working in our business and not on it. It keeps us working in the weeds and on things that we should actually be delegating.
It’s funny, because often, in the two minutes that it would take me to do myself, I could have also documented the process, stored it in our training area, and had it ready for people to outsource to, not just now, in this one instance, but anytime this particular task comes up in the future. So, it actually is not a very good use of our time at all, so I will be committing to outsourcing, even the small things that I think are not a big deal. It still takes up time and it still takes up our valuable energy.
When this happens, rather than just diving in and getting it done, I’m going to use Loom, which is a fantastic tool that allows me to share my screen and record a voiceover at the same time, and explain all the steps of that particular task. I’m going to do that instead, and then hand it over to a team member.
I’m also going to document this in our project management system, which is Asana. This way, it can be outsourced from this point on. I’m going to delegate these tasks out. I’m also going to look for opportunities where tech can help us automate and streamline even more. For example, there was a small task that needed to be done yesterday. I did successfully do this, where I filmed a Loom video tutorial on how to do it, and I outsourced it to a team member. But then, I told the team member, when you do that, send me a message, let me know that you’ve done it, and then I’ll email our bookkeeper and let them know. That makes no sense at all! So, I went into the software and figured out a way to automatically email the bookkeeper when that task was done on our end. That took me out of the process completely and it also took out a step.
As you are doing this, as you’re delegating and outsourcing, also keep in mind, can we streamline or automate instead?
#2 – Not Sticking to Boundaries
The next thing that I want to stop doing is not sticking to the boundaries that I set for myself. For example, I will decide on new work hours and that I’m actually going to unplug at the end of the day and step away from my laptop. And then, a few days later, I will instantly go back on this boundary and be working until I go to bed. The problem with this is, I always set those boundaries for a reason. Those boundaries are there because I think, overall, it’s going to help me, and it’s going to help me achieve those big goals. I’m going to try and do a better job at sticking to them – definitely the main one coming to mind is my work hours. If anyone struggles with this as well, can you let me know in the comment down below? That would be great.
#3 – Stop Over-Stressing
The next thing I want to stop doing is over-stressing. I run my own business, therefore I set the rules – yet I stressed a lot last year. I took things way too seriously. I would build up the pressure, and kind of ruin these things that really otherwise could have been quite fun and enjoyable.
I think just acknowledging this has already helped, and in the week and a half that we’ve been back at work, I feel great. Things are so much lighter and I’m having more fun and really not stressing as much. There’s always a solution to the problems that come up – we always end up getting the work done that we need to, so I’ve really just got to relax a little bit more.
You can still work hard and go after your big goals without being in an actual state of stress. I’m going to shift my perspective there and not put so much pressure on myself. For example, I do launches in my business and right before them I would get really nervous and put all this pressure on myself for them. Instead, this year, I’m just going to go into them, I’m going to show up, do my absolute best, and that’s all I can do. Me stressing over it like crazy is not helping at all.
#4 – Too Much Pressure On Content
The next thing I want to stop doing is putting too much pressure on my content. Let me know in the comments if you do this as well. I was over-thinking every social media post, reel, YouTube video that I needed to create, struggling to come up with ideas, and thinking that it wasn’t valuable to share unless it was the perfect topic. Then I realized that, throughout our day, there are so many thoughts and realizations and lessons that we learn, all of which would be extremely valuable to others. Basically, I’m going to take the pressure off, and any time an idea comes up, I’m going to document it and accept that that is actually going to be valuable to someone.
#5 – Attaching Success to Harder Work
The last thing I need to stop doing is attaching success to how hard I work. There is this narrative that is pushed forward in the entrepreneur world about hustling and over-working, and that the only way to deserve any form of success is to do that. But when you actually look at it, and when you do some money mindset work, you realize that that’s a really inaccurate story and that’s not actually what we should be going after. So, I know that for me, it’s easy to default to just working harder and harder and really pushing myself, instead of working smarter, which is what I plan to do in 2021.
I plan to have more fun, more flow, more ease in my life, and I think we’ll be able to achieve the same level of success – or maybe even better. It’s definitely something that I’ve been working on with my business coach, and so I’m sure I’ll do another video on this topic and report back to you on how well it’s going.
So those are the things that I want to stop doing in 2021. I hope that this was interesting for you and got you thinking about the things that you want to cut out in 2021 as well.
Thank you so much for watching this video. If you liked it, please let me know by giving it a thumbs up. Leave me a comment down below, sharing your thoughts, and if you haven’t yet, don’t forget to hit Subscribe. I talk all about productivity, marketing and the journey of building an online business here on this channel.
See you soon with another video.
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