#056 The Simple Way to 5k Months

​You’re very welcome to today’s show. I’m thrilled to be talking to you about the simple way to 5K months, but I’m actually not going to tell you about strategy. When I originally decided on the title of this show, I was listing out three strategies to get to 5k months, but there’s something that’s actually way more important and needs to be in place before the strategy. And that is minding your nervous system.

Now, I think in this post pandemic, well it’s not all the world, are we post pandemic in lots parts of the world? No, still in the thick of it, but I think there’s a collective feeling of the nervous systems being a bit shot. And of course with what’s happening in the Ukraine and other things going on in the world, things happening around inflation and talk of escalating fuel prices and things that creating a lot of fear. And yes, that’s very much thought based and we could work on our thoughts around that. And I think that’s a really important part of it, but I think it’s just the overall minding of our nervous systems that is incredibly important. And for me, I know being a midlife postmenopausal woman, that it is a time when a lot of things can go on with our nervous systems, any past trauma that hasn’t been totally processed and dealt with will come up again. And it won’t be helped purely with, you know, just saying some affirmations and maybe taking some good supplements and stuff. It actually needs a lot more work than that. And I always say this is a stage of our lives where we really need to take exquisite care of ourselves. And that’s what I’m talking about today.

So, you may have heard me say that my best business strategy on my way to seven figures is selfcare. It may sound a little bit light-hearted and easy to say something like that, but I really do believe it’s true. And by self-care, I mean, deep self-care of taking incredible care of ourselves because no one else can do it for us. It’s up to us to hold our hand up and say, I matter this time, my life matters. I am going to take care of myself. I mean, the other day I heard, what’s probably the fifth woman that I know or know of in her fifties or early to mid-sixties who has died suddenly a heart attack. And heart disease is something that is still the biggest killer of women and men in the western world. I remember when I ran a personal development group called flourish for five years here in West Cork many years ago. And there was one time I said, “hands up who is afraid of getting heart disease”? And I don’t think anybody in the room put their hand up, there were 25, 30 women in the room. And then I asked, “who’s afraid of getting breast cancer”? And they pretty much all put their hand up, but there’s actually more chance of us dying from heart disease of having a heart attack or stroke or something else like that than there is of breast cancer. And it’s not about putting fear into anybody. It’s just that we must take care of ourselves. I worked in cardiothoracics many years ago when I was a nurse and it was when men and women came in who’d had heart attacks or needed to have bypass, and I always found it really interesting. I was a naturopathic student at the time and then a qualified naturopath when I was still working there for a couple of years, as I built my practice. And I found it really interesting that there were quite a few men there in their thirties and forties, virtually no women, unless they have maybe something different, like a valve that needed replacement or something like that. But when it came to having a heart attack or having angina or narrowed vessels that needing that to be fixed surgically, you know, there were very few women, eventually none until they got to about 55 or until there were postmenopausal. Then they caught up with the men really fast. And I remember thinking like, oh gosh, this is important information. And now I am that midlife postmenopausal woman who is still on a journey of taking care of herself. And yeah, I have quite a few different health things that I am working on and I have chosen to make health a priority in front of wealth.

Now the funny thing is the more I focus on my health, the more my wealth grows, which is really funny, isn’t it. But I used to be afraid, like I’ve done several programs over the last few years where I’ve had to choose between a big health goal or a big wealth goal. I’ve always gone with the wealth, even though in my heart, I knew it needed to be a health goal. I had the fear of, I need the money take care of myself, but no it’s actually the other way around. We need to work on our health when we are running a business or doing anything, it has to be a priority. And we get to choose that we get to choose when that’s a priority or not. So, by minding your nervous system, it is about the health of your nervous system. There’s lots of things we can do. The first thing is being aware of it. What really does calm and sooth my nervous system and what really kind of stresses it out? Where do you have that reaction where you maybe jump, maybe you see an email coming from a client and your heart skips a few beats cause you think like, are they going to say they don’t want to work with me anymore? Or maybe you get a message from someone that has sent you an unpleasant message in the past, or maybe you see a client’s payment default or other things like this happen in your business, which are normal things that happen in everybody’s business. So, how does your nervous system react? The more that we mind our nervous systems, the more that we won’t have such strong reactions to this more that we can uphold our boundaries in our business. The more that we can hand things over to somebody else to deal with that you don’t need to deal with. Of course, we’re always the CEO of our businesses, so we need to know what’s going on. But that day-to-day minutia as your business grows, doesn’t need to be you, you can’t be CEO of everything in your business and wear all the hats.

So, with your nervous system, there’s some things that can really help. One of the most important things, and maybe this is because I was a naturopath for so long, is food, food is incredibly important. I was just looking at my breakfast here and I just smiled, I thought like, yeah, that’s a pretty cool way to start the day. I’ve got like quinoa and lentils and rocket, some vegetables and leftover organic roasted tofu from last night, which is really yummy. And I say organic because soya is one of those products that I will only eat if it’s organic because of GMO’s and everything, but that’s my preference. So, it’s just this bowl of nutritious loveliness and it really makes me feel amazing for the day until I get hungry again. And then I eat again. For me, I just ask myself, is this food loving? I love myself enough or I care for myself enough or I care for my body enough to eat really amazing food. So, food is incredibly important, and I always tell my clients, the biggest tip I can give them when they’re running a challenge or launching something or having an intensive time in their business is being set up beforehand with self-care, with good food prepared beforehand, with rest, with anything that’s going to support them so that they are being nourished throughout that time.

There’s lots of other things. I had a breathwork session last week, which was incredible. I often do EFT tapping, which is amazing. I go through stages of doing it for a few months and then not doing it, but that’s okay. But breathing is definitely something that I have worked on. I worked with a counsellor last year for a while around learning how to breathe better throughout the day because I found I was sitting at my desk all day and not filling up my lungs like they need to. And that was great. Coaching definitely helps, I do self-coaching every day through journaling and then doing self-coaching with my steer process that I use. I use movement as well, any kind of movement. I’m doing a certification course at the moment around money and trauma and somatic therapies, anything where you get out of your head and into your body; yoga, stretching, dancing, running, walking, getting out in nature, especially just getting outside, taking some deep breaths. So, moving your body will really help your nervous system.

You don’t have to do all of those things and you do not have to add lots of things to your to-do list, but I just want to think about as you go through your day, what would be amazing? What would really nourish your nervous system? Like there’s lots of other things, there’s lots of things you can take. You know, I go through periods of taking things such as ashwagandha or rhodiola, fabulous herbs that can really help to nourish and nurture the nervous system. Anything that helps your gut to be healthy, so anything that’s really beneficial to the bowel flora, to the good bugs in the gut will really help. So, any sort of fermented foods and those kinds of things will usually really help your gut. Like they call the gut the second brain because there’s so many nerve endings in your gut. It’s really important.

But don’t go writing a big to-do list of what you have to do, but just think what’s one thing. What’s one thing I can do to really mind my nervous system and really take exquisite care of myself today as I do my work, as I navigate it. And you know, there’s a lot of pressure out there to push through to be consistent, to show up. In my program, my beautiful women’s mentoring program, Wholehearted Marketing, we talk a lot about showing up for your business, of being so in love or mindful of your business that you want to show up for it, like it would be in any amazing relationship that you had. But this doesn’t mean having to hustle and having to be on all the time. I used to joke that the only thing I’m consistent about is being inconsistent, and that’s true. Some of my clients say, it’s so easy for you, you show up all the time, but I actually don’t, I actually am quite inconsistent with showing up, but I make sure that I get connected with my business and share the things that I believe are going to give value. I’m going to be helpful for the women that I know I’m here to serve. I make sure that I’m checking in with how I’m even a tiny bit more invested in the women I’m here to serve, in their growth and development and helping them to make money through their beautiful business. Just that little bit more than I’m invested in what I’m feeling insecure about at the time. It’s something I share with my clients all the time, my loving shove for them is to, just step aside and just maybe stop thinking about yourself for five minutes and go and think about your clients. And I say it with a whole lot of love, and I say it to myself as well, it goes through stages, but the self-care has to come first.

Then, when you’ve taken care of yourself, when you filled your own cup up first, you have enough in the tank to say, who can I help? Who can I serve? Because if you come from a place of pure service, not looking after yourself, well then that’s servitude, that’s not service. If you’re not taking care of your own needs first, you are not helping anybody else, because you are coming from a place of, nearly of martyrdom or something. If you’re doing it from a place of trying to be nice, of “I have to help people”, because you want people to like you or people are asking things of you and you don’t have the bandwidth for it, but you are still saying yes, because you don’t want them to not to like you. Well, then that is not useful for anybody. It’s not useful for them or for you because you are actually trying to make people like you, which when you frame that way, that’s actually manipulating people, trying to make them like you, trying to control how other people think about you. So that’s what nice really is. So instead, how about just being kind to yourself, kind to the people that you’re here to serve by taking care of you first and using self-care as your number one strategy to get where you want to be, whether it’s 1K months, 5K months, 15K months, 50K months, whatever your current goal is in your business. How can self-care be your very best strategy to get there? Because once you are taking care of yourself, you will show up so much more for your clients. So, that’s my mission for you today. Think about how you can show up for yourself and then for your clients and the people that you’re here to serve.

Okay. I’ll be back to you really soon. Make sure you pop along to my website, thesarahleather.com and you will get my latest freebie around creating 5K months, a lot more business strategy in there than I was sharing today. I’ll be back to you with more mindset, more strategy, and more minding of you to get you to where you want to go in your business. Okay. Lots of love. Bye for now.