When I was in 4th grade, one of the cool girls in my elementary school, brought her new Caboodle to class, filled with her colorful and well organized school supplies. Me and my nine-year-old classmates were in awe. (Children of the 80’s do you remember the Caboodle?!) I spent days after that longing for a blue, sparkly, plastic organizer of my own and couldn’t wait till my birthday when I could put it on my list. Sure enough, within a few months, girls throughout the school could be seen carrying their own pastel-colored Caboodle. 

The Caboodle was clearly one of the many 80’s trend items that came and went, but while it was hot, you couldn’t get your hands on one fast enough. 

As makers and creators, trends can really impact your business’s bottom line. Colors, materials, images, and styles that shoppers look for often changes from year to year. What is hot one season can look very stale the next….have you heard pineapples were SO last season! That is why in order to stay fresh, it is important, even if you create a product with a more “timeless” nature, to consider how you can incorporate trending elements into your products that your customers will be looking. 

Are you making products that are aligned with what customers currently want to buy? For this weeks Maker’s Monday Motivation, I challenge you to take a look at what’s going on around you in the marketplace and consider the ways trends play a role in your product development and business. 

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REFLECT:

• ow do you stay aware of current trends? 
• Are you considering current trends when you start to develop new products? 
• Do you consider yourself a trend-setter? A trend-follower? Trend-oblivious?
• Have there been experiences in your business where trends have impacted your sales? 

TIPS TO TRACK TRENDS: 

• o to Pinterest and see what items are being most reshared/repinned
• Search for trending keywords on search engines, such as Google
• Go to the library or bookstore and comb through fashion, lifestyle, and design magazines to see what products they are talking about. 
• Read blogs and pay attention to businesses who’s whole job is to watch and aggregate trends, such as TrendWatching. 
• Search Editor’s Picks sections on e-commerce sites such as Etsy.
• Get out of your studio and pay attention to what’s happening in the world, with your friends, in your community, the economy, etc.  

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Trends can really impact your business, so you want to make sure you are on the right side of the trend and able to benefit from the current zeitgeist. I hope this week gave you some ideas to insure your work continues to feel fresh and not dated. Want to do a deep dive into you product line and talk about how your offerings are measuring up? Let’s schedule a Power Hour to hash through and brainstorm ways you can be sure to stay ahead next season. Monday Motivation subscribers get 15% off through Memorial Day with code (FRIEND15).

We’re in this together!

Ashley

At some point during my years working at Etsy, I attended a learning lecture on productivity led by our then CEO, Chad Dickerson. I anticipated that the lecture would focus on what software he used, or calendar management system worked best for our work culture. Instead, I walked away with one of the most valuable life tips I’ve ever learned. 

Chad said, the #1 most important factor that will influence your productivity is your relationships. 

He spoke about how the people we surround ourselves with will either inspire, support, and motivate us, or they will weigh us down, distract us, drain us of our energy, and ultimately create roadblocks to our progress and kill our productivity. 

Boom. 

Chad dropped a major truth bomb on me that day. 

Productivity isn’t as simple as an online tool or a calendar system to manage your workload. It involves a holistic approach to how you live your life both personally and professionally. 

I’m confident that regardless if your creative business is primarily a solo-venture or you work with a team, you have relationships, partners, co-workers, vendors, clients, customers and friends that influence what your days look like. For this week’s Makers Monday Motivation, I encourage you to take a few moments to honestly consider how the relationships in your life are currently impacting your creative productivity. 

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REFLECT: 

• Identify the 2-5 people you spend the most time with. How do these individuals impact your productivity? 
• Do you have any relationships in your life that weigh you down, distract you, drain you of your energy, and ultimately create roadblocks to your creative progress? If so, is there anything you can do to shift the influence of these individuals?

ACT: 

• Are you currently involved or working with any peer or professional groups? If not, can you make it a priority to research and find some peers you can connect with on a regularly basis? 
• Set up a coffee with someone you are inspired by or respect and see if you can share about your business and hear their feedback. 
• Make the space in your schedule to spend time each week (either in person or over the phone) connecting with someone who builds you up and motivates you. 

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bviously some relationships in life we don’t get to choose, they are there because of a common association such as a job, a neighborhood, a family, etc. That said, we each have the ability to take ownership of where we want to get our influence and seek out relationships that build us up. IMO, having a business coach is a solid way to insure you always have a teammate on your side that will help you stay motivated and moving forward toward your dreams and goals. If you’d like a supportive partner on your team, I’d love to come beside you. Schedule a free 30 min intro coaching phone-session today. 

 We’re in this together!

Ashley

And just like that, we’re a quarter of the way through 2018…

This is a perfect week to take a few moments to check in with yourself and see how you are doing so far this year. 

Remember those goals you set back in January? 

How are they going?

If you are anything like me, “life” happened over the last three months and things you didn’t anticipate have come up causing some of your goals to be put on the back-burner, others to be forgotten all together, and new ones suddenly become top of mind. 

That’s why it’s so good to do quarterly check-ins so you can remember what you wanted to accomplish, re-calibrate where plans have changed, and get back on track to make this a year where you truly move your goals and dreams forward. 

As the April showers begin and the spring flowers start to push their way up through the dead leaves of winter, this week’s Monday Motivation is simply a reminder to help you tend to your dreams and give them the extra care they need so they bloom in the months ahead.

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REFLECT:

• Review your goals for the year. (Or if you didn’t write any in January...now is a great time to start!)
• How are you doing on your goals? Have you made progress on any of them? Have you completed any?
• Has anything happened in the last three months that has caused your priorities and goals for the year to shift?
• How are you feeling about your productivity so far this year?

ACT:

• Update your goals to reflect any changes you may have now that the first quarter is complete.
• Prioritize your goals and start working on the one that is the most important to you.
• Take action and start! If your goals feel too overwhelming, try breaking them down into smaller tasks and schedule the time to work on those activities.
• Find a friend to share your goals with and ask them to help keep you accountable.

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You’re goals and dreams are too important to not act on and I’m so excited to see you bring them to life in the months ahead. If you’re needing some help prioritizing where to start, or not sure how to break down your goals into actionable steps, I’d love to work with you, schedule a free 30 min intro coaching phone-session.

We’re in this together,

Ashley

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship with technology. Particularly my attachment to my smartphone. Despite my best efforts, I’m really struggling to set and keep realistic boundaries when it comes to how many hours of my day I spend looking at a tiny screen. 

Can you relate?

As a small business owner, I’m incredibly grateful for the ways technology enables me to run my business efficiently with low-overhead, and from anywhere. That said, if I’m honest with myself, I know that as a business coach, if one of my clients had an employee that they were as dependent upon, or wasted as much time chatting with as I do with my cell-phone, I’d wave a red flag and advise them on steps to change this!

I can no longer ignore this gnawing feeling that my smart phone is slowly starting to manage meinstead of me managing it.

Inspired by an article I read, my husband and I decided to use our recent vacation as a chance to truly see if we could disconnect from our phones for a week. We made a commitment to each other that we would be truly present for the duration of our vacation, instead of checked-out staring at our screens or sharing each experience on social media with people miles away. We even went so far as to give our parents the number of the hotel we were staying and advising them that if there was an emergency the front desk would be the best way to get in touch.

The result: it was incredibly refreshing and good for our relationship, but it was also incredibly hard. 

What we quickly realized was just how accustom we’ve gotten to using apps to navigate the day-to-day activities in our lives and how much of the modern way of existing is dependent on our phones.

So, being rational folks, from time-to-time we allowed some exceptions: we used Google Maps to find our way to destinations, we used Yelp to help select a restaurant, we used Lyft to get car rides, we used Postmates to order food to our hotel for lunch, and we electronically checked-in for our flight. 

These uses were innocent enough, however the real challenge was once the phone was open and our use of the particular app over...there is a strong impulse to go look at other things on the phone, which inevitably gets you sucked into time wasting screen-staring. 

Smartphones are addicting, and honoring boundaries takes incredible self-discipline. 

We tried our best and yet still we sometimes stumbled.

Since being home, I’ve been considering ways I could realistically stop having my phone be the single tool I use to operate so much of my life: I could get a newspaper subscription, an alarm clock, a landline, carry a camera, find paper maps, use the yellow pages, an address book….you know, like how we did before smart phones.

Is this the right solution? Is it at all realistic? 

I’m not sure. I’m still grappling with it.

That said, I do know I don’t want to spend so many hours of my life staring at a screen. I want more space to think creatively and more time spent actually in the present. It is a priority for me to create more balance and become less dependant on a single device. 

So, for this weeks Monday Motivation Challenge, I’d like to encourage you to consider your relationship with your smartphone and brainstorm together with me ways to create more balance. I believe this effort will inevitably help move your creative ventures forward and allow more space for making.

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THINK:

• How do you feel about your relationship with your devices?
• Write a list of the ways your phone has made your life better/more productive and also what ways you think it has had a negative impact.
• Consider what steps could you take to create more balance or set greater boundaries with your devices?

ACT: 

• Install the Moment app to track how much time you actually spend on your phone
• Create some attainable boundaries for your devices (no phones in the bedroom, no screens after 8pm, only look at certain sites on your desktop)
• Delete time-wasting apps
• Try to not fill down-time with screens (try just wait in a line, or the elevator, or for the train without looking at your phone)

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I’m yet to come up with the perfect solution for how to manage my smart phone use, so if you come up with any great ideas in this weeks brainstorm or that you have found work in your own life, please share them with me! In the meantime, if you want to connect one-one-one with someone in real life to talk about how to start crushing your goals for your creative business, schedule a free 30 min intro coaching phone-session.

We’re in this together,

Ashley

Prior to launching my own business I spent many years working as an employee for other managers and bosses. Some of these people were amazing mentors and leaders, while others made my life miserable. So miserable that I’ll even credit an experience of working for one of the worst bosses I ever had as a key motivator for me to launch my own business.

Like most people, when I dreamed about launching my own business I was motivated by the desire to no longer report to someone else, to make my own rules, and to have the autonomy to create the ideal life and work environment I wanted and knew I could thrive in. 

I took the leap to work for myself because I desired the freedom that comes with self-employment.

Today, over four years into this adventure I believe this freedom is possible. That said, in my work as a coach, working with hundreds of folks who have taken the brave leap to go out on their own, I will say this freedom isn’t simply a give-in. You have to be intentional to create the lifestyle you desire.

To much dismay, I’ve watched so many passionate, creative people end up creating unbearable work conditions for themselves, working insane hours, never taking breaks, not creating clear expectations and goals for themselves, and in the end ultimately become their own worst boss. 

My question for you this week is...would you want to work for you? Or, in your pursuit for success in self-employment have you become your own worst boss?

Do you never let yourself disconnect? Has your work become your whole life? Are you demanding and unforgiving? Do you create unrealistic expectations for what you will accomplish? If you currently run your creative business as a side-hustle, how are you as a manager of your part-time job?

For this week’s Monday Motivation Challenge I want you to step back and reflect on what type of boss you are, or want type of boss you would like to become for your own business.

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THINK: 

• What qualities do you look for in a dream boss?
• If you were looking for a new job with a new employer, what criteria would you look for in the work culture and the leadership?
• How many of those qualities do you believe you currently have or implement in your own creative business?
• From the outside looking in, would you want to work for you? Be honest!

ACT:

• Take some time to reflect and give yourself a 360’ review. 
  • What things are you doing really well as a manager of your own business? 
  • What area(s) is there room for improvements?
  • Can you make a plan to start creating your dream workplace?

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Let’s face it, if you are going to be your own boss, you might as well be the best darn boss you ever had. You do have freedom in self-employment, that means it is entirely up to you to determine how you are going to treat yourself. ant some support getting there? I’d love to work with you. Schedule a free 30 min intro coaching phone-session.

We’re in this together,

Ashley