Collective Blog

I saw back to school commercials this past weekend!

It happens in early August every year, but it still feels a little shocking every time, doesn't it?  I mean, I've barely made it through my bottle of SPF let alone think about books and backpacks!

Thinking of September though made me think about Happy Healthy Women and everything we offer. I started asking myself if we are ready, since it's always that day after kids go back to school that many women feel like they are able to put the pedal to the metal in their businesses, and we have to be prepared to serve! 

The good news is - we are SO READY, and while it's totally fine that women wait until September to get all of that rolling - I have some...ahem...insiders advice.

For the sake of your mindset, your revenue, and your budget...you may not want to wait until September to get your business wheels in motion for the 4th quarter.

Here are two big reasons why:

1. The Momentum Train: September is like New Years for Entrepreneurs. There's an instant shift where everything starts to get back to routine and energy starts to buzz to a different tune!

Here's something to be aware of, especially if you're new in business. What I have seen in the past with some, is that they START to get things rolling in September, and then need a few weeks to get organized before they open up the floodgates to their products, services and programs.

Perhaps they have to fine tune their program, freshen up the branding, or find groups to start holding workshops in. While these are all things that are important - they are the things that have to get done BEFORE business gets into momentum and starts making sales.

Wouldn't you rather be READY for that business at the beginning of September and increase your year's revenue?

2. More Bang for Your Buck: In September - prices go up in all industries. Summer sales disappear, early bird rates end, and new things are launched!

While September is a great time to take that course you've been meaning to take, get involved with that new mastermind or finally attend that retreat that rolls around every fall - it's a good idea to check in with the investments required now as opposed to a month from now.

Getting things locked in now will:

A) Likely save you money

B) Help you feel like you're in control and have a plan for September rather than feeling like you have to START in September

C) Get YOU making money faster, as chances are these investments will help you grow your business!

Where Happy Healthy Women is concerned - we've been dropping little hints around these pieces, but for those looking to get more involved with HHW and all that we offer - here's the inside scoop on our programs and pricing over the next couple of months.

1. Leadership Program Pricing goes up this September 1st - so if you've been thinking about locking arms with us and being a leader on our platform of over 16,000 women, you can lock in our current rate for the next 6 months to a year. 

If you're reading this in time, we have info sessions this week and will be sharing more on these programs - Thursday August 11th and Friday August 12th. 

2. Our next (and final for 2022) Beautiful Business Cohort begins September 16th and spots are going fast. If you're looking to level-up your business and yourself to CEO status, this is for you!

3. Early bird rates for our Manifest Magic Fall Retreat are in effect until August 31st! Same amazing retreat, but an opportunity to save by registering this month instead of next!

With everything we have set in motion, rest assured that if you're looking to move to the next level in all areas of your beautiful business and life, we are so ready for you!

My biggest advice? Take advantage of August and lock arms with us for an incredible fall!

In Happiness & Health,

Natalie Colalillo

Founder & CEO Happy Healthy Women

Instagram: @happy_healthy_nat

Online courses have become a very popular way for coaches, consultants, and other experts to create additional revenue in their business. Some use courses as their main business model and choose to sell a signature course that can range in price from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars. Others sell one or more mini-courses at a low-ticket price point, or they may choose to create memberships where they offer a variety of mini-trainings and workshops on a particular topic for a monthly fee.

And really, why not? By 2025, it’s predicted that the online education industry will be worth $325 billion… Yes, BILLION! Woah!

Even though there was an obvious surge in the popularity of online education in the pandemic, the industry shows no signs of slowing down! That’s good news for course creators.

However, while courses can help you create more revenue in your business, here are 5 other ways creating a course can help you exponentially elevate your business and your brand. 

Launching an online course can help you:

1. Raise your authority - Offering a course can help you position yourself as an expert on a particular topic. By showing up as a teacher and sharing your expertise, you automatically build trust and credibility with your client/customers and turn cold leads to warm leads.

2. Build a deeper connection with your audience - When you commit to teaching someone something new, you naturally become more in tune with your learner. This can offer you valuable insight into how you can better support them which leads to you being better able to offer them what they want instead of what you think they need.

3. Boost your reach - Reach is the number of unique people who see and interact with your content. Courses offer you the opportunity to serve more people with less time, energy, effort, and resources.

4. Enhance support to your current clients - While some offer a course to replace their 1:1 coaching or service, there is tremendous opportunity to use courses to offer more support to your client without you increasing face to face time.

5. Increase Accessibility - Online courses can be purchased and completed by the participant on-demand. This offers a great deal of flexibility for the participant which increases customer retention, course completion, and brand loyalty.

With so many benefits to creating a course, it’s not a surprise that many coaches and consultants have transitioned to offering courses in their business.

Will this be you?

Tracy Sherriff is a Curriculum Operations Expert who helps coaches, service-based professionals, and other experts successfully scale their business online with high-touch, high-impact courses and programs. You can connect with Tracy by visiting her website tracysherriff.com, or finding her on Instagram @tracy.sherriff

Remote work is a good flexible opportunity for most professionals, but there are many ways where it could be better for women.

Working from home is important for women across the board, but the details matter. In fact, Catalyst discovered that women were twice more likely to downsize their career opportunities due to their lack of access to flexible work arrangements. Though the setup provides women with more control over what they want to do, studies also reveal that they can get more overworked as they juggle multiple responsibilities at home.

If you’re an entrepreneur who wants to empower and improve the health and well-being for the women in your company, here are the remote work benefits that you could look to provide:

Fitness Benefits

Working women are more prone to overworking in remote setups, making it difficult to squeeze a workout into thier work day.

While it can be tempting for everyone to lounge around the house after work, your company can encourage your employees to get up and get moving through fitness benefits. Our article on ‘How to Manage Your Health and Fitness Goals at the Office’ provides tips that are still applicable at home, such as planning and prepping your whole week. Companies can do this by scheduling meeting-free hours every week, and enabling female executives and employees to make room for a company-paid virtual fitness class.

Virtual Healthcare Services

Pre-menstrual syndrome? Menopause? These are just some of the health concerns that working women have to face.

Unfortunately, without support these health conditions can affect productivity, even when women are working in a remote setup. For companies that want to keep their remote female employees happy, Wheel demonstrates how virtual healthcare services can address these specific concerns by increasing your employees’ access to world-class clinicians, mental health support, and diagnostic services. With this increased access to healthcare, your business can achieve up to 70% savings in operating expenses, and ensure gender-sensitive healthcare support for female employees.

Online Educational Programs

As a female entrepreneur, you probably understand the importance of having a clear path for career advancement as a woman.

Given that women are more likely to invest in their careers through remote work opportunities, companies can increase their potential by providing free online educational programs. In fact, Fortune reports that about 14% of workers are already benefitting from online skills and training courses that were covered or reimbursed by their employers. The skills needed to perform the same job could change by 40% in 2025, so both employers and employees can benefit from upskilling the workforce through these online educational programs. Through these opportunities, women can enjoy greater stability and even achieve more progress in their careers.

Retirement Planning

Financial well-being can affect employee mental health and performance, but many employers tend to overlook this aspect.

Financial well-being is very important for working women. Insurance company TIAA discovered that the retirement savings of women are 30% lower than those of men. Women experience many missed saving opportunities due to career breaks, so companies need to invest in their retirement planning through financial education. Companies can offer virtual financial seminars that can teach women how they can budget and grow their retirement funds. On top of that, your business can also pay for financial budgeting apps that can help them allocate their money properly.

Your company will grow stronger if you prioritize empowerment. Through these remote workplace benefits, you can uplift your fellow women and be rewarded with a happier, healthier, and more productive workforce.

Discipline: is it controlling or is it a path to freedom?

People tell me I’m disciplined. I used to resist this quality, but now I'm learning to embrace its beauty.

Often discipline is viewed in a negative connotation – like it’s a punishment or a restrictive way of being or that it’s about making us do something instead of wanting to do something.

Is this true?

To help me answer this question I did a bit of internet research and came across an article in the Huff Post that talked about how thousands of years ago the sages of ancient India formulated the Dharma Code, a system for making enlightened choices in everyday life. The fourth Dharma principle is discipline and the way the ancient sages defined discipline is the "focused effort that leads to personal transformation". I love this definition!

I believe personal transformation is about reaching our goals, getting what we desire, creating the life we want, and up-leveling ourselves, our careers, our health, and our relationships. And this personal transformation leads to us to feeling good about our choices, feeling in alignment with ourselves, and a deep inner knowing that we are doing the right thing for us.

The other part of the Dharma principle of discipline is “focused effort”. What does this mean? I look at it as creating structures in our life that will help us bring about personal transformation. If this sounds constricting to you, I’d like to offer that it’s actually the opposite. Structures provide us a way of doing things; they’re a mental construct for organizing our brains and all the thoughts going through it. Structures give us a way to organize the chaos around us. I know when I’m in chaos I feel overwhelmed, anxious, full of self-doubt, frustrated, irritable, or resentful. And who wants to feel all that?

Structures help in the formation and keeping of habits which in turn lead toward a way of being. When we have a certain way of being every day, when we follow the structures we have created for ourselves – this leads to a disciplined approach to doing things. And a disciplined approach to doing things leads to personal transformation.

Discipline allows us to gain control of our own lives. I believe we all have agency over our own lives and a disciplined approach to things will help us achieve that agency.

Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, says “discipline generates great freedom in our life, allowing us to manifest our purpose”. Purpose – isn’t that what we’re all here to find and do?

And that leads me to the most important part of my thoughts on discipline. To obtain personal transformation and commit to focused effort, we need to be in tune with our purpose, or as Simon Sinek calls it, our why. We need to keep going back to why we want something. Whatever that why is, that’s the critical piece.

Interestingly, the Latin etymology of discipline comes from the word discipulus, which means ‘pupil’. I love this because to me this means becoming a pupil of ourselves. I think tapping into our why enables us to learn about ourselves. Creating structures and habits and discipline in our lives provides us with new ways of looking at ourselves, of determining what is important to us, and of showing us what we are capable of! Being pupils of ourselves, being aware of how we respond to things, looking to create a better version of ourselves, learning new and different things about our bodies, our minds, our spirituality – this is the best gift we can give ourselves.

 ***

If you are looking to create more discipline in your life, and more importantly want to be clear on your purpose, then I invite you to work with me and learn about how I can help you live a genuine, fulfilled, and aligned life. Apply to work with me today.

***

Vera Ilnyckyj is a Life Coach, Podcaster and Writer, whose mission is to help women shine their light more brightly. She’s passionate about helping women heal their heart to allow them to gain clarity about what's important in their life, connect with their purpose, and take action to live a genuine and fulfilled life. Apply to work with Vera in her one-on-one coaching program.

Vera hosts a podcast, Practical Wisdom from a Life Coach, which can be found on all podcast platforms.

She is also a Trailblazer with Happy Healthy Women.

Connect with Vera on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn and learn more about her at her website.

Have you ever written yourself a love letter?

I stumbled on this letter I wrote to myself last Fall after going through huge growth and expansion, and I wanted to share with you as it made me smile.

When I wrote this love letter, my intention was to clarify:

~ What I wanted to work on within me,
~ What I was ready to face, and
~ What I wanted my next level to be. 

As I read through the words, lots of emotions come up as I realize how far I have come.  I have opened up spaces within me and released emotions that were so locked up and stored in my body they were holding me back without me even knowing it.

There has been so much healing within me and so much still left to do.  And this letter is a huge confirmation of the work that I am doing on myself and the journey I am on.

It all started with an intention to transform and ended up being so much more.
______

Dear Beautiful Rach,

I am so proud to be standing in your shoes today. 

We have come a very long way and still have so much to accomplish and so many versions to become.  You just keep getting better and better!  I am in awe!

As we embark on our next journey there are a few things we need to look at. 
1. Who do we choose to become for this next level?
2. What will becoming this bring us?

As we keep growing and evolving, our next step is to fully embody our authentic self.  

This means that we will stand in our truth always and feel all the feels.  The high positive emotions and the low negative ones as well.  We will feel all of them. 

Going forward, all emotions are a go. No more dissociating to protect yourself, we will keep pulling back the layers and identifying the blocks, the hurts, the pains that caused you to completely shut down.   The more you can feel the hurt, the more you can feel the love.   We are ready for this next level. 

By embodying these emotions, I am giving you permission to feel, to take the time you need with each shadows and each light.  We are opening ourselves up to expand even more and remember, with each breakdown comes a breakthrough.

You are strong and courageous beautiful and when you doubt, look back at all of the challenges you have overcome and all that you have accomplished.  You are a divine warrior queen!

Let this strengthen your connection to your source within and your intuition, let it guide your every move.  You are diving into the sensations and what it means to be completely in alignment with your authentic self and your truth.

Being your highest self means being in your fullest expression, that is our next level of this beautiful life. 

I am so blessed to be doing life with you! 
I love you
xo

______

HERE IS YOUR SOUL MISSION: 
Pull out your journal, find a quiet space and think about the person you want to become in 3 or 6 months from now.  Who is this beautiful being?  And what do you need to start changing to embody and grow into her?  Write yourself a beautiful love letter, letting the pen flow and your heart lead.  What do you want to say to yourself?  Be open and raw!  You are the only one reading this letter!

I am so holding you tight right now and sending you so much light! 

Much love,
Rachel xo

Rachel Benton is a Licensed Life & Embodiment Coach and a ThetaHealing Energy Practitioner.  She helps women build their business in complete alignment with their truth and intuition and guides them to create a soulful life that FUELS and IGNITES them!

Rachel is also the branch director for Happy Healthy Women - Cambridge - Join the Facebook Group

Connect with her today:
Website
Instagram: @rachelbentonlifecoach

I don’t know about you, but more than once I have had someone say to me: 

“Don’t be so emotional!” 

Or 

“You shouldn’t feel that way!” 

Or 

“Just get over it!” 

And for so many years I felt shame when I heard it. 

I felt shame about my seeming lack of control, my apparent too-muchness, and my inability to fit into the logical mindset that my surroundings seemed to prefer! 

And so I did what so many of us have done - I hid! 

I pretended I was always fine - and that nothing ever bothered me! 

Anytime an emotion would come up I would do everything I could to push it back down. I would bury it so deep that eventually, I thought I forgot it was there!

And I thought I was walking through life the way I was ‘supposed’ to. 

But there is a funny thing about emotions - they can not be denied forever. Eventually, I found myself living in duplicity - my exterior world looked fine, and people would have even described me as happy. I had become proficient at wearing “the mask.” 

But my interior world was completely different - inside I felt shrivelled up, resentful, and numb. I had no idea that when I closed off my ability to feel some of the more difficult emotions of hurt, anger, and disappointment I had also closed off my ability to feel joy, contentment, gratitude, playfulness etc. 

I remember first hearing that emotions were…good - that allowing ourselves to feel them was healthy and was the path to beneficial action! 

I was suspicious but also strangely drawn to the idea! 

The more I learned the more shocked I became - shocked that what I had thought was my weakness was actually my strength. 

Imagine my surprise when I learned that emotions are the vehicle we use to travel down the path from the “problem” to the “solution.” 

That they are the fuel that gives you the energy to move forward, and that they were the creators of clarity not the authors of confusion! 

I learned that emotions only last an average of 6 to 90 seconds in the body - and that it is only when we attach thoughts to the emotions that we then made them last longer - potentially trapping them in our body. 

And so I began to pay attention to my emotions, and I started to listen carefully to the thoughts I attached to them. 

And finally, I began to ask better questions! 

Questions like: 

“What is this emotion trying to tell me?” 

“What does it show is important to me?” 

“What does this emotion need me to valid and witness?” 

“What changes does it tell me I need to make?” 

I learned to ride my emotions like a wave and that on the other side of the wave was calm clear relief and important information about what the best action would be in whatever situation I found myself in!

And so maybe today you need to be reminded that the emotions that you feel are good, even when they are hard to have, maybe today you need to be reminded that it is ok to feel them, that they are your gifts - each emotion has wrapped within it important information about what you need, what you value, what you prefer, and what brings your pleasure. 

Take the time to experience all of them! Learn to talk with them and ask them questions about their purpose and about what action they are taking you to! 

Give yourself the gift of fully experiencing the emotions that show up in your life! You may just find yourself pleasantly surprised by what happens when you do!! 

Download your July Affirmation: 

July Affirmation

Meg is a Life Coach, Hypnotherapist, and Podcast Host (The Art Of Being H(YOU)man) that is passionate about walking with people who want more out of life than just the status quo!

She believes that life doesn’t have to work out exactly the way we think it “should” in order to be enjoyed and that people don’t have to be perfect in order to be loved.

She believes that we all have the voice of truth inside of us but sometimes it can be hard to hear. And most importantly that we must live between the tension of accepting the things we cannot change and taking massive action on the things we can!

Meg creates spaces where women can slow down and process all the things that are influencing and controlling their lives - their everyday thoughts, emotions, and the stories they have been telling themselves.

Spaces where they can look at their inner world, gain valuable insight and then reclaim their personal authority, and make conscious decisions that transform the way they experience their lives!

Through one on one coaching, group coaching and workshops Meg helps women show up in the world with more love, and less ego, more compassion, and less judgment, more vulnerability, and less shame, more emotional agility and less fear!

Meg lives in BC with her husband of 22 years, two teenage boys and their little dog Charlie.

To learn more about Meg visit her website www.megheppner.com

Tips on Wooing the Muse

First, you have to turn off the editor.  No, first, you have to turn on your writer’s eye.  I’ll talk about when to turn on the editor later.  In her book Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg says writers live twice.  All artists and creatives live twice. When they learn to work around the impediments of busy day-to-day life, they use their second life to search out inspiration potential. The frenetic pace so many find themselves in often steals subsequent moments and blurs second sights, rendering them unavailable for later recall. 

There is a way to arrive prepared when you allow time for creativity. Don’t worry if you lack regular time for your chosen art form.  You might find the end of a day or a hectic week invites you to sit and switch on your other self.  The self that doesn’t wear the hats of an employee for a regular paycheque, busy solopreneur, mother, father, wife, husband, partner but the space to be just you communing with your muse. 

Arrive Ready for Your Creative Time

A technique for writing prolifically that I’m about to share with you builds on Goldberg’s idea. You must turn on your writer’s eye to see things twice (you do not need mind-altering substances to induce this). Call forth your curious eye and allow it to probe things with the concentration of a magnifying glass. Aim to make this focused double vision a ritualistic habit. A terrible thing will happen if you examine everything more than once; you’ll have a blog post, a poem, a music composition bubbling up, a story, or a writing idea for everything you look at, hear, or experience. This will be a good thing if you can also finish the things you start in a timely manner.  (If you can do that, I’m taking pointers, thank you!)

Now take it one step further.  If you want to write profusely, insist on the necessary action and write your second sight down.  That’s the voice of your muse tickling your ear via the sustained curiosity of a creative. It’s the action I expect of myself when I see things twice.  I challenged myself to utilize this technique for one year, and it enabled me to write more than 300 poems, begin several short stories, plan outlines for six books, finish five personal essays, and focus on a book project. All writing starts with the seeds of an idea that stay with you, begging for more attention.  Remember, these seeds need a firm place to sit while they wait. If you try to trust memory or the muse to deliver them again, they only lose their shape and strength, becoming invisible.

Begin to See Your Creative Flow Times

      You’ll recognize your own writer’s eye when you begin to pay more attention to any one event or sight.  Write your observations down if it lingers on the diminutive woman across the street in the bright pink hat leaning against a bus bench.  Writing it down is the tool to later coax your muse into a consistent partnership.  You become the instrument of the muse when you make the time for second sight. Then, more than just an implement, you become adept at channeling those whispered conjectures into syntactical marks on paper, where they can later multiply into your chosen genre or social media content. Once you are actively writing your second sight down, it becomes a habit, and the pressure is off. Blank moments staring at your screen or doodling on your paper are history.  Would your mind tarry like mine did when a check filled out with the shaky hand of age came across my desk at work with the spouse’s name crossed out?  Do you pause and ask the possible reasons why an older man would cross out his wife’s name?  Then stop and write it down!  It may become your best blog post or marketing copy, an extra character sketch in a novel, or the basis of a short story.  Also, please pay attention to past events as they tumble through your mind. Take a moment to ponder each for its value as writing fodder.

If you’re at a desk where you sell your time and can’t occasionally attend to your matters when something intrigues you, establish one little comfortable corner for your muse. For example, keep a notepad or scrap paper handy beside your work computer monitor for quickly recording enough of any concentrated moment to conjure up a replay later. Ensure this spot is where your eyes connect with numerous times during your workday. If your job requires you to be mobile, carry a mini-cassette recorder in a pocket or some of your paper on a clipboard that you can keep close at hand. It only takes seconds to write your observations down. Scribble enough of the thought, curiosity, and image to return to it when you take writing time for yourself on a lunch break, on a park bench, at your home writing desk or in your favourite chair.  

Unless you have an incredible memory and ability to recall the emotions and details of the moments that impacted you, you might end up chasing wispy memories of a neglected muse in your writing time. The muse is capricious and unreliable and does not give repeat performances unless you capture enough of the moment on paper to entice the muse to stretch the ideas further. You’ll see that you can reliably and consistently woo the muse.

Routines Equal Discipline and This is a Good Thing

Now, establish a reliable routine for your captured thoughts to travel to your home writing space. This gathering scrap method works wonderfully whether or not you maintain a regular writing time. When you get home after your work commute or evening out, take your pile of scraps, small notepad, or whatever you used and place them to meet you when you next sit down to write. Use the Boy Scout’s Creed to banish writer’s block. In Becoming a Writer, Dorothea Brande emphatically states the importance of cultivating the habit of putting words to paper the moment you sit down to write. With secured thoughts and images on paper clamoring for your attention, you can fearlessly claim time to write with the anticipation that you have ideas to play with even before you sit down.

When you arrive at your writing place, you can invite inspiration to play with you and your ready supply of second-sight moments. Alternatively, some writers like to take their notebooks to cafes or libraries, feeling they write their best away from home. Julia Cameron in The Right to Write suggests you utilize many different workstations throughout your house, maybe even your community, as some will elicit more success than others, depending on your mood. Every day, I arrived first at my pen and paper desk right after breakfast. Now that I mostly fast, it’s my yoga mat first, then my gratitude journal, followed by writing before I look at any devices. Regardless of what time of day you write, it’s best to arrive fueled up on physical sustenance if hunger will distract you.  That way, a growling stomach can’t derail your creativity. Unleash your first thought and let it travel through you to your creative place.  Do you have more words to add to it?  If not, move on to the next piece or idea. 

All Creatives Are Like Magpies

Sometimes a scrap thought might take a week or two, even a month or more, before further inspiration makes it appeal to you. Margaret Atwood shares, "Writers are like magpies; they collect endless scraps and shreds – things that they don’t think would be useful but suddenly are.”   Most ideas eventually link to another thought, and the words begin to dance, sometimes feverishly. After a short time of sifting through your notebook, an image or phrase will jump out or beg more in-depth attention. Let the first thought that does get your mind dancing move out your fingers onto your notepad or on the keys to float in pixels across the screen. Do try the magic of working with a favoured pen in hand on paper, especially if your habit is to go straight to the keyboard usually. An often-neglected mind-body connection seems capable of harnessing creative energies more than an electronic mode of writing.  Listen to Dr. Caroline Leaf on Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory, where she explains the science of what happens in the brain when we write by hand. The whole show is valuable on controlling your age through your brain processes and she talks about writing by hand and the brain at 38 minutes in the show.

Write whatever comes to you; ignore and banish any voice that says anything less than, “This is good. This is an idea that shows potential.”  Switch to your word processing desk when one of your captured moments expands and ignites into flowing prose or verse.  Instead of arriving there blank or empty-handed, counting on inspiration to agree with your timing, the tools you’ve used to hunt and gather inspiration everywhere deliver you primed to write.  If you haven’t already, equip every coat pocket, purse or wallet with a notepad, small pen or pencil. Somehow, people are okay if we write something down during an interaction but being on our devices during interactions can often be construed as rude. Plus, writing by hand does activate those different parts of our creative brain. This will enable you to tether inspiration as it dances in front of you and, like music boxes, make beautiful noise when later wound up to their full potential and opened. Use these tools as bait to successfully lure the muse to join you as you unfold ideas and scraps of thought.  Flirting is a tool used in the single world to attract a potential mate.  There’s nothing wrong with using similar tools to attract and keep your muse’s interest piqued.

When to Persist and When to Walk Away

Look it over when you have used up every word and image on your scrap paper and reached the end of the thought line for that particular trigger.  If you’re not ready for an editor-like voice, turn the page or close the document saving it in a file of rough drafts.  Many writers advise only to let the editor peek at your work after it sits for a two-three day span but while you still have an attachment to a piece.  Then you can defend it but work companionably with the editor. Be careful to invite the editor to appear when it’s best for you. Some people can edit the minute they have a rough draft and maybe even finish a poem in the first sitting. Not me. I’m sure I would write far less if I invited the editor in too early.

Two or three days later, when you return to rough drafts, you may find more of what originally inspired you.  You may see ways to take your piece deeper and add more detail. Never delete or crumple a piece, but add it to your writing files.  Remember what Atwood said; it might be useful later. Enjoy the personal satisfaction that you are succeeding at writing abundantly by using your second sight consistently.  You’ll find that some of these “rough drafts” hide a few diamond chips, and with further attention to detail and the mechanics of good writing, they often become much more. If you’re ready, look at earlier writing, and change a few steps and the rhythm of the thought.  I revise best when I have a specific goal in mind and flip through all my rough drafts to find one that fits my current mood or plan. But this requires turning on the editor, and that’s a whole new topic.  So whether you’re single or partnered, now that your muse is a constant companion, your bed might be a little fuller when you fall reluctantly into rest periods.  You might even keep a pen and paper beside your bed. I can almost write legibly in the dark now. 

Reference link in the body of the story above

Dr. Caroline Leaf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXDWkx2jmeQ

An app to turn your computer into a typewriter: https://getcoldturkey.com/writer/

Learn more about Rusti:

Rusti L Lehay, a global editor and book and writing coach, created over 40 articles guiding writers to authordom. Witnessing writers find and speak in their own voice to serve the real boss, the audience, not the editor, is one of Rusti’s greatest joys. She offers bi-monthly online writing STAY-Treats and monthly lounges and teaches weekly creative writing classes. Her primary mission is to inspire, provide value and make writing fun and easy.

Links: https://linktr.ee/rustilehay

Choosing the right course topic is critical to the success of your course launch. With the wrong course topic you run the risk of not being able to attract, convert, or even retain the right students and clients.

The consequence: little to no sales, frequent refund requests, and a whole lot of wasted time and energy on your part.

So how do you choose the right course topic for your course launch?

1. Get clear on your business vision and mission. Many entrepreneurs underestimate the importance of having these statements as a guide post when creating new offers. What are you and your business trying to create in the world? That’s your vision. You also need to get clear on your mission. Your mission is how you and your company will live out and achieve your vision. If you skip this step you run the risk of creating a product that is out of alignment with your bigger purpose.

2. Narrow your audience. When you really niche down and know who you want to help with your course, you’ll be better positioned to create something that will be easier to sell AND will make your curriculum easier to write.

3. Take the time to talk to really know your audience. You probably know market research is extremely valuable when it comes to making decisions on what to create. The key to good market research is asking the right questions and more importantly, being open to really listening to the answers. Too often experts teach what they think needs to be taught instead of what their audience really needs to overcome their most immediate challenges.

4. Choose a topic that solves a problem that requires an immediate solution. Adults are more likely to engage in learning that solves a TODAY problem. They aren’t solving a problem they had yesterday that is no longer creating barriers for them, and they aren’t engaging in learning to solve problems they MIGHT HAVE in the future. They want to solve the biggest problem they have in their life RIGHT NOW (but hint… they may need your help in identifying what that problem actually is).

5. Choose a topic that requires people to DO something. Problems don’t get solved by passively sitting and taking in information. People need to engage in learning that gets them taking the RIGHT ACTION at the RIGHT TIMES for the best result.

6. Choose a topic that has a measurable outcome. People need to know exactly what they will get, have, or be when they finish your course. You need to choose a topic for your course that has a specific outcome with measurable performance criteria so they know if they actually achieved what they set out to do or not.

Choosing a course topic can feel very overwhelming, especially when you have so many things you could possibly teach. Keeping these five things in mind will get you closer to choosing the right course topic and have you one step closer to putting your offer out into the world.

Tracy Sherriff is a curriculum specialist and operations consultant who offers an all-in-one solution for entrepreneurs, coaches, and service-based professionals to successfully scale their business online with high-impact, curriculum-based courses and programs. You can connect with Tracy by visiting her website tracysherriff.com, or finding her on Instagram @tracy.sherriff

Have you ever embarked on a soul journey?  A journey that has completely cracked you open and shifted the course of your life?

I have been on this journey these last few years and it has taken me to different depths of myself, meeting my ego every step of the way.
Trying to surrender but controlling the outcome.
Feeling my emotions but resisting at the same time.
It's definitely been a process of letting go and stepping more and more into my truth.

What is the difference between your ego and your soul? 

Your ego is that part of you that likes to control.  It is the voice in your head and the chatter that you hear all day long.  Its driving force is fear and it will do everything in its power to keep you "safe" from what it believes is harmful to you.  It doesn't realize that it keeps you suffering and keeps you stuck.  It so doesn't want you to feel pain that it binds you into fear so that you can't move forward and you stay within your comfort zone.

Your soul is that part of you that makes your heart beat, it's that life force within you that wants the best for you.  You hear your soul in-between the ego when you find peace, that split moment of quietness between the chatter.  It is the whispers that you hear with the great ideas that come out of nowhere, that feeling of knowing that you could be doing something or the guidance you get, encouraging you on your journey.  Its guidance system is our emotions, it's the vibration we feel on a daily basis that guides us towards our best path forward. 

As I embarked on this journey, I realized how powerful my ego was.  Fear guided me every step of the way and I listened.  Its voice was so much louder than the whispers of my soul and the doubts just gave it so much strength.  

It truly was a 3 step forward, 5 step back kinda dance!  

My intention behind it was to strengthen my soul and my intuition, to really get connected to that part of myself and let it rise within me and lead me forward.  

I wanted to flow with life rather than struggling through it!

And as I took the time to tune into my heart and listen to how my soul communicated with me..
It awakened the feminine part of myself that loves to dance, flow, nurture and create!

It unleashed a part of me that wants to be seen and heard!

It healed parts of me that kept me playing small!

As I grow this part of myself, I am realizing more and more how it is so powerful and so important to take the time with your soul and build that relationship within.  

Ask yourself questions:
Is my ego leading my life or my soul?  (In other words, am I letting fear control or love?)
If I were to admit to myself and the world what my soul longs for right now, what would it be?
Are you afraid of initiating the changes that your inner voice is asking you to make?  Why?
Be very honest with yourself.

Without this relationship, we are always living in our heads, completely limited to what the outside world thinks, never connecting to our bodies, our life force, our emotions.    WE MISS THE TRUE BEAUTY OF BEING HUMAN!

HERE IS YOUR SOUL MISSION:
Take a nice deep breath in and set your intention.  (ie. I want to connect to my soul and hear how it communicates with me)  And NOW LISTEN.  Start noticing the different ways your soul is guiding you towards your intention. Don’t doubt it or think it’s a coincidence, believe in your inner wisdom and follow the guidance.  Let yourself be led from your heart rather than your head. 

This soul journey has changed my life and I hope to inspire you to meet your own soul and to start developing a relationship with your truth and your authentic self.    

Your body is always talking to you, take the time to listen!

Much love,
Rachel xo

Rachel Benton is a Licensed Life & Embodiment Coach and a ThetaHealing Energy Practitioner.  She helps women build their business in complete alignment with their truth and intuition and guides them to create a soulful life that FUELS and IGNITES them!

Rachel is also the branch director for Happy Healthy Women - Cambridge - Join the Facebook Group

Connect with her today:
Website
Instagram: @rachelbentonlifecoach

Every evening I follow the same routine - after my family is done supper and the dishes are put away I quietly sneak out the back door to take a leisurely walk around our block.

It’s my time to connect with the earth that sustains me and to process and release all the experiences of the day. Living in a temperate rainforest makes the walk especially sweet. There are so many flowers and plants to enjoy, so much nature to observe.

And as we slowly leave spring behind and move towards summer I am amazed at how things are blossoming. All the buds are opening, revealing the most beautifully coloured flowers, the trees are thick and full of leaves!

Everything that had been planted and pollinated in the spring is bearing fruit and is there for me to enjoy.

It makes me reflect on how nature is such a wonderful example of what we as human beings do. So many of us have been busy planting and nurturing our ideas, sowing our seeds of longing and desires, and preparing for a harvest.

And yet - if you are anything like me, I often don’t take the time to actually enjoy the fruit of my actions, I find myself so obsessed with the planting, so stuck in spring, that when my harvest arrives I barely notice.

Now spring is a lovely time full of new beginnings and excitement, but when we get stuck there it can be exhausting - we can not always be creating, at some point we must also enjoy the things that bloom from our creation.

I find the messages of my childhood, the expectations of my culture, and the misinterpretation of my religion have created an environment that makes it hard to receive the harvest. The messages were often filled with how my worth was tied up in how much I could give, how much I could service and sacrifice and how much I could do.

There was little to no emphasis placed on receiving, on being open to accepting the gifts the universe wanted to give. And there was definitly no attention given to the fact that sometimes we receive things that we have done nothing for - sometimes our harvest includes things we did not plant. Just as when I walk around my neighborhood enjoying the flowers and trees that I did not plant or attend to.

And so this summer my focus will be on receiving - on pulling in my harvest and sitting in gratitude for all that is coming my way.

This summer I will remember that my harvest is the gifts that the Universe is giving me and allow myself the opportunity to be filled and replenished.

Download the June Affirmation here:

June Affirmation

Meg is a Life Coach, Hypnotherapist, and Podcast Host (The Art Of Being H(YOU)man) that is passionate about walking with people who want more out of life than just the status quo!

She believes that life doesn’t have to work out exactly the way we think it “should” in order to be enjoyed and that people don’t have to be perfect in order to be loved.

She believes that we all have the voice of truth inside of us but sometimes it can be hard to hear. And most importantly that we must live between the tension of accepting the things we cannot change and taking massive action on the things we can!

Meg creates spaces where women can slow down and process all the things that are influencing and controlling their lives - their everyday thoughts, emotions, and the stories they have been telling themselves.

Spaces where they can look at their inner world, gain valuable insight and then reclaim their personal authority, and make conscious decisions that transform the way they experience their lives!

Through one on one coaching, group coaching and workshops Meg helps women show up in the world with more love, and less ego, more compassion, and less judgment, more vulnerability, and less shame, more emotional agility and less fear!

Meg lives in BC with her husband of 22 years, two teenage boys and their little dog Charlie.

To learn more about Meg visit her website www.megheppner.com

I am a shorebird writer. Distract me too often and ‘poof’, my day goes by with no calories in my metaphors. Fleshless ideas and rattling skeleton stanzas offer white noise which does little to keep me awake when unmet deadlines hover at midnight. Recognizing my shorebird work style one day a decade ago, I embarked on a voyage of self-discovery to understand and improve my desk time.

As a shorebird forages for sustenance, my mind ranges deep into the grey matter for metaphors, similes and compelling copy for my corporate clients or my own creative writing. Dog owners walk a beach maybe allowing their canines to chase birds forcing them into flight to escape the ‘predators’. It may be akin to a proud parent standing in awe of ‘Rex’ or ‘Zeus’ having ‘fun.’  It is important to compute the cumulative effect. All those lift-offs mean shorebirds are unable to consume enough calories to maintain life let alone replace calories expended during escape attempts. Kind of like my bank account falling behind.

Interruption Fatigue

A few months in on my voyage, I found myself ranting. Thanks to a 9-5 friend who texts me multiple times during the day. Add her messages to a few other friends, four siblings, one son, and work-related distractions and all the notifications morph into dogs nipping at the heels of my muse forcing her to abandon the shores of my imagination. My plan is to complete a daily average of three hours corporate tasks. My daily creative goal is to write three hours on fresh drafts, revisions, and/or submitting creative projects. Six steady hours is a small request.

Listening to an internet podcast on procrastination, one tidbit resonated. Every time we are interrupted at a task requiring concentration, we average 18 minutes to return to our uninterrupted workflow mode. Tally 15 texts and one can see how it takes a minimum of 10.5 hours at my desk to accomplish six hours of work. Add in the other distractions and my creative work is abandoned often fulfilling corporate obligations into the double-digit evening hours. I really do want to sip wine or tea on my couch at a reasonable hour reading a book while anticipating a savoury supper simmering on the stove and experiencing a work-life balance. Eating supper at a decent time turns me useless. Too many days, I work past 10:00P.M. nibbling on almonds to finish a job.

If you work at an office, you are in the majority who can go home and leave work behind. Solopreneurs and those who work at home often lack that option and struggle to establish and maintain a careful work-life balance. So if I avoid your call, please know it is not personal. I am trying to stay in the zone and desperately hope to step away from my computer at 5:00  ^– even 7:00 is a bonus.

I wonder how other writers, content creators and creatives maintain their attention span. If the buzz, trill, whistle, knock, vibrating cell phone notifications ding like Pavlov’s bell in your mind, like mine, what are we to do? Colleagues suggest turning the phone off. Wikipedia even has an entry called “interruption science.” Another helpful resource is: Interrupters Log: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_94.htm 

TRAINING MYSELF

A good suggestion and if a client should call, may be to return the call an hour later. Will it damage our professional relationship? Possibly. A potential client may be impatient or desperate and find an alternate writer on his next call. While I can reject calls from family or friends, my shorebird brain lifts off into empty space at the smallest distraction. I admit the trill of a text can turn me about-face and abandon an overdue bathroom break. This is my brain and ignoring distractions is not an option. Limiting them is my goal.

I have also known for a long time, I am not a calendar or day-timer type person and am unable to section my days or my brain in two hours on one project, and three hours on another. Initially, I need long uninterrupted spans of time to delve into a project. Once drafted, I can revise and edit in chunks. On the long-haul days, I give myself permission to take my personal accounts offline to concentrate on the bread and butter emails. Multiple free email accounts are easy, however, I resist the idea of two phones. With my phone on for potential clients, friends or family may each think he or she is only one or two blips. 

TRAINING FAMILY AND FRIENDS

For those who work at an office, family and friends are more likely to save questions for after office hours. When your home is your office, you may need to ask your people to show the same restraint. The people who interrupt my workday fall into three camps. My roofer nephew says two seconds after the call he is placing the next shingle. Once this first camp knows the average 18 minutes I need to return to my uninterrupted thought pattern, they start sending an email or wait for me to call them.

I can also deal with the second camp who question why write, what is the purpose and refuse to see the creative placement of words on the page as a viable or legitimate career. The worst camp for me are those who assume because I am my own boss, I am free to do whatever I want whenever I want or stopping and starting whenever I want is as easy as saying hello, good-bye and hammering the next nail. The text that started this rant and cracked me in two was a friend asking at 7:34 A.M., "In your always busy lifestyle, are you running from something?"

I would never think of texting during her 9-5 work day to ask, “Are you running from something while you are earning a living?”

Time to kill the assumptions and educate a few folks. I really do not want to be up at midnight just because no one thinks of calling then. Oh wait, my friend knows I am still up late at night or early in the morning and will text, “r u up?” or “can you take a 30-second call?” It is up to me to state the boundaries.

Writers unite. Tell your 9-5 job friends, imagine they are paid for piecework similar to our projects and deadlines. They are no longer paid by the hour. Imagine if they didn’t have the luxury(burden) of finishing that piecework after 5 or after they put the kids to bed even if they wanted to because they are just too tired. After they have five days of incomplete projects and no paycheck, they will be barring and locking their doors, turning their phone off and avoiding chatty emails.  Imagine being responsible for work products/piece work instead of steady paychecks for the finite work accomplished between your 9-5 hours. Welcome to the world of deadlines.

Knowing my work habits and creating a schedule that works for me is only the beginning. If I fail or neglect to respect my own work, it may be impossible to train family and friends to not call, text or email willy-nilly during my work day.

Maybe my friend asked if I was running because I made myself unavailable for the 30-second phone calls. Gloria Mark, a leader in interruption science, conducted a study on office workers. Quoted on Wikipedia, Mark revealed, “Once distracted, the average knowledge worker, takes nearly a half-hour to resume the original task.” I knew ’30 seconds’ derailed me. I was shocked to learn it took not just 18 minutes but close to a half-hour out of my productive work time. I have become aware it takes gargantuan effort to pull myself back to the keyboard and re-engage my brain in the paragraph or stanza or metaphor I was previously puzzling over and on the verge of capturing. So after four days of not answering her “r u running from something” text, I receive this one, “I think of you every day. Is part of the root of all this the subconscious need to prove yourself?”

Her intelligence and genuine caring are the basis of our friendship. And it was my irritation with her “r u running from something” that made me realize I am running. I am sprinting and out of breath in a mad dash towards myself and my own success. My chart of hours offers me a system that works in my brain. My mission to teach myself better work habits and put my work first during the days and not respond to every notification has shortened some of my days. It is a process. Never underestimate the power of giving yourself a gold star for the days you meet your goals.

SOLUTION

Oh and my friend, all I had to do was explain to her I am a shorebird writer and her texts are endangering my livelihood.  For the most part, she remembers. It is human nature to think she is the only one. It still is up to me how much I produce and stay true to my creative goals and earn the essential dollars.

Reference link in the body of the story above

Interrupters Log: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_94.htm  

Learn more about Rusti:

Rusti L Lehay, a global editor and book and writing coach, created over 40 articles guiding writers to authordom. Witnessing writers find and speak in their own voice to serve the real boss, the audience, not the editor, is one of Rusti’s greatest joys. She offers bi-monthly online writing STAY-Treats and monthly lounges and teaches weekly creative writing classes. Her primary mission is to inspire, provide value and make writing fun and easy.

Links: https://linktr.ee/rustilehay

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