Ask Donna: Exhausted and Discouraged

Question: I am following my big dream and it’s been really hard work. I feel exhausted and discouraged, and worst of all I don’t feel I can talk about this as everyone keeps telling me to ‘be positive’ or give up. Maria

People who are not following their big dreams sometimes don’t understand those of us who are. Ask for the support you need from your friends – be really clear with them about how they can help you. Take a break from your big dream – when you are exhausted, the best thing you can do is relax and take a couple of days off from working on your big dream so you can replenish yourself and come back clear headed and chilled out.

Here’s the link to the podcast about the 3 Pillars: http://www.donnaonthebeach.com/blog/2012/01/dreams-to-reality-podcast-the-3-pillars/ – the 3 Pillars are self-care, energy and joy. If you’re not feeling cared for, you will feel exhausted and discouraged just because your self-care is low. If your energy is low, you have less to give your big dream. If you are not enjoying life…well, that sucks!

If you have a question, leave a comment below this post.

Love

Donna.x

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Dreams To Reality Podcast: Acclimatize Yourself To Your Big Dream

You’ve found out what your big dream is…now what? Aaaaargh! Don’t worry! Relax. Take the time to acclimatize yourself to your big dream. Give yourself a chance to get used to it, sniff around it, feel how you feel about it, ruminate, consider, and ponder.

To listen to this week’s podcast, click here: Acclimatize Yourself to Your Big Dream

Homework:
Get a pen and piece of paper, set a timer for 5 minutes and answer this question: How do I feel about my big dream? And just write, whatever is coming out of you, let it express. Don’t judge, don’t censor, just write and let it out.

You can also subscribe to this podcast on itunes here.

May all your dreams become reality.

Love

Donna.x

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Dreams To Reality: Your Big Dream

It’s the start of a New Year – for many of us a time for setting goals, thinking how to make this year better than last year, setting New Year’s Resolutions designed solely to take the joy out of our lives! (Don’t get me started on New Year’s Resolutions – for my thoughts on this, see this blog post from last year.)

Anyway, forget about those joyless, sensible, boring, uninspiring ideas. What do you REALLY want? What’s your BIG dream? What’s the thing that you’ve always wanted to be, do or have? What’s the thing that would set you happy dancing for a week just at the thought of achieving it? What’s the thing you’ve never told anyone you wanted? What’s the thing that you don’t think is possible (but want anyway!)?

You see, over the last year or so, I’ve realised something. Too many people go through life with that thing locked up tight inside them – through fear, or life getting in the way, or lack of belief, or lack of inspiration, or some other thing that really shouldn’t get in the way of our biggest dreams. Hence all these new things I’ve thought up (videos, podcasts etc) – because I think that’s criminal.

It is awful that those dreams go unacknowledged, aren’t followed, are left to atrophy in a dim and distant past where we ‘used to have dreams before we realised they won’t come true’. Well, they certainly won’t come true if you never try! And if you do try, 2 things will happen – one, your dream has a CHANCE of becoming reality. And two, your life will get better whether it does or not.

Only a CHANCE you say? No one can guarantee success. But that chance is all your dream needs to take you on the adventure of your life! Moving your dreams into reality gives you confidence, it’s fun, it helps to challenge you, stretch you, grow you into the you that you know you were meant to be. That’s what those dreams are for – to help you grow into the greatness that you are!

You are following your passion, your purpose, your heart’s desires – there is nothing more fun in life! To me, that’s the whole point of life – to do things you love to do every day, to honour the whispers of your heart and soul, to acknowledge YOUR dreams, even if it doesn’t work out quite the way you planned (it never does, by the way! Sometimes it’s better).

So let your heart and soul speak. What is your big dream? What do you REALLY want in 2012?

Your Homework
This New Year, resolve to listen to your heart and soul speak, acknowledge your big dreams and consider taking some action to bring them into reality. And I’d LOVE to hear what your big dream is – drop me a line. I believe in you, and in your dream, so let’s make 2012 the year that you bring that dream of yours into reality!

This article was taken from January’s Dreams to Reality newsletter – to sign up, click here.

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Ask Donna – Energetic and Healthy

I don’t know what my big dream is. The only thing I can think of is to be healthy and full of energy. But that is so far away from where I am right now – I am 4 stone overweight and exhausted all the time. – Cat

That sound like a fabulous big dream to me! Most big dreams come to you when you are a million mile away from them, so don’t worry about how far you have to go to get there – just start moving in that direction.

Every day, ask yourself ‘what can I do today to improve my health and improve my energy?’ Then do that thing – step by step, you will become more and more healthy and energetic. It will also allow your other big dreams to start to come to the surface when you’ve paved the ground to allow them.

Love

Donna.x

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OnTheBeach – A Triumph of Hope and Ingenuity

This is an article I wrote last year just after the Chilean miners were released – the message is just as relevant today, I hope you enjoy it.

Have you been watching the Chilean miners being brought out today?  I have had the news on in the background all day – a very rare thing for me as I usually cannot bear the negativity and scare-mongering they indulge in.  However, today’s story is largely a positive representation, even hardened news journalists are a little misty eyed over each emotional reunion every man has had with his family.

It is a complete triumph of hope and ingenuity over negativity and pessimism.  First that these men managed to survive underground for 17 days without any contact with the outside world, then that they have survived underground for over 2 months, and finally that the solution has worked more quickly than expected and so far is going immensely smoothly.  (and that they have emerged from that cocoon without panicking – I didn’t do so well when I was in an MRI machine for 25 minutes!)

When considering what I would send out for this week’s newsletter, this was the story that wouldn’t let me go.  I have no intention of rehashing all the news of this – I’ll leave that to the news crews.  What I want to point to is how you can do this – you can have hope and ingenuity triumph over negativity and pessimism.  Without being buried 1000 feet underground.

Many of us have long held dreams and desires, things that we have always wanted to do.  Sometimes, it looks like nothing will ever happen, nothing will ever change.  Sometimes there is hope and optimism – even in the face of zero evidence that things will work out!  Sometimes, the people around us are afraid for us, and well-meaning people offer advice that serves not to help us move forward, but to ‘keep us safe’, constricted, frustrated and trapped.

People will often say ‘well, that might not work out’.  Which is undeniably true.  But it might – and I’m guessing the miners who have been released today are very glad that the naysayers didn’t get their way and give up!  Your big dreams, ambitions and ideas deserve this from you.  They deserve for you to keep faith with them, believe in them, keep hoping, keep looking for solutions and bring them out alive if at all possible.

Of course, sometimes things do not work out, but at least you will be able to look yourself in the eye and say ‘I tried’.  As you know, I coach women (and men) with big dreams and ideas who want to change their lives, want more from life and want to let their light shine out fully in the world.  And I can tell you with certainty that I have never coached anyone (or indeed come across anyone) who has started to bring their dream to the surface who regrets it.

In my own life, I have noticed that my big dreams, ambitions and ideas don’t always work out the way I thought they would – but everytime I take a step towards my most cherished desires, something good happens – I learn, I grow, I feel more free, I expand, I escape the frustration and disappointment you feel when you hold your dreams and big ideas trapped under the surface.

Hope will keep you moving in the direction of the things you want – the joyful, fulfilling life, the ambitions, the dreams.  Hope will keep the flame of your desires alive.  Ingenuity will help you to realise those dreams.  Without inspired action, your dreams will remain dreams.  But if you allow those dreams to whisper in your ear, ingenious ideas will form, innovative thoughts will take you forward, your resourcefulness, genius and imagination will save your dreams from a life underground.

Something to play with

What dreams, ideas, desires, ambitions have you buried underneath the surface, deep within you?  Maybe you want to write a book, travel the world, make a million, start a business, have a relaxed and joyful lifestyle, become an artist.  Whatever it is, start listening to the whispers of your dreams and desires – they will help you bring them to life.  And if you need support with this, there is time for you to finish the year with a flourish with coaching sessions, see this page for coaching packages.

Love

Donna.x

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Your Cue for Change

It appears I was not alone in the UK in tapping into the holiday spirit – most of my clients have also found themselves taking their foot off the accelerator, cutting back and just hanging out. Many of them have noticed that when they do this, there is a curious reluctance to get moving again. It is a law of physics that an object at rest tends to stay at rest…and I have been that object at rest for weeks now! Luckily it is a law of physics that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, so once we’re moving again, all will be well. My clients (and me) have also noticed another effect of this period of downtime – those niggles, things that didn’t really bother you before suddenly become a real hassle and problems appear larger than they are. This is merely a cue to change.

- Your Cue for Change -

Many people think that life ‘should’ be easy. That we should cruise through life without a problem in the world…so when problems crop up, they are disappointed in themselves and think that they are doing it wrong. Over the past couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of downtime in the UK and many of my clients have found that this downtime brings introspection and the introspection brings to attention issues and problems. Because they (and I) have had more time than usual to ponder these issues, things that normally wouldn’t be a big deal are suddenly looming large in their attention.

This is a good thing. Problems, issues, roadblocks, obstacles all exist to HELP you. They come up so that they can be dealt with. The trouble is, most of the time, we deal with them half-heartedly or not at all. Take for example, an issue that crops up for many people fairly often – not having enough money left at the end of the month. Most of the time, we rob Peter to pay Paul, beg, borrow and scrape through the month. Then we forget all about it until the next time we have more month than money. Again, the short term fix, and again it’s forgotten. But what if you spent a moment and sat and thought about a long term solution? In this case, you could aim to earn more per month, aim to cut down your spending each month, create a savings account for this very purpose, have a ‘cushion’ of money in your account so you don’t need to go into your overdraft.

Sometimes a problem just seems too big to sort out once and for all, but it’s surprising how quickly most things can be sorted if you will just take the time. Taking this financial example alone, I spent years being in that position every month, but because I never took the time to sit and think about how I could solve the problem once and for all, the problem kept coming back, again and again. Eventually I realised life would be better if I sorted it out. Without earning any extra money (in fact, at the time, I was earning less money because it was just after I started my business I decided I couldn’t live like that anymore), I sorted the problem. Now it is very rare that I have more month than money, and every time I do, I take it as a reminder to take more action to stop it happening again.

The problem that came up for me in the last couple of weeks of downtime was that when the time came to get back to work, I really didn’t want to. This was a bit of a surprise because I love what I do, so this reluctance seemed odd. But actually, it wasn’t getting back to work that was the problem, it was getting back into a routine when I worked too much and played too little. Over the past couple of weekends, I have made sure to spend time with friends and family…because I had time. Now I’m back in the routine of work (or getting there), I need to do the same – make the time to take time off. It’s not the first time this issue has cropped up. And I know for a fact that when I get better at organising my work time so I can have more playtime, life (and business) will be better. So this ‘problem’ is here to help me see there is a better way.

Problems are not put in your path to piss you off. They are there so you can move past them, through them, under them. They are there to say to you ‘life can be better…and if you fix this issue once and for all, it will be’. So what issues and problems and obstacles come up for you time and again? Can you imagine if that problem was solved, once and for all? How much better would your life be if that issue no longer existed? By the way, don’t go giving your power away by saying ‘if THEY would change, this would be better’. It may well be true, but unless you intend to hold them at gunpoint to ‘make’ them do as you say, it’s out of your control. Focus on what YOU can do – and there is ALWAYS something you can do.

Take your problems, issues, niggles, upsets, roadblocks and challenges as your cues that something can be changed. Take some action to change things. Play the long game – especially with big problems that have been around for years. If it’s going to take a year to sort it, start now and take that year to sort it. And if you don’t know what to do to fix it, find out. Ask for help, search the internet, get a coach . Welcome problems as the catalysts they are – once you sort them out, life will be as you’ve always known it should be – easy, effortless, fun…with the odd problem, challenge and obstacle thrown in to show you that it can always be even better!

- Something to Play With -

Pick one problem, issue, challenge, obstacle, roadblock that is in your way. Sit and think about what would need to happen to fix this problem once and for all. Be open to ideas you may not have thought of before. Now take some action. And keep taking action until that problem is fixed! Want to share your thoughts on this article? Leave a comment below or pop over to my facebook page and leave a comment there.

To your success!

Love

Donna.x

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From the Wire blog 2: Price Setting

Here’s the second blog I featured in on Carrie Eddins WIRE blog:

Help for women in business..

It’s the start of the term, for many, and often the renewal of a business idea , and indeed start of a business for others in the lead up to Christmas. For me, I am about to launch the Blonde Marketing Goddess fully, and I must confess that I have been struggling rather a lot on what to charge.

I happened to chat to Donna recently about this and she came up with the following helpful tools below which I trust will help you ladies as much as it has helped me! I am sure there are some of you out there who are starting out and are having problems setting your rates and also some of you out there who are already established but have been considering raising your rates in line with your experience, if so here are a couple of marvelous tools to help to to gain crystal clarity on your fees, honouring your skill set and your clients and potential clients

First over to Donna who is going to tell you her story about charging, so that you can understand where she is coming from. Over to you Donna…

Donnaonthebeach:

I have felt the same way – I really struggled with charging for my services when I first started. In my case there were 3 things going on: my confidence in myself, my confidence in my service, and my belief that taking money for services was somehow wrong or slimy. As my confidence in me and what I did grew (partly from doing a great job for low/no cost) it got easier…but there was still that belief that taking money for services was a bit dirty. But when I pay for a coach, or a CD, or some clothes, I don’t feel that it’s dirty at all. I love spending money! I don’t expect other people to work for free. When they do I am so grateful…and then there comes a point where I feel uncomfortable not paying, so why wouldn’t they feel the same?

Unsurprisingly, when I was uncomfortable charging, I attracted people who were uncomfortable paying me! Lol. Now I rarely come across these people – and when I do, I don’t take it to mean I am not worth paying for, I give them what feels comfortable to me and I am clear that if they want more, they will have to pay for it. My experience has also been that when people don’t pay or underpay, they don’t get the same from it than if they make the financial commitment.

So, that’s my story! My first suggestion is to figure out what’s going on underneath – the whys behind the discomfort about charging. Then work on moving those whys forwards so you can feel great about charging for your service.

Pick a number, any number

Putting an actual figure on your services or products can be tough – there’s all the advice out there about “charging what you’re worth”, “Sell low, sell lots”, “Price it right”, “imagine the VALUE of what you are selling if they use it to it’s full advantage”…and as usual, all the advice is conflicting and ends up confusing us more! Lol. Don’t get me wrong, all these pieces of advice ARE useful to consider in your decision making BUT they are not critical. What is critical is what you KNOW inside. You know what price feels right for you. The only piece of advice I think is absolutely correct is “be able to stand behind your prices”. This does not mean charging a ridiculously low price and undervaluing your product or service. It means getting really comfortable with what you charge. And one last thing to consider: clients will pay more than you think when they really want something. Don’t fall into the trap women often fall into of patronising your client – if we women can pay £100 for a pair of shoes, we can pay for other products and services. This is not to fleece your customers dry, but to trust in their ability to pay for the things they want – a very empowering viewpoint. I once did a ‘pay what you want’ promotion for my coaching services – MOST people paid ‘just’ under my normal fees – no one really took advantage of the offer to pay a ridiculously low price!

Here’s a couple of exercises to try:

To find the “right price” for you. What is the maximum price you think you could charge for your product/service? What is the minimum price? Double your maximum and start playing with the figures. Try £1, £200, £46, £73, £102.50 – just play around with what you could charge. What figures are jumping out at you? (this is an intuitive ‘jump out’, not a logical one!) Take the 3 figures that are ‘jumping out’ and write them down on a piece of paper. Leave the piece of paper overnight, then look at it again in the morning. One of the figures will jump out at you as ‘the right price’ for YOU. (If it feels a little high, don’t worry, the next exercise will sort that out!) If no figure ‘jumps out’, play again with the figures and repeat the exercise. Let it be easy, let it be fun. You can always change the price later if it’s not working. Be willing to make a mistake…and be willing to trust your intuitive knowing!!!

Getting comfortable with your price. This is great fun! Take the price you have decided to charge and multiply it by 10. Now practice saying “My product/service costs £x10”. For example, if your product/service is £100, you would say “My product/service is £1000”. If you can get a friend to play along with you, get them to ask “How much?” and you reply “£1000”. When you are next talking to a “real” client, you will feel that your £100 product or service is fantastic value and this will come across!!! If you cannot stand behind your pricing, your customers will sense that and will assume it’s not worth what you’re charging. Many of my female clients undercharge outrageously and STILL feel they’re charging too much!

You can always change your pricing, so for me the most important piece of advice I can give anyone worrying about setting a price is: RELAX! Pick a number and run with it. If it doesn’t work, change it! Most of the time, your price revisions will be upwards which gives you a great marketing opportunity: “My prices are going up in January 2011 by 300% – get it now or pay more later!” (by the way, be authentic with this – do put your prices up!). If you feel the need to revise your prices down, have a ‘sale’! Again, a great marketing opportunity. Who doesn’t love a bargain?! Trust yourself. You know what price to charge. Get comfortable with it, and get that amazing product/service of yours out there for the people who need you to buy!

Ladies I trust that you found value in this post by Donna ( www.donnaonthebeach.com) who I met in person again yesterday, such a lovely lady who was every bit as inspiring and lovely in person as when I spoke to her last week, which is always reassuring isn’t it!

Wishing you every success with whatever you set your heart on in your business and life, you can do whatever it is you desire, you really can!

Namaste, giggles & light,

Carrie Eddinsxxx
Blonde Marketing Goddess

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Guest on WIRE: Women and Social Media

Over the past couple of weeks, I have featured in a couple of blog posts on the WIRE (Women in Rural Enterprise) blog, courtesy of the lovely Carrie Eddins of theblondemarketinggoddess.com. Carrie’s blog on WIRE is helping women market successfully to other women, and she asked for my thoughts on using social media for a blog post…this then led to another 2 blog posts for the ladies at Wire. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting these posts here so you can enjoy them too. Here’s the first:

Long time, no speak, well I must be completely honest with you, this is because…. I have been rather overwhelmed… with strageties…. .. and so I procrastinated and procrastinated and then did a LOT of clutter clearing realising that I have far too many files of information that no longer resonated with me from courses that I have attended both in person and virtually worldwide…

Then, one day, as if by magic I had quite an ‘aha moment,’ as I just realised that in essence relationships are built on how that other person or product makes u feel, and when you have a heart-felt connection with them and their service or product you find them irresistible! I know you all know this and so do I, especially as women this is instinctive for us but I had lost touch with this, as I had been very much in overdrive about social media, which resulted in overwhelm!

I felt that tweeting so much and facebooking was a bit too much like shouting when nobody was really listening, and I was getting annoyed with all the tweets and fb updates from others myself too!!Who really needs to know what everybody is doing ALL the time?! I certainly don’t not everyone, maybe a few people I would like to know some of the time, but not all of the time!!

Then… I just so happened to..re-connect with the lovely Donnaonthebeach who, for me, is the business discovery of the decade as she’s so much fun, and so talented in quite a humble way! She epitomised heart-felt connections, and her energy makes her positively irresitible, let alone her wonderful business insights ladies, I cannot recommend this lovely lady enough!

I truly understand about how to systemise and leverage my work! Really. And, I know that there are certain steps that would help me to bring in consistent income, ie a membership site, but much of the technical stuff ie structuring my work in autoresponders, building my visibility on facebook, twitter, blogging and linked in was becoming such a headache! Added to my own blonde reality that through learning about the technical bits of driving traffic to my site, with the lovely and talented Nicola Cairncross, ( she’s AMAAZING BTW, i whole-heartedly recommend her!) I managed to delete my own blog! At the time this was not funny as I did not back it up, at all though I thankfully have 90% of my blog posts printed out so I just need set it all up again!!!

So, ladies, I asked Donna if she would kindly share a few words of wisdom to help you feel less overwhelmed with your social media presence. I trust this helps you, it most certainly helped me!

Donna – what are your current feelings on the overwhelm, especially with Social Media that our members might feel?

“It is overwhelming when you try to become an overnight expert in something you have no experience with! So here’s my advice: when you’re feeling overwhelmed, stop, breathe, relax, go have some fun and come back to it when you feel better. If you still feel overwhelmed, break it down into a step by step process and just do one step at a time. I find when people are overwhelmed by social media, they are usually trying to do too much too quick, they don’t know what they are doing or they’re confused by the conflicting advice of the “experts”. So taking a step by step approach will help you reduce the overwhelm. Also, give yourself a chance! Women in particular have a tendency to be way too hard on themselves – don’t beat yourself up for being overwhelmed by social media!”

Donna – how do you cope with it?

“I cope with it by doing exactly as I recommend – I stop, breathe, relax and take a ‘time out’ to do something fun – 10 minutes playing with my dog, reading, connecting with friends, dancing round the office, whatever will get me out of the immediate stress. Then when I come back I figure out what the next step is and do that. Sometimes the next step is “figure out what I’m doing” or “make this more fun” – if you don’t know what you’re doing, how can you do it effectively?! And if it’s not fun, why do it?! I also make sure I set myself up for success – caring for myself, managing my energy, enjoying life and connected to my vision for my business and to the energy of life. Most of the time when I am overwhelmed, I notice that I am pushing myself too hard so it’s good to stop and re-connect.”

Donna – what strategies have helped you which you would wholeheartedly recommend?

“Here are my top five social media strategies:
1. HAVE FUN! Find a way to make your social media activities fun, then you’re more likely to do them in the first instance and keep them up in the second.
2. Experiment. Try things out. Don’t expect to become a social media expert in 2 days flat! Allow yourself to be a beginner for a while…and give the social media experiment time to work, rather than giving up without giving it a good chance. Also make your experiments one at a time – eg try Facebook for a few months, then add twitter. Trying to do everything at once puts too much pressure on you. Give your experiments some parameters that give you a good chance of success!
3. Trust your instincts. Some experts will tell you that you need to tweet 1000 times an hour…I don’t follow anyone who does this, even if I like their product or service. It’s annoying. And the only ‘followers’ you’ll get are ‘collect-a-friend’ marketing types! Trust yourself to know what your customers will appreciate. (tip: they’ll often be people like you, so what do you like in a Tweet?)
4. Set reasonable expectations and know why you have social media. For example, I tweet, facebook, linkedin and blog because it is a way for me to reach new people who can get to know me. My reason for doing it is to give some fun/useful/inspiring information and entice them to find out more! I don’t expect them to buy from me instantly – I’m still there to build a relationship.
5. Ask for help. Find people you like who are doing the Social Media you want to do well and ask them for advice. There is a lot of bull written about social media, but if you find someone who is using it effectively, their advice will be more realistic.”

Namaste, giggles & light,

Carrie Eddins xx
theblondemarketinggoddess.com

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The Last Chance Saloon

Right, folks, it’s your last chance! To get 20% off all coaching with me, you need to book and pay by the end of January. (Well, if you just send me an e-mail saying “please let me in, I’m wearing the right shoes and everything”, that will do!). Are you ready to start making a difference in your life right now? Are you ready to start living the life you were born for? Are you ready to put a toe out of your comfort zone? If so, e-mail me NOW at donna at donnaonthebeach dot co dot uk or use the contact page to contact me.

For more details about this special offer, including specific prices and whatnot, click here.

I am SO looking forward to working with you!

Love

Donna.x

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