2020 Year In Review

Last night I watched Death to 2020 on Netflix. It’s a comedy about how bizarre this year has been, and I can certainly agree. But it’s also been one of the best years of my life. I had opportunities that I would never have had the world not turned to mush. I’m incredibly grateful for the people in my life who made it possible for my business to take off.

Here’s a quick monthly rundown of 2020:

• January: I am running my business part time, and working for other people’s businesses part time. I have 2 clients. I hit 50 push ups in a row and injure my shoulder.

• February: I get a personal trainer, who pushes me beyond my limit and makes the shoulder injury much worse.

• March: I join a gym that I never, ever (not even once) go to. Coronavirus hits the UK. Saturday 14th, life feels normal. People are “overreacting”. Sunday 15th, we actually take it seriously. Life suddenly feels anything but normal. People are under-reacting. We make the decision to move back to New Zealand on the first flight we can get. Tuesday 22nd, we arrive into New Zealand and go into quarantine for two weeks inside a closed-off part of Daniel’s parents house. Nationwide lockdown.

• April: I realise how much time I have now. I start a Facebook Group called Impossible Girls, and we get 500 members in the first month. I joined Stacey Boehman’s 2k for 2k business program.

• May: I sign 2 clients for my membership site. I make the decision (on Stacey’s recommendation) to stop offering the membership site to new members, and only offer 1:1 coaching.

• June: After more than two years of coaching, the sales process finally clicks. I sign 3 clients in a week. I hire a team member – but she decides to take a promotion at her job and leaves. I can’t make a decision about who to hire next.

• July: My Facebook group hits 1000 members and I run a giveaway. We go to live with my mum and sister to enjoy the time with them before my sister heads off to University. I asked strangers at the mall to subscribe to my YouTube channel. I made a viral post that got 31k likes. 900 people joined my Facebook Group in one day.

• August: I sign 1 client. I make the decision to apply for Stacey Boehman’s 200k mastermind (I have none of the year-long entry requirements, but I decide to create them in two months).

• September: I sign 8 clients. I watch Michael Jordan’s docu-series The Last Dance every night.

• October: I sign 8 clients. I realise I won’t have to go back to working for other people part time. I delete my CV.

• November: I am fully booked with 20 clients. I get accepted into Stacey Boehman’s 200k Mastermind. I learn the importance of having a solid back-end of business.

• December: We hit 3400 members in the Impossible Girls Facebook Group. I close my membership site. I hire a Personal Assistant to run the back end of my business so I can focus on coaching and creating content.

Here’s where my thoughts are at:

I’m currently listening to the audiobook “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown, and it has totally opened my mind to how unconsidered many things in my life are. Things like:

• Working Monday to Friday (Are these really the best days? Do I want to do all of them?)

• Working 9am-5pm (When do I enjoy working the most?)

• Downloading apps on my phone (How will downloading/using this app steal time from my life?)

• Hour-long meetings (Not every meeting needs a whole hour, why not 15 or 30?)

• Reading books (I’ve discovered I get through so many more books if I listen to them on audio)

Changes I’m making in 2021:

• I’m going to create all of my content on Fridays, and have it scheduled throughout the week by my Personal Assistant.

• No admin or client work in the evenings past 6pm (I love to work, because I turned my hobby into my business, so it’s easy for me to work from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep!).

• I am investing in all the equipment I need. For a long time, I’ve been making do with broken laptops, and working at a kitchen table with no office, coaching from my bedroom. But now I have an office and it’s amazing how much more efficient and productive I am. I’m completely sold on investing when I have the right tools. I’m making it a priority to update my computer software, and buy the technology I need to run my business at optimum power.

• I am deleting all social media, email apps and even messenger from my phone. For a long time, I thought I needed it for my work as a coach. And I do – but I don’t need 24/7 access. So now, I am only accessing them from a computer in my office when I am officially at work – not when I’m in bed, or eating dinner, or outside.

• I’m hiring people to do the things I’m not good at. For almost 3 years, I’ve been running my business totally solo, and it’s been fantastic. But now, I’ve got to a point where trying to do everything myself means I’m so busy doing admin, there’s no time to grow (or rest!). I’m excited to work with more photographers, assistants and designers.

Thank you to everyone who supported me in 2020, this is a year I will never forget! <3

December 2020 Goals Review

We are finally here, at the end of the month. When I wrote these goals, the only one that I felt sure I could do was number 4: walk/run 2x a week. But I decided I was going to make the rest happen somehow. Here is my review:

1. Find my Donna.
   Done. After quite a bit of searching, I found her. She is exactly what I need – someone who is experienced at running the back-end of other people’s businesses, so I can show up and coach at my best, and create content without distraction. We begin in January. As you’ll read in my 2020 Year in Review, I’m changing up a lot of things for 2021, and this is one of the ones I’m most excited about.
   

2. Grow my Facebook group to 3000 members.
   Done. We actually hit 3400! That’s 1000 new members in December. I’m so grateful for the incredible support from all the Impossible Girls – so many of you added members without me even asking! Thank you, thank you!
   

3. Batch-create my content once per week.
   Done. Batching my content has revolutionised the way my week looks. Instead of having to quickly write something in between my coaching calls (or in the middle of my weekend), I just write content once per week and then I don’t have to worry about it at all for another week. Why did nobody tell me about this?! (Oh wait, they did, I just never tried it). However, this system does have one flaw – if you miss the content-creation day for any reason, suddenly you’re an entire week behind on content. So in 2021, I’m going to protect my content-creation time like a lioness protects her cub.
   

4. Walk/run 2x a week.
   Done. This one was totally automatic. As it turns out, my body tells me when I should do this, and most of the weeks in December I went more than 2x a week. Clearly, I should have set a harder goal!
   

5. Make the process of achieving all of these goals enjoyable.
   Done. I specifically made this month as stress-free as possible. I said no to things that would get in the way, I thought outside the box for options that would be more fun, and I didn’t let myself worry about if I would hit them or not. Oh, and I listened to a lot of music which got me pumped up to go after these goals!

How did you go with your December Goals? Let me know in the comments!

How I Hit 3000 Members in My Facebook Group

Ahhh we hit 3000 members in the Impossible Girls Facebook Group! (3200, actually!!)

Three nights ago we were on 2700 members and I was feeling anxious about it. What if I’ve just told everyone I’m going to hit this goal of 3000, and I don’t?

But it happened.

800 new members in less than 25 days.

Here’s how it happened:

Short answer: Mindset

I used to get SO sick of people saying “it’s just mindset” when I asked how people did something.

I’m like GIVE ME SOME TANGIBLE ADVICE! (Anyone else feel like this?!)

So, the Tangible answer is:

1. I decided to believe it was 100% in my control.
   If it was in my control, then I could make it happen. As soon as we decide it’s based on luck or chance, we give our power away. I decided I was going to make it happen. A done deal.
   
   

2. I didn’t sit around waiting. I invited people from EVERYWHERE. I took risks by sharing content in other Facebook groups that I felt nervous to share in case I was judged (ironically, it’s always the posts I’m most scared to post that get the best reaction!).
   
   

3. I didn’t DM strangers asking them to join. I didn’t make people feel like they HAD to join. Instead of “please please please join my group!” I showed up with an energy of “We’ve got the best thing ever going on over here… but hey, if it’s not your vibe, that’s cool too.” Zero desperate energy. I learned this lesson from past mistakes (in relationships and in business!).
   
   

4. Anytime I got worried it wouldn’t happen (because those sneaky thoughts sometimes came in), I made a list of why it WOULD happen. Not just why thought it might happen, but an actual fool-proof plan of exactly WHY it was definitely going to happen. A list of steps.
   – Because I’m willing to do whatever it takes
   – Because there is ALWAYS a way
   – Because I’m going to do X, Y and Z to make it happen.
   
   

5. I thought outside the box. What would I do if I were Michael Jordan? How would Sara Blakely solve this? If I had 24 hours to make it happen, what would I do? I just kept asking myself, “It is already done – so how did it happen?”
   
   

6. I didn’t try to do it alone. I shared that I wanted to hit the goal in this group, with other groups, on my blog and to people offline (and you girls came forward like a badass army, heaps of you added your friends without me even asking you to!).

We DID it. Thank you!

There are still 5 more days in December. What goals are you deciding you’re going to hit before 2021?

Should You Work On More Than One Goal at Once?

In my Impossible Goal Setting Workshop the other day, I got asked – should you work on more than one goal at once or focus all your energy on one goal?

Of course, like with anything goal-related, there is no right answer – you get to choose. But here’s my take:

1. Create a big vision, and go wild setting goals without a timeline. Dream up everything you want to do – the most impossible things you can imagine.

2. Create a 1-year plan. Choose 3 impossible goals you’re going to hit. Work on them like crazy – all at once. But when it comes down to the crux of a goal, where it requires more of your energy to cross the finish line, drop everything and focus on just that one goal. Eat, sleep, breathe that one goal – for a short, sustainable period. Once you’ve hit that goal, go back to the other two.

Do you like working on lots of goals at once or just one at a time? Let me know in the comments by clicking the title of this post.

2021 Impossible Goal Setting: 6 Questions to Ask Yourself

2021 is SO close. That means if you haven’t already, it’s definitely time to set some goals for the next year.

I recently led a workshop on goal setting, and I thought I would share the most important questions I asked my attendees.

1. What is your biggest, most impossible vision for your life? (Beyond this year, the next 5 or 10 years).

   • What do you really, really, really want? (Be honest)

   • If you’re struggling to answer, think about the categories of relationships, career, health, love, hobbies.

   • What are other people doing that you secretly love to do? 
     

2. If you could only achieve 3 things that would get you closer to that vision this year, what would you want them to be?
   

3. Which dreams are NOT coming true this year in order to make space for these ones? (Make an anti-goal list).
   

4. Why is each of your three goals non-negotiable? Why are they important to you?
   

5. What are you willing to do to make each of these three things happen?
   

6. Of those things, what single action would GUARANTEE that each goal happens? Set that as your action step!

Standards

Tony Robbins says "I don't have goals, I have standards."

When something is an absolute MUST, you find a way.

What standards will you set yourself?

How I Plan to Hit My Goal This Month

I set a goal to hit 3000 members in this group by December 31.

And I'm going to do it.

Not because I'm sure how (I'm not) – but because I've decided to.

And even as I'm writing this, I'm thinking, "What if I don't make it? And I've just TOLD everyone I'm going to?"

That's all the more reason I am going to make it – because now I have to keep myself accountable to my word.

The best thing ever was sharing my goals and dreams with the internet.

Not just my hopes – but my solid plans: "I will do X by Y date."

It held me accountable like nothing else.

Even if nobody in the world cared if I did push ups that day – I cared.

I wanted to be the kind of person who does what she says she's going to do.

Even if I wasn't that person yet.

Declaring the kind of person I wanted to be to the world COMPELLED me to become that person, for fear of embarrassment.

Here is my plan for 3000 members:

• I'm going to try a bunch of different things – and see them all the way through.

• I'm going to spend time journaling on my CERTAINTY that it is going to happen. Because when I'm in that certain energy, I'm no longer paralysed by HOW it is going to happen, and I can actually start thinking of solutions.

• I'm not going to give up until it happens. Even until the last minute.

• I'm deciding to work on it daily.

• I'm prepared to go back to the drawing board 100 times if I need to.

Gulp.

DO it girl.

You've got this.

(Don't mind me, just giving myself a public pep-talk 😂)

Impossible is a Feeling

Someone on Instagram sent me a message saying "You can't say it was impossible to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. That's not impossible, is it now?"

You know what? It felt impossible to me.

And that's what matters.

Achieving impossible goals has NEVER been about doing something flashy or impressive.

It's been about challenging myself beyond what I think is realistic.

It's about pushing my limits and becoming the best version of me.

Your impossible goal is worthy.

Whether it's to leave the house today, or go to the moon.

It doesn't matter. As long as you're challenging yourself to become the next level version of you – you're crushing it.

Goal comparison will just tear you down.

Don't let it.

She Opened a Bookshop

As of this weekend, my wonderful client Keira's bookshop, Reading Roots, is officially OPEN! 📚📚📚

📖  2 months ago, this was still just an idea.

📖  7 weeks ago, she put in an offer to lease a building.

📖  3 weeks ago, she didn't even have the books to sell.

📖  1 week ago,  she still didn't have a key to the shop.

On Friday, she opened her bookshop at 29 Market Place, Wetherby, United Kingdom, AND she hit her opening day sales goal.

9 weeks, you guys. 9 weeks was all it took to go from dream to reality.

During a global pandemic.

UNREAL.

My mind is officially boggled.

And she faced a million challenges.

They wouldn't give her the keys, the RAM in the till got stolen, the letting process was a nightmare, there was another nation-wide lockdown that set her back several weeks, and she lost a loved one ❤️

Any of these things alone would have been a good enough reason to give up.

But she didn't. Every single week in our sessions, she showed up ready for creative problem-solving.

She made it happen, despite the tremendous obstacles.

Keira, I honour you for your incredible persistence and strength.

Impossible things can happen, if you decide to go all in.

Keira's success can be evidence that you will be successful too.

You can open a book shop in a pandemic, or ski across Antarctica, or launch a tech giant.

Just like Keira – all you have to do is decide.

Congratulations, Keira. You did it! 🎉🎉🎉

New Zealand's First Peak Performance Coffee

Today, after a ton of testing and product development, my brilliant client Chanelle has officially launched Win Your Day – New Zealand's first peak performance coffee! ☕️

(She invented this coffee blend from scratch, you guys! And it's infused with nootropics and superfoods to give you all the benefits and none of the jitters).

SO stoked for you Chanelle, you've put in soooo much effort for this.

Check out her gorgeous website & buy her coffees here.

Support her on Instagram here.