How to Discover and Achieve the WHY for Your Blog and Business

1. Intro : Why is a question that all business owners and blockers should ask? And, of course, answer. If you have a compelling why for your block and business when the challenges come and trust me, they will. You'll have the motivation you need to keep going. In addition to that, getting clear on your y will help you know what opportunities to say yes to and which ones to not walk but run from Hi, I'm Rebecca Livermore, and I am a full time author, blogger and productivity and business coach. I know firsthand the pain of running a business that is contrary to the things that matter the most to me. And through that pain I got really clear on the things that really matter. And now I live out my ideal day. As a result of that clarity, I share that process with you in this class in determining the Y. For your blogger and business, you'll discover four primary sources of motivation why money in and of itself isn't enough motivation for blogging and business. How to determine your primary motivation and how it should impact the decisions you make, how to plan out your ideal day and then turn that plan into reality, the purpose behind many goals and milestones, and how to make sure they'll help you reach your end goal. A five step action plan that will move you from the frustration of a job or business or blogged that isn't working for you to the fulfillment of crafting a block and business that fit with the things that matter most to you and so much more as a free bonus. This class includes a workbook in both word and pdf that you can use for the exercises in this class. Write it down now, throughout this class, you'll hear me say, Write it down. And I do that because while just listening and thinking about things is helpful, writing things is even better. So I recommend that you watch the class all the way through to get the big picture and then write your responses to the exercises in the Strategy guide, which you'll find in the project area of this class. As a project for this class, you'll determine your primary motivation for starting a blawg and your business and share it with the rest of us. So what are you waiting for? Without further ado, let's go ahead and dive in 2. Making Money: number one is making money. Now. I want to say that making money is not a bad motivation. It's a fair motivation, and in fact you should have the motivation of making money. Because otherwise you're blawg is, ah, hobby, not a business. But now something that is important to keep in mind is that you can make money, obviously with a business and with a blawg. But it's not easy, and it takes a lot of time. And if you're desperate for money, then you need to do something else. That's doesn't mean that you shouldn't start a blogger, and you shouldn't start a business. But if your sole motivation and your desperate need is money, then start the blawg and the business on the side. While you also work a job or have some other source of income, write it down. Jot down your thoughts about money. Is money atop motivator for you or more of a necessary evil 3. The Desire to Serve: number two motivation is the desire to serve. A lot of people are looking for meaning they want their blawg and their business to be meaningful. They want it to be a way to serve others. And even if this isn't your primary motivation, it's important for you to have this motivation because you're not going to get very far in your blogged or business. If your only motivation is to make money and you really don't have a heart to serve others , you see this sometimes in businesses where the people, the business owners or the bloggers they don't really care about the people. They're just looking for a way to make a quick buck. And while that might make a little bit of money in the short term, it's not a good long term option. So you need to have the desire to serve as part of your motivation, even if it's not your primary motivation. Having said that, this doesn't necessarily mean that your service needs to be sacrificial in third world type of service, and if that's your desire is to serve like the downtrodden or people in the Third World, then you're probably better off starting a non profit rather than a business. Write it down. So at this point, it would be good to stop the video and jot down your thoughts about being motivated by serving. And if this is a top motivator for you, right about the types of people that you would like to serve and how you'd like to serve them. 4. Authority Status: the number three motivation is authority. You know, it's kind of nice to be known for something and for people to look at you and say, Wow, that person really knows a lot about you know, whatever your particular niches. One thing to note is that it could be a serious niche, such as healthcare. Or it could be fun, like scrapbooking or fishing or some other hobby. But at any rate, we know people who are really good at something, even if it's just a hobby, such a scrapbooking, and that person can then be recognized as an authority. So if you like that type of attention, so to speak, then authority, maybe one of your big motivators, there are some perks to having authority status. One of the first perks is money. If somebody is viewed as an authority rather than a novice and something, they're going to be paid more money for the same work, whether it's consulting or doing services or selling digital products or anything else like that, someone who's an authority can charge more than somebody who is considered a novice. There's also prestige. I touched on that a little bit earlier about how it just plain feels good toe. Have people look up to you and see you as unauthorized. E in your niche and being known as an authority can also open other doors. For example, public speaking, perhaps book deals and other things. Write it down. Jot down your thoughts about how motivated you feel by the thought of being seen as an authority. If this is your desired outcome, right about what you'd like to accomplish as a result of having an authority status and also make note of any other specifics, such as your industry that come to mind. 5. Freedom: number four Motivation is freedom, and I have to say that this is my personal number. One reason I'm an introvert and I hate the snow and I live in Denver. And when I had a job, I had two in the morning when, during the winter season, go out and scrape ice off my windshield and it just wasn't really fun. And I also didn't like driving on. I see roads that kind of stressed me out, and that type of thing was a huge thing that I didn't like about having to go to a regular job. In addition to that, I'm on the introverted side, and while I really loved my job and I liked my coworkers, I got along great with my bosses. When it comes right down to it, I kind of like having some time and space alone. And I love working from home, and that wasn't an option in the job that I had. So my big motivation when I first quit my job or decided to quit my job was that I wanted to work from home, not have to deal with bad weather and also just have time and space to myself, so freedom might look different for you. But if freedom is your big motivation, if that's the real reason why you want to start your business or your blogger why you have started it, you need to consider the type of businesses that will offer you the most freedom in the way that you define freedom. And I want to say that along with that client work may or may not be the best. I started off my business doing client work, and I don't regret that because I did it on a retainer basis. And that meant that I had set clients who paid me a set amount of money every month, month after month, and I immediately replace the income from my job. So it gave me freedom in a way. But over time I found out that this was not really the best option for me, and I actually kind of hit a breaking point, because what happens when you do quiet work is that client work often becomes your top priority because you have to do things t to please the people in the same way that you have to please your boss when you have a job and their priorities ultimately become your priorities. And what ended up happening for me just on a personal level is that I found that I was working from early in the morning until late at night, and I actually kind of hit a breaking point right around the time of my daughter's wedding , when, of course, I was wanting to spend more time focused on my family. And yet one of my clients had a big launch and other things going on that really caused a lot of stress for me, and it wasn't really there fault. But it was when I realized that this business wasn't what I had really envisioned. So that started me on a gradual transition. And I will say that if you are really looking for freedom and right now, you don't really have it, Whether it's that you're working a job and you want to have a business, or whether aspects of your business don't really give you freedom, you may need to make a gradual transition. So, for example, for me I had all of these clients. That was where my income came from. I couldn't just up and quit my clients all at once, so I did it over a period of about one year and gradually replaced that the client income with income from things like book royalties and things like that. So it didn't happen overnight for me. But now what I do and what I would encourage you to do if your primary motivation is freedom is to evaluate all opportunities that are presented to you based on the freedom factor. If they don't fit with what you consider to be freedom, then you need to pass on them. Note to some degree freedom, cost money. So even if money is not your primary motivation, it's something you do have to consider. One way to keep this in mind along the same lines of that gradual transition is to do what you must do now so you can do what you want to later write it down. How important is freedom to you? Do you want to be able to take a lot of time off? Keep your phone turned out for hours each day, or be ableto work the hours you want. A war is working from home important to you, regardless of how you define freedom, right about how important freedom is to you and how you define it 6. If You Don't Know Your Motivation: now, this may all be well and good, but what if you don't know your biggest source of motivation? You're like, Well, I mean, I don't really know if my biggest motivation this freedom or money or what it may be. So the next part of this was going to go into how you can know your biggest source of motivation. Number one. Describe your biggest joys. What are the things that make you really happy Now, don't limit these things to business only because joy and other aspects of your life will offer clues. Write it down, jot down the things that bring you joy and fulfillment. Number two Describe your biggest frustrations. What drives you absolutely bonkers. You know, the things that you just ah, you get frustrated about and you wish you didn't. But you do. Along with that, what annoys you are stresses you out, and maybe you're even kind of good at it. But you just feel stressed or frustrated when you're in the middle of it. And again consider both business and personal items. Write it down. Jot down your biggest frustrations. Number three Describe your ideal day. What does a perfect quote unquote sunshiny day look like to you now Maybe you love the rain , so don't get hung up on the thought of sunshiny. Basically, what I mean by that is what just makes you really happy when if you could design your ideal day and have it look exactly the way that you want it to look, What would that be for you now? Life includes joys and sorrows good and bad, even if you work toward your ideal day. And generally speaking, you have an ideal day. There's going to be times when bad things, unexpected difficulties, either personal, earn your business technology. Things like that happen. However, with a proper focus, you can have more sunshine than rain. Write it down. Write out your ideal day as if it's your current reality. Not only will this help you feel what it would be like to live it, it will also help you know whether or not the opportunities that come your way are best for you. Number four If money were no object now I have to admit the whole question of if money were no object, what would you do that this is one of the oldest exercises in the book, and the reason, though, why it's been around so long and why is used so often is because it's very effective. The purpose of it is to get you thinking about what you would love to do rather than what you should dio. So go ahead and do this if money were no object, even though let's be honest, money is an object for all of us, but it really helps to define what really matters to you in this process. Get rid of your preconceived ideas of what you think you should dio and instead just write about what you would like to dio. 7. Evaluation Time: evaluation time. So based on all of the information presented up to this point, it's time to evaluate your current reality and determine how it fits with your why and you guessed it. It's time to right some things down now. This is a time for just some free form writing. Jot down any thoughts that you have regarding where you're at right now. When it comes to fulfilling your why are you on track? Do you have a long way to go? What things in your current life business or blog's? It was your why which things were totally missing the mark. An action plan. Now, even if you stop right here, let's say that you've taken the time to write a lot of things down and you've sought through all of these things. Even if you stop with that, you'll be far ahead of where you were because awareness is the first step. However, creating a plan and taking action on the plant is how to get real results, and I'm gonna give you five action steps to take. And for best results, you need to take them in the right order one at a time. 8. Action Step 1: Review Ideal Day: Okay, Action Step number one, Review your ideal day. Now remember that in a previous assignment was to write down your ideal day. So the first step that you need to take is to review your ideal day. You can use your calendar or your task management system and schedule a weekly review of your ideal day. Now if you typed it in the strategy guide, you can copy and paste what you previously wrote about on your ideal day in the description area of either your calendar or your task system. If you hand wrote it out, print it and place it in a binder and keep the binder in a convenient location for regular review. I would like to encourage you to do this at least weekly and initially I actually did this daily. But once I kind of got into my ideal day, and I was very familiar and very aware of what things fit and didn't fit. With my ideal day, I cut back to monthly, so if you feel like you really need to review it, often initially do it daily, then switch to weekly and then monthly, and you could potentially even get to doing it quarterly, but I would put off that until you You really are living your ideal day and maybe just need to do a quarterly review to see if you need to make any adjustments. The reason why this is important is because when you regularly review your ideal day, it helps you stay on track. It reminds you of the things that you've thought through in terms of what you really want, and it helps you to kind of nip it in the bud. When things that don't fit with your ideal day begin to creep into your life in your business, write it down. Now the write it down assignment here is a very simple one. It's simply to make a note of when and where you plan to review your ideal day. So, for example, let's say that you plan to review it every Friday, and you plan to use your calendar or your task management system 9. Action Step 2: Your One Thing: action step number to choose one thing to focus on Now. Most people fell when trying to make too many changes at a time. So for best results, choose one thing to focus on a time. I think that we've probably all done this before. Like we, it happens a lot with, say, New Year's resolutions. Maybe you pick five different areas of your life and you want to make changes in all of them. And we all know that very few people stick with it because it's just too much. So instead of picking five things that you need to change, pick one thing to focus on and make sure that your one thing that you choose fits with your wife. So, for example, my one thing is writing. If I focus on that, it makes everything else fall into place. Year one thing, maybe something very different. Write it down. What's the one thing you plan to focus on? Make note of it along with a few basic details, if desired. 10. Action Step 3: Set Mini Goals: action Step number three create a mini goal. Now the purpose of many goals is that they could be done even when life is crazy. Another big mistake that people make. And I'm gonna use fitness, even though it's not related to business or blogging. But people say I'm going to get in shape and then they may be say, I'm gonna go to the gym five days a week and work out for an hour and 1/2 each time, and they might keep up with that for a week or two. But then stuff happens and they end up falling off the wagon, and it just doesn't work. So the purpose of many goals is that even when life is crazy or you have unexpected things that happen or you're just stressed out or not in the mood or whatever you can do, that small mini goal and this helps you to be consistent. And consistency is a key element of habit development. So here's an example of a mini eagle. For me, writing for 15 minutes a day is a mini goal. Even if I'm busy, even if I have a bunch of other things, I need to do. Even if I'm not in the mood to write, I can do it for 15 minutes a day. Let's go back to that exercise example. Instead of having a big goal of working out an hour and 1/2 a day, maybe your mini goal would be taking a 10 minute walk at minimum. Now, a key thing to keep in mind is that a mini goal is your minimum. It's not your maximum. So let's be honest, how much writing what I really get done if I on Lee wrote 15 minutes a day, and I stopped at exactly 15 minutes each day. So a lot of days I'll do more than my minimum. But the minimum the mini goal is to again help me to develop a habit and be consistent. And make sure that your many goal fits with your one thing and you can have a few many goals. But don't overdo it. And if you're struggling, if life really feels out of control, start with just one and then go on from there and add in some additional ones. Write it down. What is the first mini goal that you want to focus on, and how do they or it fit with your one thing and your why 11. Action Step 4: Set Milestones : action Step number four set up milestones. Now, whether you're starting a blawg or a business, each of them require a long time to see success. You know you hear about overnight success, and sometimes we have the perception that somebody else was an overnight success. But most likely they have success because they've been keeping at it for a very long period of time. And the reality is that the road ahead is likely long and hard, and it can become very easy to become discouraged. Like, let's say that you want your business or your blog's or what have you to totally replace the income from your corporate job. And let's say you have a good income. Well, it might take a few years to get to the place where you replace that income. And if you have unrealistic expectations regarding that, it's easy to put gum discouraged. So one of the best ways to beat the discouragement is to celebrate smaller milestones along the path. So here's a milestone example for you. If building authority is your why being a podcast gas for guest blogger could be a milestone for you, because people don't ask you to be a podcast guest or ask you to guest post on their site. If they don't view you as an authority. Now that's a great milestone. But it's not ideal. And here's why you can't control the outcome. So, for example, that depends on other people coming to you and asking you to do something. And even if you go to them, you cannot control what they will say. So if you have a milestone like that, that depends on other people. Create additional milestones that you can control that help you accomplish the milestone that's beyond your control. So, for example, if you're bigger Milestone Waas, too be asked to be a podcast guest. A milestone that you can control might be to reach out to a certain number of podcast, host a certain number of times because you completely control that you completely control whether or not you take that action. And because of that, when you hit a certain milestone, you can celebrate it, even if you don't yet have the outcome that you would like from it. Write it down, write out at least two milestones. Note that they should fit with your one thing that you're currently focused on 12. Action Step 5: Quit One Thing: action Step number five. Quit something you don't love. Now this could be really, really scary because we tend to operate inside of our comfort zone and just keep doing the things that we have been doing, even if we don't necessarily love them, because it's what we're comfortable with. But you'll never fulfill your purpose if you keep doing things that don't fit with your why . And the reason is that every minute that you spend doing something you don't love is one less minute that you have to spend on doing things that you truly love. So you've got to at least gradually stopped doing the things that you really don't love. Now it's generally impossible to do this all at once. So, for example, I couldn't just quit all of my clients when I decided I really didn't want to do quiet work . I quit one client at a time, and that's what I would encourage you to do is to gradually stop doing things rather than quitting everything all at once, unless you're in a financial position to do so. If you determine your primary motivation and you focus on your one thing, your many goals and your milestones. All of that should move you closer to quitting The things that you don't love. Write it down. What is one thing you can quit today? Now remember, it doesn't have to be huge. And if you aren't quite ready to quit something reviewed, your action steps two through four and come up with some milestones that will move you closer and closer to being able to have a business and a blogged that fits with your passion and your purpose. You might also want to decide what is the first thing that you would like to quit and think through. What do you need to do to move yourself into a position where you can quit that thing? 13. Don't Give Up: don't give up. Pursuing your why isn't always easy and there may be times when it doesn't even seem or sit , but I want to encourage you to stick with it. I have been in this process of quitting clients for a year. It took me a whole year to get to that point, but I have to tell you that this has been my best year ever. Not that it's been easy, necessarily. But each time that I've quit one of my clients, I have felt freer and been able to pursue what I really love more. And it took time. But I eventually got into where now I'm living my ideal day when you feel discouraged, go through the exercises again, but whatever you dio don't give up. 14. Your Project: year project for this class is to determine your number one source of motivation for starting a blawg and or business as a bonus, if desired. You can also share your ideal day. You can share both of these in the project area of this class. And by the way, if you enjoyed this class, I'd really appreciate it if you'd give me a thumbs up. I wish you the best in all your endeavors. 15. Thank you: I just want to thank you for supporting me in fulfilling my wife. I know that some of you read my books, read my block, purchase my products, interact with me on social media. All of those things help fulfil my wife. And I just want to really thank you for that. I couldn't do it without you. Thank you again. And I wish you the best in pursuing and fulfilling your why and your purpose.