Welcome 2019- Time to Celebrate!
Through the course of my career and starting my business, I’ve never been great at stopping to celebrate the accomplishments I make along the way. As a wellness coach, this is a little ironic since it’s something I make a point to do with my clients on a regular basis. But, I tend to be so focused on the bigger picture and my future vision that I’m often on to the next thing while I’m completing a current goal. This year, I’ve decided to not only be more intentional with the process of celebrating the milestones in my business, but I also decided to share them with you along the way. I don’t know if this is going to be something that’s interesting to you, or if it’s just going to be an accountability thing for me, but I do have some of my favorite blogs and resources below, so let’s just say it’s worth the read. I want to start off by saying this blog is a little out of my normal writing comfort zone. I don’t usually write a lot about myself, so this is a little different from my normal writing routine. But, I do think it’s important to celebrate ourselves, so without trying to feel like I’m bragging about my accomplishments last year, I’m highlighting some of my top accomplishments in 2018. Starting a business is no joke, and especially all while raising a family, managing a household, and trying to keep up with all the latest trends. I swear there are days that I feel more like an online marketer that just so happens to be a wellness coach too, instead of the other way around. That being said, I do love writing and sharing my knowledge through blogging, so it’s one of those things that I’m happy to do, especially if it means helping others live their healthiest, happiest and most fulfilled life. With that being said, so much of the topics I write about come from people like you, who email me or message me with a question, or a topic on something they’d love to know more about when it comes to creating more balance in your life, living your healthiest life, or overcoming the challenges of putting your own needs aside for so long and starting over in your wellness journey. So, if you have something you’d like for me to talk about, Send me an email because I’d love to hear what you want to read about! Alright, so here we go. The Driven Mama’s first year in review. Below, I’ll talk about the things I feel most proud about from this year, and a few lessons I learned along the way, for those who appreciate knowing that achieving goals is all about ups and down. If there is one thing that’s for certain, there’s no straight shot to “success”. Then, I’ll also talk about a few things coming down the line for 2019 that I’m pretty excited about, and hopefully you will be too.
A Look Back in 2018
Becoming a Board Certified and Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach
Although I’ve been in the health and wellness business and space for over 3 years now and coaching along the way, I found myself loving the process of helping others with their personal health and wellness journeys and seeing the transformation unfold along the way. I decided at the end of 2017, I wanted to develop my coaching skills even further, so I researched several health and wellness coaching programs and settled on, what I think, is the best program out there. I began Mayo Clinic’s Wellness Coaching Training Program at the beginning of the year and it was an incredible experience. The best part is that I was able to complete the program while working with my clients throughout the year. It was really a win-win.
After the program was completed, I filled my summer schedule with client practice hours and studying as I prepared for the National Board Certification Exam and the Mayo Clinic Certification Application. There are so many accomplishments I’m proud to share about the business in the last year, but completing the program, passing the board exam, and receiving my Mayo Clinic Certification is among the top. This is one I want, and need, to stop and let sink in at times… I’m a Nationally Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach AND a Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach. I feel like I’m tooting my own horn a little bit here, but I mean… That’s pretty cool.
Going through the journey of becoming certified was a powerful experience for me. I had people tell me how a one hour session with me literally changed their life, helped them start thinking about how I helped them walk away with a plan they would have never come up with on their own, and how they went from feeling overwhelmed to excited about making their health and wellness a priority. It was awesome. You can actually read some of the comments on my Facebook page.
The process helped me see how much I absolutely love coaching others to achieve their greatest visions and goals for their health, wellness, and life.
Growing The Driven Mama Team
While I had booked myself solid with practice hour sessions, I realized all the time I had been making for trying to learn email systems and content systems, and building my own website was becoming quite limited. I had created a goal at the beginning of the year to have a consistent blog post each week, and at June, I still hadn’t been able to figure out how to make that happen. Among all the other behind the scenes tasks that the typical client or audience doesn’t see, I finally admitted I wasn’t going to be able to make it happen on my own. Man, was that a hard thing to admit to myself!
I decided to begin the interview process of hiring an Online Business Manager. I interviewed several candidates and landed on one special lady that I am so thankful I found. Amy has been a godsend to The Driven Mama in the few short months that we’ve worked together and has made all the behind the scenes system magic work that I had previously been trying to take on myself. Having someone join the Driven Mama team has truly made a huge difference in how much I’ve been able to accomplish, which means more time for me to take on more 1:1 clients, creating some new programs (read more to find out!), creating free tools, blogs, and articles that I can create and share with you!
Here are a couple of blog posts from this year
- The Benefits of an Accountability Partner for Your Business & Your Health
- How To Create A Wellness Routine That Fits Seamlessly Into Your day!
- How To Set Your Goals & Stay Committed To Them
I especially love that I can focus on the things I love doing the most and are my strengths – like writing and coaching, while Amy helps with so much of the technical behind the scenes details that I never even imagined would take up so much time. With that time freed up, I’ve been able to write higher quality content, plan for taking on more clients, and so much more. It’s pretty exciting!
If you are running a business all while raising a family and doing All. The. Things. in life and it feels like you can’t keep up, I would suggest connecting with a Virtual Assistant or Online Business Manager. It will be well worth your investment. I’m planning to write a longer blog on this whole topic, so stay tuned. My lesson to myself on this one this year is that I wish I would have decided to hire an OBM sooner, so I could have been even more focused on the tasks that matter most for helping you.
Just to add on to this – even if you’re not a mompreneur, or a mom, you do not have to do it all by yourself! If you’re in a situation where you feel overwhelmed or not able to be your best self because something else is taking up all your time or energy, delegate, delegate, delegate. Where is one place in your life you could start delegating a task so you can have more time for your health, well-being, self-care, or whatever else that’s important to you? (I digress… I’ll get back to the topic at hand now… )
Setting The Driven Mama up for future success might have been a headline for this year.
Like I said in the beginning, starting a business is no joke. Anyone that’s been through the process knows how it’s so much more than putting a few pages up on a website and waiting for your calendar to book up. There’s a lot of ups and downs along the way. As a coach, I know the value of having someone by your side to walk through this process, so I worked with a few different business coaches along the way.
Then, later in the year, I decided to join an awesome group program and mastermind group, The Boss-Mom Academy. These ladies have quickly become some of my closest sounding boards when it comes to ideas for new programs and tools I’m creating. The owner of Boss-Moms, Dana, is a serious genius when it comes to business knowledge and I feel so grateful I came across her group program. Between Amy, my OBM, and this group coaching program, I finally feel like I have the right systems in place to be able to more easily help anyone who comes across my content to schedule time to talk with me or grab a free resource to help them along their health and wellness journey. Man, does THAT feel good to say!
At this point, you can probably tell I’m “fan-girling” on the Boss-Mom group and programs. I love them because it puts me in front of a group of people that completely relate to me and the challenges I’m having not only in my business, but personally, too. I especially love that they added on a free local meetups all over the country to take the relationships offline and in person.
I’m personally very excited to see the new things rolling out with Boss-Moms in 2019. Let me know if you want to come hang at the next meet-up in Minneapolis and I’ll send you the details. If you’re not in the Facebook group yet and you’re a mama that has a product or service, I highly recommend checking out the group or grabbing one of Dana’s free resources. This Free to Paid Journey Roadmap is an awesome one that has helped me figure out this crazy world of online marketing.
A look into the Year ahead
Alright, lots of great things accomplished and started in 2018. Thanks for taking the time to celebrate with me! Now, I’m so excited to talk about a few things in the works for 2019.
First, I’m pretty proud to say that I actually completed much of my annual planning for 2019 a month ago, which has been something I haven’t done in the past. Having the time to do some thoughtful planning has helped me take my content and blogs and more thoughtful in making sure I’m putting out information that you want to read about the most.
Last year, I put together two huge blog posts, which is unlike anything I’ve done in the past. I would call them “Ultimate Guides” over blog posts all about Creating Fail-Proof Goals and Putting Your Goals Into Action. Not only have I been getting some amazing feedback from these blogs, I also had a blast creating them. Even though I’ve been pretty well trained in goal setting strategies, I also had so much fun writing the content for these blogs! So, another win-win! You get an awesome resource to help set you up for success, and I had a blast making it.
I decided to write these “ultimate guides” because so many people put a lot of emphasis on their health and wellness journey for the future year in December and January. I wanted to help set up Driven Mamas with a way to set goals and take action on them in a way they probably haven’t tried before, but actually works, so I took the time to write out a step-by-step process not only for goal planning, but also action taking on your goals. I also put together a Goal Planning Roadmap which is this awesome guide that walks you through the whole process and makes it so simple.
If you were so busy in December that you’re just now getting to planning for 2019, whether it be for your business, or personally, don’t panic, you’re not behind. You can still grab my Goal Planning Roadmap and get right back on track in no time.
I’m so excited about these guides and the roadmap, because it not only gives you a way to get started and take some baby steps to reaching your goals, but it’s a first step in what you need to do to achieve your goals, which is what I’ll be focusing on in my blogs and tools throughout the rest of the year. So, if you have any questions about creating goals and reaching them, send me an email, because if you couldn’t tell, I could talk goals all day long!
Since I received so much positive feedback from those ultimate guides, I’ll likely be putting out more of those this year, as well as:
- Continuing to write weekly blog posts focused on topics around creating your healthiest, happiest and most fulfilled life.
- Opening enrollment for a group coaching program for high-achieving women who are dead set on rocking their goals in 2019 and creating the balance they deserve. (more information coming soon, so stay tuned!)
- Opening up a few more 1:1 coaching session spots! (which will fill up fast!)
- And give more ideas and healthy inspiration for you on how to create a more balanced and healthy life.
And seriously, that’s just the beginning of some pretty amazing stuff coming down the line. I’m SO excited!
Your Turn – Help Me Decide
There’s one thing I’ve been thinking about for a while and going back and forth on without a decision, so I thought I’d bring it to you for your thoughts. I’ve gone back and forth about creating a closed Facebook group for the Driven Mama community to be able to connect and get to know each other better. I have realized in past years that I LOVE being a connector for others, so it seems like a great way to help each other stay motivated to reach our goals and live our healthiest, happiest, and most fulfilled lives! So, what do you think?
Write a comment below or email me and let me know if you think I should start a Facebook community where we can connect and get to know each other better.
Wrapping up this year, I can’t help but reflect on all the people who have supported The Driven Mama, cheered me on, and been a part of the journey of taking The Driven Mama to a whole new level. Thank you SO much for being a part of the journey with me! I am so proud of all my clients and chatting with everyone else in the last year, and I feel so grateful to be in a place where I really feel like this is where I was meant to be.
I truly cannot wait to continue to update you along the way! Cheers to a great year with so many new experiences and milestones hit!
