[00:00:00] Episode 16. Hello, and welcome to the Aligned and Thriving Podcast. This is for ambitious female entrepreneurs where we align systems, strategies, and self for sustainable success. My name's Jada. I'm your host, and if you are new here, welcome. If you're a regular here, welcome. Also, let's dive into this week's episode.
Seeing as this week's episode is coming out on the first day of a new month. But not just any month, the first day of a new financial year. I thought it was a great time to dive into a few reflection questions that are really powerful. Now, I'm sure that you can find lots of information around financial check-ins that you can be doing, and that would be highly advisable for you to be doing as a business owner.
From [00:01:00] many financial experts. I am not a financial expert, so I'm not so much going to be diving into specific financial check-in questions, but more so general questions to ask yourself and sit down and do a bit of a journaling session on, and to really encourage you to take some time to review. The last quarter, the last financial year, and not shy away from it, not hide away from it.
What I will say about finances is that the really important thing, or learning that I've certainly had. Um, in my business journey and I had to take it on really quite early on because I had, uh, in the fairly early years of my business, quite the baptism of fire into next level business, uh, running. And I took on a business that was in a lot of financial strife and.
I at the time [00:02:00] felt really overwhelmed by the finances. They were really stressful, and I've shared more about this on another episode, which I can link in the show notes, uh, around having to move through. The way we think about things or our beliefs about ourselves. And I remember my brain just really feeling like it turned to marshal basically going blank.
Whenever the bookkeeper would show me spreadsheets around finances, uh, you know, I felt like I couldn't think properly and I really had to give myself a bit of a pep talk and say, Jada, you are a smart woman. You can understand the finances, you can be switched on when, when you're looking at this, as uncomfortable as it might be, you can resolve this situation.
So what I will say, say around finances and reviewing them is whether things are going well or whether things are feeling like a struggle. It's really important not to ignore them. And it's really important to shift your mindset and the [00:03:00] way you feel about them and what you believe about yourself in relation to finances and spreadsheets and numbers so that you are looking at them and so that you can seek the support and the help that you need.
And so that you do ask questions and you are focusing on those things because they are important for the. Health and the success and the growth of your business. We do need to look at things, whether they're comfortable or uncomfortable. So that's just my little, little bit of, I guess, uh, encouragement and advice around finances and making sure that we are checking in.
So yes, checking in on your business metrics. But not just your financial metrics. Yes. Checking in, how much did you make? What were your expenses? What was your actual profit? And there are different seasons and times of [00:04:00] business whereby you might be reinvesting. All or even more than you are earning in your business because you're in a startup phase.
There will be times where the focus is more on growing that profit and all of these areas are very important. We wanna be moving into having some level of profit. But the reality is, is not all stages and phases of business are around that profit margins, but having. Clarity around that is super important.
And knowing and being intentional and purposeful about that, not just kind of in the dark or just kind of guessing or just moving forward blindly. Being aware and being purposeful. Around these times and phases in your business and understanding, and if you're not sure seeking that support, get the support from someone who understands and can support you with your finances.
But yes, checking in on those key financial areas, not turning a blind eye. We [00:05:00] also though, and this is what I'm also wanna talk to you about today, want to be checking in on other metrics in your business. It's a good idea before we just jump into the next month and the next financial year and the next quarter to review and pause and celebrate the progress and the wins.
And very often it's not just a good idea, by the way. It's so essential. This is what successful business owners. Do. And the reality is actually few business owners pause to review. So if you are doing that, you are ahead of the game. So I really recommend you take some time to check across these key metrics.
Now, for me being, uh, very much around the holistic business growth, the sustainable success, building a business that is. Going to support you and your family and your life, not the other way [00:06:00] around. I am more around, you know, growing in a sustainable way, even if that means growing slower, all of those things.
So let's dive into a few different questions and a few different metrics that you can be asking yourself about and checking in on and pausing on before you just fly into this next month, this next quarter, this next year. And also looking at being really intentional about your goals, not just financial ones, but also other areas in your business.
Now we're gonna start with some positives because it is far too common and far too easy because this is how our brains are wired to focus on the things that didn't go well. Focus on where things are broken or slow or not reaching the goals. We set all of the problems. This is how our brains are naturally wired.
So we [00:07:00] have to very purposefully on a daily basis, ideally move our brains and our minds into looking at the positive. This is why gratitude practice is so powerful. This is why. Checking in on our wins and our progress on a daily and weekly basis is so important. Yes, we can't put our, bury our head in the sand and ignore the problems or the things that aren't going well.
We need to make a plan to improve them. However, I. A really big part of, of this session is that I want to really encourage you to focus also on the things that have gone well, so that you can measure that also and acknowledge it and celebrate yourself. Not just the major wins, but the little ones and the progress.
So let's dive into some questions. Ask yourself, and you can do this now with your journal, or you can write all these questions down and then come back and I really encourage you to take some time. This is such a CEO move. This is a leadership [00:08:00] move. This is how you move forward in a healthy, sustainable, holistic way that is going to feel better, and it is what you need to do to create a successful business in all of the ways.
So write down these questions. Set aside some time and come back to them or pause and answer each one of them as we go along. Whatever works best for you. Alrighty. So. Ask yourself, what progress? Let's do this. Well, you can do it for the quarter, you can do it for a month. You can do this on a weekly basis.
But being that it is the first day of a new financial year at the time of this release, then let's do it for the last financial year. So what progress did you make? I really want you to think back through this last financial year and think about what progress you made, not just in a monetary sense, but in impact in the people you might have [00:09:00] served in your own.
Progress as a leader, as a person, even personally, what progress did your business make? Maybe you grew your audience or your impact, or your authority or your influence. What progress did you make in a variety of areas? The next question is, what wins did you have? Not just the big ones, but the little ones as well.
And what you can do, because obviously a year is a long time, is you can go back through your calendar and actually have that open and have a look at what happened through the year, so you can really look into what wins happen small and large, really. Micro go into the micro, and this is why I like to look at progress and wins because sometimes we overlook the progress that we've made.
'cause we're just looking for the outcomes and the overall wins. So the progress and the wins. The next question is, what are you grateful for [00:10:00] over the last year financial year? Maybe who and what are you grateful for? Then what did you learn? What did you learn over this last financial year in a business sense, in a leadership sense, even about yourself?
What did you learn? Because business is not just about business. Business is a lot, a lot, a lot about ourselves. So what did you learn over this last financial year? It could be things you literally learned, like new skills you learned, but also what learnings can you take away from this last financial year?
And then ask yourself what opportunities came your way and what opportunities did you jump on? And then another question, how did you feel? How did you feel generally speaking? And again, maybe you wanna go back through from July last year through until June this year, how did you feel energetically, emotionally, physically, and [00:11:00] probably a whole lot of different ways in a whole year, but just kind of a general sense and maybe you wanna break it out down into quarters or months or things like that, but just kind of have a think about that.
And put it down because we can also look back on this and see it helps us to measure our progress and our wins. Another question, who is instrumental in your progress? Could be personal or professional. I. Make a list of the people who are instrumental and that you're grateful for, and then I highly encourage you to reach out to those people to say thank you and tell them why and how they were instrumental for you in the last year.
And then in what ways do you feel. You grew as a person or a leader and a leader, really, in what ways do you feel that you really grew as a person and as a leader? Take some time to answer all these questions, and yes, finances tracking and measuring income costs, profit margin. [00:12:00] Where have you been spending the most?
Are there places that you could be more intentional about your spending? Have a look at what happened with your finances. And again, I'm not a finance expert, but you absolutely need to be looking at your finances in business because. That is a part of business. So yes, tracking all of that, looking at it, it might be surprising in a good way or maybe a scary way.
You never know. Either way, you need to have a look at it and know what's going on so that you can make intentional decisions and moves as the leader of your business. These are some great questions and you can see that there are a whole lot more, I guess, holistic and about a variety of areas that we really wanna check in on.
And what about other important metrics for your business? How much did you grow your audience? How much did you grow your email list? How much did you grow your social media community? What are some of the other metrics in your business that you need to be checking in on and tracking [00:13:00] that are aligned with the goals that you have and the progress?
That you are wanting to make now? I am definitely a strategy person. I nerd out on the data and the specifics and diving into the details of how we can move our business and really understanding that. I know it's not everybody's cup of tea, but here you get the strategy. You also get the mindset. You'll also get that more holistic approach to business and leadership because that has been my lived experience in business and the necessity to, to have all of those areas for healthy, sustainable business success.
But we can't be skipping over the systems and the strategies. So it's also a really good time to be looking at your systems and your strategies. What were the main systems and strategies you were using over this last financial year? And how did they go do a health [00:14:00] audit on them? Did they get you where you want to go or do you need to be switching up which systems and strategies you're using?
Or sometimes it's not about throwing them out, but it's about testing, measuring, tweaking, optimizing them. What areas do you need to be improving or tweaking? It's a great time to go into all of that. How is your email marketing going? How's your social media going? How are your funnels performing? What was the thing that grew your business in the strongest way?
Have you stopped and even checked on that? What are the, you know, when you had the greatest areas of success over the last year, what were the. Factors in that. So pausing and looking at the strategies you've used and the systems that you're using. The structures as well, your office suite, like it's just a really great time to do a bit of a health check and an audit on your [00:15:00] business and how each of those areas are going.
And if we were gonna dive into all of the areas, we would be here for a really long time. But it's really across, you know, those core areas that I look at as far as creating an aligned and sustainably successful business is yourself, your systems, and your strategies, and of course, your sales, because without sales, we're not really a business.
So. Do that health check, do that audit on your systems. And then when we move into the planning and the intentional goal setting and planning and vision casting for the coming financial year, which we're gonna move into in a sec, then you can have a look at, well, which ones are you keeping? Which ones are you going to focus on?
Which ones do you need to tweak and optimize? Or do you need to be looking at? Different systems or strategies that are going to be more aligned with where [00:16:00] you're at now and where you want to go next. So just that general business health check, it's a great time to kind of pause and do that. Then it is a great idea to dive into what didn't go well.
What do you feel like didn't go so well? In this last financial year. Don't hide away from that, but we don't want to sink into it and only be focused on that, what didn't go so well. And I guess this circles back to then, what learnings did you have? Because when something didn't go your way, when something didn't work out, how you'd like it to, we need to take that as learning.
So what didn't go well and what can you learn from that? And therefore, what can you think about and what can you do differently? What do you need to change so that you change that in this next coming financial year? And then. We wanna also move into, once we've done some reflection, instead of just diving into the new financial year, uh, we [00:17:00] wanna have done that reflection on the last year, and then we can move into intentional.
Goal setting and setting up our intentions for the coming financial year. Now, goals should really feel a little stretchy and exciting and good, and if it's boring or you don't really feel emotionally connected to it, then change it. I remember. Just last quarter, actually within my master mastermind, I'm a part of, uh, we were doing our quarterly accountability and setting our goals and intentions for the coming quarter.
And I was putting down, and I realized it was really the same like financial goal that I'd been setting for a while and I hadn't been reaching it and. I just didn't feel connected. I didn't feel excited about it, and I was doing some journaling about it. I was just contemplating on it as I go for a walk sometimes just [00:18:00] without listening to anything, just mulling over things, and it just came to me to set a higher goal, which might sound totally bizarre because if I hadn't been meeting the other one, then why would a higher goal actually be exciting?
But it. Made me feel excited. It made me start thinking about other op options and opportunities and ideas, and I got excited about it, which is what we need. It felt stretchy and full disclosure, I didn't meet that new stretch goal, but. My whole energy and attitude and the way I was looking for opportunities, the way that I then functioned throughout the quarter, uh, all of those things changed, and that's really important in setting goals.
So make sure that your goals are your own. I've got another episode around setting financial goals that are yours. They're not just some generic amount like, oh, I wanna hit 10 K [00:19:00] months, or I wanna hit a hundred K months, or I want a million dollar business. It's really important that your financial goals and all your goals are yours personally, and I'll link to that episode in the show notes as well.
It's all around the steps to actually set your own. Personal money goals that are truly aligned to your specific desires, your true life by design desires and et cetera. So that's really important. It needs, you need to be able to emotionally connect with the goal. Don't set a goal just because other people have it, or a generic goal that you think is the one that is going to have you make it or be successful, or whatever it might be.
So yes, make sure you have a money goal for your business. You might want to set a total income goal. Maybe you wanna set a profit goal. Depends where you're at in business, but definitely have a money goal. And then we need to break down, break that down as well. But before we do, we kind of talk about how to break down, kind of reaching that goal.
Let's talk [00:20:00] about some other areas. Make sure you're also setting intentions and goals for other areas in this financial year. You need to set things around yourself as well. Your health, your relationships, your personal growth. Who do you need to be to achieve your desired life by design, your desired business, your money goals?
What do you want your business to look like in a year from now? Ask yourself that question. What do you want your business to look like? Not just financially, but in other areas. And then you can set some clear goals around the different areas around yourself, around the kinds of boundaries you need, around the kind of team you need to set up around the kinds of offers that you need to have, et cetera.
So that bigger vision of what you want your business to look like is worth really digging into. We wanna set those goals, as I said, around yourself, your, your health, your relationships, your [00:21:00] personal growth, and how you wanna feel. Describe it. So that there's something you can actually measure, you know, in three months or six months or nine months from now, you can look at this and you can say, I, I set a goal to be feeling like this.
Am I feeling like this? If not, what can I do about it? This can be a really good time to re-look at your boundaries at the way in which you're working, the hours you want to be working. How you're spending your time on other things, the hobbies that you wanna have, the friends you wanna prioritize, the family time, and the the types of family things you wanna be doing, your relationships, because all of this is important as to how you are being and how you are feeling as the leader of your business.
And then any other business goals that align with the bigger vision that you have. When you paint that picture of what you want your business to look like in a year's time, what are the goals that you need to set? Within that things around audience building or collaboration or how many, you know, units or of a [00:22:00] service or an offer you might need to sell to reach your financial goals.
What do you need to focus on in each of the areas of your business for your financial goals? Really, truly like taking that time to think about what areas you need to focus on and how you might reach that. Because to achieve something new, to achieve that goal, you need to have a really clear vision. So that setting that vision of what you want your business and life to look like, then you need to set these goals and have really clear goals that you are focusing on.
So if you have a vision of that life and that business, maybe then a part of that is, or a part of that not maybe is a financial goal. So then to break that down further, you then need a plan. You need a plan of how you're going to reach that goal. And if you don't know how to make that plan or what the steps should be on that plan, that's when you need to get help.
You know, we get help if we set a [00:23:00] physical health goal, maybe we. Hire a nutritionist or we see a nutritionist and we hire a personal trainer, or we get a program to help us have the correct steps to move towards the goal that we've got. The same thing in business, whatever area it is in your business, getting the help if you don't know what the actual steps are, because otherwise you're just kind of like generally moving in the direction, but you may or may not reach that goal that you have if you are not following the right steps to get you there.
And I don't mean a generic steps, I mean the steps that are truly gonna move you from where you specifically are. To your specific goals and desires, not generic ones. And this is very much what I support my one-on-one clients with, is really being able to get clarity on that big picture and clarity on where you're at and [00:24:00] supporting to know the exact steps to move you towards those goals from where you are now.
And in alignment with how you work best and what your season of life is and all of those different things, taking that into consideration. So we need to have that vision. We need to set goals that are aligned with that vision and we need to have a plan that will actually take us towards that goal, whatever it is, and we'll have various goals in various areas.
You might have some personal goals, you might have some professional goals. You have our money goals, all of those different things. So really taking some time to reflect. On this last financial year, and then to set intentional goals and intentions for the coming financial year. So I hope this has been helpful.
I encourage you to take some time. I know that's quite a lot of different questions and planning and et cetera. It [00:25:00] is time well spent reflection. Time is time well spent thinking. Time is time well spent. Planning time is time well spent. This is essential for you as the leader of your business. So if you've got any questions, reach out.
If you are not sure how to make that plan or what the next steps should be to help you move from where you are to where you wanna go, reach out. Let's have a chat. But really, please, I encourage you to take this time to not just dive straight into the new financial year, setting new goals. Setting new intentions.
Yes, we wanna do that, but please make sure you take some time to also reflect and not just on what didn't go well, what the problems were, what you need to improve, but all those first questions that I shared around the progress and the wins and the opportunities and the learnings and the, and what you're grateful for as well.
This is really important. Alright, beautiful woman. I can't wait to share more with [00:26:00] you next week, and I'd love to hear how you found this episode. If you sit down and do this, which I hope you do. And any, I don't know, takeaways or maybe things you weren't expecting that might've came out, come out of answering these questions for yourself, or just to connect.
I absolutely love connecting with other women in business. Alrighty. Here's to you rising, shining, thriving, and your successful and sustainable business. Stay aligned and stay thriving, and I'll see you next week.
