Intro: Welcome to The Masterful Coach podcast, with Molly Claire, where coaches learn skill mastery, business mastery, and life mastery at a whole new level. If you’re serious about creating a meaningful coaching business that makes a difference, you’re in the right place. And now your host, master life and business coach, Molly Claire.

Hey, coach. Happy new year. I hope all of you are feeling full of excitement and hope and a sense of possibility as the new year is beginning. I am so happy to be diving back into work, next week is when I'll be diving back in. I start off with my advanced certification group, which is going to be magical. The next week, the 10K Accelerator Group begins. And of course the masterful coach community, we're all gonna be coming back together. Amazing guests. So many great things this year, and I can't wait for every minute of it.

So what about you? Think for a minute? What are the things you're looking forward to? What have you set up for yourself in your life personally, business-wise? Really take the time to appreciate those good things in your life. It is way too easy to take things that we could be enjoying for granted. And why not have a little more fun?

Alright, coach, so as you're listening to this, it's January 4th or perhaps after, depending on when you're accessing this episode. And I know that it can be very easy for us as human beings, especially those of you who are highly ambitious and highly driven, to want to have this like, power start to the new year. And we wanna have our life be totally different and we want to go for it. And we set a big goal and we're convinced everything is going to change.

And we expect all of this to be put in motion by about noon on January the first. And by the second maybe you're already wondering if you're really gonna get on track and follow through. And then by the third, you're starting to lose all hope that this might ever happen, and by the fourth you figured that you might as well just give up, right?

So this is obviously a little bit of an exaggeration, although some of you may be relating to this. How many of you can relate to this at some level? I know that I experienced this many, many times along the way in building my business, especially early on. I would have such a high level of self-frustration at the beginning of the year because things were not going as quickly as I wanted them to.

And part of that is, oftentimes, honestly, any of you that have taken any amount of time off, when you're transitioning back into life and business as usual, there's a little bit of an energy shift that has to take place. And I don't think we account for that often. And so that's one thing that has made a huge difference for me and I hope it can for you as well. Anytime you are transitioning into the new year or any kind of change like that, create a little bit of a buffer so that you just know, "You know what? I need a little bit of a settling in period." I talked quite about that on last week's episode as well.

So here we are. It's the fourth, and I want you to check in and identify how are you feeling about making changes in the new year? How are you feeling about your plan? Did you have a solid plan in place? Are you telling yourself you should have already had a plan in place? And are you stressing out about when exactly you will move forward with your next set of goals?

Now, what's really fun about this is, I know many of you that are in my community, we planned everything in December and we just finished it, and you're ready to go. But a very similar principle applies to those of you that are listening here and you don't yet have your plan in place. I'm gonna give you a few specific tips. This is a very short episode, and then I wanna have you go enjoy your day, enjoy your life as you transition into the new year.

Tip number one, make a decision and choose peace. This is what I mean. If you haven't yet made a plan for your quarter or your year or your business or anything at all, instead of telling yourself, you should have already done it, or instead of telling yourself, "I've got to get to that. I should get to it." Make a decision about when you will. And listen, if you already have your plan for the year, take what I'm telling you and apply it to something else.

Because all of you listening, I guarantee you have something rolling around in your head like that. I should have already done it. I should get to it. And I wanna really encourage you to decide when are you going to make that plan. Will you write it down in your calendar? And can you then feel a sense of peace knowing that you have a plan, and right now you just get to be exactly where you are.

Next tip, for all of you, did you know that you can actually change a deadline? I was talking with Mickey, who I work with quite a bit in my business, Mickey Gardner. You've heard her on the podcast I'm sure, and we were joking as we were preparing, to close up shop in December is, I was telling her, I said, "You know, we have all these things I wanna put in place so that I'm ready for January and the team's ready for January."

And I said to her, "Did you know that I could actually change the deadline of that project? I was gonna start in January. I could actually move it to February and nothing would fall apart." So of course we were laughing about this because in my mind, when I've set a deadline for something like that, I like to keep it.

I want to stay on track with what the plan was. I want to be prepared, and this was really a good exercise for me and I wanna pass it along to you. As you know, I've been taking this 21 day reset off of work away from business, and it was a really good opportunity for me to stay committed to the 21 day reset I wanted to set over the holidays and decide that if that meant changing my deadline for a project I was planning to start in January, it was okay.

And the reason why, and this will give you a marker of how you can make decisions, is that when I looked at the importance of keeping this deadline of when I was going to start this project and I looked at the importance of me staying committed to my downtime and my life-business balance, I realized that my commitment to my downtime and my life business balance was definitely a much higher priority than starting that project on that timeline.

So listen, coach, if this is you, and if you are feeling this sense of having to run faster than you can walk because you wanna meet a deadline, just remind yourself. You can always change a deadline. And the way you know if this will be a good decision is checking in on your priorities.

Okay, last tip, which is very much related to the last one. Remember that as you're moving forward into the new year, keep that long view in mind. Think about what I was just speaking about regarding changing a deadline. If I change a deadline from starting a project in January to starting a project in February, if I'm planning on building and sustaining a long-term business, how big of a deal is 30 days? It's not.

And the same thing applies to, I know some of you are probably sick right now. There have been a lot of sickness over the holidays, and this is another time this way of thinking can come up. We think, "Oh no, I'm sick. I'm not meeting my deadlines. I'm going to get so far behind." Listen, it's just not true. A sick day, a family emergency, a week off, a month off, whatever time that you need to take care of you and your entire life, it always fits in in the long view.

This isn't a hustle, this isn't a get rich quick scheme. You are building a meaningful business that is sustainable long-term and supports your ideal life and business.

So coach, if you're feeling any sense of being behind, or "Am I really gonna get all this done this year?" Take a breath, set a timeline as to when you will take that next step and create peace. Give yourself permission to change a deadline if that's what you need. And remember, when you keep that long view in mind, these little setbacks don't seem to be nearly as big of a problem.

All right, coach, that's what I've got for you. I'll see you next week.

Outro: Thanks for listening to The Masterful Coach Podcast. If you’re ready for complete support as you build your coaching business, check out Molly’s collaborative community, The Masterful Coach Collective, it’s a place where you’ll have access to the best experts in the biz, community support and guidance as you build your perfect business 90 days at a time. Visit www.mollyclaire.com for details.