Procrastiplanning...?

I can taste. Hello and good evening. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. Welcome to my live, everyone. I am going live. I'm gonna plug in my phone because it's a little low on charge. Okay. Going live on the Facebook's, LinkedIn, YouTube, and over here on my phone on Instagram. And today I want to talk about a tendency that I notice a lot with my clients, people in my world, and with myself. I'm gonna. I'm not gonna say that I don't do this because that would be absolute bullshit. Procrastinating. It's a term that I think I've made up. Someone else might have coined it before me, but, you know, whatever. Progressive planning is what people do when they're being massive weenies in their businesses. Hi, Gabe. Welcome. Great to have you here. So let's talk about. Let's talk about procrastination in general. Okay? It's something that I am extremely, extremely, like, well versed in because I do it so often. Procrastinating. There are so many different theories on why we procrastinate. The theory that I kind of adhere to and kind of follow. Hi, Jade. Welcome. Is idea that we procrastinate because we want to avoid bad feelings. Like, we're. And bad feelings could be, oh, God, like, what if I screw it up? Oh, God, like, what if people reject me? Oh, God, like, what if I, you know, start doing it? I realize that this is way harder. I'm just not qualified to be here. Procrastination also happens when, like, the thing you're gonna do isn't something that you enjoy doing. Okay? So for instance, I hate bookkeeping. So early on in my business, I avoided doing it a lot, and it made really, really fun for my. My bookkeeper at the end of the year when we had to play detective on what past Katie decided to spend money on. But here's where it becomes very, very dangerous for you. When you're in the beginning stages of your business. And if you're joining and you have questions or if you're guilty of this, please, please pop any messages in the comments. I love this to be interactive, especially because this late on a Friday night anyway. But what was I saying? Oh, yes, it's exceptionally dangerous. Hi, Kelsey. Welcome. In the beginning stages of your business. Because when you're procrastinate planning, when you're procrastinating, doing the thing, and the thing is usually the thing that is going to actually bring clients into your business. It keeps you from getting clients, right? Like, when we spend all our time planning, planning on creating a plan to plan to maybe have a plan to eventually do the thing, we're not actually doing the thing. We're not posting on social media. We're not reaching out to conferences to see if we can speak as a keynote speaker. We're not reaching out to people that we know and asking for referrals. We're not doing a lot of visibility things that would potentially get us clients. And that's not good. I mean, unless you're independently wealthy and you don't need to be making money from your business. If that's the case, then please procrast a plan and procrastinate all you want. You do, you boo. Like, you have the money and the means to just, like, you know, do things you want to do, great. Fully support that for you. But if you're like the rest of us and you need to be making money from your business because you have a meat suit that needs food and shelter and water and a safe place to sleep and bills to pay and all that stuff, you need to break out of the cycle. Okay, so whatever your. Your method for planning is or procrastinating is, for me, I'm a queen procrastina planner. For others, you could be a procrastinator program designer. I know a few of those. I used to be one of those. It's where you design all these programs that you're going to roll out for your business, but you don't actually ever roll them out, right? You just create them and you get really excited about them and you talk about them, but, like, they never go anywhere. You could be a procrastinator designer where you come up with, like, new websites all the time, but no one ever sees them. Right? Because you're creating this website on, like, in like, a little itty bitty teeny corner of the Internet and you're not telling anyone about it, so. So no one ever ends up there. And, oh, gosh, I'm getting a text message and I have to respond to it. This never happens in my life. Hold on one second. Not yet. Okay. Okay. That's so weird. Okay, Sorry about that. Anyway, so whatever your methods for procrastinating are, I want to just tell you you're okay. Like, yeah, it's not ideal. It's not ideal. Like, you should be doing a lot of stuff to get clients and make money in your business. And also, like, you're going at your own pace, and that is fine. Right? You know, There's a reason why you're procrastinating, doing the things, and maybe it's that you have this mindset block that you haven't worked through yet. Maybe you have fears that you haven't addressed yet. Maybe you genuinely just don't know what you're doing. Which if you're starting a business and you've never started a business before and you don't have support to show you what you need to be doing, of course you don't know what you're doing. Let me see, you're having trouble tagging people to share your live stream. I don't know. I didn't even know that you could do that. But thank you, Gabe. I appreciate that. Yeah, I. I don't know, maybe if. If, you know, people who want. Would want to see this live stream, then maybe send it to them. I'm not sure. I've never tagged anyone like that. Weird. But thank you. I appreciate you anyway, so. So I want you to have, like, forgiveness and compassion for yourself. Okay? You're gonna get past this. Okay? You're gonna get past this. If it's. If it's meant to happen, if you're meant to be a business owner and actually be making money by having clients in your business, you're going to work through this. You know, sometimes people procrastinate because they genuinely do not want to be a business owner, and that's okay, too. Not. There are so many, like, business gurus out there that shame people for having a 9 to 5 and being employed. No, like, that's silly. Like, we need people who are employed. And there's nothing inherently wrong with having a 9 to 5. You know, each person is different. Each person will feel safe and secure and supported in different ways. For me, because I have ADHD and because I get bored really easily when I have a 9 to 5 job, and I only have, like, one focus. Being an entrepreneur, running my own business and starting other businesses is, like, absolute, absolutely perfect for me. It is high stress, though, and sometimes that high stress can be too much for some people. And there's nothing wrong with that. All right, so if you find yourself procrastinating a lot in your business, compassion. Check in with yourself. Check in to see if this is actually what you want to be doing. And if it's not, there's nothing wrong with that. And if it is, then, baby, you need to stop being a weenie and you need to start getting to work. You need to move past the fear and stop procrastinating. Hi, Jay, welcome. Now, let's talk about procrastinate planning. Procrastina planning is when you sit down and you're like, okay, cool, I got to get to work. I have this business. I want to get some clients. I'm going to create a plan, and it could be like a social media plan. It could be an email campaign. It could be, like the plan to get on stages, to speak, to be a keynote speaker. And then, let me see. Gabe, what's the story behind the hot dog emoji in your profile name? Oh, Gabe. Okay, so my. My whole tagline is, stop being a weenie and start your business already. Hold up. Stay right here. I will be back in, like, two seconds. Hold up. Okay, Gabe, it's not just an emoji. It's a way of life. So funny story, side story. So during the pandemic, there was a night where I had a couple glasses of wine. More. More glasses of wine. And I had been playing with this saying, stop being weenie with my clients. Because, like, some of them were just really being a chicken in their business. And they, like, weren't taking action because they were afraid of doing the thing. So I started saying in, like, the nicest, like, most playful way possible, like, stop being a chicken. Stop being a weenie, and just go and do the thing. And it worked. And the client I told it to went and got a client. They, like, did a couple brave things, and they stopped being weenie, and they got a couple clients and they made several thousand dollars, and it was amazing, and I was really excited for them. Anyway, fast forward a few weeks. It's like 2020. It was like November, and I'd had copious amounts of wine, and I decided to change my tagline on LinkedIn to stop being a weenie. And I did, as a joke, I was like, I'm gonna do this. It'll be funny for a few weeks and they'll change it. And it took off, and people started, like, connecting with me and messaging me and being like, oh, my God, I'm being a weenie. I need to stop being a weenie in my business. And I need to are you? And I need to connect with you, and I need to follow you. And after a few months, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to change it. So I just kind of went with it. And so I have a sign, a neon sign that says, stop being a weenie. I have, like, like three of these suits that I buy on, on Amazon. This one has. Has, like, a coffee Stain on it? No, actually that's ice cream because I went and walked around Harchport on Cape Cod and had an ice cream and it melted. Anyway, I have to get this dry cleaned anyway. Yeah, so my hot dog emoji in my name is just that. It is essentially just stop being a weenie. It's part of the brand and I wear this a lot. So anyway, I haven't worn it as a lot as much lately. But anyway, as we're talking about doing scary stuff in your business, like, people are always worried that if they sign on to work with me that I'm going to make them do something like this. I'm not. Okay, there's scary, like, posting on social media for the first time and telling people about your business and being brave in that way. And then there's wearing a hot dog costume. Okay, you don't have to wear a hot dog costume, I promise you. But it does help you start a business and be successful if you stop being weenie about things and you do the brave shit that are. That's required. So thank you for asking that question. I'm going to take this off because it tends to get a little hot. So hold on one second. Shimmy out of this. Oh. Oh, God. Okay. All right. There we go. All right. Does that answer the question about the hot dog emoji? And if you're watching this on Instagram, over on LinkedIn, I have a hot dog emoji in my name. I'm gonna close it. Anyway. Um, so, yeah, that's the story there. So. Okay, so back to procrastinative planning. Okay, so usually when you're starting a business and you're trying to avoid doing the brave stuff, you're trying to avoid, like, being too public about the fact that you started a business you're trying to avoid kind of like that you have this idea that, like, if you go on and say that you help people with this thing, that's going to be braggy. Like, you're going to have to go and tell people, I'm really good at this thing. And that's going kind of scary and icky. So, like, you want to avoid doing that. You know, you're terrified of creating a program that you're actually going to sell. And so you put off doing that because, like, you don't want to figure out the pricing. Like, what if someone actually signs up for it? I remember when I was going through my coach training and through the certification, I remember the first few times I signed clients and I was like, oh, my God, what am I going to do with this them? Like, I have this training and like, I. I know how to coach, but, like, oh my God, they're going to show up to these calls and expect me to do stuff. And of course I worked it out and of course I created a program. And of course, like, you know, coaching is one of those incredible services where your clients kind of show up and they have stuff to work on, and so you just kind of dive in and work on it with them. And if they don't have any stuff, you have some really amazing tools to, like, help them come up with stuff. But when you're just starting and like, you don't have, like, the flow yet and don't really understand, like, how you get into the work, it can be very intimidating. And it's not just for coaching. Right. If you're a copywriter and you've never had a copywriting client before, figuring out your whole onboarding process can be really scary. And then what's scarier is doing it for the first time and then doing it for the second time, the third time, it's not until you've done it like a couple dozen times and it actually feels second nature. Right? So if you find yourself procrastinating, doing a lot of this stuff, I just, I want you to know, like, there are so many scary bits of starting a business, of launching a business, of growing a business. And like, there are scary things I do in my business every day. Every year I try to push myself in a new way. Like last year I started a podcast and I go live all the time. Okay. I'm very comfortable live on camera, being broadcast to the whole world, essentially. I mean, really, like, wherever you are in the world, if you're connected to me, you can see this video. But the idea of recording my voice only and having that, like, available on all the podcast like areas like, or platforms that people could just listen to my voice whenever they wanted, that terrified me. I was so nervous about launching my podcast. I remember the day it went live is on the Sunday. It was in October of 2022 and it went live and I texted my whole family, like, extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone. I was like, I have a podcast. They went live today. And I immediately felt sick. I immediately wanted to throw up because it was a. Oh, my God. Like, they're actually. What if they actually listen to it? Like, you know, it's just terrifying. So starting a business, there's so much to be afraid of, and it's Natural. It's natural to be afraid of these things because a. It's new. Like, yeah, it's. It's human nature to be afraid of doing new things. And second, like, it's very visible, right? We have not evolved that much in human history. Right. Our not so long ago ancestors, if they did something to piss off the people in their village or in their tribe and, like, stepped on the wrong toes, they would be ostracized. They would be, like, banished to the wilderness to fend for themselves and fight off lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my. And have to source food. And if they had children, they'd have to, you know, take care of them as well. That part of our brain, that fear has not evolved out. Okay? So when we're starting a business and when we have to, like, do stuff that's really visible and it's counter to how we have been with our people previously, it feels like an opportunity for us to get kicked out. It feels like an opportunity for us not only to just not get clients, but to get a serious level of rejection. And this is especially true for my clients who have adhd. Like, I do. Okay. Rejection sensitivity, dysphoria is something that is absolutely no joke. And it's. It's perceived rejection. It isn't even real rejection. We can perceive rejection in the most innocuous interactions. So, you know, as you're. As you're really getting real with yourself about whether or not you really want to start this business, you gotta identify that there are going to be some things that you're gonna do that are gonna feel really scary, right? And I always like to talk about, you know, when I learned how to ride a bike, I was terrified of falling, right? And I. So I had training wheels, and I had training wheels for a really, really long time. Like, I was such a chicken. All my friends, like, you know, got their training wheels off and they wanted to, like, go, like, speeding down our hill. Because I live. I grew up on a street that was on a hill. Not me. Not me. I would go down on my training wheels and I'd have, like, my hands on the brakes. Just like. No, like. Like going as slow as possible because I was so terrified that something would happen and I'd fall over. You know, if you'd asked me before I had my training wheels off to be. Just be confident to hop on a bike and start riding, I'd be like, screw you. Well, I was like, seven, so I probably. Probably wouldn't have said that, but I would have said, no way. There's no way that's possible. And this is really what we get stuck on. We get stuck on waiting to feel ready, waiting to have that comfort level. And it doesn't come right. It doesn't come because the only way to be ready to do something is if you do it a couple dozen times. Times. The only way to feel comfortable doing something is to do it a couple dozen times. Randy House, welcome. Good to have you here. My Internet is buffing tonight or buffering, but not buffing. Buffering tonight. No. Okay, well, this is going to be saved, so if you want to watch it later, you totally can. But it's great to have you, Randy. So all that to say, you know, the fear is so normal. The fear is so, so normal. But if you let the fear beat you, if you let the fear stop you in your tracks, like, your brain is still going to find ways to convince you that you're working towards your goal. Your. Your brain is very, very smart in this way. And so when we procrastinate, we find different ways, like different bits of work to do instead of the actual work that makes us feel productive. And that's where procrastinate plan so dangerous to your business. Okay. Because you sit down and you think about your business and you create a whole plan and it feels really productive because you're doing something and it's something that, like, if you were to take action on, would actually be, like, result in stuff, right? You know, potentially. And then when you're done, you have this finished product. You have these pieces, pieces of paper or this, like, online document that has a whole outline of things that you would need to do. The problem here is that you never do it right. When you're actually procrastina planning, you create all these plans and they go nowhere. And. Yes. Hi, Randy. Yes. Oh, gosh, yes. We have some really great people in the chat today. Let me see. Yes. And then live interviews. Omar, hello, welcome. Oh, no, it just keeps looping. Okay. I'm sorry, Randy. I hope. I hope it's not happening for too many people. Anyway. Yes, we'll see you next time. So anyway, progressive planning is absolutely normal. It's not actual work. Like if you find yourself sitting down with a notebook and coming up with elaborate plans. And here's what I'm going to do. And coming up with. With content plans. And you're not actually doing it. I hate to break it to you, but you're not doing work. You're procrastinate planning. And it's not going to get you anywhere. Okay. I also want to acknowledge that if you've never done this before, if you've never started a business before, you've never grown a following on social media, you've never marketed yourself or created an offer. Oh, like what? You've never done this before. Why are you holding yourself to the standard that you should have to figure it out on your own? Okay, that is absolutely crazy pants. Okay? And so many people do it because they know that they're smart and resourceful and they've figured out tough things in the past and they think, okay, well, like, I want to start this business. If I'm going to prove to myself that I'm qualified enough to. To do it, then I'm going to figure out on myself on my own. And it becomes like a test for how smart you actually are. And no, no, like, you can be the smartest person in the world, but you're not going to understand advanced algebra unless you had a book or some kind of teacher show you how to do advanced algebra. Okay? You're not going to learn on your own. So if you find yourself doing all this procrastina planning because you just don't know what you should be doing, and you're just kind of like trying to put some kind of plan together because you just don't know what you don't know. Honey, I want you to book a call with me, and I may not be the right fit for you. I invite so many people to book a call with me who ultimately aren't even my ideal clients, and I still want you to book the call. Because if you're trying to get this business up and running, you need support and you need some kind of resource that's going to point you in the right direction. And even if you're not my ideal client, my ideal client is someone who has ADHD and who's starting a business where they offer a service, typically like an intellectual service, like copywriting, legal services, consulting, coaching, things in that. In that nature. Even if you're not that person, book a call with me because I want to point you in the right direction. Another resource that I do, it's. If you don't want to take up my time one on one because you know that. That we're not destined to work together, that's totally fine. I do a free group coaching call every single fourth Friday of the month. Okay? It's called Brave Biz Labs. If you go to the link in my bio, you can register for this. It is a free Group coaching call where you can ask absolutely any question you have on your business. And I'm not the only one there. It's a ton of people in my world, so potentially there are other people there who, who might be able to answer the question if I don't know it. Especially if you're not my ideal client, if you don't, if you specialize in something else, or if you want to start like a brick and mortar company. That's not my specialty, but there may be people there who can point you in the right direction. As for coming up with an actual plan, an actual strategy that will help your business grow to six figures in the next 12 months. On 28 December, I am doing a 90 minute workshop where I am breaking down exactly how you create a strategy. Not an arbitrary one, not one that's one size fits all, but how you can create a strategy that's customized to your personality, to how you work best, to your strengths, that takes account for your weaknesses and things that you absolutely hate doing. Okay? That factors in your industry, your ideal clients and all that jazz. In this 90 minute program, we are going to be breaking down exactly what your strategy needs to be for you to hit six figures in the next 12 months. And of course this is a planning session. And after this planning session, for you to actually have any results from it, you're gonna have to get to work. But I have a couple resources for you after the workshop that can help you with that. Anyway, if you're procrastina planning, this is my battle cry to cut the bullshit and just start working. You got this. If you need support, if you want to talk to me, if you want to figure out how I can support your new business, go to the link in my bio and click on Generate Income Strategy call and we'll hop on for 30 minutes and talk through what your goals are, what you're struggling with, and if it's a fit, and only if it's a fit, we'll talk about different ways to work together. And if you want to come to this workshop on December 28th, then again, actually you can go to the link in here. And then there's also a to link in my bio where you can go and register for that. It's $97, but this is literally breaking down your monthly weekly daily action plans that you need to do in order to bring in high paying clients. And I'm so excited. There will also be a very extensive Q and A afterwards. We'll probably go way beyond 90 minutes but we'll see. It'll flex and grow and, you know, whatever it needs to do, it'll do. Anyway, want to give a big thank you over on Instagram. On Instagram to Kelsey and Jay for being here. And over on LinkedIn and YouTube, thank you to Randy and Gabe and Omar and Jade. I hope you guys found this super helpful. And if you have any questions or guilty of procrastinate planning and you didn't want to admit it in the chat, shoot me a dm and I hope to see you all at the workshop on the 28th. Anyway, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and I will say see you all soon. Bye.