How To Keep Falling In Love With Your Coaching Business Over & Over Again
Because even a dream job still feels like work somedays.
Once your coaching business is up and running and you’ve been doing it for a while now, it’s easy to find yourself in a rut or feeling a little stagnant and stuck in your daily grind. Maybe you feel a little exhausted, or overwhelmed, or like your business has lost that spark that first inspired you to get started. This is totally normal - the honeymoon period always fades and there’s no avoiding that sometimes work, even the dreamy kind, still feels like work.
The secret is to keep on falling in love with your coaching business - to keep reminding yourself why you’re doing this in the first place, and keep on building a business that is joyful and fulfilling along the way. Below are some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way so far about keeping the dream job dreamy, and hopefully they can be a the jumping off point you need if you need a little more spark and inspiration in your business life right now.
Keep the daily grind just a little bit dreamy
Whether you’re coaching your clients or creating content or dealing with the admin side of things, there are always little ways you can keep your daily grind joyful and fun along the way. Some things to explore are:
- A morning routine that starts your day off on the right note
- Creating a workspace that you love
- Taking breaks throughout the day to do your favourite things
- Have a workday “uniform” that is comfy and makes you feel good
- Systems and processes in place that alleviates and minimises as much stress and repetitive tasks as possible
- Connecting with other creatives in your field so you feel like you have a community of work peers to lean on
- Making space for passion projects and creative endeavours just for you
Embrace the freedom your business brings
As business owners we have autonomy over our time, no-one to answer to but ourselves, no ceiling on our earning potential, and a whole lot of freedom when it comes to how our work fits into our lives - yet so many of us can struggle to embrace this freedom on the day-to-day.
Don’t be afraid to embrace a little freedom in your business - to give yourself permission to take breaks, or work on the road or from your favourite coffee shop somedays, to take risks and do the things you’re inspired and excited to do, to build a life that feels joyful and meaningful to you. You get to define what showing up for your business, being professional, and being a business owner looks like to you.
Scale on your own terms
There are times in our business when we’re itching and aching to scale and move forward into the next stage of our work - maybe we want to increase our income, or evolve our services, or diversify our income streams. Whatever it is, there’s nothing more exciting than scaling and growing your business along the way. The secret is to do it on your own terms, instead of feeling the pressure to scale your business in a way that others recommend or have done if it doesn’t speak to your own core values and vision in your work.
Stay connected to your business intuition at all times - be brave enough to take purposeful and strategic leaps forward with your business and evolve and grow in a way that works best for you.
Have a business bucket list
A few months back I was feeling a little uninspired in my creative life - I wasn’t sure what the bigger picture truly was, nor did I feel all that excited about it either. That’s when I sat down and wrote a “business bucket list” - the things I hope and dream to do in the next 3-5 (and even 5-10) years in my business. Some of the things on mine include a road trip around America and/or Europe which is funded by the business by doing workshops and VIP days, having my dream at-home office space one day, and writing and publishing a book.
Take some time to explore what your business bucket list could look like - the bigger dreams you have for your work, the things you’d like to strive for in the future, and things you can stay excited about when the daily grind is starting to take its toll.
Grow your craft
There’s nothing more fulfilling as a coach sometimes than growing and developing your craft, in the journey of becoming the coach you want to be. We can sometimes get so lost in the day-to-day of running our business that we can forget to make space to dive deep into our craft along the way. Carving out space for personal growth and development, further learning, and opportunities to deepen our skills as a coach is a great way to keep on falling in love with our work - it’s how we can stay connected to our bigger purpose along the way.
Recover from coaching burnout when it creeps up
Burnout is something we all will experience along the way from time to time - too many coaching sessions, not enough downtime, and going months without taking a break can all lead to exhaustion and overwhelm. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to build a routine and schedule that doesn’t allow for burnout - setting and honouring boundaries around my time is how I am able to manage my energy along the way. But from time to time coaching burnout can still creep in and the best thing we can do is to give ourselves enough space to recover, recharge, and get back to full functioning as a coach.
If you’re battling with coaching burnout somethings worth exploring are:
- How can you adjust your routine and coaching schedule to make it more sustainable for you in the long run?
- Can you raise your prices or diversify your income streams to enable these changes along the way?
- Are you building in breaks from your coaching practice throughout the year so you can have time to recharge?
- Do you have systems in place in your business to make running it as smooth and stress-free as possible?
Discover who your dream clients really are
Working with dream clients is how we keep this work dreamy along the way - working with clients who we can truly serve with our craft, who we can connect with, hold good space for, and really achieve together the things we set out to achieve with our business and craft is how we stay excited and motivated to show up each and every day.
Here’s an exercise for you if you’re still in the process of discovering who your dream clients are - use that as a jumping off point to help you attract the right clients for you along the way.
Remember why you’re doing this
On the days where you feel like you’re just doing the same things over and over again. when your to-do list feels never ending, and you’re always crunching numbers in your head to stay on stop of your finances and worrying about whether all of your clients are doing okay, the best way to centre yourself is to go back to your why. Why you’re doing this, why this work is important to you, why your work is important to others, why this life is the one you’ve chosen for yourself.
Stay focused on your bigger picture, stay connected to your purpose and the impact you have in the world, and know that a less-than-dreamy day or workweek doesn’t make for a less-than-dreamy life.
To finish
Just like it does in relationships, staying in love with your business takes work. It’s a daily choice to wake up and show up and commit to this path you’ve chosen for yourself. Don’t beat yourself up when the honeymoon starts to fade or when you’re itching for a little space - that’s normal. Just know that it’s up to you to keep your dream job dreamy, no one else can do that for you.