Ep #118: Resolutions Vs. Recalibration

You are listening to The Life Coach Business Podcast with Amanda Karlstad episode number 118.

Welcome to The Life Coach Business Podcast, a show for coaches who are ready to up-level their business and take their impact, leadership, and results to a whole new level. If you’re ready to start taking powerful action and become the leader your business needs in order to grow and thrive, this show is for you. I’m your host, Amanda Karlstad, certified life and business coach, and entrepreneurial leadership expert.  Now, let’s get down to business.

Hello and welcome everyone. Welcome to today’s show. I hope your new year is off to an amazing, amazing start. I am so excited for this year. I know so many of you are as well. What I decided to talk to you all about today, the topic I decided I wanted to bring to all of you today is going to be really relevant to you. Especially as we’re starting out this new year. I know so many of you are looking to take things to the next level in your business.

So I’m really excited. I’m excited to bring you this concept today because I think it’s going to be a really, really important one for you. Before we dive in, I also just have to tell you how proud I am of my clients y’all. My clients, the coaches, the entrepreneurs that I’m working with, which you’ve heard from some of them recently in my What’s Possible series.

So I do recommend, if you haven’t listened to that series, I recommend that you go back, and you listen to that series. It was a recent series I did with some of my clients. So that you can hear more about their journey and where they started and where they are today. My goal is that it really services as an inspiration for you. It really serves as an inspiration as to what is truly possible.

So that’s something that I love to talk about on this show. I’ve talked about it in so many episodes. It’s something that truly is one of the driving forces  behind my work and the work that I do with my clients, which is my goal truly is for all of my clients to become true examples of what is possible. It’s so fun because I just am gonna say it. That is exactly what I help my clients do is to become an example of what is possible through growing their business, through scaling their businesses, through becoming the version of themselves that creates that level of result.

I was just so blown away this week as I was talking with some of my High Level Mastermind clients. So these are coaches who are in the process of scaling their businesses. So they’ve all reached $100,000 or more, or they’re very close to hitting that first $100,000 in their business.

So all of them I was having them go around and share recently some of their wins. Every single one of them had just come off really one of the best months ever in their business. This was in December. December 2021.

To give you a sense of what that means, one client had over $70,000 in cash received in the month of December. This same client created over $30,000 in revenue in just one week in her business. We had another client who has been in business for years who just had literally the best month she’s ever had. I’m talking this is about 10 years in business. She brought in over $26,000 in revenue.

We had another client who just launched, actually two clients who just launched brand new group programs and had really great success. Had amazing launches. One had over $22,000 in revenue from just her launch. This was her beta launch, her initial launch of a new program she rolled out. She hit her goal for this first beta launch of her brand new program. Another client who also, again, just created some really great success in another beta launch of her brand new program and has done over five figures in revenue.

So I tell you all this because I want this to serve as, again, an example to you of what is possible. An inspiration for you as far as what is available. That’s not even all of it. We just had another high level client. So this was a client who just experienced her first million dollar year y’all. She just created over $1.2 million in her business. This is so, so exciting. We also had another client who just had her best year ever in terms of revenue in her business. She is closing out the year at over $350,000 in her business.

So, again, I share all of this with you to serve as an example for you for what is available to you as well. I am just so, so proud of my clients. As I was reflecting and thinking about all of their wins and celebrating all of their amazing accomplishments in December. The truth is that for all of them, it’s literally just the beginning for them. For all of them, it’s just the beginning of their journey in so many cases.

So I just have to say look out 2022. We are just getting started. It’s going to be so much fun. So I can’t wait to see what this group of client continues to create this year. It’s going to be amazing. It’s going to be so good y’all. Look out. All right.

I do want to mention that if you’re trending close $100,000 in your business or if you’ve already hit that six figures in your business, and you’re looking at taking things to the next level. So you might be looking to go to $250,000 or $500,000. Honestly if your goal is to build a million dollar seven figure plus business then I want to really invite you to check out my High Level Mastermind program.

So we’re going to link this up in the show notes. You can go to amandakarlstadcoaching.com. There’s going to be a link where you can learn more. Set up a call. This program, my High Level Mastermind program, is designed to help take you to seven figures and beyond. So for those of you that have already hit $100,000 in your business, you’ve hit that first six figures or you’re close to it. I would really encourage you to go to my website and apply.

Again we’re going to link that up in the show notes, but I really do encourage you to take action on this. Because one of my personal goals this year in 2022 is to coach and mentor a group of coaches in this container. I do have limited space available. My goal is to coach and mentor coaches in this container, and help them take their business from wherever it is right now to that next big level. Which, again, that might be $250K. It might be $500K. For some of you, it’s going to be that million dollars and beyond. This is exactly what I’ve designed this program to do.

So there are limited spots in this program because of the high caliber of coaching, because of the high caliber of mentorship, the high caliber of customization, and really personalized attention and access that clients do get in this program. So I do curate this group very closely to ensure that everybody’s a fit. So if this sounds like you, if you do meet those benchmarks and you’re really looking to go big this year, I want to encourage you to apply.

So for those of who you maybe aren’t quite there yet. So maybe you’re working towards your first six figures. Maybe you’re working with clients on a one-on-one basis or a few one-on-one clients and you’re ready to take your business to $100,000, I also want to invite you to apply to my business accelerator program which is called The Mastermind. We have some amazing things happening as well in this program. That program is designed to not only help you take your business to that six figure level, this program really does set the stage for your million dollar business as well.

So no matter where you’re at, I want you to go to amandakarlstadcoaching.com. You’re going to find the links there and be able to take the next steps. All right. Let’s dive in. 

As I mentioned earlier, today’s conversation is going to be really relevant for you, especially if you have big goals and especially if you are ready to go to that next level. Especially if you love setting big and impossible goals and you’re really ready for that this year. I think this episode is really going to serve you.

So I want to start out by saying one of the things that is very common this time of year, especially in the personal development world especially is the idea of resolutions. You all know that every year whenever there’s a new year, it’s very common to want to start out the new year and make resolutions. To think about what it is you may want to change whether it might be something as it relates to your health or fitness or something personally or even in the business.

For the most part making resolutions in theory as a concept is not always a bad thing, right? It definitely sounds great on paper. Making a resolution to lose, for instance, ten pounds or making a resolution to start working out a certain number of times per week. All of that, those are positive things, right. So for most people, these are not bad things. Losing 10 pounds, working out more consistently, whatever that might be are not bad goals. They’re not bad resolutions to set.

However the problem is that for most people, resolutions only stick for a very short amount of time. In fact I read recently that it takes just 32 days for the majority of people to give up on their resolutions. Another 68% report giving up their resolutions even earlier than that.

So when you think about this, for most people if you set a resolution on January 1^st, within 32 days which is essentially February, right. Most people, the majority of people have already given up on their resolutions. I just think that this is a really interesting kind of phenomenon that goes on. I was thinking about this because I do think that for most of society, we have learned that setting resolutions at the start of the new year, that it’s the thing to do. It’s really the way to go.

Setting a resolution to make a big change or change something in our life is what we have to do. The problem is that for the most part in the majority of situations, these resolutions don’t last.

So as I was thinking about this, as I was thinking about now that we’ve turned the page to the new year. What I really want to offer to all of you is that instead of setting a big new resolution that changes your entire life, instead of setting a big new resolution that if we’re honest is not going to stick. I want to offer you something different today. That is this idea of recalibration.

Rather than setting a resolution that will more than likely be something that’s short lived, what I want to offer to you with this is that instead that you really think about this year. You think about your goals. You think about your business and your approach to the results that you want to create from a place of recalibration.

The reason that I believe this is so important, especially in terms of business, is because it goes beyond the normal way we think, right? It goes beyond the normal rhetoric in most cases that we hear this time or year. It goes beyond the normal conversation of setting resolutions, right?

So I want to have this conversation with you today because this is really about getting at the heart and really getting at the soul of what I believe it means to become the person, to become the business owner that you most want to be. Which is that most self-actualized version of yourself that truly creates lasting change for yourself. Which by default then has the capacity to create true and lasting change for your business.

So this isn’t just about setting and achieving goals. It’s really about becoming self-actualized, which I believe is one of the best parts of the journey. Of being an entrepreneur and building a business. By the way, it’s a journey that never stops. It’s a journey that’s always in motion. It will always keep going.

One of the quotes that I love that really speaks to this is by Jim Rohn. He says, “Set a goal to become a millionaire for what it makes of you to achieve it. Do it for the skills you have to learn and the person you have to become.” I just love that because again it speaks to the journey and from the place of it being about who you have to become.

So one of the things that I observe so often, and I’ve experienced this myself, is that when you’re in the process of build your business especially if you’re business is not where you want it to be. It becomes very easy to forget this. It’s very easy to want to skip the journey. It’s very easy to want to skip the challenge and just get to that result. I see this happen all of the time.

I think in most cases, until your business has reached a level where there’s some stability in it, where the revenue has some predictability. Where you’ve built it to a place where you’re profitable, where you feel a sense of safety. It can be very hard to appreciate the journey. It can be very hard to be able to see the lessons that aren’t meant for you, to acknowledge the value in the growth that you’re experiencing.

Yet at the same time, this is also what’s most valuable. This is what will actually create the result that you most want. Because the growth is where real change occurs.

So this, I know, might be a bit of departure from other conversations you might be hearing right now as it relates to resolutions or just in general as you’re thinking about the coming year. This concept of recalibration, which by definition is a verb. When I looked up the definition, I really liked the definition. It said to reexamine one’s thinking. It’s a plan, a system of values, etcetera, and correct it in accord with a new understanding or purpose, which I think really speaks well to what I am talking about here.

To me, it speaks to just how important it is on this journey of building your business that you’re building it from and operating from a place in which you’re recalibrating as you go. So you’re tweaking. You’re optimizing. You’re making adjustments as you move forward.

As you’re making these adjustments, you’re also building new skills. You’re in the process of recalibrating from a truly intentional place, from an aligned place, from who you want to become. So for me, this goes so much farther beyond the traditional goal setting strategies.

Now I want to be clear that I’m not saying that you don’t need goals. I’m not saying that I don’t think that you should set goals. In fact I think having goals is very important and setting goals is very important. What I’m talking about specifically is being able to formulate these goals, being able to work towards these goals in a way that supports who you want to become. From a place of deep intention, from a place of alignment within you. It’s from a place of alignment with the truest and the highest version of yourself. It’s a recalibration.

Because what happens when we don’t build our business from this place, when we don’t build the business from a place of alignment is that we spend so much time and so much energy and so much money building a business that we’re not actually excited about. That’s not what I want for any of you.

So the reason that I’m offering this to you at this point is because as you’re thinking about your big and impossible goals in 2022, this concept of recalibration is going to be really, really important for you. Really being able to pull back the layers of who you’ve been leading up to today, who you’ve been in 2021, who you’ve been versus who you want to be moving forward.

It’s also about what your business is now requiring of you. So this is a really important question that I want you to consider is what is your business requiring of you in order to achieve the level of growth that you want it to achieve?

I’m going to speak more to this in just a minute. This is a really important question for you to consider. I first want to start with the idea and the question of recalibration in terms of you. One of the most important things that I learn, that I coach all of my clients on is the idea, is the concept of your future self. I’ve talked about this several times in the podcast. This is truly some of the most important work that I believe you can do as an entrepreneur.

So the first question that I do want to challenge you to answer is as you look at 2021, as you reflect on the year, who were you? Who were you in 2021? Who were you being in 2021 to create the results that you created? I really encourage you to take a deep look at that because here’s the truth.

Very often in the coaching industry, I think it’s very easy to abdicate responsibility. What I mean by that is to abdicate our results to something outside of ourselves. This can look like a number of things.

I think depending on where you’re at in your journey of building your business, it will look different based on what you’re implementing, based on what you’re focusing on in your business.  What happens is it can be very easy to abdicate your responsibility to things like outside circumstances or challenges that you might have encountered either in the business or maybe even personally.

One of the things that I want to offer to you all today is that, and something that’s really essential for you to know, is that regardless of what is happening externally, especially when it comes to business and when it comes to growing a business. There are always going to be solutions. In fact, part of being a business owner is you solving problems for others. It’s others that are paying you to help them solve problems.

So part of being a business owner is also about being solutions oriented in your own business. So that means if the business isn’t performing at the level you want it to perform, it’s up to you as the business owner to figure that out. To find the solution. That, in many cases, requires learning new skills. It might mean implementing new things in your business. It might mean putting yourself in a new environment that challenges your growth, that challenges your mind, that challenges you to step into this next version much, much quicker than you ever thought possible.

Maybe being coached at a higher level, having expert mentorship. Whatever that looks like for you, the one consistent piece here is that you also have to grow and expand your level of thinking as it relates to your business. It requires that you recalibrate how you’re thinking about the problems in your business, how you approach problems for example in your business.

So this is why I so believe that success and really your success in business will always come down to the level of mindset that you have in your business. It’s really who you are being. The more that you grow, and you expand yourself internally, the more you do this work of recalibration. That is what will ultimately move the strategies forward in your business. So the first question I want to challenge you with is as you’re looking ahead is to first get clear on who you’ve been.

The next question I would offer to you to really get clear on, to spend time on is what does my business need from, as I mentioned earlier. So what does my business require from me as the steward of this business? If I want to take things to the next level, what does that require? What is the business going to require?

Maybe for some of you it means you may need to be more focused. It might mean that you need to learn certain skills so that it can thrive. You might need to create more clarity or more structure in the business. It might require more of your time. Because while yes while who you are being is radically important, it’s also important that you’re also being a good steward of the business.

I was having a conversation recently with one of my clients. So this was the client that actually broke seven figures for the first time this year, which is so, so exciting. I was coaching this client around the fact that now that the business has reached this new level, there is now a whole new level for them as the CEO. As the leader of this business that is really about stepping more fully into the CEO role and becoming a true steward of the business.

So part of that shift for this client is now to start delegating more to the team. Is to continually be staffing the team and ensuring that the vision and the projects, the actual doing on a daily basis. Whoever that is across the board is now supporting this new level and supporting the next level as well.

So not only is it about who you need to be as the business grows and in order to grow the business, it’s also about what does the business need. So this is really important question I would highly recommend you spend some time with.

Once you’ve identified who you’ve been and who you need to be moving into this year and you’ve identified what the business needs are, I encourage you to get clear about your priorities in 2022. At the most, I recommend that you have three, no more than five main priorities for the year. Priorities that if you follow through with them, if you made those priorities happen that would change your business. That would change the trajectory of your business not only this year but also moving forward.

There’s a reason that I recommend that you have no more than three to five priorities. The reason is because it’s really important to understand that you are on a journey. Growing and scaling a business is a journey and one that requires a level of focus and commitment and dedication. The truth is when your focus and your time, your energy, your resources are split between too many priorities, your focus, your effectiveness actually becomes very diluted. It can be very difficult to gain traction.

The truth is that you may end up way less effective than if you focused on only those three to five main priorities, which is something that I really teacher all of my clients is the importance of being clear on their top priorities. Because simplicity and working towards a level of mastery in a few key areas will help you so much more than trying to do all of the things and not mastering any of them.

Here’s the thing. When you are clear on these three to five priorities, when you know without a doubt what these three to five priorities are without exception, it allows you to work to a level of mastery. So one of the things that I think takes so many coaches off course when they’re building their business is as it relates to this, is as it relates to their level of patience when it comes to more of the tangible things that need to be implemented in the business.

I believe a big part of this is how we’ve been conditioned as a society for immediate results. How we want everything including the million dollar business, we want it immediately. What happens is in that process, what gets overlooked so frequently is this level of mastery. It’s this level of commitment that’s actually happening behind the scenes. That’s happening on a daily basis as you’re showing up in the business.

So from the outside, it’s very common for the million dollar business to appear like it was built overnight. It might appear that the results were easy to attain. What’s so often isn’t seen is this recalibration on the inside of it. It’s the years in many cases of the level of commitment, of the dedication, of working towards a level of mastery that so many coaches want to quite honestly skip through. They just want the result.

I think when this happens, it really does create a false sense of expectation. I think this can be really, really difficult in so many ways to overcome. So I recommend that you get clear on your priorities. I recommend that you get clear on your three to five priorities that will help you achieve your goal. That will allow you to break them down into quarterly goals and monthly goals and then daily goals and understand that you’re on a path to mastery. That path to mastery is going to require recalibration, continuous recalibration that overtime will compound.

So focus on recalibration my friends. Recalibration over resolutions. I’ll talk to you all again next week. Take care. Have an amazing week. Bye, bye.

Hey if you’re ready for a real breakthrough in your business and want to grow and scale your business to at least six figures or more in annual revenue, I invite you to apply for my exclusive program The Mastermind at amandakarlstadcoaching.com/the-mastermind. I look forward to seeing you there.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Life Coach Business Podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build, grow, and scale your business and accelerate your results visit amandakarlstadcoaching.com.