Ep 58: 4 Ways to Design Your Perfect Day

Ep 58: 4 Ways to Design Your Perfect Day

In this episode we are celebrating the launch of The Power Circle – a brand new program combining my 20 years of experience in business by helping you succeed!

Running a successful business isn’t luck; it takes hard work, focus and, importantly, you need to keep yourself happy, healthy and motivated. So in this episode we will be sharing 4 tips to help you design your perfect day.

Did you know that my podcast Dawn of a New Era has reached the top 5% most popular shows out of 2,249,182 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score?… Just 13 months and 58 episodes in – SUBSCRIBE NOW

Here are the highlights from this episode:

{1:49} The Power Circle

{2:49} Give value and be true to yourself

{3:52} Love it or leave it

{5:01} Break actions into manageable chunks

{7:39} Influencers dominate one channel – they focus and they succeed

{11:12} Plan to your genius zone

{15:19} Let’s put the fun back into business

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Remember to join me and all my Podcast Guests on Facebook
Dawn McGruer’s Marketing * Motivation * Mindset Group    



 
Speaker. Author. Podcaster. Strategist.
 
Multi-award-winning speaker, strategist & best-selling author of Dynamic Digital MarketingHelping to inspire entrepreneurs to rise to meet today’s challenges and be powerfully present to shine online.
 
Connect with me and let’s Dream Big * Work Hard * Make it Happen
 Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube 

Ways to work with me
Read My Book | Speaking | Training | Strategy | Retreat

Welcome to Dawn of a New Era, a business and marketing podcast with a difference. Ranking in the top 5% globally for people who want to start, scale, and grow their own business. Dawn McGruer shares tips to improve marketing, motivation, and mindset, as well as her own real life challenges and experiences as an entrepreneur. Guests include some of the world’s most inspiring leaders too. So if you are an aspiring, established, or serial entrepreneur, this is your go-to podcast to fast track results. And rise to meet today’s challenges and master the art of online influence and business success, and avoid common pitfalls along the way. Never miss an episode and subscribe and listen at dawnmcgruer.com.

 

Introduction

 

Dawn McGruer:

Welcome to episode 58 of Dawn of a New Era with myself, Dawn McGruer on the cusp of something very magical and very special because this is the episode where I’m going to mark the day that we are going into launch of my new program, The Power Circle, and it is going to be epic. It is something I’ve worked on for past couple of months, something that has been born out of the past 20 years of my life since starting my business at the ripe old age of 21. And this episode today is all about designing your perfect life. So I thought because we are just about to launch a new program, what better way to start this episode with some really good tips. In fact, I’m going to share four ways to design your perfect day because this is where it all started when I started to take action within my business.

 

The Power Circle

 

Now, over the past 20 years, I have trained 30,000 clients. Even saying it out loud sounds crazy, and we have worked on helping these clients master the world of online marketing and social media. And we have delivered hundreds, if not thousands of courses over this time and obviously celebrated our students graduating. Now, as we go into launch of The Power Circle, I’m going to be hosting an amazing masterclass where I’m going to share some really, really big value because every time I host a session, everyone always says to me, “Dawn, what I got from that 90 minutes in itself is just outstanding.” And I tell you what, it’s true, because every time I do a podcast, I do anything in an online capacity guest expert, I want to show up in a way that is authentic to me, but share some amazing value and tips.

 

Give value and be true to yourself

 

Because the thing is in business if I have learned nothing, if you give value and you were true to yourself and you show up in a way that is powerful online, that people will to your voice, you will establish a niche. And this is again at the heart of The Power Circle program, because I wanted to bring all of my challenges, my epic failures, things I talk about in the podcast to a program because these things are at the hub of every business. And as a business owner, a corporate leader or an entrepreneur, you’re working every day to try and achieve amazing goals and huge successes. But in the time that I have been creating The Power Circle, I’ve really honed in in a couple of aspects and getting the perfect [inaudible 00:03:36] is just not right. It can’t happen. There is no such thing. But what I want to share with you is a way that I feel you can action pretty easily and get these four ways to design your perfect day.

 

Love it or leave it

 

Now, how would you start? Well as a creative person, I want you to grab a piece of paper, a pen, or a pencil, whatever feels most comfortable to you because we’re going to get creative. We’re going to get visual. You don’t have to be an amazing artist because this is all about brain dumping your ideas and you’re going to split your paper into two sides. You’re going to have love it or leave it and love it is going to be a list of all the things that when you look at your calendar, you look at your day, your working week ahead that you just feel lit up, entertained, excited. You’ve just got passion in your heart for these activities and everything on the leave it side is everything that just makes you just want to go back to bed. Anything that just takes your energy, saps out any of that goodness about your working day and get that straight.

 

Break actions into manageable chunks

 

Now that’s step one. Step two is get everything in the middle that you’re procrastinating on. Now, it took me three years to start my podcast. It probably took me about five years to even think about putting my book proposal together. So when we see people online, there is procrastination with everybody. Don’t think it magically happens. I’ve been in business for 20 years. There’s still things I’m procrastinating over. But get these in the middle of the page and write them down. And what I want you to do is then for the next week or the next month or whatever timeline suits you, start thinking about all the procrastinating bits and pieces, about chunking them down into manageable bite size tasks. Mini actions are going to drive you towards that goal and just see how you feel.

So how do you do that? Well, when I started my podcast, I as I said, had it on my to-do list and I had to break down the action. So I just put little micro tasks into my calendar. Like number one, what am I going to call it? Put in three little timeline slots to touch base on this activity. Nailed it. Got it done. Moved on to the next thing. And within about three weeks, I was like, “Hmm, I’ve got clarity around this. I feel comfortable with it. I’ve kind of made headway. I’m going to put it on the love it side.” Now if had done that and I’d literally got to the end and thought, “Do you know what? It’s just not the right timing or it’s something I can’t deal with right now.” And I put it on the leave it side or I’d have left it in the middle.

Now, if I leave on the middle, it means that I might come back to it. And if I put it on the leave it side, I want to get rid of it. Which brings me on to number two, which is all about decluttering and delegating. My favorite task. I was awful at delegating. I truly believed as a business owner I was the only person who could do the job the best, get it right and so on. And this is what happens. When you start a business, it’s your baby. And you honestly haven’t maybe got the cashflow to be getting other people involved. So the book does stop with you when you have to do a lot of the work. But de-cluttering and delegating, decluttering is getting things out of the way that just literally bring no value. Things that are just not aiding the growth, the profit or the success.

And then when you delegate the things that you procrastinate over or you’re not passionate about, and for me, that’s anything to do with bookkeeping figures, accountancy. I do not know why. It just does not light me up inside. Now when there are people out there that love those things, why not light their day up and allow them to go and do it? So this is step one and two. Get the list in place, then you’ve got your leave it, you’ve got your love it and you’ve got your you bit in the middle, which is your deciding point. Then start decluttering and delegating. Getting rid of things on your to-do list that you just think, “Do I really need to be doing this? Do I even want to be doing this?” And start thinking, “I want to do what I want, not what think I need to be doing.”

 

Influencers dominate one channel – they focus and they succeed

 

Just because everyone’s on every social channel, doesn’t mean to say you are. Let’s face it, when you think about influencers, generally they’ve got digital dominance on one channel. So why are you trying to spread yourself too thin? So start taking some really big decisions in terms of what you want to be doing because you are one person. Even if you have a team, you need to make sure that your day is making you more productive. It’s allowing you to work steadily on your goals, be it business or personal, and it’s enabling you to make better use of your time. And it allows you to make sure that you’re staying focused, which brings me on to number three.

I have time in my calendar for everything. Sounds crazy. But if I have a regular team meeting with someone, I just put it on reoccurring with the same Zoom link, that’s it forever until we decide to stop doing it. We waste so much time trying to put meetings together. I see these emails. Someone sent one the other day. “Hi Dawn. Do you fancy to meeting next week?” Then you’ll have 27 emails going back and forward just like, “Here’s my calendar. This is it.” And it automates a lot of messages saying, “Join me at the time you’ve booked.” Hey presto. And that is a massive, massive time save. And all of my team know that they’ve got my link. If they’re talking to someone, they just book it all in. And it just starts to work in clockwork because you’re getting rid of the repetition and the automation is then driving things forward, but it’s actually creating a better experience for everybody.

It’s just taking that whole flux away. So putting things in your calendar, what do I put in? Well, my day looks like get up at seven. I am not a five o’clocker. If you want to get up at that time, that’s fine. But you’ve got to decide, what time do I want to get up? What time do I want to go to bed? I have a bedtime reminder, wind down on my phone. When I go to bed, I listen to the Calm stories just to get me to go to sleep and the world is a happy place. I’m getting like seven, eight hours sleep. I know what time I’m getting up and I’m in a bit of a routine. I might not always stick to it, but do you know what? 80% of the time makes the world go round.

Because you can let things go. There’s a lot of wiggle room for 20%. So you get up, for me, I start with exercise, jump in the hot tub, bit of breakfast, start work at 9:30. That for me is my magical morning because I get to speak to my partner. So any time where we’re just sitting, talking, not distracted, sitting in the hot tub sounds weird, but that’s the thing that we do. Now, when I move on to my working day, I break my morning and my afternoon up. What do I mean by that? Well, I work in 90 minute blasts and in that 90 minutes I put in one thing and I get as far as I can, and then I take a break and I have to have my replenishment time, my relaxed time, my re-energized time.

So taking a break, whether I want to just sit down, have my lunch, have some something to drink, whatever it’s going to be, go for a walk. You have to make time for it and you have to be rigid. There is wiggle room. If you’ve got a massive project on, yeah, work through. But if I can get 80% of this in place, it does make a massive difference. All these little exercises will make big shifts. That honestly, if you change, you know that you’re helping, living on a purpose and maximizing your days. You’re not just getting caught up in being a busy fool. So it acts as a mechanism for achieving leaving this good life-work balance, if there is a such a thing. There’s just sometimes a way of thinking about your day differently and thinking about what lights you up.

 

Plan to your genius zone

 

Like, are you energized in the morning? Are you an afternoon person? Are you night time? No one says you have to have specific working hours. You just have to have an idea of what you’re doing. And by 90 minute blasting, I do 90 minutes then a break, 90 minutes then lunch, 90 minutes then a break or a walk and then 90 minutes and then I might go and do a PT session or whatever I’m going to be doing that day. I tend to try and have things in the afternoon because I’m one of these people that I could just work through. Even having your kids to pick up is a good thing. It’s a break. It’s just a shift of energy and a refocus. So think about time-blocking and making sure that things are working for you.

Now, the fourth thing brings you right back, full circle. What does your day look like? Now, you’ve got to live with it. You’ve got to see how it sits, how it feels, how it works, because you might need to change it. Is it making you feel in a better mood? Is it helping your wellbeing? If it’s helping you to design your perfect life, this is stage one. This is what is so great, that literally tomorrow, if you take some of this in play and start implementing, you’ve got change. You’ve got something different. Even if your magical moment is just sitting with a magazine, having a cup of coffee just for five minutes and giving yourself that time back, you have to remember, your time is valuable, that it’s precious. If lockdown and COVID has taught us nothing else, time is so utterly precious.

And we need to look after that. You need to look after, number one, self-care, motivation and mindset. These are at the heart of success. My three core principles, you probably hear me harping on about are marketing, motivation, and mindset. But truly honestly, it does make the world go round. I have done so much in my career for the past 20 years. And to be able to say that I have helped 30,000 clients shocks me. It makes me happy all at the same time, but it’s because I’ve had to put the work in. My life, when I was started at 21, it was all over the place like literally. Now I’ve got three or four businesses and I feel like I’ve got more time than I ever had. It’s crazy, because you have to put a bit of effort in, switch things up a bit, live with it and see how it works.

So remember my four ways to design your perfect day. This goes a long way to getting your perfect business, your model, how you want things to be, because sometimes we just have to be mindful. When am I [inaudible 00:13:47]? What do I love doing? How can people help me? How can I shift past this if something isn’t working? The crux of the matter is, I’ve got podcast. Yeah, it ranks in the top 5% globally. Amazing, right? Bestseller, dynamic digital marketing can be bought anywhere in the world. For businesses, as I say, 30,000 clients, the list goes on. All of those are lovely things to have, but at the crux of the matter is I have to make sure that I have sustainable profitable businesses, but more important than that, somebody who is going to be driving that, somebody who feels in the best way possible to be leading a team and pushing things forward and energizing, not just my team, but also showing up positively, impactfully online and serving my clients too.

You have to put yourself first, and this is something I didn’t do in my early days. So if this one piece of advice is something that I would have given myself back at 21 is you need to put yourself first because I burnt myself out. I just became bit of a busy fall. I would show up to anything in my diary. I didn’t say no. Now I think about everything. Do I really want to do it? What is the impact of doing it? Is it aiding me getting to my goals? And I always have my aspirational goals, my bigger picture, my why. Why I’m in business stuck on my wall. The reason why, you can have a busy day and we’ve all been there and you get so caught up in the to-do list that you’re just so focused on the end result you’re not even enjoying the journey.

 

Let’s put the fun back into business

 

And you need to be thinking more positively about you. What is giving you mojo? What’s making you happy? And then let’s honestly seriously put the fun back into business. So you need to just take a step back and look at your day. And this month, as I say, is going to be a very special month for me. This is the day that I am positively just so excited about the fact that The Power Circle is going to be launching. We’re going to be hosting a master class all about how to 10 times your wealth and success, which I am very excited about, but I just know is going to be a game changer. And the reason I know this is because it takes all the principles of my past 20 years and experience and puts it into a program. Now on this masterclass, I’m going to be sharing six powerful ways to 10 times your wealth and success. Now, if you’ve heard other experts, marketers, business strategies out there talking about this principle, you might have heard them talking about putting loads more effort in. My goal is the opposite.

I want to work smarter, not harder. I honestly want to put the fun back into business. I want an adventure. I want to absolutely rock up to my job with my clients, people on this program and sing from the rooftops about success and success is relative to you. So this is not about whatever figure business. This is designing the business and life that you want, and really creating aspirational goals that feel truly achievable. So come and join me, dawnmcgruer.com. You’ll find all the details on there, and it just let me know how you get on. I’d love nothing better than to hear from people on social media. Tag me, let me know your thoughts, get in touch with me, send me a LinkedIn message or a voice note. I want to hear from you. And come and celebrate with me and let’s design a life that aligns perfectly to why you became a business owner in the first place. So I shall see you on next week’s podcast, and I hope you enjoy designing the life for you.

 

Thank you for listening to Dawn of a New Era podcast and for your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit, and success. And join our community. Go to dawnmcgruer.com.

 

Remember to join me and all my Podcast Guests on Facebook
Dawn McGruer's Marketing * Motivation * Mindset Group

Speaker. Author. Podcaster. Strategist.

Multi-award-winning speaker, strategist & best-selling author of Dynamic Digital Marketing - Helping to inspire entrepreneurs to rise to meet today’s challenges and be powerfully present to shine online.

Connect with me and let’s Dream Big * Work Hard * Make it Happen
Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube

Ways to work with me
Read My Book | Speaking | Training | Strategy | Retreat

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