I doubled my income
/Gina Lincicum, the successful blogger behind Moneywise Moms, "sought out coaching because I knew I needed accountability to reach my goals."
She was already doing so much right. Today's Leap Story is about the small changes that produce even bigger dividends, in her case literally.
As a mom of three, Gina has very specific windows during the day when she can work on her business and wanted to make the most of them. The problem was that some tasks took longer than the time she felt she had, and overwhelm and disappointment would set in that she couldn't get it all done.
Gina is masterful with budgeting finances, paying off more than $87,000 since 2011 to become debt-free except for a mortgage and advising other families how to do the same. We applied all of her talents to the area of TIME.
She redesigned her to-do list into something she looked forward to seeing every day, putting it behind a pretty frame on her desk (which got cleared off and turned into a place she enjoyed too) and using a dry erase marker to write down only things she thought she could tackle, moving the rest to other days that week and other weeks in the month. She added home chores to the list so she could see everything at once, and as she became more proficient in her new system she got her family involved by creating a giant wall calendar in the kitchen where everyone could see what they needed to do by when. The A-students in the family loved checking things off as much as she did. Win-win.
Then we took her mastery of time a step further with an egg timer set to the magic number of 15 minutes. You would be surprised how much can be accomplished in that short amount of time, and Gina employed it everywhere. Putting away laundry, vacuuming one room each day, writing a blog post, and checking Facebook. When the timer went off, she moved on feeling accomplished.
These were the small changes she could see, and behind it all was the big shift in her outlook.
The more these tactics worked, the more money rolled in, the more satisfied she was with her effort, and the more she could leave her work behind guilt-free on nights and weekends to focus on her family -- her real goal.
One of the mindset shifts was giving herself credit, even for the small tasks she finished each day. What a difference it makes when you feel like you're making progress, then you see it happening, and then you give yourself credit for it. Giving yourself gold stars light a fire within to keep going because you want to, not because you have to.
"Years later, I am still using many of the structures we put in place--time limits on tasks, organized to-do list with daily, weekly and monthly tasks to stay on track, and the limits that I set to achieve work/family balance. Those limits, in particular, were pushed during 2015 when I revved up my business and doubled my income from the year before. I still think of your cheerleading and guidance regularly as I work on my business."
So proud of her!