Your Business Is in Winter, Now What?

Welcome to the Heart Centered Entrepreneur Podcast. I want you to be rich. Yes, I want abundant financial success for your business. But I don't just care about your business making money.

I care about you too. I want you to be rich in happiness, in the impact you make, in your relationships, and in how you give back. I'm Anna. I built my six-figure business as a side hustle while I was pregnant with my daughter in 2016.

Now I've helped dozens of women do the same. I'm here to help you build a profitable, heart-centered, fully booked business with the latest tips on sales and visibility with proven mindset hacks and sneak peeks behind the scenes with what's working right now in the online space and in my business. Ready to make more money with heart? Let's go.

How do you survive a winter season in business? I know it's ironic that I'm doing this in the summer. when this episode goes live. I think it'll be start to July, but I really want to talk about how to survive a winter season in business.

And when I say that, I think through like, you know, the spring, the summer, the fall, like traditionally, when do we harvest? We harvest in the spring, summer, right? We, or I think, right? Winter is definitely not when we are harvesting or even planting.

It's almost like a dormant season. And I think these seasons of business where maybe you're serving current clients, but you're not doing a lot of launching, you're not doing a lot of visibility. Maybe you don't have a lot of clarity. Maybe you don't have a lot of inspiration.

Like we need to stop making these seasons wrong. And so if this podcast is finding you at a time when you are feeling, you're like, oh, is that what I'm feeling? I'm in a winter season, right? Like not making it wrong, making it right.

We are cyclical beings, especially as women. And so I think remembering and seeing how nature operates, right? My kids and I are doing a little garden in our backyard this summer. And it's just such a great reminder of how slow it takes to garden and grow things and that there's a season for everything and that it's imperfect, but there's nothing wrong, right?

There's nothing wrong. And when we make it right and we're like, oh, maybe there's actually a reason that I'm in this winter season to prepare me for the summer and spring, to prepare me for what's ahead, that's when it starts, number one, getting less miserable. but number two, start working good. And then we're not in winter longer than we need to be because what is the purpose of a winter season to rest, to recuperate, like even think about in a day in 24 hours, what's the purpose of night?

The purpose of night is surrender and sleep and restoration. Literally when we sleep, our body is restoring itself and renewing its cells and healing every day. I think about this during the winter too, or during a year. I know I live in San Diego, so we don't really have a winter, but I really do feel like there are seasons where just naturally you'll have a little bit less inspiration while you're just faithfully and steadily be moving on with life and there's nothing wrong with that.

So I just wanted to share like four ideas of what I focus on during my winter seasons in case it helps you So first is sleep I actually feel like when you feeling less inspired like there seasons and chapters of business where maybe you like stay up late working or working on the weekend or like I don think that that bad right Like I think if you feeling inspired and want to you have free will, why not, right? But during the winter season, when you're not feeling inspired, right, then you might as well, I think sometimes we like scroll on social media more or like, you know, do we feel bad for sleeping and resting?

So then we do things to numb out instead of just naturally flowing with, for me, I do a lot more reading, whether it's on my Kindle or in books. Sometimes I'll read a lot more blogs, but I will literally try to put myself to sleep around 9 PM, putting brick on my phone so that I'm not scrolling. Otherwise I will, but I really try to, okay, I'm not feeling inspired. So I might as well sleep or rest or nap, right?

Instead of like, oh, there's something wrong with me that I'm not inspired. And then we end up just burning ourselves out and not really being productive anyway. I know you, when you are inspired, when it's aligned, you are super productive. And so you can trust that the inspiration will return.

Second thing I think through is support. I feel like I double down on my healing and support during this time. I re-sign up for therapy. I make sure that I'm talking with my coach extra, right?

Like to me, this isn't time to isolate. To me, this is time to double down on support. And I know it can feel like, oh, but I'm not like, you know, growing my income right now or, oh, I'm not like whatever. But like, I think it's like knowing it's an investment in the future, which brings me to step three, which is, I think this is a great season to prep, a great season to be prepping to like, obviously, um, we'll talk about the next one in a minute, which is cleaning, right?

Like, obviously we need to like simplify our lives and sort, but not to a fault. But part of this, I think, is like working with support to prepare for what's ahead. I think even when we're in winter, we have an inkling of what's next. Sometimes we want to avoid it because we're a little bit afraid of success or maybe we don't have the energy for it right now.

But I bet if you dig deep down in your intuition, you have an idea for what you're supposed to be doing next, even if you're in a chapter where you feel burned out or you're not ready for it now. I think sometimes we think like, oh, if I have the clarity on what's next, I have to immediately take action on it. And I want you to completely change this thought in your mind, because as I get more advanced in business, I realize how much of a delay there is between when I have clarity and when I take action, right?

Whether it's whatever it is in your business, whether you're like, oh, I need to, you know, shift and let go of a team member and start with someone else. Or maybe it's like, oh, I need to launch this new program and retire this old program or, oh, I really want to write a book or, oh, I really want to track. Like even when we don't have the energy to do it, it's important for you to get clear on what it is that you want. That's why I did a podcast recently about clarity on what, you know, your big dream.

And start preparing for it, right? For me, when I, you know, launch a new round of 3D Entrepreneur, I'm really doing prep about five months in advance. Now, you don't have to do that if you haven't been in business as long as I have. But what I'm saying is it's very normal to prepare, to plan, to book something, to start planting the seeds in advance.

And I actually think winter is a great time to do this. It reminds me of like in my cycle when I like PMSing a lot of times when I really emotional I get a lot of insights on what I need to change in my life because I more sensitive I less tolerant I like that right Like the rest of my cycle, I'm like, oh, I can tolerate it. It's fine. But like when I'm more sensitive, I'm like, nope, that's not always a great time to take action on it because I'm moody, but at least I have the insight.

And then when I'm back off you, Lady Angi, I'm like, okay, I think I'm going to make that shift that I had insight on when I was PMSing, right? Same thing in your business. In winter, you're not taking a lot of action, but it doesn't mean you have to disconnect from your desires. I actually think often during winter, when we're sleeping more, when we're like, we're more in tune with our desires, we're healthier, right?

We're in some ways, like we're more attuned with what we need. And so really getting support and really working to prep and plan ahead, which brings me to the last one, which is like cleaning and making sure I think when we're in action mode, we're kind of, we're kind of making a mess. Like I think about like when I'm launching, I'm just like, uh, reaching out to people and connecting and like, blah, blah, blah. Like my house actually practically gets a little messier and not just like physically, but also like energetically.

Right. And so in my winter seasons, I love to like do extra yoga because I'm like, when I am in busier chapters of life and business, I'm working out a little bit less. Right. So I'm literally like, you know, that meme about like, oh, I don't have time to work out.

For me, it's like when I don't have time, that's when I'm doing it the most because like I'm feeling like I use it sometimes to avoid life working out, you know, it's like healthy numbing. But anyway, I feel like it's a great time to not just lean into more sleep, but more like, you know, restoring our body. Anyway, but back to cleaning. Really feeling like what can I simplify and cut out, right?

Whether it's like going through your pantry, whether it's like going through your project management system and deleting old stuff that's not relevant anymore, right? I think simplification in the winter is so useful. It reminds me of like pruning, whether you're, obviously, I don't know very much about gardening, but like you're pruning black, you're preparing the soil, right? Like you're really preparing yourself so that when things, when you are high energy and you're a little more chaotic, like it doesn't matter because things are prepared.

Okay, I hope this was helpful for you. I hope it's validating. And I would love to hear from you. email me if you feel like, you know what, I'm kind of in a winter, like I'm kind of in a winter chapter.

I'm starting a new round soon of my three-month program, Getting Coach. And I really encourage women to join this program while they're in a winter season, which sounds ironic because you're like, oh, I want to make the most of the program and life support. But I really feel like in the first little bit of the program, as we are like getting clear on your offer or getting clear on your launch plan. Like the way that I lead my programs is like you make a plan before you take action, which feels much better to take action, right?

And why people say like, actually, Anna, like when I launched my business, it actually wasn't as stressful as I thought because I actually had a plan in your templates and checklists, right? And I really feel like the winter is such a great time to plan and prepare. And when we plan and prepare in winter, it actually feels like I think expedites our spring because I think the purpose of winter is to rest and prepare us. So once we are rested and prepared then our body naturally is like oh yeah it time It time to go into spring The more you embrace your winter the faster you will launch into spring And not unnaturally.

You're not going to like, maybe you're like this, you can think about this like rose bed. You're not going to like peel open the rose before it's ready. You're going to allow it to open to the warm sun, right? This happens naturally when you allow yourself to rest.

And I'm a big fan too of like moving mindfully and slowly as the fastest way to success in money. And so that's why I love this program is 12 steps basically, but I encourage you to take them at your own pace. You might take three weeks on step one and then speed through steps two through three, right? Like even though this is a program where there's really clear rinse and repeat fail proof steps, it's very customizable.

And I'm in there live with you. It's a very small group. There's usually about 10 women at a time in it. And I'm there personally to walk you through, whether it's signing your very first coaching client or whether you're, I see this program working really well for women that are already making 5k months, but are feeling stuck in scaling and growing their coaching business and really needing to refresh their brand keywords and messaging, really needing to refresh their group offer so that they can launch with way more success and learn how to consistently fill their programs.

And I really welcome you. If you're in that winter season and you're needing clarity, I feel like support is just the best way to get it. and this is being surrounded by other women, other amazing heart-centered women that even if you're in a week where you come to the call and you just wanna be quiet, you wanna keep yourself on mute, you'll hear everyone else's questions that will probably be your questions too and you'll get basically vicarious coaching in that way, right? Even if you have a busy day job, even if you're international, even if like this program I make to be very flexible really only requires about one hour a week of participation to get great results and to make money signing clients And I go over not just how to sign clients and market your business, but also how to serve your clients well as far as like coaching skills, session agendas, payment plans, scheduling, all of that stuff.

Okay, please join the wait list if you are interested because the next live round is coming up. And I'm so, so excited. I'm feeling like it's going to be a winter cohort. I almost like want to name it that, like the winter cohort, because I feel like I've been hearing from a lot of women like that's what you're feeling.

and I feel like it's one of my favorite seasons to work with women with because I think we wanna make that season wrong, but I just feel like it's so right. And when you embrace it, it can feel really good. Like what if you realize that spending more time sleeping and resting actually was what was gonna make you more money? Like what if you actually believe that, right?

Then it would feel a lot less miserable, right? Okay, sending you a big hug. And as always, thank you so much for tuning in. Thanks for hanging out today.

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Thank you.