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I started this week with a total meltdown about all my to-do’s. I’m ending it feeling totally empowered. How did I get here?

As the sole breadwinner of my family, trying to overhaul my business, I’ve been under a ton of pressure. We have a medically complex son and I didn’t want to add more stress to my wife, so I was keeping all this inside. (Though apparently doing a crappy job of it, because when I finally eruption, she laughed and said it’d been so obvious. Oops.)

That meltdown led to a heart-to-heart about where to best allocate my time and energy and to be brutally honest with myself about how it was translating – or not – into dollars.

The thing I’d been most struggling with, was figuring out how much time and energy to focus on competing priorities. Far too often, I was relying on how I felt in the moment rather than having a process through which to filter my decisions. For someone with Shiny Object Syndrome, no wonder I was overwhelmed!

Putting a financial value on my time was a game-changer for helping me decide what to prioritize; it even helped me speak more compassionately to myself!

Here’s a breakdown of how we did it:
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• Start with a goal. Based on our family finances and the various revenue streams of the business, we picked a monthly goal for the new product I’m gearing up to launch. In this case, it was $5,000.
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• Know your hourly. This is entirely based on market research, which sounds simpler than it feels. It inevitably brings up self-worth questions of, am I truly as valuable as those who charge top dollar? A helpful reframe is to shift away from your identity to WHAT you provide. So instead of “Am I valuable?”, it’s “Does what I provide equal this value?” Seeing how much my therapist charges gave me the confidence to up my price to $295/hour.
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• Do the math. This part is more straightforward, albeit may bring up flashbacks of failed math exams (or is that just me?). Take your goal and divide it by your hourly; in my case, that was 17. So the question was: based on all the things I needed to do to make $5,000, did 17 hours seem feasible/appropriate?
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• (Maybe) raise your prices. I used this calculation to re-examine how much I was charging for this new product ($495.) Given my goal of $5,000, I asked myself: did I think I could get at least 10 people to sign up within those 17 hours of work?
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• Track your time. It’s imperative for everyone – but most especially for entrepreneurs – to have a self-feedback loop so that you know what’s working/not working, how to optimize, and where to double down (or move on.) The only way way you’ll know if you’re allocating your time correctly and charging enough, is if you track your time. I love Clockify.​

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An unexpected benefit of tracking my time and tying it to a dollar amount, was whenever my mind started to spiral with negative self-talk or anxious thoughts, I visualized it as spending money. I literally asked myself, “Is this worth it?”

Because the more money I spent on trash thoughts, meant the less I had to spend on things I value. Plus, I wanted to protect those 17 hours.

And guess what? I’m feeling pretty damn good. It hasn’t been a perfect week, but having guardrails on my time, based on my money goals, has helped me feel more in command of my being and my bank account. I’d say that’s a win.

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x Claire

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PS I’d love to hear what you think! Did it resonate? How have you calculated how much your time is worth? Post your thoughts on LinkedIn and tag me, I’ll comment back 🙂

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💸 Money therapy continues…

This is the second episode in a limited series where the tables have turned and I’m the one being coached by Brittany Tam, who specializes in helping entrepreneurs improve their relationship with money. (Click here to listen to our first session.)

This episode centered around goals related to income generation.

As you’ll hear in this session, I’m pretty overwhelmed with everything that needs to get done to overhaul my business model.

The good news is I had a pretty awesome breakthrough around raising my prices, and no longer see charging more as mutually exclusive with my desire for inclusivity.

It’s a bit more rambly than usual – sorry, Brit! – but we got to some solid next steps on how to stay focused on my roadmap that I hope will inspire you, wherever you are in your journey.

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Listen

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✅ Action steps:

For anyone who wants to do the work alongside me, here are notes and action steps from Brittany:

When I set goals with clients, I like to think about them in the following domains:

• Income generation
• Spending and money management
  • Day-to-day spending and management
  • Debt management
  • Investment and future planning

We want to focus on all of these over the course of time, but there’s going to be something that has the greatest payoff for you.

For example: If you’re already generating great revenue (and this will be subjective depending on what you do, where you live, etc.) but you’re worried about bouncing rent cheques/mortgage payments, then a good area of focus would be day-to-day spending and management.

If you’re not generating a lot of revenue (again, depends on the cost of living in your area), then creating more revenue would be a great focus.

👉 Is the goal you set previously in the area that would have the greatest payoff, with the greatest ease?

👉 When you figure out what the goal with the biggest payoff, with the greatest ease is, do you have a plan of action?

You don’t necessarily need to have detailed action steps for the next 3 months, but having milestones, an idea of what projects might be involved, and tasks for the first week or two outlined would be helpful.

👉 What practices do you need to build so that you’re intentional about your week ahead, instead of reacting to the week as it presents itself?

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🙅‍♀️ Feeling blocked?

Is there something that’s standing in your way of creating a better future?

Whether it’s an overwhelming to-do list, an underwhelming bank account, or the inability to quiet your mind, you know things could be better. You’re just not sure how to get there.

It’s not your fault. You’re simply too close to yourself.

Working through obstacles to achieve our goals requires both emotional exploration and strategic roadmapping, neither of which is easy to do on our own. It’s critical to get support on the road to change, especially as you struggle through the uncertainty of transition.

And that’s where I come in 🙂

Learn more about my areas of focus here and book a strategy session below.

Book your session

👯 Pay it forward

I’m offering free coaching – yes, free! – all summer long for anyone willing to be recorded for my podcast. (Don’t worry, your camera will be off, and identifying details obscured.)

If you or someone you know could benefit, click this link to learn more. Also, sharing this on your social channels will help more people learn about Ladies Get Paid, and the more of us there are, the more energy we have in creating the workplaces – and lives – we deserve.

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