Episode Summary
Small but mighty, these 3 words have changed the way I work and live my life. I’m sharing with you these words alongside the mindset hack that will allow you to feel better about the work you do—and probably get more done in the long run. Let’s start the new year right together!
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3 Words I’m Taking Into the New Year
I am here today with a super short episode. And I know I say that all the time, then I end up talking for like 10 or 15 minutes. But truly, today’s episode is short and sweet. It’s also going to be my sign off episode until the end of December. I am taking the next several weeks to do some business planning for my own TpT business inside the Jumpstart group.
I’m also going to be working to launch Ignite on January 1st. So lots of fun stuff in the mix. I wanted to leave you guys with a final message for the new year. It’s nothing formal. But every single year there seems to be a quote or a saying or something that inspires me and pushes me through for the next year. And I don’t like formally pick something. But I definitely have a quote that I wanted to share with you today that’s going to be my mantra for the entire upcoming year and actually already has been guiding quite a few of my business thoughts and feelings and decisions.
Better, Not Perfect
Are you ready for the three words that can change the way that you think about your business in the new year? Better, not perfect. Here’s why those words matter. And this can be applied to your personal life or your business life. So feel free to take this and run with it however you want to. But I think it all goes back to that initial idea that I’ve talked about again and again. It’s the inherent perfectionism that we seem to have as teachers.
And of course, I’m not labeling the teacher community as a whole. But a large part of us do tend to have these high expectations for ourselves. We tend to be achievers. We want to be doing things. And we are creative. Our minds are always going non-stop. And we are always striving for excellence, right? I mean I don’t know many teachers that would say I only set super low goals for myself and my students every single day.
The Harm in Perfectionism
Because we tend to set these high standards for ourselves, we also adopt these certain mentalities. And one of the mentalities that I’ve noticed a lot in myself is this all-or-nothing way of thinking. And I have this expectation of myself that when I make a decision for my business or I make a plan for my business or for my personal life.
Like when I’m trying to get in shape or start eating healthy, I get really hard on myself. I create this unrealistic set of expectations for myself where if I’m doing well for several days. Then, God forbid, I screw up one day, have an unhealthy meal or even an unhealthy day or I skip a day of exercise or something like that. In my mind, all is lost.
And it’s like I’ve ruined everything because I didn’t do that one day or that one time. I know that’s a totally unhealthy mentality to have, but I find myself adopting that same mindset in my business too. So when I sit down to make my plans every year, obviously, that’s putting a lot of pressure on yourself. It’s necessary. But I tend to over plan for myself and my business.
I get this idea that just because I’m making a new plan, that means I’ll have new behaviors. And I’m going to all of a sudden know how to perfectly execute my to-do list every single day of the year, right? We all have these expectations for ourselves. When that happens, that’s when we get into that unhealthy cycle of doing well for a while and then one bad day screws it all up.
And we either, if you’re anything like me, that just causes you to snowball and spiral even further down that path. Or some people just get fed up and frustrated by one step back. And we stop and we reach either a plateau where we don’t have any forward or backward progress. Or we just stop the progress altogether.
This year, I’ll be focusing on better, not perfect
So this year I’m committing to making my business better. Not perfect but better. And I’m going to do that by taking small steps forward every day. I’m going to take baby steps every day in my business. I’m not going to beat myself up for those moments or days where I take a step or two backward. So as you go into the new year, whether you’ve been planning with Jumpstart or doing your own business planning or just thinking about the year coming up, remember that a new year doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to give your business like this extreme TpT makeover, right?
We’re just focusing on making it better than it was last year. And if you had a good year last year, then I would say a realistic goal or an okay goal would even be to have the same kind of year as you had last year. But there shouldn’t be ever that pressure of setting these huge expectations to make our business something that’s not capable of being just in one calendar year. So this year, I’m all about better, not perfect. And if that’s a message that you can get behind, I encourage you to borrow it and make it your very own. Better not perfect.
It’s always my goal with School of Sellers content to make things feel doable, and that always starts with getting real about things. Setting real goals, being honest about yourself, being honest about your work, and just really knowing what it takes, and never sugarcoating things because that never helps anyone. So thank you for always keeping things real with me. I’m super grateful for this community, and I hope that you all take a moment or a day or a week or even the whole month to stop your work for a little bit, enjoy your family, enjoy your loved ones, enjoy all of the good food and traditions that you have going on.
And I hope that January 1st finds you well rested and ready to just show this year who is boss. Spoiler alert, it’s you. Okay, guys, thank you so much for tuning in. I will be back here on the podcast toward the end of December so you will hear from me one more time at least this year. But in the meantime, I will be hanging out in the School of Sellers Facebook group, the Jumpstart groups, and we’ve got all sorts of fun things going on over there all month. So thanks again guys, and I will see you here same time, same place in a few weeks.
Conclusion
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