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In order to stop running my business like an emergency I didn’t do anything big, anything time consuming. I didn’t change how I market, I didn’t take on less clients, I didn’t even change my offer suite. But the changes that I did make, and there are ten of them that I’ll break down for you, have completely changed how my business feels.
From the outside looking in, you would honestly have no idea. You would have zero idea that anything changed, because again my business looks the same. But being in my business, you know that everything has changed, because my business feels completely different. I truly know, and it is because of these changes, I truly know and feel that everything is flowing towards me and never away from me. I do not feel rushed or treat my business like an emergency room. I have so much peace and so much flow, and that is what I want for you.
The 10 things I stopped doing
- Having the email app on my phone
- Using apps without time limits (I also brick my phone)
- Being on my phone on Sundays
- Leaving notifications on for work chat apps like Telegram or WhatsApp
- Checking my email every single day
- Being available all the time
- Relying on one time payments instead of monthly recurring revenue
- Turning to my phone first thing in the morning
- High social media consumption
- Micromanaging my team
Not because you need to do these exact ten things, but hopefully to give you some ideas of how you can feel less rushed and more in a flow when it comes to the feeling of being in your business.
Why my business felt like an emergency for the first two years
For the first two years of business, everything felt like an emergency. I had to do it right then and there, or else I wouldn’t be successful, or else my customers wouldn’t be happy, or else people wouldn’t think that I’m a good coach.
I would not even get out of bed in the morning before I started to work. I would wake up, I would grab my phone and I would go straight to either Instagram or straight to Voxer, which is where I would communicate with my clients at the time, and I would start my workday.
And it was destroying my nervous system to be in a constant state of emergency. Everything in my business felt rushed and it felt like everything was leaving me and nothing was coming towards me, nothing was flowing to me.
1. I deleted the email app off my phone
This is something that I recommend every single person do, no matter what your niche is, no matter what type of business you’re running. If I had to give you one thing, if you’re like “hey just give me one thing Mya, one thing that has completely changed your business to make it feel less like an emergency,” it is this. Deleting the email app off of my phone.
I had an addiction to checking it because I felt like I had to reply to every email that came in. Whether that was an inquiry from a potential client, whether that was someone who already was one of my clients who was reaching out, maybe they had a question, maybe a tech issue. I felt like I had to reply in that exact moment that that email came in or else people would be angry. And that is so far from the truth.
But when I had my email app on my phone, even if I had set time limits, I set time limits on it and I found myself breaking those time limits over and over and over again, because I was like, oh, well, I have a few seconds, so let me just check my email. No, no, no, no, no, no. Delete it off of your phone.
I have it deleted off my phone. I go onto my desktop to check it and I only check it Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So I don’t even check it every single day on my desktop. And guess what? My business has not burned down. People are not mad. People are not in my emails being like, oh my gosh, why didn’t you respond three seconds after I sent this email? But that is how I truly felt when I had the email app on my phone.
And another thing too with the email app on my phone is I became obsessed with checking my notifications of how much money or how many sales I was making. And I became obsessed with that number so much so that I think I was gripping onto that so tightly that that alone was wrecking my nervous system. Of like, oh my gosh, like, have I made a sale this hour? Have I made sales? How much money?
Like, I was so obsessed on that, and don’t get me wrong. It is important to know how much money you’re making. It’s important to, you know, have sales that are coming in consistently in your business. Like all of that is important. But there’s the difference between checking and knowing those things versus being obsessed with those things, and having it get to the point where it is no longer healthy for you.
And I’m not saying that that is the case for you just because you have the email app on your phone. Again, I’m speaking from my own personal experience. But I think that there is only good that will happen when you delete the email app off of your phone. Even if you don’t feel like you’ve checked things obsessively like I was, I highly recommend doing it. Do it for even just a month and then report back and tell me how much that has changed things, because I have a little inkling that it will have changed a lot of things for you.
2. I set time limits on my apps and I brick my phone
Number two is I set time limits on my apps and I also brick my phone. The time limits I set on the apps where I don’t find myself frequently going to, but the ones that I do, I brick my phone.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of a brick, Brick is literally a company, and if you order it, I can’t remember how much it cost, I want to say it was like only like 20 bucks or something like that, but you order it, they ship it in the mail and it’s literally a brick. Like it looks like a little black brick that you can have anywhere in your house, and you tap your phone onto it and it will restrict your apps.
It’s similar to a time limit, except for that the only way for you to unrestrict those apps is for you to then tap your phone again onto this brick. And so it does put an additional barrier to you actually unlocking those apps. And it really has made me be more intentional with how I use the apps that I’m using, and also helping me to break habits.
Like I do find myself definitely in certain situations of like, oh, I’m bored, I’m gonna just pull out my phone and click into here. And I’ve even found myself, prior to the brick, and this is why I actually bought the brick, was because I would even find myself breaking the time limits. Because I have an Apple phone, and so you know you can go into there and it’s like, oh the time limit, and I can’t remember exactly what the wording says, but it’s something like, you know, use this for another 15 minutes or use this for another minute or something. I would find myself basically ignoring the time limits.
And the brick has helped me really think about, like, okay, I actually have to walk across the house and I have to tap my phone on this brick. Like is that actually worth it? You know, no it’s not, and so I’m actually not going to go into that app.
But also with time limits too, not even necessarily the fact of like, okay, you know, I don’t want to go into that app, but it has helped me be even more intentional with how I’m spending that time, knowing that I only have a limited amount of time on that app per day. And this has been really really helpful specifically for social media platforms. Like I love this for Instagram. I have a limit on my Instagram account for 45 minutes a day, and so I know, like, hey, I can use those 45 minutes throughout the day, I can also use that all just in one setting. But what is really important is that I’m spending really intentional time on there. I’m not just scrolling and consuming just to consume. It’s like, okay, I only have 45 minutes until my limit comes up, and so I want to be really intentional with the time that I’m spending on there. And so that has been really really helpful as well.
3. No phone Sundays
Number three is no phone Sundays. That is my day to completely unplug. I do not get on social media. I really do try to stay off my phone completely.
I teach Sunday school at my church and so I use my phone for like teaching that, but other than that I really truly try to stay off my phone completely. That is God’s day, and that is also my day of rest. It is my time to recoup, it is time to just spend outside, spend time with my kids. And like obviously I’m spending time with my kids and outside even outside of Sundays, but that is just like my day of like, hey, absolutely no social media, no business.
And that has been really really awesome. I’ve been implementing that now for like four years, and that’s been really cool to see the benefits of how much that fills my cup and how much that helps me moving into a new week.
4. I turned off notifications on my work chat apps
Number four is having notifications on apps like Telegram or WhatsApp, or wherever you’re communicating with people for work specifically, having those turned off.
And so if I can’t see it, I don’t feel the pressure to respond, even if I do have the time to respond. Instead I check in once a day Monday through Friday, and that has been really really awesome.
5. I stopped checking my email every single day
Number five is checking my email every single day. I kind of mentioned this with number one, but I do not check my email every single day. I stopped doing that. I only check on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and that is plenty enough to respond to the emails and respond to them in a timely manner.
6. I stopped being available all the time
Number six is I stopped being available all the time and setting boundaries for myself and for my clients. And that has been really, really awesome, because I was available all the time.
Setting those boundaries for myself and for my clients has really helped, I think not just in the sense of me feeling like it has helped me as a coach, being like, okay, I only have to hop in here once per day. But I also think it’s really good to be an example to my clients. Like even if my clients aren’t business coaches, they’re also taking on their own clients. And I think it’s really important to set the example as well of like, okay, you should also set boundaries for your clients. It’s not healthy for you to be available all the time.
And I also don’t think that it’s the most helpful thing for your clients’ results for you to be available all the time, because then they just become reliant on you and they don’t actually go out and figure things out on their own. And like, yes, it’s important for them obviously to have your support, but you can support them without being available 24/7.
7. I stopped relying on one time payments and started building monthly recurring revenue
Number seven, I stopped relying on one time payments and instead started to build monthly recurring revenue for more stability and safety.
When it comes to payments and just income in general, when I only made money if I was posting on social media, if I was in my emails or whatever, I felt like I had to be on 24/7. Like that really did make my business feel so much more like an emergency.
Whereas now, like the monthly recurring revenue, I know that payments are going to be coming in. There’s a lot more stability there, a lot more safety. And so I don’t feel that intense pressure of like, oh my gosh, I’m starting every single day off from zero, every week off from zero, every month off from zero.
It’s like, no, I actually already have the safety net. And any additional payments that come in, whether that’s new monthly recurring revenue that I’m adding or one time payments, that’s just adding on to this base that I’ve already built. That has made me feel really, really stable and safe in my business.
8. I stopped turning to my phone first thing in the morning
Number eight is I stopped turning to my phone the first thing in the morning when I wake up.
Instead, when I wake up in the morning, I roll out of bed, I cook breakfast for me and the girls, and I will spend some time usually outside if the weather is good. And then I will go work out, and then I’ll take a shower, and then I sit down to work. So usually around like 11 or 12, just depending on the day, is when I sit down to work.
And that is the first time that I grab my phone to actually work. And sometimes it’s not even my phone. Sometimes it’ll just be me sitting at the desktop and starting work that way. But I’m no longer rolling out of bed, or not even rolling out of bed, and grabbing my phone and starting the work day.
9. I stopped high social media consumption
Number nine is I stopped with high social media consumption. Comparison makes me feel behind, which then makes me feel like I have to try and keep up. And I don’t love the feeling of that, and that creates an emergency in and of itself. Which I know that that’s obviously something I should probably work on, the comparison side of things.
But an easy thing for me to do is just limit my consumption and limit how long I am spending on other people’s content. And also weeding out, maybe weeding out is not the best word, but really paying attention to who I’m following. Curating the space on social media, curating my feed on social media, has been really, really helpful as well.
10. I stopped micromanaging my team
Number 10 and lastly is I stopped micromanaging my team. Now right now I only have a virtual assistant, but over the years I’ve had a lot of different team members, and this has applied to all the different team members that I’ve had.
I hire people for a reason. It is to help me to make business easier and lighter. So letting them work without me sitting over their shoulder and being like, oh my gosh, did you do this, did you do it in this exact right way.
It’s like, actually I’ve learned over the years, like of course there are some things where it’s like you have to do it this way, but I have also learned over time where it’s like, it’s actually not. There’s not necessarily always a right and a wrong way. Just because I might do it in a way doesn’t necessarily mean that if someone does it in a different way that it’s wrong, if that makes sense.
And so me being a perfectionist, very much a control freak type A person, that has been a really hard lesson for me to learn. But as I have started to micromanage my team a lot less, it has freed up so much of my mental space and also just time in my business in general. And with me letting them do the job that I hired them to do, of course that’s going to make things feel like less of an emergency, because those are less tasks that I have on my plate.
The question I want you to ask yourself
So those are the 10 things that I stopped doing to stop treating my business and making my business feel like an emergency. I hope that those have been helpful for you. Again, these are just here as ideas, these are not things that you necessarily have to do.
But I really want you to think about, when you wake up in the morning, how does your business make you feel? And when you’re working in your business, are you constantly in this state of feeling rushed, always feeling behind, always feeling like opportunities are leaving you, clients are leaving you if you don’t respond in that exact moment? Like, do you always feel like things are fleeting? Or do you always feel like things are flowing and coming into you?
That’s definitely a conversation and the question that I would be asking yourself. And if you have a coach, that’s even a really great thing to ask them. Asking, how can I make my business feel like less of an emergency, based off of all the things that you know about me and the way that I run my business?
If building the recurring revenue side of this is what you want next, that’s exactly what we do inside Scalability, and I broke down the honest version of it in the unsexy truth about building MRR. If you want to see what the day to day actually looks like, here’s a look inside my daily work routine and seasonal planning, and if the rushed feeling is really a capacity thing, start with how I work 15 to 20 hour weeks as a mompreneur.
Frequently asked questions
What does it mean to run your business like an emergency?
It means everything feels like it has to be done right then and there, or else you won’t be successful, or else your customers won’t be happy. For the first two years of business that was me. I would not even get out of bed in the morning before I started to work. Everything in my business felt rushed, and it felt like everything was leaving me and nothing was coming towards me.
What is the one change that helps the most?
Deleting the email app off of your phone. If I had to give you one thing that has completely changed my business to make it feel less like an emergency, it is this. I go onto my desktop to check it and I only check it Monday, Wednesday and Friday. My business has not burned down. People are not mad. Do it for even just a month and then report back.
How often should you actually check your email?
I only check on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and that is plenty enough to respond to the emails and respond to them in a timely manner. I don’t even check it every single day on my desktop, and no one has been in my emails asking why I didn’t respond three seconds after they sent it.
Why does recurring revenue make a business feel less urgent?
When I only made money if I was posting on social media or if I was in my emails, I felt like I had to be on 24/7. With monthly recurring revenue I know that payments are going to be coming in. So I don’t feel that intense pressure of starting every single day off from zero, every week off from zero, every month off from zero. I already have the safety net.
Do you have to change your offers or your marketing to fix this?
No. I didn’t do anything big, anything time consuming. I didn’t change how I market, I didn’t take on less clients, I didn’t even change my offer suite. From the outside looking in you would have zero idea that anything changed, because my business looks the same. It just feels completely different.
