Is your business moving you towards the life you want to be living.

Have you given yourself space or allowed the possibilities of dreaming into the life you want to be living, the business you want to be building.

One way to do that is to think about your ideal day - in business and out of it. What are the non-negotiables, the joy fillers, the nourishing actions, the restful spaces?

Putting aside the 'shoulds' and allowing your business to support the life you want to be living from the get go or at least from this moment onwards.

How?

Let's dive in.

Links, resources & mentions

Redefining Success Ep 11 Dietitian Values Podcast

What is your enough Ep 23 Dietitian Values Podcast

The nap ministry

Episode Transcript

Laura Jean 0:05

Hello, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the dietitian values podcast. Today, I want to talk to you about your ideal day, or what does your ideal day look like? I'm guessing if you are building your own business or dipping your toe into the entrepreneurial world or even just dreaming of it - maybe you're not quite there in the action phase yet - that one of the reasons perhaps you want to build your own business or that you are is to have more flexibility and freedom around how you work. And part of that is, I think, building a business around the life that you want to be living. And I think the best way to do that is to plan you know, to start how you mean to go on and to plan or to plan to move towards the way of working that works for you. Now Absolutely. Sometimes when you first start out you might be doing a few different things you know, maybe saying yes to more things then you want to over time to get a bit of a feel for how you like to work the things you'd like to work in. I know when I first started my very first business as a dietitian in private business I was saying yes to lots of opportunities. I worked in a doctor's clinic. I did a few other things. I did a couple of clinics, I had mobile service, I did corporate work. I did a lot of different things. I mean, this was pre online business world, and I took them all on to get an idea of what I liked, but in the back of my head, what I always wanted to move towards was freedom and flexibility in how I worked and structuring my days and weeks to actually be filled with the work that I loved. And so over time, I definitely dropped off the clinics, because that was not for me and started to build that way of working that worked for me. And so what I'd like to invite you today is to dream a little bit. to put aside the practicalities potentially or maybe not even put aside the practicalities, but to put aside the shoulds to put aside the idea of what a full time business should look like or what a quote unquote successful business should look like. And I'll link in the show notes about redefining your version of success because if you haven't been listening along here, or if you just need the reminder, success is not based on external measures, or it can be but it won't really take you where you want to go. It won't lead to that fulfilment and feeling of being successful that we can get from creating our own definition of success and working towards that. So I say quote, unquote, successful business because sometimes when we're labouring under those ideas of what a successful businesses what it means to be working in a business that is working is very different if we're thinking of those shoulds can be very different from what we actually want.

And so what I would like to do, as I said, is invite you to dream, I invite you to put aside all the shoulds, all of the rules, all of the status quo, upholding bullshit, basically, and think about you, think about your life. Think about your values, and think about what an ideal work day week month depending how you want to average it out would look like for you and dream a little bit. Dream about what kind of humans you would like to work with. Or maybe you don't want to work with humans dream about what kind of work you want to do, what kind of work you want to put out in the world. Dream about how you want to do that. Do you want to sit in a clinic Do you want to do it online? And virtually? Do you want to do it through writing? Do you want to do it through talking? Do you want to do it through practical tools? I mean, maybe your ideal day would include you hanging out in your garden. That is part of my ideal day. Maybe your ideal day would include doing things like that, you know structuring your work to be full of all of those things that you're passionate about, and how you can move into that and then I think you'd have your ideal day or your ideal month and we'll break it down a little bit. Not just what you would be doing around work in the work you put in the world but also the other things in your life, the other things that bring you joy that nourish you, that create spaces for rest and connection and how you can bring those into your day regularly. Because the standard, cultural norm of how humans are encouraged to live their life is that the days in the week are for work and then our enjoyment, pleasure, relaxation, and leisure is all crammed into a weekend, two days or maybe after work but you know, the reality is for most of us, by the time you commute and if you have a family at home, and you get all those wrapped up into bed most people just plop on the couch and just zone out for a little while to actually you know try and rest and get ready for the next day. And that's the cultural norm. I'm not saying that's necessarily what you're doing. But that's kind of what our culture wants to push us towards one because it means that we're being quote unquote good little capitalist cogs. But also if we're so exhausted, then we can't question you know, we can't question Is this working for us? We can't question those systems that perhaps are not working for us and spoiler aren't working for most of us. That we're so exhausted that we can't do that. It's promoted as the way to be because then people look at it and think, well that quote unquote, normal and so what I want what I'm thinking must there must be something wrong with me or this is an unrealistic This is impossible, or Yeah, you know, you're a dreamer, you know, that don't that's not really what working is like, that's not what being an adult is about, you know, there's all these rules and restrictions that culturally are put on us or programmed so that we don't question so that we don't think about, hey, what's the kind of life I want to be living? What does my ideal day week month look like? And that's what I really want to encourage you to think about what does your ideal day, month week look like? And I would really encourage you to grab a notebook grab or if you prefer to do things on your phone, you know, you go grab it, open up a note page in your phone or on your on your computer, whatever works for you. I'm a pen and pencil pen and paper dreamer myself. I like to kind of write it all out but you do what works for you. Maybe it's a brain dump. Maybe it's like a mind map. Maybe it's just a big old list. And start with thinking about what are all the things you would like to do in your day. So write a really big list. And of course you won't fit all these things in your day. But just think about if you had one day left to live, or if you had like you know if you could just somebody waved a magic wand and said you could do whatever you want for the rest of your life you get to choose, what would you do? What would you choose? What are the activities that you would choose? How would you show up? Like what are the activities or actions that would help you to move towards a life that's based in your values? So start a list think about that. Think about things that move you towards your values. Think about things that bring you joy. Think about things that nourish you, whether it's the type of you know, the way you fuel your body, like the literal version of nourishment, or whether it's things that nourish your soul, nourish your creativity nourish your mind. So maybe it's things like reading a book, maybe it's things like doing some sort of creative work, maybe it's getting out in nature. Maybe it's having, you know, tasks broken up. So think about think about all the ways that you feel nourished when you have to do work or when you're doing things in your day. And think about the particular things that bring nourishment to your day. So you want to include actions that move you towards your values, actions that bring you joy, actions that nourish you, or activities, actions, activities or even inactions, in fact, and then also thinking about rest and thinking about rest, not just as sleep. Sleep, obviously is one way we get rest. But there's other things that we do that feel restful, so they're the activities that when you finish them, it actually boosts your feeling of well being it's almost like a recharge and so it could be something like obviously having a sleep a nap I'm a big fan of an afternoon nap so a life that includes afternoon nap is definitely one you can sign me up for. but also it could be things like meditation, or for some people the idea of meditating is like feels draining and stressful. So that absolutely might not be your idea of rest. Maybe it's doing an activity like the other day I sat down with my daughter and we did some colouring in like mindful type colouring in wasn't designed for that it was just like a particular type of colouring book that was had repetitive patterns, which felt mindful and that was really resting it was really restful just to sit with her and colour. and so rest can be lots of activities. Rest can sometimes just be sitting down and enjoying a cup of tea or an iced coffee, if you're me. That's one of my points of rest in a day. So thinking about what rest feels like for you. Yes, sleep naps. Absolutely. As I said I'm all here for naps in the day. I love a good yoga nidra like a little 20 minute yoga nidra that feels really restful for me, but you think about what works for you. What are all the ways, activities, actions or inactions that when you finish them you feel rested. You feel like a little bit reenergized and thinking about rest as a way to just take care of ourselves not necessarily as a way for us to be able to get up and be more productive. And...i won't go into it today. Sorry, I was thinking of a big tangent. So thinking about that if you want to learn more or you want to kind of like if that's something you feel like you need to work on, I will pop a link in the show notes if you've never heard of them the nap ministry they talk a lot about rest and how we can use rest as a tool to basically honour our humanity on how it is something that is just part of our humanity. So I'll link that in the show notes as well.

So we've got rest and also thinking about connection. Humans are hardwired for connection. And that's connection to ourselves connection to our bodies, and it's also connection to other humans. How much you need is dependent of course on you, what type of personality you've got. I'm somebody who doesn't like a lot of face to face connection. I like connection, connecting to people. I love connecting through text message or connecting through DMs on Instagram and connecting through those ways those ways of connecting where I can get back to people in a time that works for me, when my energy level is at a point where I want to actually interact with other humans. But you thinking about how connection works for you and what kind of connection you would like some people really thrive on a high level of connection. So the idea of you know, so that so an ideal day if you're somebody who likes a lot of connection might be working at a co working space or it might be your ideal kind of work environment might be working in a clinic, in a busy clinic with lots of other humans, or in a way where you go out to organisations or things like that. Or if you're somebody who doesn't like a high level of connection, you might choose to work in different ways working online or working in a way where you're not actually interacting with other humans. So connection is a really important piece of it. So considering all those things, and anything else that's important to you, of course it's a non exhaustive list of things to consider. But so thinking about all of those things, dreaming, putting aside practicalities, putting aside the shoulds, putting aside all those ideas and thinking what would your ideal day or week look like.

for me I've always found it works better to do the planning through a week because I don't actually want to work nine to five every day so like my day doesn't look the same. I have some days where I see clients after hours, because what I want is the flexibility in the daylight hours to be going out in my garden to be hanging out with my kids. I have some days where I don't have any after hours work and if I do anything at all, it's in the middle of the day. I have some days in work days, weekdays, traditional work days, but weekdays where don't do any thing to do with work or business. I haven't worked full time, traditional full time since 2006 Since I started my first business, so I left uni I got my first job in 2003. I worked full time for three years, actually not even I worked full time for 16 months. I went overseas for like six and a half months. And then I came back and worked for another year I think it would have been full time and then I started my first business I got a part time job. Opportunity came up and then I started my first business in 2007 And I never looked back. Once I found part time work I never looked back before I even had kids before. You know when I was in even when I had my business, I never built it up to be a full time workload. And I loved it. And even when I put business stuff on pause and we moved interstate and I went back into working for health system because it was just it was the path of least resistance moving interstate I didn't have the capacity or networks to build a business up and so I took on a position but I took it on as Yeah, not a full time job. I've not worked full time since then, because once I realised once I found non full time and I realised that actually an option and I can find my enough and I'll link to my episode on how to find your enough. I can find my enough without working full time, to me I was like well, why would I? That didn't that wasn't something that I needed to do. That wasn't part of my ideal kind of day. And so for me when I think of my ideal day, and I'll give you some practical examples or practical ideas for how you might think about it just to get you started because sometimes it can feel a bit nebulous, like ideal day. Like what do you even mean like? So like I said, I find the best ways to think about all the things you want to be doing in your day or week. So for me if I was to think about that, there would be things like one thing I really love doing is getting you my garden if you follow along my page on Instagram, I'm always spamming you with my garden pictures and, flowers and things. So I love my garden. I have three small children. So a big, chunks of my day and time and weeks and months and life. Life hours and life energy is put on short is put towards children. So there's that part of my day, and I want my children to be part of my ideal day, not every second of it but absolutely want them to be there. Being outside that's a really big part of my ideal day except if the weather's like completely horrendous. I love to go outside at least at some point during my day. So my ideal day include some sort of outside time. My ideal day definitely include some sort of resting activity, not just sleeping. So my ideal day includes my iced coffee time which is when I sit down with an iced coffee and I have a boundary kind of you know, creating boundaries and creating space commitment to that of me having a pocket of rest and it's the symbol that I use for the kids to understand that that's my time of resting. So I have that. Other things I love to do and I don't get them done every day but my other rest activities like I mentioned before, I love to do good yoga nidra or meditation. Oh my gosh, I love an afternoon nap. I definitely don't get them as often as I would like to but I do probably get at least one a week in. So an afternoon nap is a restful time. Sitting down with a cup of tea is restful, sometimes even just going out in the garden. Watering the garden that can be restful activity. So I absolutely include rest. things for joy, iced coffee time again my garden so lots of these things include for me, so there's some things that I want to have. I like to move my body when I can so I really enjoy doing some yoga or getting out for a walk. I mean gardening does count in there too. And connection wise. I like to have time to connect with kiddos but also with my partner.

And so for me like having some nights where I don't schedule any kind of work or do any client stuff in the evening is really important because then I have that connection time but I do do some nights where I do it because then I have the time during the day to be out in my garden and that works for me. So I think about all those things that I want to include and then just map out and not map out as in like a schedule I have to stick to although if that works for you, then absolutely go with it. But in this season of my life with three small children having a schedule is just a surefire way to want to rip my hair out. Because nothing goes to plan. Life gets super lifey very quickly with three small children, a business and all those sorts of things. So I don't have it more as a schedule but more just like an overall kind of feel like how many hours or how many times I want to do things. So for me workwise I want to include some days during the week where I'm not having to do any work. Do I still pick up my phone and post on Instagram? Answer DMs, check my emails and respond if I want to. Yeah, but if I find an email on a day when I'm not really working, and it's something I've got to you know, spend time putting stuff together then then I don't necessarily reply to that straightaway. Some days I might not feel like you know, posting on social media much and so I'm not doing that on those days, but it's really about listening to myself definitely there. So I do have days where I don't really do much work. There's always something usually going on and but not in a not in a taxing way not in a' God. I've got to do this bit of work.' If I ever feel that, then that's my cue to go 'This isn't a day to do that'. So you know if I if I ever feel that like pick up the phone I think I or what am I going to post on social media? I've got a post but I don't feel like it. There's never any of that because it's really if I ever get that kind of feeling then it's assigned to me that put the phone away. Walk away. If I feel inspiration, absolutely. put a post up but if I don't then to leave it for that day. So my work. I don't have set days, I don't have set hours. Part of that is because I have three small children who do not allow for schedules but also because I like to be flexible for me for my own needs, my own moods, my own energy levels, and also like to be flexible for clients I work with. I'm based in Australia, I have clients that I work with in Australia and people that I connect with overseas as well. So I want to be flexible. So some weeks I might get up at 5am to do a podcast interview or to do a chat. So this week for instance, I'm getting up at 5am two mornings this week, one to do a discovery call with somebody and one to do a podcast interview with somebody to people in the US. And that's fine. I don't resent that. I don't think I've got to go do this because this is how I'm planning my day. Alternatively, then what I'll have is time during the middle of the day, to get out into the garden to have the priority to do those other things. On those days. I'm more likely to go okay in naptime in Bubba's nap time i'm more likely to lay down and do a Nidre do a meditation or if I set my middle child up, with may be some ABC TV or something to entertain themselves. I might have a nap. So there's different ways that I will adjust based on that. If the thought of getting up at 5am fills you with dread, if the thought of seeing clients in the after hours doesn't feel like it serving you is not part of your ideal day then don't do it. This is the big thing about building your own business is you can build it however you want to build it. It can look how you want it to look.

So start dreaming start thinking about what your ideal day week would look like. So for me, my ideal week would be working a couple of hours spread across most days, but with probably at least one day where I don't really do much except maybe post on social media and even then sometimes I don't but that's kind of my ideal my ideal week, including all time in there for gardening including restful times including at least one afternoon nap a week. Getting to bed early. That's part of my ideal day nourishing myself so part of that regular meals and snacks for me that's really important. Other ways I nourish myself. I love listening to podcasts, reading books, reading articles, things that nourish me. I'm a I'm a type five enagram and so I'm all about learning and information and collating and collecting information so that is really nourishing for me. So that's part of nourishing, as well. So they're all different things that I have, in my ideal day, my ideal week. Now, are some weeks not like that?. Absolutely. Some days nothing like what I would consider an ideal day, perhaps abso-bloody-lutely. But the idea of this is not to have some perfection perfect ideal to meet it's not about it's it's what I sort of see it more as it's something to be actionable and aspirational, kind of like values. So it gives you it can give you like a bit of a roadmap, a bit of a mud map of how you want to be starting to orient things to move you towards a way of being. So for example, if you think your ideal day is only working, let's say three, three days a week, your ideal week, three days a week, and maybe it's working school hours. Let's just use that as an example. You've got kids and you just want to work in school hours, and you want to have some time for yourself to get out and go for a walk or go catch up with a good friend on some days. So you might want to work three days a week during school hours. And that's your ideal kind of working kind of balance. I mean, if we just start with the Work Business piece, then what you can start thinking about is moving towards that what kind of work is going to fit into that kind of hours. If you're based in Australia and you want to stay in those hours, then you might not be reaching out to other people in different time zones because that's going to maybe mean that you're working at different times. You might not be reaching out to work in a clinic where they have set hours that they want a dietitian to be on board there. You might be thinking well, what can work for that if you're in another sort of season of life or another way where your ideal working environment would be. You know your ideal day would be things like you know having a structure only working this hour to this hour like having it really, really quite , cemented in place because you'd like that for you. Then something like a clinic might be really great because you have set clinic hours you show up you do clinic work and you go home, and so that might be perfect how you want to work. If you're someone that likes a lot of flexibility and spontaneity then online and doing virtual consultations might work really well for you because you just might work and you just might have, you know, consults that, that that fit for you and fit for the humans you're working with and they pop up at any time during your day or week. So it's really about getting clear on what works for you. And if you don't know experimenting, trying different things and seeing what works. And also knowing that what works in different seasons of your life will be different. So what worked for me when I did my first business when I didn't have children is different than what works for me. Now, in this third iteration of business for me. With three small children and with a garden that I'm really passionate about and with goals around, you know, cooking, creating, like growing and preserving our own food and doing a lot of food from scratch. Other things that take a lot of time that are part of my ideal day slash week month that I want to make sure I have time for. because if my values are pushing me towards, what my values are this and to work towards that I need time for these things. Then if I structure my business and my work to take up all that time, then I'm not going to be living into those values. I'm not going to be moving towards those values. And so this is where your values are really important when you're thinking abou,t when you get to that planning stage when you're in the dreaming stage sometimes just not thinking so much about how everything's gonna the practicalities of kind of fitting things together. But definitely when you're thinking about okay, well I've got all this list of stuff and then these are my values and bringing them together and having that is really, really helpful. Because it helps you to think about what do I really want to do. It's also helpful for challenging if you're coming up against blocks mental or physical real blocks around a lot of shoulds or, for example, if you're thinking well a successful business should be full time or full time business should be should be seeying X number of clients, or when there's all these kind of markers, external markers of what should be happening for you in your life. That's a real opportunity to look at your values and think well does this actually move me towards my values? What do I need to move me towards my values? And it's also really where having your own definition of success. And being super clear on what your enough is, is really helpful. And like I said, I'll link to both of those episodes in the show notes.

So, I'm going to wrap up now because I like to try and keep our episodes to around that 20 to 30 minute mark and we're getting we're we're over the 20 minute mark now and I don't want this to take up too much time. I could talk about this for so long because I really am passionate about this. I think that starting here is really important even if it's not how your business starts from the start but having in your mind, the ideal day week month that you want to be working towards or what you think you want to be working towards. Because even when we plan, you know the best laid plans, when things change and when we move towards it, it may shift but having it there having thought of it having at least gotten clear on those areas that move you towards your values that bring you joy that nourish you that enable rest that builds your connection. You know, knowing what they are that list of things and knowing that there so that you can actually build that in you can kind of you know, create your own Lego creation of, of the ideal day week. Month by slot in all those things in and knowing what is what your non negotiables are what are the things that need to be on the table. What are the things that need to be included on the calendar for it to be your ideal day, your ideal month, Week. Basically your ideal life so that your business is actually moving you towards the life that you want to be living.

So I'll leave you with that. I'd really love to hear your thoughts on this. So come over to at dietitian values on Instagram and drop any questions comments in the podcast post. If you'd love to share if you feel comfortable sharing your ideal day week month with me. I would love to love to see it love to hear it. If this is something you've got questions about. If anything's not clear, then absolutely reach out via DM. if this is something you'd like some support on, you love the idea of it but you really are thinking well yeah sounds great, but how would this even work for me and my business? Then I would love to support you around that if you wanted that support. So as always, I provide one to one support and coaching for dietitians and helping professionals to basically build a business, a values based business to flourish in and part of that is this stuff. So if this is something you want some support with now or you know six months down the track then always know my DMs are open always can reach out for clarity for questions. But if you wanted to connect and work together, then that's on the table as well. Okay, that's all for me for now. Um, let me know like I said any questions, comments concerns, but until next time, bye for now. Have a good one.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai