Episode 33: Mid-Year Review & Upgrades!
You set some amazing goals at the bringing of the year but have you gone back to review them? Taking the time to reflect gives us the opportunity to see how far we've come and what adjustments we need to make.
Today on the podcast I'm taking you behind the scenes as I do my own Mid-Year Review:
-Why it's important to do a mid-year review of our goals
-The exact questions I ask myself
-How to evaluate processes and tasks as a leader
-Actions I'm taking to close out the year strong
-Upgrades for the podcast and brand
Links:
Full Transcript:
Welcome back to the Upgraded Career podcast. I'm your host Nicole Case, and today we are doing a mini mid-year review. So I wanna show you how I like to pause and review how the year's gone so far, and just what are some tweaks that we need to make for the rest of the year, and I would love it if you would follow along and do this right along with me.
[00:01:24] So first, . It is important to step back and do a review a few times a year, right? Like we are just going a million miles a minute and we've probably set some really awesome, amazing goals at the beginning of this year, but it's really, really important to make sure that we are on the right track. You know, when was the last time you went back and you took a look at those goals just to kinda see how you're doing, right.
[00:01:47] But it's also to ensure that we recognize if we need to change things up. So, If maybe things are not quite where you were hoping they were, they were going to be at this time, this is the perfect opportunity to sit down, take a look at things, see do we need to change anything up, are there things we need to drop?
[00:02:05] And finally just doing a midyear review can really help us be reminded of all the amazing things that we have already done. I don't know if that sounds familiar to anybody, but a lot of times, Super driven achievement, goal oriented people. A lot of times we can be like, yeah, onto the next thing and we forget to pause and celebrate a little bit.
[00:02:29] Or what happens with me a lot of times is I. I feel like I'm not doing so well, or I'm not hitting my goals. And I have to remind myself, Nicole, it's only halfway through the year. You're good. You got some time. And also look at what you all, what all you've done already. So this was such a really great, um, opportunity for me to sit down and do some reflection and I thought, I've got to share it with you all.
[00:02:53] And also the timing's great because you're listening to this on au August 1st. August is the three year anniversary of me being in my business full-time. So this is just kind of a big, kind of milestone for me in general. And so we're gonna talk through again, kind of what came up for me during my own reflection.
[00:03:12] And I'd love, I, I'd love it again if you would, if you would come along with me when, um, and do this yourself perhaps. So if you want to do a mid-year review. Here are just kind of three main questions. Or four, I'm sorry. Four main questions? Five main questions. Sorry. Five main questions. , that I ask myself when I'm doing a review like this.
[00:03:36] So it's what worked, what didn't, what do I want more of? What do I want less of? And based on that, what actions do I need to take?
[00:03:48] So super simple questions.
[00:03:52] Not very complicated. Let's not overthink these, right? A lot of times our self-coaching questions or our coaching questions, the questions we need to ask our team, they're really simple. So what worked? What didn't? What do I want more of? What do I want less of? And then what actions do I need to take? So first, what worked so far this year?
[00:04:13] A lot of things worked and I totally didn't realize it until I sat down and did this and I kind of feel silly 'cause I had, frankly, I had been beating myself up a little bit, um, about kind of how the year has gone. I was like, you know, think good things have happened. Sure. But also I feel a little behind on things.
[00:04:28] I'm feeling a little stressed, feeling a little overwhelmed, and. Anytime that happens, I need to remind myself, Hey, I need to sit down and do a little bit of a review. Anytime you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed, pause for a minute. Sit down and journal through it again, what's going on? So you can even do these questions in those moments too.
[00:04:46] But again, it was just kind of the time of the year to do this anyway, and it just, it really, really felt good, um, to work through this. So one of my big goals this year was to have more fun. That's it. One of my goals this year. I wanted to have more fun. I remember last year somebody asking me, um, what I do for fun
[00:05:06] And I didn't have a great answer for that. I was like, um, I work and that's it. So it was really important to me this year that I took some action or did some things that were. Absolutely not towards any other goal except to have fun and I've done that. So I have been taking a dance class, I think I mentioned it here before.
[00:05:27] I've been taking a dance video divas class where we . Basically just show up and learn the choreography to the original choreography to music videos. So we've done Janet Jackson, we've done Britney Spears, we've done the Cisco's thong song. It's been so much fun. And again, there is no purpose to it at all except that we show up at, you know, seven 30 on Monday nights and we, we learn the choreography.
[00:05:56] There's no performance, there's no recital. There's nothing to it. We just, it's just a bunch of geriatric millennials showing up and trying to relive our, relive our youth, basically. And it's so much fun. Holy cow. It's so much fun. If I could take that class every single night, I would so much fun. I'm actually, I'm actually not taking it right now over the summer, they didn't offer it over the summer.
[00:06:15] I. Which was a bummer, but, um, you know, I'm gonna take it again. I plan on taking it again this fall, and I actually think, I'm gonna say it out loud here for the first time, I actually think I'm gonna add a ballet class because it's been a gazillion years since I've taken a ballet class and I just, it they, the ballet class meets right before the, the dance video divas class.
[00:06:36] And so I think I'm gonna just like, kind of tack that on. I think it's like, it feels really intimidating, but I know it's a beginner's class, so. I think I'm gonna do that this fall. I'm really excited for it. So again, no purpose whatsoever, except that it's fun. The other thing that I did was I, um, started getting involved with this group called the Women's Social Club.
[00:06:57] They have a really great podcast too. Um, I'll link that in the show notes for you. Um, they have really awesome podcast, but it's really just a group. Um, all, it's all, there's chapters all over the us. We, they've been expanding like crazy over the last year where literally again, It's just meant for women to come together and just to meet each other.
[00:07:17] I've been a part of so many different leadership groups, networking groups, and those are great, and I still am a part of some of those. But what is so awesome about Women's Social Club is like, again, it's literally just to meet new people. We get together and have dinner, or we go for walks, or we do some other, you know, paint and sip sort of randomness, right?
[00:07:37] Like it's just, it's just meant to be fun. It's, there's no . Business thing associated with it. There's no career networking hustle thing. There's none of that. There's no business cards being traded, like none of that stuff. Which again, there's room for that, right? Those, those groups are perfect and necessary for, for certain things.
[00:07:56] But the purpose of me being in this group, it's just to meet other women. Other women. It's so cool and it's so much fun, and I've met such amazing, delightful women as part of this group. So again, super fun, super light, not a lot of pressure. The last thing that I have done this year that I've like really, really kept up with just consistently is I am reading fiction for the first time in a really long time, and I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm actually a huge kind of sci-fi and fantasy nerd.
[00:08:29] Um, I think I've talked about my love of Harry Potter on here. Um, I actually started this year with rereading all of the Harry Potter books. That's what I did starting in January. I reread all of the Harry Potter books and now I'm on all of the Wheel of time books. So if you watch the show, the Amazon Show Wheel of Time, the second season is getting ready to come out here in September.
[00:08:52] Um, so my husband and I watched the first season, we're like, yeah, this is pretty good. This is interesting. And then I just kind of looked up more of the shit, more about the books that the, the show is based on. And come to find out there are 14 books. So needless to say, I'm, I'm working my way through those.
[00:09:08] Um, so I've, it's just been so nice and I've been reading on my kindle at night in bed and like, and I find myself going to bed early because I wanna get a good hour, hour and a half in reading time. And it's just been such a nice way to kind of shut my brain off at the end of the day. 'cause I have a hard time sleeping.
[00:09:25] I've talked about on here before that I really, I struggle with my sleep and it's just been a great way to, to shut my brain off. It's been . It's been really, really helpful. Um, which means though I have not actually been reading a ton of business books or personal developments books this year, and we'll talk about more about that in just a second.
[00:09:42] But, um, what I find is that I cannot read those kinds of books in the evenings or like in bed. I can't do that because in my brain is going. In a different way, right? In the fa in during, in, in fantasy fiction sort of books. Of course my brain's going too, and you know, I'm, um, I'm, you know, envisioning, you know, what these characters look like and, and all of that.
[00:10:03] And kind of my imagination is going, going kind of fun, which is great, but it's just a different side of my brain. In a way than me listening or, um, listening to like business podcasts or listening to or, or, or reading a business book, because I'm always like bringing that back to my own business, to my clients, you know, oh, that's triggering a thought for a podcast episode.
[00:10:24] You know, different things like that. It's not to say that I don't get that inspiration from fiction books too, because I do, but for whatever reason it just feels so much lighter. Again, there's no purpose. There is no purpose to reading this fiction except that it's fun and I enjoy it. And I used to do it a lot when I was young, and I'm just so happy that I've picked that habit back up.
[00:10:44] So that's my fun. So that goal is going super well, super happy about that. The next goal that I had this year was really around really focusing on my health and wellness. And so one of the things I started doing in February was working with a dietician. So I started working with Tracy, um, earlier this year and just really getting a lot of, um, testing done, kind of understanding some food sensitivities, getting kind of getting my gut health kind of in check.
[00:11:09] I. Um, and I'm currently now working on some inflammation, um, stuff. So like all of that is, is going super well and I'm just so glad that I've, um, kind of took the step to kind of reach out and just kind of get those kinds of things figured out because I was finding that I was, you know, really tired. I. Um, and just kind of like knew that there was something a little bit off that I wanted to get more specific details about myself.
[00:11:32] This is kind of, um, again, another reason why I love coaching so much is because, yeah, we can, we can read the business books, we can listen to all the podcasts, but really applying some of these things specifically to our situation, I think is so powerful. So again, for me, Again, I can read all of the thing, watch all of the influencers on, you know, how to, you know, how to optimize my health and wellness, you know, on Instagram and whatever.
[00:11:56] And I follow some awesome people on there, but I also think it's super important to understand specifically what's going on with you in your own specific body. So it was so, so awesome to be, um, working with Tracy this year and, and really ironing out those things. So working with a dietician, that's going well.
[00:12:13] I also started a regular Sunday yoga practice. I used to do yoga way more regularly before Covid, and I think probably like a lot of people, some of those habits, Kind of fell to the wayside. And I'm somebody that likes to work out or go to classes. I like to go to classes with other people doing this at home during covid.
[00:12:33] I tried doing, um, some, some yoga stuff at home. I did that a little bit. Um, but I was just, I was really struggling to do it regularly. And I, um, and there was a particular instructor that I absolutely love. Um, and I started going back to her Sunday, um, yoga practice, which I've just really, really enjoyed.
[00:12:49] It's just . Something that really sets off my week, you know, 'cause it's in the morning and then I go to the grocery store afterwards, get our, get our quick groceries after, afterwards at Wegman's, and I go home. And then it's just, it's just a really great way to get the week started for me. The other thing that I've been doing really well is I've been continuing with my regular therapy sessions.
[00:13:11] So, um, I found a therapist, uh, about three years ago now. Um, at the time when I went full-time in my business, there may or may not have been a. Um, correlation there, but I started, um, seeing Jennifer, uh, about three years ago, and I have continued on those regular therapy sessions. We meet almost every Monday unless something comes up on either of our ends, but we, we meet most Mondays, and that has, I think, totally transformed.
[00:13:36] Um, you know, just kind of my relationships with, with my family, with my husband, with my friends, and my relationship with my business. Frankly, it's, it has been such a game changer in, um, in just navigating life and navigating business. So one of the things that we have been working on in our therapy sessions is, is, is this idea of leaning into my natural flows and my natural energies.
[00:13:59] And so really in the last probably, you know, probably four or five months, I've really been leaning into that a lot more. Not fighting it when I'm tired, you know, I'm not just trying to beat myself up to push through. I'm thinking about, okay, when are the times do I need to push through? When are the times do I need to just kind of, you know, rest because, you know, the wave has crashed , and now we, we need, we need some, some calmer, calmer waters.
[00:14:28] Right? Or, you know, when I'm in a big wave, like I'm feeling like all this energy. Super inspired, you know, lean into those, you know, and that might be a long day for me. Maybe I work, you know, you know, a 12 or 16 hour day because I have the energy to do that. So I'm not gonna shame myself for working a long day to say, no, Nicole, we should be, you should be, you know, really putting boundaries around your time and not working such long hours.
[00:14:54] Well, you know what? There's some days that I feel like it. I wanna work long hours. 'cause I love what I do. I love the things that I'm working on, and I've got the energy to do it. So you know what? I'm gonna ride that wave and then there's gonna be days where I'm just not feeling it. And that's okay too, and let me lean into that as well.
[00:15:09] So I've really started to lean into that and I'm definitely seeing some really good results as a result of that. One being I'm not feeling nearly as guilty about resting or working longer hours when that makes sense for me. So that's my health and wellness. Now the last big goal on my list is my career and my business.
[00:15:29] Right? So how has that been going over the last several months? Well, one big win, I'm happy to report, is that I have not joined any new boards or leadership positions, . And that's such a big thing for me because, you know, I love helping, I love being supportive. You know, I've, I've constantly having people asking me to join boards of directors or join this volunteer group or volunteer in this place, and.
[00:15:53] I have told people over the last year and a half, I am cutting that down to just a few things that are really, really important to me, and I'm staying super engaged with those particular organizations, but I'm not taking on anything new at this point. I do not have the bandwidth to do that. I, I will show up to certain things when I'm able to, I'm happy to show up, but I'm not going to be in leadership positions or planning positions or anything like that.
[00:16:20] And I've held strong to that. And if you are somebody who struggles saying no, or you like, you, like you get really excited when you're invited to do things like that. I hear you. I feel you. We'll have more episodes on this coming up. Um, but that was a big win for me. The other thing was, is I published 33 episodes of this podcast.
[00:16:41] This is episode 33. So I published a new episode every single week. On the podcast, and let me tell you how big of an accomplishment that was for me because. Holy cow. That has been a story that I've been telling myself for so long that I'm not consistent enough, that I'm too flaky, I'm not dependable enough.
[00:17:03] I don't have the discipline to be able to publish a podcast regularly. And that kept me from doing it for a really long, like years. It seriously kept me for five years from doing this podcast. And so here we are, episode 33, and if you've been following along this whole time, thank you so much. I'm just so honored that you.
[00:17:21] Have my voice in your earbuds regularly every week, or maybe maybe you've just found me recently, and you're starting to go back and binge some, some past episodes Again, so grateful for you. Thank you so much for being here and for all the feedback that you're, you're sharing with me. I hear from you all so often on either LinkedIn or through through email, just letting me know how, how much these podcast episodes have meant for you, or that was the message that you needed to hear today and that was exactly what you needed to hear, and you're so grateful.
[00:17:51] I'm grateful that you're finding value, that you're listening and you're telling everybody else about about the podcast. So thank you. Thank you so much. So again, that was a huge accomplishment for me. I. About about halfway . About halfway through the episodes, I realized that I needed some more help and I hired a marketing assistant, um, to help me with the kind of marketing side of things, advertising side of things of, of the podcast because again, I.
[00:18:18] I can say the most profound, amazing, awesome things, but if you all can't find it or you all don't know about it, then I'm not gonna be able to help as many people as I want. So I hired Bobby back in April and she has just been so phenomenal, phenomenal, and amazing. And frankly, she was the first person I've ever hired, um, on.
[00:18:37] Onto my team contract or whatever. I've never hired or asked for help in this way before. I've always hired coaches to help coach me through things, but I've always taken the action, whatever that was. And so that was a big thing for me to like make that decision that like, listen, I need to invest in this way.
[00:18:52] I need to hire somebody. I need to relinquish a little bit of control here and get, and get some help. Now, Bobby might tell you that Nicole. You're still struggling in this area a little bit because I'm getting, giving you all kinds of great, , great assets and you're not posting them all the time. And yes, that's definitely true and we'll talk about that here in just a minute when it gets to what is not working.
[00:19:12] But hired a marketing assistant for the first time, made my first hire. That is, that is a huge, huge deal for me and a huge win. The other big thing that I'm super excited to announce that I have already hit my stretch revenue goal for this year. We're only in July, and I have already hit not just the revenue goal I set for myself, I hit my stretch revenue goal.
[00:19:37] And again, that's amazing. I'm only three years into this business thing. I have well exceeded my corporate, my corporate salary, and I just like, I'm feeling super good about that. Like I am generating money by myself, , like I am making money by myself. Like if you are a business owner or if you've ever
[00:19:57] Aspire to be a business owner or if you've watched other people be business owners, like that's a huge deal. Like I am making money on my own. That's like wild and it's so cool and, um, I'm super proud of that. Super duper proud of that. Um, so, so there's that. And so, You might ask Nicole, how are you making money?
[00:20:17] Well, I'm doing that through doing training. I do training for an HR consulting firm. I'm one of their contract facilitators, which I love and it's so much fun. Um, I also do corporate consulting, so I've had a couple of, um, corporate, um, consulting projects that I've, that I've been approached and worked on this year.
[00:20:35] And then also I do my private coaching as well, which is great. So things are going well, having fun working on my health, and businesses are, I can enroll in. So what didn't work well, as you can imagine, if we wanna correlate the fact that I've, you know, hit some really big financial goals this year. I've worked a lot, I've worked a lot so far this year, and I have, again, like if, if I'm trying to like ride the waves, like I, like I shared trying to ride the waves, like that's great.
[00:21:08] But when I am coming down and I'm realizing, okay, let me, let me like kind of work a lot for the next two months 'cause I've got this project going, then you know, this next, the next month, things kind of slow down a little bit and that's great. And so that's, that's a way for me to kind of look forward to, you know, what's next or be like, you know what, I can, you know, I can move, you know this at this pace for a period of time and then I need to relax.
[00:21:34] The problem is that I'm finding that I'm having a hard time relaxing when I do have the downtime. So my husband and I, um, baked in, uh, several days at the beach. At the beach is my thing. It's a place where I love to go to kind of like rest and, and ground myself. Went to the beach in March. Did not feel like I relaxed any bit, like, did not like wind down May.
[00:21:58] We did, we took two. Trips in May did not feel like I was able to wind down and relax. So what that is telling me is that, um, I'm frankly just over-scheduling myself just too much. And I need to, I need to, um, I'm not leaving enough time for deep thinking because I'm just kind of go, go, go. Like the work that I'm doing is very just like, action move.
[00:22:24] Get things done and I'm fine. And I found kind of like when I went back and looked over my calendar over these last several months that I just, I did not bake in enough time for deep thinking. And so my brain just continued to go, go, go. And I just kept being in this action mode that it was really hard for me to actually like slow down my nervous system, um, when I finally did have that downtime.
[00:22:46] So as leaders, we need to really spend time thinking. Like we are when you are at that director, VP level, s v P level, or you're the business owner, like you need time to do some strategy, right? You need to think through the problems. You need to anticipate problems that are coming up. You need to balance, you know, short term what's going on, short term versus long-term decisions that you need to make, and how you can prep and prepare to get to that next level.
[00:23:13] All of those things like . The more, the more you move up in these levels and in your career, the actual more time you need to just do some thinking. Right? Um, and otherwise we're just running from meeting to meeting from Zoom call to Zoom call, and when does that leave time for us to do the actual work?
[00:23:30] Right? So, so I definitely noticed that is not working. I have, I. I've definitely overscheduled myself. I'm not, um, I'm not actually relaxing when I do have the downtime. What I also noticed is that I fell off my, my regular journaling habit because I have this story that I tell myself that I don't have time.
[00:23:53] So I've just been kind, running too quickly and while it's, it's nice to have my therapy session in my, in my own coach and I meet. Regularly as well. So it's nice to have those reflection times. But I have, I have admittedly fallen off that journaling habit that I talk to you all about a lot, and that was just a clue, like, Hey, I need to get back to that.
[00:24:13] So what do I want more of? I want more private coaching clients. I love my private clients, I love my coaching clients. It's, you know, one of the, the number one reason why I started this business was because I wanted to be . Coach, I wanted to be an executive and leadership coach for women. So, um, I want more of those clients.
[00:24:31] I have some really amazing clients right now, and I want more. I want more of them. I'm gonna put it out there. I want more coaching clients. I also want more speaking gigs. I wanna be up there on stage. I wanna be sharing this message that you are all hearing now, but I wanna do it on stages, either in person or just live.
[00:24:48] I wanna do it live. The other thing that I want more of is, I want more just . Empty space on my calendar. I need more empty space on my calendar so that I can do more of that deep thinking, more of that, uh, strategic work and just, you know, just really thinking through, um, you know, my thoughts on, on these particular topics so I can gather my thoughts and then again, be able to share, share, share it out there more broadly.
[00:25:15] I also want more time to do some reading, to do some more kind of personal development and, and business reading. I, I, 'cause I do enjoy that. Um, so I'm doing really great on the fiction side of things. That's a really great habit that I've, I've created for myself. Um, and I do it right after my gr uh, gratitude journaling.
[00:25:32] So I do my gratitude journaling, but I'm not spending enough time doing my regular kind of morning journaling and just kind of reflection. So I want more time for my reading and more time for my daily kind of morning journaling practice. And I'm listening to podcasts right now. So I said I am not really, listen, I'm not really reading a lot of, um, business books and professional development books, but I am still listening, listening to podcasts.
[00:25:56] It's feeling really rushed. And I'm not actually retaining some of the , some of the stuff, because I'm in the car. I'm going from one place to the next. And so it's, it's, it's not, it's not really scratching that itch. So I want some more time to do that, do that reading. Um, and I also just want more rest time, like, frankly, like I just want more downtime, more rest time where I'm not, Doing deep thinking or I'm not doing the reading, I'm just chilling.
[00:26:22] I'm just chilling. I just, I need some more of that time. So, and I know that when I have rest time, I'm able to think more clearly. I can show up for my clients better. My, my training programs are better because I'm be able to bring the energy and the engagement, and I know that my podcast episodes are better.
[00:26:37] I can hear it in the playback when I'm editing, when I sound tired, and I'm just kinda. Just trying to get through it. So, um, I want more, want more rest time. I also want more one-on-one time with my friends and my husband. That's been kind of falling to the wayside over the last couple of weeks. And I want to get more steps in my day, you know.
[00:26:57] Um, I was talking to my dietician, um, the last time we were together and she said something about how, um, us in kind of western society we're very much like, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, go to the gym for an hour. Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit. And we need . Um, just as humans, we need to be moving our bodies more regularly throughout the day.
[00:27:17] So, um, so I want to get more steps throughout, throughout the day. I know that I feel better, um, physically and mentally when I have moved my body more throughout the day. So, okay. What do I want less of? I want less feelings of overwhelm, frankly. I want less feelings of overwhelm. I want less feelings of self-doubt.
[00:27:39] I want less doom scrolling. On Instagram, social media and the news. Frankly, that's, 'cause that's a big thing for me. Like I have all my news sites that I go look at every day, multiple times a day. Sometimes I need to do less of that. I know that I, that I want to do less of that. And I also just, frankly, I want some less training days.
[00:27:57] I'm doing a lot of training right now. I'm super grateful for that and it's a lot of fun. But I'm feeling a little, little, um, over rotate on that. It feels kind of, um, unbalanced between that, the balance that I want to have. Um, between coaching, between consulting, um, training feels really heavy right now.
[00:28:13] And that's, and that's okay, right? Like, 'cause I agreed to, um, a, a really particular training, um, project with a company this summer. And so now I'm like, okay, so we, we, we front loaded, front loaded a bunch of, bunch of training this year. I want to free up, um, now some of that time so that I can focus on some of these areas in my business.
[00:28:33] So how do I achieve these things that I want more and less of? Right? So . You know, now that I've sat down and like reflected just kind of what's the state of the state, you know, where are we at? What do I want? Um, how do I actually now take some action on that? What do I need to do? So first of all, I'm gonna decide that when feelings of overwhelm and self-doubt come up, I'm just gonna observe them, maybe journal through them, right?
[00:28:56] Because I think that's been probably an issue that, um, I, I've been allowing these, um, thoughts and feelings to kind of drag me down into a shit spiral. So, um, so . I'm going to observe them. I'm going to journal through them and just recognize my feelings are not in charge. I'm in charge. The mean girls in my head are not in charge.
[00:29:16] I am. So I get to choose how those feelings affect me. It's not about trying to prevent all feelings of overwhelm or all feelings of self-doubt, because that's just ripe for perfectionism and just ripe for, um, beating myself up. Because the reality is we're gonna feel that, right? We're, we're humans, we're, you know, there's gonna be times where we feel overwhelmed.
[00:29:36] We're gonna feel. Self-doubt or not super confident in something. And that's okay, but the, the trick is not to allow it again, drag you down into a shit spiral . So, um, so I'm just gonna choose that I'm not going to allow those feelings to affect me, and I'm going to journal through them. There's that. Next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to start saying no to some training opportunities.
[00:30:00] And again, this is one of the reasons why I love. Doing the training because I still get to choose. I get to choose what trainings that I take on and what I don't. Um, I'm sensing a theme here, around choice, um, or control one or the other. Maybe we need to add that to my list of things. Stuck my therapist about on Monday, my continued need for control.
[00:30:21] Anyway, moving on. So I am also going to start blocking two different time blocks on my calendar for deep work throughout the week. So right now I am just, Again, super heavy on these all day trainings, and it's not leaving a ton of time for me to bake in those time blocks because if I think back to last year or other times throughout the year, um, earlier this year in particular, I had some really great time blocks on my calendar to do deep work, to really think through what podcast episodes I wanna do next and things like that.
[00:30:54] And so I'm missing that. Uh, and so I'm just gonna bake it in. I'm gonna block it on my calendar. The other thing I'm gonna do is if I'm having this desire to scroll social media or to check the news, then I'm going to do it while walking on the treadmill. So, bought a treadmill, um, a couple weeks ago. It is a gazillion degrees here in North Carolina right now.
[00:31:18] So there's not a ton of walking outside happening 'cause it's just so hot. I don't know about you. Well, I do probably know about you because, you know, climate change, um, it's like the . Hottest year ever on record, so I'm sure you're probably feeling the heat too. So we bought a treadmill, uh, a couple weeks ago, and so if I want to scroll social media or scroll the news, that's fine, totally fine.
[00:31:41] I can do that, but I have to do it while on the treadmill. Same thing for reading time. So if I want to read a business book, Then I should do it while I'm on the treadmill, on the, especially on the days that I don't go to the gym. So, um, I don't go to the gym every single day. And, um, and that's okay with me, but, um, but if, I definitely wanna get some reading time in, you know, let's, let's do that while I'm on the treadmill.
[00:32:05] I can, and believe me when I say walking on the, I'm not running on the treadmill. I'm not doing that. I am briskly walk, walking on the treadmill so I can totally read and walk at the same time. So, um, so I'm just gonna just commit to myself that that's what I'm gonna do when I am, um, when I, when I want to do some reading, let's just double that up, double that habit up, stack that habit with walking on the treadmill.
[00:32:30] I'm also gonna start adding in more buffer time for myself. I'm finding that I'm . Struggling with context switching. That's, um, hard for me, especially somebody with a D H D. That's, that's typical. That's a typical thing that we struggle with. Just kind of switching from one task to the next. It takes me a while to kind of get revved back up into the next thing that I need to be working on.
[00:32:49] So I just need to bake that in. I just need to bake more time into my schedule so that I'm not feeling so back to back that I have a little bit more buffer time. I'm also going to pitch myself for speaking gigs and podcast interviews. If I want more speaking gigs. If I wanna be on other people's podcasts, I have to pitch myself.
[00:33:11] So I'm going to do that, putting it out there. I'm going to pitch myself to be, um, to be on other people's podcasts and for more speaking gigs. I'm also going to pull together my group coaching program for leaders who want to get to the director or VP level in the next year. This is a program that I've, um, tried to launch in the past and hasn't quite worked out, and I've continued to think about it and iterate on it, and I'm really excited about it and I just cannot get it outta my head, which is telling me it's the right thing to do and I just.
[00:33:45] I need to get it outta my head and on paper, and I need to take some action towards pulling something together in the, um, for the fall in particular. So I, if I want more private coaching clients, this is one of the ways that I want to do it. So I'm gonna take the action to pull this together and figure this out for the fall.
[00:34:03] So I made some of those, made some of those commitments. What I have also finally decided to do is actually to move this podcast frequency to every other week instead of weekly. As a strong leader, an entrepreneur, we have to do this exercise right here. We have to do this reflection, not maybe even just of us, but we have to do this exercise to kinda look around and see what are the activities that we're doing, how frequently are we doing them?
[00:34:35] Are they moving the needle forward? You know, we need to be doing this e evaluation regularly, which we need to see how things are going, and the answer is not, well, we've always done it this way, so we're gonna continue to do that. Like I'm sure you've heard that at work, that you know whenever you've asked, you know, why are we.
[00:34:56] Why are we doing this podcast once a week? What's the purpose of that? And the, and if your answer, if you don't have a great answer for that, frankly, I don't have a great answer. Why am I doing this podcast every week? Um, I can tell you that I, I have a lot to say and I wanna get my message out there to, to the most people as possible.
[00:35:12] But does it have to be every week? No, it doesn't. There's no rules. There's no rules. I get to make up the rules 'cause I'm in charge. Again, there's a theme here, , there's a theme, um, that I get to choose. I get to choose how frequently I want my podcast to go out. So I've decided, you know what? I think it's better for me in this season that it goes to every other week.
[00:35:33] I know that I'm gonna be able to get. Better quality of e of podcast episodes out to you at in that frequency. And I'm going to be able to keep up with it as well, because I'm not gonna be able to serve you with this podcast if I burn myself out and quit, which so many people do. So many people who start blogs, start podcasts, anything like this, start content creating in any way.
[00:35:56] You know, we get really excited at the beginning, and then we burn ourselves out, and so I want to have a sustaining podcast that, you know, you can come back to now every other week and get these really awesome episodes. So what I've decided to do is, again, shift the frequency to every other week instead of weekly.
[00:36:15] I've also decided that I'm going to tweak the branding of the podcast and my business overall, so, . It's not gonna be super, super crazy, super different. But the podcast is now going to be called Moving Forward, the Upgraded Leader, and that's also what my website is now going to be pointed to as well. So the upgraded leader.com is my website, U r L.
[00:36:39] So all the other URLs that you might have used in the past, like Nicole Case Coaching, or Nicole Case speaks.com, those will all still work. I still own those. I mean, Can you be an entrepreneur without owning at least 10 URLs, right? And so they're all gonna redirect back there, um, to the upgraded career or the upgraded leader.com.
[00:36:57] See, even I, it's still new, still need, still need to work on, on that. Um, but I'm really excited for this because. For me, the upgraded leader is just, it's more inclusive because we are all leaders. We're all leaders in our own lives, in our careers, in our businesses. And actually my first blog, way back in what, 20 17, 20 18, was called Ladies Leading a Life.
[00:37:20] But I quickly realized that that was a terrible name and that I didn't like blogging. Um, so I scrapped that, but, This tweak to the name just also is just gonna help, help us be more focused on what we talk about on here, which is the challenges that we face that we face as leaders, right? Whether we have a team in corporate, or you have a team in your own business.
[00:37:40] So you're gonna start hearing me kind of referring to that just a little bit more. And in our next episode we're gonna talk way more about this. Um, we're gonna talk more about kind of this, the, the, the adjustment that we're making here and . What it means to be an upgraded leader. Like what does that even mean, actually?
[00:37:58] So we're gonna spend next, the next episode, um, talking about, talking about that. Um, but that's everything that I had for you today. I hope you'll join me in, in sitting down and doing your own midyear review. Just kind of check in to see, to see how you're doing and if you're listening to this, like not in July, August , um, that you can just do your own review anyway, right?
[00:38:21] You don't have to. Have a particular time of year when you do a review, anytime you're feeling like, you know what I'm feeling a little stressed, a little overwhelmed, that's a signal that, Hey, let's sit down and do a quick review. Kind of see where we're at, get the state of the state right, and then we can make some decisions to, to move forward.
[00:38:37] So I'd love to hear your insights with what you've come up with. So if you did sit down and do your own mid-year review, I would love to hear kind of what you came up with. Any aha moments for you. Send me an email. Send me an email at nicole@theupgradedleader.com and let me know. I'd love to hear about it.
[00:38:56] But in the meantime, I will see you back here in two weeks. But remember, your career deserves an upgrade.
