|
For my 5th Dynamic Women Podcast Anniversary special episode, I invited incredible women from my community to join me in a Q&A session. One of the topics that came up was my virtual assistant business, sparking a conversation about how I built my team and how VAs can transform the way we work.  Natasha asked, “I’m curious to know, how did you grow your virtual assistant (VA) business? What are some of the most common tasks that you find VAs are most helpful for?” Here’s my answer: Awesome. Good question! For those who don’t know, I do have a team of 13 virtual assistants in the Philippines. They’re all working virtually. Eleven work with my business clients and two with me because there’s so much to do in a business or even your career that passing off work is so important. One of the most common questions I get from clients is, “What do you delegate? What do you pass off?” That’s why I created the Virtual Assistant Made Easy program because I realized people aren't sure about what to delegate. There are two ways of looking at it. 1. Specialist Virtual Assistant - They will do some specialized work for you like copywriting, cold calling, SEO, website design, these sorts of things that require a higher level of expertise, and you're going to pay a higher amount for that one specific task. 2. General Virtual Assistant - I think general Virtual Assistants are more helpful, because they can do a whole bunch of tasks. They can do social media content creation, social media management, like scheduling your posts, maybe interacting or commenting for you online. Then we get into things like newsletters and email management. It might be graphic design, video or audio editing, research, data entry, email campaigns like in a CRM, where you'd have all of your clients. I also have them do my PowerPoint presentations. They develop them in Canva. If you have seen the Dynamic Women Secrets books that I have, one of my main VAs has helped to format the book, design the cover, and upload it. All the tech stuff as well is really helpful because I know sometimes I’m like, “I don't even know what's going on with this website. Can you figure this out? Can you update this on my website?” These, I'd say, are the most common things because a lot of my clients are coaches, trainers, speakers, and small business owners who are selling a service or product. If you want something like cold calling, high-level copywriting, or Facebook ads development and management, I suggest you go to a specialist. But you know, with our clients, we help them to look at, “What are the goals you have? Therefore, what should you have your VA do to help you reach those goals or to take stuff off your plate so that you can do the tasks to reach those goals?” I do have a document of 229 tasks that you can pass off to a VA that I give to my clients, as well as a document that says what to give your VAs when you are on holiday, too busy, or sick. Because then those tasks don't need a bunch of setup and explanation. (Send me an email at [email protected] if you want to talk about having your own VA and have getting a copy of these documents.) I hope that answers your question, Natasha. Natasha: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Congrats again on your five years. That's so exciting. You’ve come a long way. Then Catherine asked, “This kind of segues from the whole VA thing because I don't have a VA, so I end up doing all this stuff myself. What I find lately is information flying at me from all angles. It's personal work, business emails, texts coming in Messenger group chats, WhatsApp, phone calls. You name it, it's all coming at me. Some days, I'm just like, “Have I missed something big?” That is one of my things. Sometimes I have, and I sometimes don't understand whether it's me who has too many things coming in from too many places, or it really is just, I won't say it's an age thing. But the world has changed so much again, since 2019, things have gone bananas crazy. We all feel this urgency to keep up with everything else. What I find is that on a daily basis, I tend to say that one, that one, that one, that one, I mark them and go ahead with them, and I never get to the rest of them, so then my inboxes are just chaos.  That's my big thing because you know me, Diane, systems I can do, but chaos, I can't.” Here’s my answer: Yeah, well, actually, that's what I would say is your solution: have a process or a structure that you put in place to help you deal with it. When I start my day, I will look through all my platforms, look through everything and I deal with anything that needs me right away. There might be a potential keynote. Someone's asking, “Diane, can you keynote our conference?” I want to jump on that right away. It might be a quick question from a client. The other thing is I flag messages for follow up, but then I have to be diligent to actually put it in my calendar, or my schedule later in the day to go back and deal with those. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I have my cleanup time, where I go back through, I just filter my email for all the flagged ones. Then I go through and deal with them. It's finding what works for you. I also benefit from having my VA Karissa, who is on all my social platforms. She'll say, “Diane, you have a message on Instagram that you need to reply to.” But if you don't have someone, then set for yourself a little reminder to go and check in to see if you have messages or comments. I remember the time I dropped the ball. I had someone reach out and said, “Hey, could we have a consult about this thing.” I didn't see it, so I didn’t respond. Thankfully I was still able to salvage it and she is now my client, but this isn’t always the case. The key thing is, you've got all of these places where information comes in. First off, can you teach people not to reach out to you on certain platforms? Sometimes clients want to reach me on Facebook. I suggest, “Let's move this to email.” I actually have one coach of mine who doesn't do email at all. Not at all. His assistant does email, he does not have an email. It just stops you from reaching out if you need him. But you can I can call him to leave a message and then he'll call me back when he can. Figure out, What are the channels you prefer communicating on? Then, when you go to do it, how long have you given yourself to actually reply? “Touch it once” I think this is one of those cleanup methods for in your house, you should only touch something once and put it away where it belongs. So if we bring it over to our inboxes, how many times are you “touching” or interacting/reading each email? Then what is the way that you're not going to forget to reply to ones that don't have an urgency, but they need to be replied to. Then give yourself some grace. Maybe there is a little thing that's near the bottom of your email that says, “Hey, my emails might be shorter than normal, just to make sure that I have the time to reply to everyone.” One of my clients writes me a book every time she writes me an email, and I read it, but that's the way she communicates. I know other coaches that say if it's more than three sentences, I'm not reading it. Maybe setting some parameters there. There's also a wise woman I know, and I love how in her footer of her email, she says, “My hours might not be your hours.” This is good because she often replies in the evenings around 10 or 11 o'clock at night. But if you're working for someone else, like contract based as you are, you might not want them to see you working at night because it gives the idea that, “Oh, I can reply, and I can message her and she's going to reply at those hours.” If I'm doing a final go through all my social and my emails that late, I will schedule those emails for 7am the next day, so it looks like I'm really on the ball in the morning. But I'm actually replying at night. Catherine followed up with: “The challenge isn't with the actual work. It's with trying to get everything else up and running and going and then I just get caught up in what I call “the administrivia”. I'm like, I don't have enough income coming in on the side stuff yet to actually have someone do it. I'm probably going to lose the bit of help I get from my daughter because she graduates from law school and is going to be a lawyer. It's a big transition for her and I'm like, “Now what am I going to do??”” Diane: There are so many different ways to be organized: simplify things and create structure would be my two main ones. Tanya added her thoughts: “Can I add to that a little bit, Diane? Even for me, when I started using the VA, for the first time, it was stuff that I could do. In my brain as a person who's been in business for a long time. Number one is I can do it, so why would I pay somebody to do it? Then I thought, well, do I have enough income coming in to pay somebody else to do it? When I got into the VA services, yours specifically, they took on these tasks, the ones that you've mentioned earlier, and I was shocked how that left me available to actually sell bigger ticket items, as opposed to the smaller stuff for that person to deal with. I had to work through myself that it was okay, that somebody else could do it for me, because it really increased my business significantly. I just wanted to encourage anybody who's listening out there, those things that we worry about, sometimes they work out to the best if we just kind of step into it and give it a shot.”  Diane: There you go. Wise words. Wrapping Up Building a successful business—especially with the help of a virtual assistant team—has allowed me to scale, focus on the tasks that matter most, and deliver greater value to my clients. Delegating may feel daunting at first, but as my own journey and the insights from my clients show, it opens up time and energy for you to focus on the high-level work that drives growth. Whether you're new to VAs or looking to refine your delegation skills, consider taking the leap. Remember, building a reliable support system not only enhances productivity but can lead to incredible results. If you want to know more about my Virtual Assistant Made Easy program, email me at [email protected]. Read my other blogs:
1. Steal My Strategy for Delegating 2. Craving the Best of it All 3. “What Tasks Can a Virtual Assistant Handle for Me?”
0 Comments
Today, I'm answering the question, “What tasks can a virtual assistant handle for me?” I'm going to share:
Let's get started There are a lot of times when I talk about having a virtual assistant in a large group, and later, I'll start sharing with them the types of tasks my VAs are doing for me and have done for me. They are shocked and respond, “Wow, your VAs DO ALL that, and they CAN do tech?” Virtual assistants aren’t just there for email responses, calendar management, and data entry. It's so much bigger than that, and specifically, when I talk about this, I'm referring to what my team of virtual assistants has done for their clients, who are mainly speakers, coaches, trainers, business owners, and what my two main VAs have done for me. It's a total of 13 virtual assistants, all from the Philippines, and the cool things they get to do.  When we think about bringing on a virtual assistant, it's so important to understand what you’re hiring for, and what you can delegate. That really determines what type of person that you're going to have. You're either going to be hiring a specialist or you're going to be hiring a generalist. For business owners that want to hire a VA, it’s smart to hire a generalist. A specialist would be someone like a web designer, someone who does Facebook ads or SEO, maybe just specifically help you publish your podcasts. But when we go over to the generalist side, they can do a wide variety of tasks from content creation to video and audio editing. When my clients come to me, they say, “Oh, maybe I'll get a VA when I figure out what to delegate.” When you come on board with my team, you don't need to figure it out. I will help you. I have a lot of activities that help you to get super clear about what to delegate and then how to delegate it really well. Definition of Common Tasks I'm going to give you just an idea and an overview of a bunch of tasks that you can delegate, the ones you shouldn't, and some that might surprise you. Some common tasks, as I mentioned, would be things like email management, scheduling, calendar management and such. These are administrative tasks, and yes, that is what a virtual assistant can do for you, but that's not the limitation. I want you to think about all the areas in your business that you would need help with. Do you need help in your marketing department, your HR, your delivery, or your sales? What types of tasks then do you need in each of those areas? In marketing, you would have your social media content creation, social media management and scheduling, and so there are a bunch, even just in that one area, many tasks can be delegated. Then, if we look at HR, maybe it is helping to reach out to people, and put together agreements. Maybe we get into sales, and it's emailing with clients, creating lists of leads. There are so many tasks and that's just two departments of your business or two areas of your business, and we can go deeper and deeper and more specific in all these different types of tasks. I don't want you to just think about the admin tasks. I want you to think of everything - social media, content creation, scheduling, and management, video and audio editing, graphic design, research, doing everything in regard to your YouTube, your podcast, your newsletter, CRM management, creating your programs, books, book publishing. It goes on and on and on and on. You may think, “Well, I don't know how to do all of these things.” Well, a lot of times your virtual assistant will come with these skills. That's why we hire general virtual assistants who have a lot of these skills or we provide training videos and checklists.  They're not going to know every single skill on every single platform, meaning they might come to you with experience in a CRM, like using Keap or Infusionsoft, or they might know something like Zoho, but they might not know other platforms. You just have to be willing to have them transfer the skills over or you share how to use it, or even you're going to be able to have them learn it themselves by going to YouTube, using Google and using the training videos on the platforms that you have. Be less about, “Oh, they have to have all this specific knowledge.” You will not find a unicorn who knows everything. Instead, you're looking for someone who has a wide range of skills with a wide range of platforms and a lot of experience who is willing and able to learn. Specialized Virtual Assistants A lot of my VAs are general virtual assistants, but they come to me with some specialized VA skills like graphic design or project management. In the past, we have had some that had bookkeeping, and now we have some that do have website design, SEO, but again, unless you're going to be hiring multiple people, hire the generalist first, then see what specialists you need. You might later need someone who will do Facebook ads for you. Hire a specialist. You will need some cold calling done? Hire a specialist. In these cases, you're just going to add them in for a short amount of time and pull them out because you have your VA that's going to help you with everything else. Bonus Tip: the specialist can create the strategy or get it set up and your VA can implement the strategy and maintain what they set up. Now, when we look at what they can do if you're hiring abroad, as I hire in the Philippines, there are some tasks that you don't want them to be doing. For example, if you want a website, hire someone who does that for a living rather than forcing your virtual assistant to figure it out. Our virtual assistants can do updates to websites. We do have one that can build websites, but still, it's probably a better use of your time and your money to go hire a specialist for this - unless you get matched with him as your VA - this is what happened to one of our clients who is very happy with her new website. Also, there are some tasks they might not want to do, like cold calling. And even if they said they would give it a try, you have to have the proven scripts and give the proper training. Many solopreneurs don’t. And since with sales calls you get one shot with that client or that lead, so you really want to hire someone who has these specific skills. Hire someone who is an expert at this that can lead the way for you, rather than you having to take the lead if you're unfamiliar with that process. How Business Owners Use VAs There are many ways that my clients use their virtual assistants. I'll share a little bit of their examples, and then I'll share what mine do for me. Many of our clients have speaking as part of their businesses, so we have virtual assistants who help with the whole process of speaking. Once the client has booked our client as the speaker, then the VA steps in to send all the assets, the headshot, the bio, the social media links, the speaking abstract and title, or whatever it may be that the client is asking for. They can be the liaison back and forth, making sure that specific emails were sent, that payment was received, all these different pieces around that speaking process. They can also create social media content around, “I'm going to speak at this place.” “So excited to be speaking here.” “Come see me at this conference where I'm speaking”, then upload photos from the speaking engagement and all the assets. A lot of times with my speaking engagements, one of my virtual assistants (I have two main ones) go through social media and see who commented on posts about me speaking at the event, who posted about me on stage, and who shared photos or videos. She then pulls all of that information, and creates a folder on our Google Drive so that we have all of that content there, as well as connecting on LinkedIn with everyone who was in the audience that we know based on the posts because they're commenting and liking and sharing, and they're tagging us. The other win that came from this came from posting about how you are excited about having a speaking engagement or throwbacks to a speaking engagement that happened six months or one year ago. We've had some of our clients get inquiries and get speaking engagements because of having all of this social media proof online. Every month, our clients share their wins with us, and one of the wins was “I had someone reach out to me based on my LinkedIn post, and I got a speaking engagement!” Another task that's very helpful for our clients who are coaches or trainers/facilitators, is repurposing group sessions. Since they often have group coaching or training sessions that were recorded, but they maybe aren't allowed to post them online because of the clients’ confidentiality. However, there's so much amazing content and coaching that they are giving, and so one of our clients has asked their VA to make reels from the video and get the golden nuggets from the video but with just their face and not their clients. From a 90-minute video, I think they were able to make 65 reels! Otherwise, that would be a waste, but because we can pull the different learnings and educational pieces from the client, there's so much content being made for social media. That saved the client lots of time in making reels, and she didn't need to think of new content because there was already content created. Another thing that's really amazing is having your virtual assistant make your newsletters. I don't know how many times people or clients of mine on the coaching side have said, “Ah, I'm kind of behind on my newsletters” or “I'm not emailing my list.” Well, what if your virtual assistant could take information that they heard you say in one of your trainings or create your newsletter based on your key messaging points, and make sure that happened every single week and was being sent out to your audience? Then we can even take it a step further of who's engaging with it, who is opening it, who is showing a desire for your content. Then start taking a list of those names and then creating a new set of emails for them to kind of warm them up even more, potentially, to offer to them, or set up a call with you, whatever works best.  What my main Virtual Assistants do for me In my business, I have two virtual assistants. I'll share a little bit about what they do for me. One of my VAs, Kristine, takes care of a lot of my emailing that I send out to all of my clients in my CRM. When I have a new program, she's the one that sets up all the reminder emails. She's also the one who actually sets up the programs online. I just give her my videos. She edits them, puts an intro, outro, and sticks them on my learning platform. She does the creation of a lot of my PDFs, my fillable PDFs, my eBooks. She helps me publish books and does a lot of my tech stuff She helps me in hiring my virtual assistants, which is amazing. She also helps in the payment side, so doing payroll for all of my virtual assistants. She helps with so many different pieces, and she also does my newsletters every week. Email marketing is extremely important, and updates to my website, and the list goes on and on and on. Karissa, on the other hand, does a lot of my social media, and so she edits my podcast and does podcast publishing for me as well as the promotion of it on social media. To make the repurposing easier, I designed the program called, “Content Multiplication Magic”. It was created for my clients so that they could learn how to make one piece of anchor content (a video), and from that video, then create all of their other content for the week, which is such a time saver, because I used to create a different YouTube, podcast, blog, social posts all by myself. Now what we do instead is I record one video on Zoom. It is then repurposed or edited out by Kristine for YouTube, then the audio is pulled, and then that is published to the podcast by Karissa. Then she transcribes that. She makes it into the blog, which I read over and check after she's edited it (like I’m doing for this one). She then publishes that, and makes all my social posts that promote the blog, the YouTube, and the podcast, as well as just other stuff that I'm putting out there. She also helps me in responding to comments on my posts if I haven't been able to get to it. And if they're very specific, she flags them for me, sends them to me, and makes sure I reply. There are a lot of other things that Karissa does as well that are beyond that structure of Content Multiplication Magic. It's really exciting to see how they are taking on more and different tasks and new things, and they're starting to have more decision-making, project management abilities that they're showing, which is absolutely amazing. How to identify tasks to delegate I'll give you a few tips. I take my clients through these really amazing processes and activities in order to get super clear on not just which tasks to delegate, but which tasks are going to help you reach your goals, and then which full systems can we delegate so that even more is passed off. The cool thing is I teach how to pass it off in a way that your virtual assistant will actually document the process for you, and create your SOPs (standard operating procedures). What's a quick thing that you can do? #1: Write down your daily tasks Not sure what to delegate? Starting today, write down all the tasks you do every day. It’s going to show you where you actually spend your time. You can even track how much time you're working on it, and then you'll be able to know if you're going to pass it off or not. I do this consistently. I have a 6-step P model for being able to delegate. I'm going to share that in another blog, but, I'm constantly pausing to look at what I'm doing in my business, what my goals are and what's taking my time, and then I delegate as I need. That's the first thing you can do. Just write down everything that you're doing in a week, and then see what are these time-consuming tasks that you can delegate. #2: Write down your Wish List Another thing that you can do is ask yourself, “What's on my wish list?” What are the things you wish you could do in your business that you haven't done yet? For example:
Also, what's on your wish list of things you wish you could do? Where are you dropping the ball? What are the things you're not doing well that are causing some trouble in your business? Write those things down because those are probably things that you can delegate to your virtual assistant, or you will do those things yourself when you delegate a lot of other tasks. Wrapping Up There's a lot I can share with you. I'm constantly coming up with more things to delegate, more strategies that I use in my business, as a coach, trainer, paid speaker, author, podcaster, YouTuber, women’s group organizer etc. All these titles. All these things that I do. There's so much possibility here. I could talk about this for days and days. But what I would love to gift you is my list of 229 Tasks You Can Delegate to a Virtual Assistant. It is not an exhaustive list. This is a list that I only give my clients when they're in the VA Made Easy Program. But if you're serious about hiring a VA, just send me an email, [email protected] with a subject line, “229 Tasks List Please” and let me know in it, maybe something you've learned from this or why you want the list, and I'm happy to shoot that off to you. Otherwise, if you're on social media and that's easier, you can always DM me. I hope you will take some time today to identify at least three tasks that you could delegate. I promise you that once you start delegating, you're going to have your eyes wide open. The blinders will come off, and you're going to see all the amazing things that you can delegate. Stay tuned for the next blog. If you have other questions, please email me [email protected] and if you're like “Diane, I just need your help hiring a virtual assistant and working with one” please set up a time to chat with me, and we'll see if this is a great fit for you. Until next time. Stay dynamic! Read my other blogs:
Today, I’ll be talking about the High Achiever's Thanksgiving because, let's be honest, as high achievers, we’re so driven that we often have work or business as our default or achieving as our default. Holidays, long weekends, unless we're out of the house and away, and even if we are away, it is hard for us not to work and achieve.  I’m going to take you through five different pieces that I hope you can apply to your next holiday, whether it be your Thanksgiving, and if you’re like, “Oh, I'm in Canada and I missed it,” don’t worry, you can still apply it to your weekends, your times off, your holidays—meaning vacations—and every single holiday moving forward. Sound good? #1: Power of a Pause As a speaker, there's often a strong power in pausing for the audience to digest what you've just said. The same goes for high achievers; we need to pause before we dive into the next thing in our lives and businesses. Why is that? Well, we're always thinking about the next tasks. We finish one thing and jump into the next. But Thanksgiving and holidays are such perfect times to pause. Give yourself permission to step back, even if it's just for a moment—a day, or half a day—and breathe. For example, take an afternoon off: no work, no planning, and no listening to personal or professional development books. Enjoy a meal with loved ones. Usually, during Thanksgiving, we do that, but let yourself be fully present without the pressure of being productive. That includes not worrying about laundry, cleaning your house, or maybe raking leaves or whatever else you might be doing. Now, I know that for my weekend, two of the days were filled with my son's soccer tournament, and that was fine because we were still hanging out with family. I chose to spend time between games reading a book. This year, I decided I'm not making a traditional Thanksgiving dinner—like a turkey dinner—because it takes a long time. Instead, I picked up some Good Food meal kits, and I even got the ones that are pretty much prepped. All I have to do is throw it together! The onions were already cut, which I'm so excited about. I'm going to have my family help me prepare that for dinner. #2: Success is more than Hustle We hustle so much, and during the holidays, I want you to remember that success isn't just about working harder or achieving more; it's about enjoying the process of what we’re doing and building meaningful connections as you prepare for what’s next. You need to have that downtime. You need to avoid hustling all the time so you can build up your energy and emotional reserves before diving in again. You'll find that you have more clarity, intention, energy, and motivation to move forward. For example, take time during the holidays to recognize how balanced your life is—or isn't. Do you have an even distribution of family, work, and personal goals like home, health, spiritual life, friends, and all ten areas of life? If not, maybe the holiday is a good time to focus on how you can better integrate these aspects of your life before the year ends. We only have a few months left. #3: Nurture your relationships This is a wonderful time when no one expects you to be working, although I know that some of my American clients reached out to me today and this weekend. That's about boundaries, and it's all good! But during the holidays, shift your focus to the people who support and encourage you—not just your clients, fan base, or audience, but your family, friends, and maybe even your team. Give them more attention.  As high achievers, we often get wrapped up in our goals, don’t we? We totally do! But relationships are just as valuable as any professional goal, milestone, or relationship. We need to nurture those things because, at the end of the day, we want to come home to a loved one or receive a text from someone. During this holiday, spend some quality, undistracted time with loved ones. I know I'm guilty right now of writing this blog, but I’m just about to jump on the couch with my family to watch the first movie in the Beetlejuice series because this weekend, we'll see the second one. They already know that this just has to get done first, and then they will have me. Maybe reach out to someone during the holiday who has helped you in the past year, month, or week. Perhaps it’s a colleague, mentor, or friend, and let them know how much you appreciate their support. This morning, I connected with a client of mine. We did talk about some professional things, and then she said, “In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm SO very grateful for all you do and are. Life before and after Diane and the VA Made Easy program. I appreciate you to the moon and back.” Super sweet, right? Let these people know how much you appreciate them. Even if it's not their Thanksgiving, you can still express your appreciation, whether it's a different holiday or while you're on vacation. Take that time to be grateful for and appreciate your loved ones. #4: Redefine Productivity This isn't an easy one for me because when I'm on holidays at home and I have this extra time, I think about what can be done around the house or what other jobs I can fit in. Or I might think about what other professional development books I can read because I have some many. If you're tempted to stay productive over the holidays, just remember that rest is part of the productivity cycle. You have to rest. I think of this in soccer: I can perform better on the field when I’ve had a sub, drink water, and sit for a moment. I also know that I can’t play soccer games day after day. I need those rest days to give my body time to adjust to the energy I just expelled and to recover from the hits I took—yes, there’s still some physical contact in my league! I know that in those rest days, I am able to do things that are lighter, maybe go for a walk and such and so the same is for your holiday time. Use this time to recharge and reflect because resting now will help you operate at your best moving forward. Usually, when we have holidays and long weekends, it's a short week, and we need to hit the ground running to pack five days' worth of work into four. You know how that goes! Instead of working through the holidays, I suggest that you engage in activities that bring you joy and actually schedule them in. Otherwise, you might be tempted to let work be your default and fall back into that habit. Read a book, meditate, or relax with your family. We’re also going to play some games, and watch a movie. I think the rain has stopped, so I might get out for a walk. But remember, rest is fuel for your future productivity! Remember high-achievers, if you want to perform better later, you need to rest now. #5: Gratitude in Action Since Thanksgiving is about giving thanks. It's a perfect opportunity to practice gratitude in action. Maybe you're someone who writes down five things that you're grateful for every day. This is part of the practice from my Dynamic Year Journal, but this might also be the time to put gratitude into action. If you reflect on what you’ve written in your gratitude journal, or what you pray about and are thankful for, or even what you’re grateful for at this moment, consider writing a note to that person. Maybe you can send them a thank-you card or just text them, as I mentioned earlier, expressing your appreciation for their support or for helping you in different ways. If you’re grateful for things like food, why not donate some food to the food bank? If you're grateful for your financial success, why not give financially to something?  This gratitude and the action of it takes it from just a thought to an actual behavior and something you’re doing. This way, you’ll have the memory of giving or appreciating. Gratitude is super important, especially for us high achievers because it keeps you grounded. When you’re achieving a lot, it’s easy to get caught up in your ego. Gratitude reminds you that success isn't just about hitting goals. We need life balance; we need to acknowledge the other side of life. It’s also about recognizing the people who have helped you along the way and appreciating what we have in our lives. This weekend, I was a little bit ticked because I had to get up at 6:30am on Saturday morning for my son’s soccer tournament, which I thought, “Long weekend, and I can’t even sleep in.” Then I thought, “Check yourself, Diane. Check yourself because you have a house to sleep in where people just got hit in Florida with not one, but two hurricanes, and so you have a home that is safe, electricity, and clean drinking water.” I could go on and on and on and on, but being in North America and being where I am, I am currently safe from natural disasters, and I'm safe from gang violence and fearing for my life and political threats and all these different things that can come out. May I suggest that you take that gratitude that you have and write it as “Thank You” notes, record a voice message, so people actually hear your voice of how you've impacted their life, that's huge. You can also do some volunteering. You could donate to things close to your heart. But that's a key thing. Think about where you have the gratitude, and then put it into action. Wrapping Up I'll give you a run-through of them again.
Thank you so much for reading my blog. I would love it if you have some things that really stood out to you in this blog, then you reach out to me [email protected] and share this with a friend. Until next time, stay dynamic! Read my other blogs:
Have you ever been called a good girl? In this blog, I may say some things that push some buttons, provoke people, or wake them up around a particular thing or two, but it is going to be about the importance of stopping being a good girl.  What am I going to cover? Well, I'll talk about the definition of a good girl, my experience as a good girl growing up, how the world benefits from good girls, how you can benefit from being a good girl, how others view good girls, the negatives as well, and what I suggest you be instead. I'm going to need your help at the end to come up with a new title. Stick with me, and then reach out at [email protected] or send me a message on any of the platforms I'm currently on, and let's start a discussion about this. My definition of a good girl It can be defined as:
My experience as a good girl growing up Growing up I was an honor roll student, which I think gives me good girl status. I was the captain of many sports teams, both at school and on rep, competitive, or All-Star teams. I was the president of many clubs, businesses, and other things. I've been a leader in many facets of life and held managerial or supervisory roles. My experience as being a good girl can also be seen as being a leader, and a high achiever. Have you had good girl status in those titles or areas as well? What kinds of positions or titles have you had where you’ve been a ‘good girl’?
How the world benefits from good girls The world really benefits from good girls, but then I'm going to talk about why maybe you should stop being a good girl.  The world benefits from good girls. Let's go through a few ways.
But how can you personally benefit from being a good girl? Benefits of being a good girl The benefit of being a good girl is that if you're doing good actions, there are no repercussions for bad actions. You're going to excel in what you do and get ahead. It's nice that others look up to you, so you step into a leadership role. There's also no guilt from wrong decisions because you're doing good things. Then you're often rewarded—recognized, promoted, or given nice things, opportunities, and nice acknowledgments. How others view a good girl When we're little, people say, "Good girl". I try not to say that to my kids. Instead, I say, "That was a good decision" or "That was a good action," so it’s not about labelling them. I was often told I was a good girl as a kid. This is where I don't want to be seen as a good girl anymore because society often views the good girl negatively. She's seen as a goody two-shoes, a rule follower, a brown-nose. I got a lot of that in high school because I was doing all these good, high-achieving things. I'd hear from my best friends, "Oh, so-and-so was saying you're a brown-nose," and they'd stick up for me, saying, "Oh, Diane's cool." They weren't listing all the things I did that were bad, though I did do some things that weren't so good. We don't really have this "good boy" label. The stereotypical "good girl" is present in movies and shows. Over the years, I've seen my achievements as good. I see some of the titles and positions I've held as being a good girl, but I don't necessarily want to be called that anymore because there are many negatives to being a good girl. Let's look at a few things. As an honor roll student, I felt pressure to be a good girl. I remember one time when I didn’t realize a homework assignment was due. It was due after lunch, and I was in the library freaking out, knowing I wouldn’t finish it in time. I started crying. There was so much pressure for me to be good at school—or at least that’s how I internalized it. The assignment was worth only a small percentage of my final score, but I just couldn’t handle it. When I was the captain of sports teams—rugby, soccer, volleyball—I had to set the bar for others. That's a lot of pressure. I would play injured, show up to things sick and even play a full game even if I was exhausted. One time when I was healthy, I remember running laps for warm-up and lapping my teammates, who were five to seven years younger than me. I had to motivate them to go faster, but they saw that as negative. For me, it was just about setting the bar. This is where we need to be. When you’re like that, there’s no margin for error.  In work too, I can’t count how many times I’ve been sick, hurt, dealing with headaches, emotional problems, or life problems, but I had to push through because I was a good girl who did the things and got them done. I had high standards for myself. Maybe you feel that way, too. When I was president of the student council—or maybe you’ve been president of something—you realize that your job is to ensure things happen, but you can’t do it all. As a leader, you lead by example. You practice servant leadership, but sometimes that means others let you do it all. When you’re a manager setting guidelines and making things fair, there can be an “us and them” or “her and them”. I felt that, too, when I was promoted at a company. The people I used to work alongside no longer invited me out for drinks or talked to me as much. I felt left out because I was the good girl. I couldn’t be my full self as a good girl What I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older, more experienced, wiser, and since I worked on myself, is that being a good girl is a good thing in many regards, but it has stopped me from authentically being myself. Being a ‘good girl’ has stopped me from making mistakes, calling on others, and showing weakness. You could say this is true for all high achievers. This is where I need your help to develop another name for "good girl." It’s not "bad girl"—that’s not the opposite of good girl. Is it "authentic leader," "high achiever," "authentic high-achieving leader"? What is it? The benefit of not being a good girl, is permission to be real. It's permission to be raw, rough around the edges. It allows that margin for error. It allows you to be vulnerable and human and to have an off day. If you've ever been in certain positions as the good girl, it’s like you have no room to make a wrong move, and that’s a lot of pressure. Wrapping Up What do you think? Is it time for you to stop being a good girl? Let’s keep all the benefits—the good things I've mentioned, not just for you but for the world—but let’s change it to also include permission. Permission to be yourself, to sometimes say, "No, I don’t want to do that," "No, I don’t want to include everyone," or "No, I’m not going to go there." It’s like we’re not allowed to follow what our heart desires or what our gut tells us if the decision that we feel we should be making is pressured by others or society. I’m curious—what are your thoughts? Are you a good girl? Are you seeing that maybe you need to ditch the good girl title to provide some space to grow even more? Because I feel like having the good girl persona is just playing a role rather than being your true self. Maybe there are times when being a good girl means you’re not in resonance with what your heart and soul truly desire. Maybe you’re on a path or making decisions just so you don’t upset others, let them down, or face the disapproval of others. Maybe you’re in a career you don’t love or aren’t passionate about, but you feel like you can’t change it now. There's so much more here to unearth. It's something that I've been pondering over, but I'm excited about this new side of the good girl. Maybe it's the good bad girl. It's the good, real girl. I don't know. Let me know your thoughts and your takeaways from this blog. Also, sharing is caring, so share this blog with a friend or even better on your social media because what we need to be doing is raising others up as we rise ourselves. This could be a really good discussion point for you and others around you. Until next time, everyone. Stay dynamic! Read my other blogs:
Here’s a list of 45 things I’ve learned (or relearned) this past year from some different areas of my life:  Parenting:
Being an Athlete: 11. Playing sports in your 40s is like meditation with sweat: good for body and brain. 12. Soccer has taught me the power of teamwork, on and off the field. 13. Age is just a number—unless you’re counting how long it takes to recover. 14. Competing in adult soccer? More like chasing personal goals while chasing a ball. Marriage: 15. 15 years of marriage teaches you that love doesn’t stay the same—neither does your favorite takeout. 16. Marriage = mastering the art of communicating without saying “Why didn’t you text me back?” 17. Nurturing a marriage is like caring for a plant. Sometimes it just needs sunlight (or less water). 18. Laughter is marriage’s secret ingredient. 19. Putting down your phones is like finding a magical portal to actually connecting with each other.  My Faith: 20. Faith is the secret sauce to handling everything life throws at you (even those Monday mornings). 21. Being a Christian is about constant learning and deepening my understanding of faith. 22. When in doubt, pray it out. And it helps if you pray not only when things are tough, but when they are good. 23. Surrounding yourself with people who share your faith helps you grow spiritually. 24. Friendships (and faith) grow when you’re willing to open up and dig deep. Friends: 25. Friendships evolve, and that’s okay—some people come for a season, some for life. 26. Quality friendships are built on trust, not just shared experiences. 27. Making new friends as an adult? Think of it as dating, where you can swipe either way because everyone is not a fit. Also, you can have coffee and then not ask them out again. 28. Deep friendships come from open conversations, not surface-level connections. Business: 29. Trust your gut. It’s got better judgment than your overly-ambitious to-do list. 30. Success happens when you marry your values with your goals (and avoid that 4th coffee). 31. Scaling back or pivoting your career doesn’t mean failure—it means growth. 32. Delegation is the secret to not losing your sanity while juggling kids and clients. 33. Being authentic in business is your superpower. Cape optional. 34. Perfection is overrated—progress gets stuff done (and leaves room for coffee breaks). 35. Growth happens when you ditch the comfort zone—and maybe try something crazy or just different. 36. Patience is essential for both parenting and getting that business deal done.  Personal Life:
37. Hobbies outside work is your stress-relieving, sanity-saving secret weapon. 38. Me-time is not selfish—it’s like recharging your phone so you don’t shut down mid-conversation. 39. Self-care must be scheduled, just like any other important task. 40. You don’t have to do it all—asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. And it’s a smart time-management skill. 41. Celebrating small wins keeps you motivated for the bigger goals. 42. Comparison is the thief of joy. Focus on your own awesome journey, not your neighbour’s. 43. Mistakes are just learning experiences—they don’t define you. 44. Change is inevitable, and it often leads to better things than you expected. 45. Gratitude is the secret to finding joy, no matter the situation. |
Archives
December 2024
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed