350: Appreciating Your Business
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Summary
Do you appreciate your business? Many of us struggle to see the value our business brings to us, as we focus on the hardships and frustrations. Appreciating your business has to be a conscious effort every day and is influenced by many things. We break down what it means to be appreciative of your business, why it’s so hard, and what it means to stay content.
Main topic:
Why is appreciating your business hard?
What does it actually mean?
Staying content
Main takeaway: Appreciating your business as the business owner means recognizing and valuing the role that your business plays in your life and the impact it has on others.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, life, work, walks, pet, clients, appreciating, services, important, thankful, ultimately, moments, struggle, feelings, hard, feel, recognize, sitter, pet sitters, confessional
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
Meghan 00:01
Welcome to pet sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today,
Collin 00:05
we're talking about appreciating your business.
Meghan 00:09
Thank you to pet sitters associates and our Patreon members for supporting today's show. We just had our first Friday meet up this past Friday. And it was awesome. We had a bunch of people join, and really got to bounce some ideas off of each other. And just chit chat.
Collin 00:23
Yeah, we spent a full hour with everybody sharing their business ideas and troubleshooting problems that have arisen over the past several months. And I really enjoyed it. I got so much out of this time, it was really fulfilling to me, and I'm so thankful for that opportunity.
Meghan 00:38
So if you would like to join us, you can do so at Pet Sitter confessional.com/support and click on the Patreon button there. Colin and I have spent the past year basically flipping our business and doing the majority of out call services now.
Collin 00:52
Yeah, if you listen back to the first episodes of the podcast, you will know that we did a lot of services in our home, several daycares and boardings and overnights and over the last year, we really did our best to completely flip and get make the business entirely out call now in home services only. And that was done a lot through hiring staff changing our marketing working on our branding and all of our language as well.
Meghan 01:19
And so what that means is this new year, we have a fresh perspective on some things, and one of those is our house. So because we are just strictly doing out call now, we decided to completely change up our living area downstairs and move a bunch of the furniture around, we had a room that was very underutilized. And we basically rarely walked into it. So we wanted to change up the furniture and see how it felt.
Collin 01:48
Yeah, and you wouldn't think that this kind of thing would make a really big difference. But where, especially with where the couch is right now, it's like totally night and day about usability comfortability, how everything fits and jives together. It was basically one of those moments where we looked at each other. And we're like, this should have been done way
Meghan 02:08
earlier. Well, and I think it's because the couch was previously in a big open room, and now it's in a smaller room, and it fits a lot better. And so we I've come to really appreciate our house a lot more. And I know that's something we're gonna dive into in a minute and talk more about the business side of things, my finally feel like we are using it to its fullest potential really, and it's a nice space to be in, I want to go sit on the couch where previously it was kind of more separated from things and it got me thinking about our business. And when the last time was that we were truly able to appreciate what it provides for us and how, how we use it. Because ultimately appreciating our business as the business owner means that we are recognizing, and we are valuing the role that our businesses play in our life, and ultimately the impact that it has on others, which is super easy to recognize because we are a service based industry and we serve others through our businesses,
Collin 03:07
but your business allows allows you to pay your bills and serve others in your community. Maybe your business allows you to employ other people, if you choose to have staff on hand, that appreciation just takes a moment to step back and go what is my business actually doing because it means being grateful for the opportunities and challenges that your business presents you can really taking pride in the work that you do you personally do. And the services that you offer. The hard work is hard, right? It goes without saying your business is also constantly teaching you things about yourself, about your community about the world around you. And you get to take part in that because you are the business owner.
Meghan 03:53
And so appreciating your business also involves recognizing the value of your own skills and your contributions as the business owner, you are the owner, the boss, so you make the most that the most decisions and the most impact in your business. And this can help you to feel more confident and more motivated in your work. And it can help you to better weather challenges and setbacks as well because you know stuff, not and not just that, but you're really good at it too. That's why your business is so successful and keeps going day after day because you are the engine and you fuel your business.
Collin 04:27
Yeah, and your business gives you a chance to show off that knowledge and to show off those skills in a way of helping other people who need those services to make their lives better,
Meghan 04:38
which is why it's so important to celebrate your successes and the milestones that you've reached. We just came out of 2022 and I'm sure there's at least one thing that you can celebrate from the past year, but there are often times that even when you feel sometimes motivated or energized. It can be hard to do things sometimes and it's not always easy to appreciate our businesses. because of, you know, one of the things is time constraints, you are obviously constantly juggling multiple tasks and responsibilities,
Collin 05:08
which leaves you overwhelmed and stressed. And it can be really hard. We've talked about this a lot. But as the business owner, you wear a lot of hats, so that your time is constrained, which makes it hard to step back and a treat, appreciate your business. We are constantly focused on all of the deadlines, all of the things to get done everything on your task list, meeting customer demands, making sure that you're staying up to date with all the certifications and licensing and training, all of that eats into your time. And when we don't have time. The last thing on our our ideas on our brains is to take a moment to appreciate everything that we have.
Meghan 05:42
Another thing that makes it hard is the comparison game. And it's natural to compare your business especially when you're on social media, and you go oh man, they have how many followers or they have how many reviews, it's super easy these days to compare yourself. But it can lead to feelings of inadequacy and frustration and like I'm not good enough, or I don't do things the way that they do. So that's why I'm not successful. And so that's why it can be hard to appreciate what you have accomplished. And we can oftentimes feel like, Oh, I'm not good enough, I don't deserve the success that I've had, or I don't deserve this business at all. Because I don't actually know anything, I don't deserve to serve pet parents, because I don't have enough pet care knowledge. It leads to impostor syndrome. And so there are some ways to help with that. And the first one is acknowledging your feelings. Recognizing that imposter syndrome is common,
Collin 06:34
and normal. It's a normal experience, and that you aren't alone in this feeling of not feeling worthy of what you have or worthy of your clients or worthy of your business. And acknowledging your feelings about that is really the first step in managing because once you have named something, you've given it a name, you've identified what you're struggling with. Now you can start putting in management techniques around it.
Meghan 06:57
And one of those is reframing your thinking when you reframe your thoughts, and you try not to focus on the bad things, but focus on your accomplishments and your successes instead of the doubts and the worries and reminding yourself that Oh, you're not good enough, and you're not worthy enough, but you bring value to your work, you are good enough, you are worthy enough.
Collin 07:19
And one of the ways that you can see that is by actually seeking feedback. And I know this is particularly a point of struggle for many people, because getting feedback means I have to be really vulnerable, I have to open up myself to maybe getting some not so good feedback. So seeking feedback from colleagues, mentors, your trusted friends can really help you get a more realistic perspective on your strengths and your weaknesses that maybe you didn't see before.
Meghan 07:46
And if you do receive some feedback that you don't necessarily like or that doesn't feel good to you practice, practice that self compassion. Be kind to yourself. Remember that everyone does make mistakes, and has areas for improvement. We all have weaknesses, I'm better at some things than Colin is and Collins better at some things than I am
Collin 08:05
ultimately, those seek support. If you're really struggling with the feelings of impostor syndrome, and you're, it's impacting your work your relationships, your life, you're not enjoying the things that you used to, it can be really helpful to talk with a therapist or a life coach who can help provide support and guidance and additional resources for you. Ultimately, though, remember that imposter syndrome is extremely common and normal. And it's important to be patient and compassionate with yourself as you work to overcome it.
Meghan 08:32
So along with time constraints, and comparing yourself to others, it can also be hard to appreciate your business because you may be under some financial pressures, if you have a lot of debt, or a lot of money to pay back to whoever or you're just not making as much as you need to to pay your own bills or save enough for whatever you want to buy. Money is often a major concern for us. And it can be hard to enjoy and appreciate our business when we are struggling to make financial ends meet. So triple check your numbers, how much is your personal budget? Do you do one? How many walks is that at your current rate? You know, when you're doing your personal budget, how many walks do I need to make, you know, my minimum payment on whatever debt I have or my minimum budget for that month? And then you know, whatever is left is fun money. You know, think of those things. And then once you've done the budget with the walks, think about what if you increase it by $1 or $2? How much further along with that get you in your debt or just having more money in general, one
Collin 09:36
of the last components that can really impact how we appreciate our business and our ability to do that is negative thinking. So we're coming back to some mindset work here. It's very easy to get caught up in a cycle of negative thinking these negative thoughts that come in they're kind of intrusive at moments, especially when you're facing challenges or setbacks, like financial pressures like time constraints that we've already talked about this these feel feelings of negativity can make it difficult to see the positive aspects of your business and to feel grateful for what you have. And this can go in impact the language that we use in our promotions and our online advertising and our social media posts, and just can trickle down into every aspect and facet of ourselves in our business. So what starts to happen is you get a positive feedback loop of I have negative thoughts. So maybe I'm not putting the right wording or I'm using negative language in my advertising. So I don't see an outcome of reactions or bookings. Because of that. This reinforces my belief that I'm not worthy in my businesses and doing well. And it continues this vicious cycle. So when you find yourself having those thoughts, what I like to do is talk to somebody write it down, reach out, speak it out loud, so that you can see and visually get an interaction with yourself to kind of self check those thoughts right in that exact moment, so that you can stop that cycle from happening.
Meghan 10:54
Yeah, I do want to say that appreciating your business can be really hard when your business is going through really tough times, or maybe in your personal life, you are dealing with something super hard, it can be really hard when you're basically face down dealing with something with a struggle and not being able to really look up and say I still have this great thing going on, it's still
Collin 11:17
worth it, there's still a need, I am still thankful for this. You know, when our business when we had several staff members leave kind of at the same time, and I had to go live in our remote service area for two months. That was a real struggle to really sit there and go, What is this all for To what end is this. And in those moments, I guarantee you, I actually I was not thankful. I did not appreciate our business because our business at that time was a hardship for me. It was a hardship because I had to be away from family. I had to be down there slogging, and with very few clients there, but I had to be there anyway, because we didn't have the staff. And I felt like it was a big burden to me. And I didn't appreciate the fact that while I was down there, that one of the things that I had to get, in my mind as changed my mindset around after a little while, was me being down here does two things. One, this is providing money to feed my family. And two is planting seeds for a future opportunity.
Meghan 12:20
Yeah, it furthers our goals in our company.
Collin 12:23
And that was those are the only two things that I was thankful for. It was not appreciative. I'm not thankful for the drivetime for being away for the hard night's sleep for all the nothing. But those two things when I was able to focus on those and kind of look at the situation and go, What is this what actually is happening here? Sure, all this bad stuff, and I'm not happy about it. But it's putting food on the table for my family. And this me being here doing this work right now is necessary, if we are to achieve our goals down the line. And that's what I had to focus on. And I don't know what that is, for you and your business, whether you're looking at a mountain of debt, whether you're looking at, you know, losing staff members or shrinking clientele, or you're looking at rising costs, whatever that is, find something to focus on right now. Have something that recognize that your business is doing something for you right now. That's what this is all about really is going right now my business is doing something for me, or for others. Sometimes it's both, and putting a name on that and writing that down somewhere.
Meghan 13:31
Because I do feel it is easy to project out on others and say, Well, I am a service business. So obviously I am making others happy by providing my services. But ultimately, you also need to be fulfilling yourself and fulfilling your own tank personally. So finding that personal fulfillment in the work that you do and deriving it from your services that you provide is very important. Something that always makes your life easier is pet business insurance. As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members. And that's why pet sitters Associates is here to help. for over 20 years they have provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Because you work in the pet care industry. You can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote today. At pets@llc.com. You can get a discount when joining by clicking membership Pet Sitter confessional and using the discount code confessional when you go to checkout to get $10 off. Check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com.
Collin 14:40
I think it's really important to also remember that being appreciative and appreciating what we have is a choice. It's an action in our lives. And because it's an action because it's a conscious choice. It takes practice and effort to cultivate that attitude of gratitude as they say it does not come naturally. To most of us, we are naturally inclined to find the negatives to find the bad things in our lives to pick and choose for those. So it's a conscious daily effort, sometimes hourly effort to remind ourselves of the things that are going on in our life, and to be thankful and grateful for those.
Meghan 15:17
And so just like our house, sometimes you have to make changes before you can really see it for what it is, we've been in this house four and a half years, and we've always had the same set of furniture where it is, we've never really moved it or done much of anything creatures of habit, yes, but now that we've changed it up, it is easier to compare and contrast before and after of going, Oh, well, now I'm able to do this because this piece of furniture is here, or I now enjoy this more I enjoy being in this room more. Because of the way the furniture is what when we make
Collin 15:51
changes like that, it's sometimes it allows you to see just how far you've come. Because you've made a change that maybe last year, you didn't think it was possible, maybe you've made a change that when you first started what you thought was so out of your reach. For a lot of us, that's when we hire for the first time, that's a change, it's a big change. And all of a sudden, we really start seeing our business for what it is and what it's able to do and produce and for who we can bring on. But it's not always about change, we shouldn't seek change just for changes sake. Appreciation has a lot to do with our emotions with our feelings, then as we know about those they can change on a dime. And so that's where there's conscious effort, this conscious force that we have to impose on our life, sometimes about making sure that we are appreciative of them, I like to think of appreciating your business. And also being content is kind of going hand in hand with one another, there's a lot of relationship between them. We want so much in our lives that we can sometimes fail to see what we have right in front of us. The pursuit of more and more more is very real. And that's where that comparison game gets in. When we see other businesses, how many people they employ the size of their service area, the number of walks they did. I know a lot of people were doing that at the end of the year posting how many services they did, how many clients they did, how many baths they did, hours, walked miles walk all that stuff, it was really easy to see that and go, I was nowhere near that. Oh my gosh, what I want that I want that I want more and more and more. And what that does is it takes out our eyes, our attention, our effort and energies off of the immediate blessings that we have around us. I like
Meghan 17:21
that word blessings, because our business is truly are something that we need to be thankful for. There are a lot of ways that we can see the blessings in our lives. And one of them is to set achievable goals. We just talked about this a few weeks ago on the podcast. But when we set clear, achievable goals, it can help us feel like a sense of accomplishment. Even if it's something super small, even if it's just I woke up and I brush my teeth today. We're all supposed to do that. But it is a small goal that we can set for ourselves. We want to celebrate our successes along the way. And even the little ones matter. Well, it's also important to take breaks and prioritize self care. As an entrepreneur, as you know, the one who's going for 14 hours a day sometimes during the visits day in and day out, it can we can get caught up in the hustle and grind. So it's important to rest and self care taking a day off now and then or a weekend. If we can, taking breaks or exercising. We you know we walked dogs. But when was the last time you worked out your arms, or making time for activities that you enjoy. I love doing puzzles, you call and enjoy sitting and reading a book and drinking coffee.
Collin 18:31
And it's amazing what just five minutes of those activities can do for you truly, truly to five minutes of a quick exercise that works out a different part of your body that's different from the dog walks and from the lifting and from the carrying and the pulling and all that something that engages a different part of your body, different parts of your mind, something that is different and wholly unrelated to your business and how it operates five minutes a day, finding five minutes to carve out that time will really start to build that habit because is it how it is a habit. Ultimately,
Meghan 19:00
if you are a notes kind of person, you may think about keeping a gratitude journal or writing some things on a post it note that you're thankful for and keeping them on your mirror or in your car.
Collin 19:09
Yeah, especially right now at the beginning of the year. Because everything that you are accomplishing right now, I guarantee you you will 100% Forget, by December, you will have no idea of all these wins that you're doing right now. And actually what some of that we've had on the podcast a couple times now is calling Pilar. And she's actually has a a weekly prompt for writing and entering things that you are dealing with and going through with the idea that these will grow and go through over time. So if you want help getting in that process and having somebody kind of guide you through that go to visit Colleen Pilar. She's on Facebook and she has a website as well that you can get signed up for that newsletter, or just take one page every day out of a physical notebook or on a digital text and put the date and things that you did or thankful for that day. You
Meghan 19:53
may also consider helping others as well. So maybe you want to sponsor a part of the highway your business wants to do that. And you go pick up trash or you go walk dogs at the shelter, there are so many things that within our pet care community we can do to help animals or maybe it's something completely outside, you want to help people instead or anything else that you want to do it by helping others. When we seek to recognize the blessings in our life, it is important to find a balance between our work and our personal life, because a lot of the times the to mesh together, because we are so intertwined into our businesses, but we want to make time for the things that fill us personally, my business doesn't have anything to do with puzzles, but boy, sure, do. I love going and doing a puzzle on a Saturday night. So make time for you personally, outside of your business, I know it's can be very, very hard. But it is super important to prevent burnout in this business.
Collin 20:49
Because what this does is it starts viewing you yourself as worth that time. But also you as a whole person, your own entity is distinct and unique from everybody else around you. And not just by the label of business owner or not by the label of dog walker, pet sitter Poop Scooper, whatever that is, you are so much more than that. And the only way you get to feed that the other parts of you the many other parts of you is by finding that balance and setting the five minutes aside those two minutes of times, whether that's meditation, whether it's prayer, mindfulness practices, puzzles, reading coffee, talking to a friend that you haven't talked to in a long time, making sure that you do those allows you to give inherent appreciation for you as a person, that you are so much more than everything going on in your business and all the headache of the contracts and the clients and the staffing and the walks and the scheduling of the payments. That is just a small sliver of who you are as a person. And when we can step back and see the fullness that our lives actually are, that's where we can start to really see where this appreciation comes from, and where it actually is and go Yeah, I know I've got struggles over here. But there's so much more to me in my life that gives me and lifts me up during those moments.
Meghan 22:06
So it's okay to remember that you will have ups and downs in life and in business as well. And we're going to experience a range of emotions as an entrepreneur from a client no longer using us or a new client that comes on board. There's all these hills and valleys that we need to navigate. But ultimately, we need to find healthy ways to cope with challenges and to stay grounded and centered in the midst of those highs and lows of entrepreneurship and just life in general.
Collin 22:34
We'd love to know how you have found that balance how you navigate those highs and lows of both emotions and time and situations in your life. You can send us an email feedback at Fetzer confessional or send us a message on social media.
Meghan 22:47
We are at petsitter confessional. Thank you for listening and we want to let you know that we appreciate you for being here and taking your time and listening to this. We also want to thank pet sitters associates and we will talk to you next time
23:00
bye!
