506: Finding Direction
Brought to you by: Pet Sitters Associates. Use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the chaos of running a business and managing a personal life? We dive into the importance of having a personal mission statement to stay focused and oriented, highlighting how guideposts can make a difference in life and business. By identifying your core values, passions, and strengths, you can create a mission statement that directs your actions and decisions. We discuss how to simplify decision-making and ensure consistency in your business and personal endeavors.
Main topics:
Importance of Mission Statements
Chaos in Business and Life
Core Values and Passions
Making Informed Decisions
Consistency and Alignment Benefits
Main takeaway: We need guideposts in our life. Because running a business and having a personal life gets chaotic, a mission statement ensures you know which end is up on the life you're trying to build.
Links:
ProTrainings: For 10% off any of their courses, use CPR-petsitterconfessional
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneIn
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
mission statement, pet, business, people, decisions, clients, helps, life, mission, pet sitter, actions, put, alignment, sitters, direction, priorities, confessional, associates, sops, business owners
SPEAKERS
Collin
Collin 00:00
Hey, this is Pet Sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter, thanks to our sponsors today, pet sitters associates and our stupendous patreon supporters who have found value in the show and want to help support us and keep the show going. If you'd like to learn more about that you can go to pet civic professional.com/support. I grew up playing with Lego, I'd spend hours creating entire worlds to explore and play in with my brothers in our basement of our childhood home. Now our kids are into Lego like really, really into Lego. They're always building something always putting the pieces back together in a new way. And recently, I was helping my son put together this blue cop car, and I noticed something about the directions. See not only do they provide a step by step in some cases a piece by piece guide, they also use colors in a very interesting way. So this all blue police car, okay, right before we put in all of the stuff, we're kind of midway through the through the build, we put one orange piece on where the trunk is going to be and a red piece where the hood is going to be. It's weird, right? Why would you use these two different colored pieces that have nothing to do with the blue police car, one by the trunk, and one of the engine bay? Well, what those are for is to visually distinguish the ends from one another. So you know, what is the front and what is the back, or is as you continue to build, they use color to visually help you orientate yourself while building the car. And we need that in our life too. Don't wait, we need guideposts because running the business and having a personal life gets chaotic. There are some times where we struggled to even know which way is up, let alone which direction we need to be moving into as we continue to build. For us personally, we just came off of the busiest week of our business that we've ever had in over 10, over 10 years of running our business and things just seem to be moving a mile a minute. And this is where something like a mission statement comes in. It's like having a Lego instruction manual for your business or for your life. It serves as a guide, helping you stay oriented and focus. No matter how complex or chaotic things get. Think of it as your step by step guide to running or living with intentionality. And it's not just about having more policies or more procedures, it really is more like an answer key. Again, it's not SOPs, it's a guide to show you where to go not how to do something. Because in life and running a business, things get put on our desk that can seem so complex or so frustratingly chaotic, that we can sometimes just push those aside or not make a decision or be frozen in our tracks and unable to move forward in one way or another. But by identifying your core values, your passions, your strengths, you can create this mission statement that directs your actions and your decisions, helps from everything from what relationships you need to go into and expand who you need to talk to in your business or personal life. Or maybe you need to go take that yoga class or that training class or sign up for that latest and greatest thing. It's like adding these key color pieces to your bill to your life as we assemble it together. It helps you distinguish your priorities and clarifies your directions. Having clear priorities is what this is all about. Not everything is mission critical. Not everything can be mission critical or should be. And not everything is necessary in your life either. But too often we walk around with what we call priorities, but what they actually are, are imposed obligations that other people have placed on us. And we have gladly accepted those and carry those around as a burden, and our life. And then we become frustrated when we can't make it all work together. We can't have everything but the obligations that other people have placed on us and our actual priorities and things that we want to have take place. Those come into conflict a lot of times, way more often than many of us would like to admit, especially in running a business. Whereby we have obligations are we have expectations placed on us from staff or clients or other business owners. And yet we have our own personal mission, our own personal things we want to accomplish. And we can't do all of those all of the time, and make every sure everybody is happy. So ask yourself, What are your core values? What do you actually believe in and these things shaped everything that we do? It's from what kind of training philosophies Do I believe in to how do I want to treat my employees to how would I serve people in my community? So what do you believe in your personal life? Then ask yourself, What are your passions? What do you actually want to do? Do you actually want to serve people when they take vacations and help with their pets? Well, that's going to shape and mold how you start to your business. If you're more interested, and you have a passion for helping pet parents who have long days at the office, well, that changes your score services offering. And then what are your strengths? Ask yourself, What are my strengths, and this is where we get really uncomfortable, isn't it because we have to ID we have to identify what we can do, and what we need to improve on. We are not amazing at everything. I don't know if you've noticed this, but we can't be perfect that everything that we are required to do. It's okay to admit that it's okay to go, you know what, I'm actually not really good at the organization or the administration stuff. I'm really good at the interpersonal relationships, I'm really good. At the pet actual pet care, I'm really good at building a team, whatever that is for you. Write it down and embrace that side of you. So you know, when you need to improve, or you need to know who needs to do that. That's not yourself. And then as we assemble these things, our core values, our passion, our strengths, we start to see where we need to be heading in our life and in our business. Just as Lego uses color to help us know which piece goes where your mission statements helps you know what actions align with your goals, and with your values. It's the actions that we're trying to understand here, you have things that need to get done. There's stuff that has to happen in your business, there's a lot of stuff. So how do we know what stuff needs to get done? What stuff needs our attention, having that mission statement, it ensures that even when life feels overwhelming, you have a clear sense of purpose guiding you, it's the purpose. It's the purpose behind what we do that allows us to make those hard decisions, even when we don't really want to develop your mission statement by reflecting on what truly matters to you. To find that purpose. Ask yourself, what is the why Why am I here, and then use this as your compass. Because with this in place, you will always know which way is up in the life that you are building and the business that you want to run, you will have something to point to and say that that is the direction that we are going to go. And that helps cut out a lot of other actions and a lot of other decisions that you may have on your plate. Decision. Fatigue is very real in life. And in business, we have to make a million decisions every single day, the more we can cut out and take completely off the table. The more it allows us to simplify our life and have more brain bandwidth over at the end of the day, to focus on other things. If one of your core values is to be a fear free pet sitter, okay, that cuts out a lot of possible decisions for what training equipment you may use, or what clients may ask you to use over the course of the care for their pet. You don't even have to think about that. Why do not why don't we have to consider that. It's not a core value. It's not in our mission statement. We don't even think about that. It's very relieving to know No, I don't worry about that, because it's not in alignment with who I am. Now, that's not to say that we can't change or that we shouldn't change over time. So it's not that we just completely write something off, we may revisit it on an annual basis, which we highly recommend every year check in and see, is this still a core value? Is this still a passion of mine? Have my strengths change to the extent where I can actually do other things, or I should be doing other things that allows you to grow and change and make sure that you are always living on mission. Because we need this in our business too. Having that mission statement for your business is critical. Helps with all sorts of decisions. Maybe you don't know if you should take on a certain client have guidelines, right? Have these guidelines have this statement as far as who is a good fit for you? So when is just as an example, if when you say you're doing a temperament test, what the heck are you testing for? What is the desired outcome? Who is a good client for your business? What makes a good behavior? What are things that you are looking for in a pet to know that they are a good fit for you or not? Maybe you don't know if you should expand your service area or not? Does it fit with your statement? Does it fit with your mission? Does it allow you to fill that missions to its fullest? Or do we kind of get a little wishy washy and we're gonna sacrifice on a few things. Too often we get hung up on decisions and we agonize over them. Sometimes Sometimes it's because we don't understand the decision enough. We don't have enough information. But what we found is way more common is that we know the right decision. We just need to be reminded of it. Sometimes this comes in the form of having a community around you other business owners other pet sitters. Sometimes it comes in the form of a mission state When I know, I know, I shouldn't take on that client, because their pet acts XYZ, and the client does this. And they're asking me to do these things I know I shouldn't take them on. But I really, I really feel like I need to. It doesn't align with our mission statement, the decision has already been made for us. This allows us to look at that option. Nope, that's not even on the table. I don't need to even think about that, because it doesn't line up with what I value. And it reminds us of what our values are. And the topsy turvy world that we live in things move a mile a minute, and we can become confused, we get tired, we get frustrated, our emotions tend to take over. And sometimes we can lose ourselves in those moments, we say yes to things and we wake up the next morning and go, Why did I say yes to doing that. But that doesn't make sense. By having something lined out for you, in your business, it helps you in those moments so that when you're overwhelmed, whether you're tired, whether you're exhausted, you're frustrated, whether you're hungry, you know, whatever, you've got three other decisions you're trying to make simultaneously. You can be consistent in that. So that you start as operating as a consistent business with consistent decisions for you. Something that is a super easy decision to make is caring Pet Sitter business insurance. As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members, pet sitters Associates is here to help. for over 20 years, pet sitters Associates has provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. If you work in the pet care industry or wants to take your passion for pets into a profession. You can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom and running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote today at Pet sit llc.com. You can get a discount when joining by clicking membership, that pet sitter confessional and use the discount code confessional at checkout to get $10 off today. Check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at petsfit llc.com. I do want to give an example of a possible mission statement. Again, the variations on this are just so extreme and you really do need to take some time. Don't just do it in an evening really take multiple days a week or two to think about this. Ask other people and if you do have problems or do have concerns about how it's forming or shaping. Ask your staff. Ask your clients, ask friends and family ask other business owners for how they would describe you what they see from the outside to make sure that it's either in alignment or not. But here's a possible example. This mission is to provide exceptional and compassionate care for pets and showing their well being and happiness while their owners are away. We strive to create a safe, nurturing and fun environment that caters to each pets unique needs, offering personalized attention and loving companionship. And our mission is to give pet owners peace of mind knowing their beloved pets are entrusted and caring hands. Now that's all boilerplate stuff, right? It kind of sounds a little bit boring and just something that's thrown up there and then quickly forgotten. But again, as an example here, we strive to create a safe, nurturing and fun environment that caters to each pets unique needs. What might impact safe, nurturing and fun? Well, if this business were a boarding or daycare facility, they have a pet that is way anxious or way aggressive way reactive towards the other dogs or other pets, they're in the home. That's not a fun environment. That's not a safe environment. We have to say no to that. If you're doing in home care, sorry about safe and nurturing here, okay, well, if my training, I need extra training, so they know how to operate in a safe way. I need to be better educated to know how to nurture some of the more animal husbandry kind of tasks and chores if I'm sending my staff members in there. Am I actually having an engaging and fun environment with with each individual pet? or is somebody just sitting on a couch and going about their day on their phone? Actions flow from these statements. As the business owner, it is your job to connect everything in your mission statement to something in your business. That is the foundation and purpose that in power is everything else. So that you can point back to something you have reason there is motivation that people can connect to both staff members if you have employees that can connect to that. And also your clients. They can see the connections and see the threads that you're weaving together. What promises are you making How are you acting to the services that you are offering actually align with what you say that you want to offer and how you want to help people or is it just kind of some mumble jumbled and garbled mess? People see this. So now Not only do mission statements help us build things because we, at the end of the day, we are building something, we we will have built something in 20 years. Have we built it with intentionality, or by complete accident. That's what we get to decide that's our agency, we can let it happen and look back and say, Oh, well, that kind of worked out, I guess, or Ooh, that didn't work out. That's not what I wanted at all. Or we can take more control over this have agency over that direction, and build something that we're going to be proud of, and 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, pass it on to somebody sell the business to somebody else, not only does a mission statement help us with that trajectory, it also helps us connect with our clients, and our staff as we build our team of employees. Because they can see that there's reason here, they see a why they see something bigger and greater than just themselves or just you saying something's important. When you are consistent in these, again, we talked about that if I can write something down so that I can have a consistency in decision and inaction. The consistency breeds trust between the people that you interact with, it helps people see that you are who you say you are, that it's not just a facade. That's not just empty, boilerplate words, that when you talk about having a compassion for pets, or where you talk about having exceptional service, or getting peace of mind that those aren't just things that you're saying, You've imbued them with purpose, because they're tied to the actions and your services, and your SOPs, and everything else in your business. Your mission statement helps make sure that everything is in alignment. But it only does that if we actually stick to it. That's where the rubber meets the road on this, we are ultimately responsible for making sure that our mission statement has meaning, the moment that we start to stray from it, and get beyond something that is the moment that that mission can be completed, it becomes completely meaningless. You can have a mission statement that talks about peace of mind and exceptional compassionate care and fun, safe environments. All that you want, you can do that you can throw that out there, put it on social media use of the marketing tool. But if your actions don't actually connect to that they don't actually fit what you're saying that you offer. People see that as well. And they know that you're just saying this, it's just a pure fraud. At that point you were what you were doing is you are lying to people, and you're lying to yourself. This is why having that annual check in is so critical, so that we can stay in alignment at least once a year, maybe once a quarter, depending on how quickly your business is growing and evolving and what you were trying to do and change as your personal life and direction change. So to suit your business life and direction change. So make sure that you are fully in alignment across all of those. A mission statement is not a magic solution. It's not a silver bullet to any one particular problem. But what it is, is it's a standard that we throw out there that we draw that line in the sand for our personal life and for our business for what we want to live up to for the promises that we want to make to other people and to ourself at the end of the day. Our mission statement helps with consistency in decision making in your life. And in running your business. It helps cut away all of the cruft and allows us to see with clarity, what we need to do. And it does help us be more clear when we are communicating with other people. And when we are talking with our staff and with employees and people in the business community, about who we are and how we define ourselves and what we stand for. So if you haven't developed a mission statement for your business or for your personal life yet, we need to encourage you and challenge you to do that, this week, maybe this quarter, to put that together to allow yourself to test that out. Ask other people's involvement, write it out, share it with other people, get some feedback on it, really take the time to dig into that. And if you do have a mission statement, or maybe once you've created your mission statement, we'd love to see you share it out on social media so that your clients and potential clients can see that as well. Tag us in those posts when you do because we'd love to see what you all stand for and what you're working towards. If you have any other feedback, you can send that to pet sitter confessional@gmail.com. We're also everywhere on social media as pet sitter confessional, we want to thank today's sponsors, pet sitters associates and our wonderful Patreon members for making today's show possible. And we really want to thank you for taking your most valuable asset your time, your time out of your day for listening to us by
