So, did you manage to watch Piers Morgan interview Simon Cowell over the weekend? I must admit I’m a sucker for this type of entertainment and love reading and watching how people became successful.

One of the things that caught my attention was one of the questions Piers asked Simon. “Would he would ever give up and when? How would he know?” etc.

Simon answered and it really hit home with me. When he was at school (which he hated) every Sunday night he would get a sickly feeling in his tummy as he would simply dread getting up the next day. He hated Sundays because of this too.

So my point is, (and luckily I haven’t reached this yet!) do you dread Sunday’s? or do you look forward to them? Do you get a sickly tummy at the thought of going to work? Or excited?

I really liked his statement – Simon clearly doesn’t need to work. He continues with it as its fun and he enjoys it. As he said, he’ll stop when he gets that Sunday feeling again.

I know I often talk about we only have one life and should live it free from regret and sometimes it takes something upsetting to make us realize this.

Life is for living, about fun, family and enjoyment. Work is such a big part of that. What I do isn’t for everyone, I know that. I respect that. For me I love it. I’m sitting at home as we speak, looking out of my window. I can see my garden and my cat wondering around the bushes. In a couple of hours it will be time to pick up my daughter. She has swimming tonight after school so will be a mad rush to get there for 4pm but whilst she’s having her lesson I can swim some laps and then go in the steam room (bliss!).

I chose my lifestyle. I chose to work from home. I chose to be able to pick her up from school every day and have play dates, activities etc.

Is it easy? No. I’m not going to lie. I work hard. Please don’t believe the hype about making $60,000 each and every month. It doesn’t work like that. Very few people earn that kind of money and those that do, rarely have time to spend with their teams as they are too busy playing golf etc.!

But, I love what I do. I am passionate about it. Yes I work hard, but at the same time I feel very privileged to be able to pick my daughter up from school, work from home and have a good lifestyle.

I believe it takes a certain type of person to succeed in this business. As not everyone will. There – I said it. Why don’t more people say this who are trying to sell you a money making opportunity? I’m telling you now, my lovely fellow subscriber. The only way you will make it in this business is by having the right mindset, hard worker, driven, disciplined with you time and of course having the right mentor who can help you.

I’ve been undecided about what to write today. As most of you know I always write about what’s been going on in my life. I’m a great believer in people buy from those they like and trust and try to build relationships with my lovely subscribers.

I also always say never write about negative or sad things.

But today I’m breaking my rules! Sadly my wonderful aunt died last Friday. Sunday we had the funeral and last night we had a beautiful memorial service for her.

My aunt bless her was a good age; she was 89 and had a wonderful life. We were very close; she was like a grandmother to me as mine died when I was very young.

Often when we are faced with death or sad things it makes us reflect on our lives. We are only given one life and it’s so important to live it free from regret.

My aunt’s carer came up to me yesterday and told me how proud my aunt was of me, all my achievements both in business and personal. I do feel proud of what I have achieved and often forget how far I’ve come. When I went to Downing Street for Best Mumpreneur of the Year my aunt and all my family were so proud of me.

Remember your dreams, your aspirations. Dreams CAN come true. Sometimes they just need a bit of work:)

What are your dreams? What do you hope to aspire to?

I feel very privileged to be able to be in a position where I can choose the hours I work, how much time I want to work, be able to pick up Emily every day from school and of course earn a good income.

But it wasn’t always like that. I chose to have my working life like that. I’ve chosen a path where I can spend more time at home and be with my family. Yes, it can still be stressful, but I have “procedures” in place to help reduce the stress. We all get stressed, its natural, it’s how we deal and cope with it.

Today I’m back at work so please do give me a call on 07590 554292 if you would like to have a chat about how I can help you with your business or if you have questions about Yournetbiz.

Stress seems to be a permanent part of our lives. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure that it has to be, but I’m also not entirely sure how to avoid it. But in an effort to work more effectively I’ve discovered that getting things done and feeling good about my work day has helped reduced that nagging feeling that hits at 4:00 when you suddenly think, “Where has the day gone?!”

How many times do we look at the clock and wonder where the day has gone? Or how many times do we do that and think, “What have I done today?” Often the feeling of stress is synonymous with being overwhelmed. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed with work, let alone life and all that goes with it. But one thing at a time – let’s look at ways to take out some of the weight at work and maybe, just maybe, we’ll feel better, work better and look back and say “Wow, look at everything I got done today!

One of the most important keys to your outcome is your outlook. Your attitude will affect so many areas of your working day that it’s very important for you to check whether you are being optimistic and positive in various aspects. Choose to “look on the bright side” in the genuine sense, not the tragically ironic sense. But having a good outlook will affect how you see things, how you interpret situations, how your clients perceive you and how well you perform your job. And as you can imagine, constantly having a negative attitude will raise your stress levels – if nothing is ever right, how can anything be pleasant?

Another key to getting through the day and feeling good about work is setting realistic goals. Setting goals helps you take things one step at a time. It causes you to pace yourself and plan out your time, and allows you to track your progress. Instead of having loads of things to do and this ambiguous cloud of confusion looming over you head, you have a defined set of tasks which progress you toward your end goal for the day. At the end of the day (and even throughout the day!) seeing a list all ticked gives a great sense of accomplishment and also shows you exactly what you did get done that day. And if there are items that you didn’t finish, they are still clearly defined for you so that you’re not constantly bombarded or surprised by new items.

One final and very important aspect of being productive but not overwhelmed is to not lose momentum or enthusiasm. The two keys listed above – attitude and goals – will help keep you going strong throughout the day.

Go Out and Do It!

I’ve stumbled upon something that we’re all guilty of, especially myself, and thought I would bring up a few ways to encourage us all to go out and take action!

Good Ideas
Good ideas mean nothing if we don’t turn them into reality! I am absolutely brilliant at coming up with thousands of things to do, but not so brilliant at seeing all of them through to completion. So what I’ve learned to do is set out action plans for each of my new schemes. Doing that shows me

1. whether it’s feasible
2. what the timeframe would be
3. whether I can do it or I need to delegate.

Just by doing these few simple things I have been able to use my viable ideas while avoiding getting bogged down by wonderful ideas that simply aren’t practicable.

New Contacts
Everyone needs new contacts to extend their network and get more business. But how do you obtain them? Well I can tell you one thing: It’s not through wishful thinking! You need to get out there and network. In fact, look at everything you do as a networking opportunity. Sitting next to other parents at your child’s football match? The gym (another new years resolution I bet!) Ever see other people in your office building? Neighbours? Nearly every situation in life can be viewed as an opportunity to network and make new contacts, so take advantage of them all!

Online Profile
It’s very easy to get busy with tasks and think “oh, I ought to…” And often one of those “ought to do” things is building up your online profile. We all know that today’s business world is online, and you need to be too. But it’s not enough for you to be online, you need to have a presence so that you stand out. But how much effort do you actually put into building that presence up? Since it is so vital to today’s market, you do need to invest some time into social networking and concentrating on getting your SEO up, and take it off the “ought to” list!

Meeting People
It’s all well and good if you go to networking events or use online networking, but what good is it if you don’t talk to them? So get out there, initiate conversation. You’ll be amazed at how kindly people respond to a nice person. If you’re not good at meeting new people, you might want to consider a course on it, or chatting with someone you know who is good at meeting new people. Alternatively, come up with some conversation starters that are normal and natural to you. Figure out ways of saying “hi” and neutral topics to bring up. Then you can chat about business, introduce yourself, and so on. But you need to actually start talking to people if you want to meet any!

Increasing Business
Who doesn’t want more business? Anyone? Nobody I know, that’s for sure. But this is another thing that is very easy to think about as a far off and lofty idea, but is equally easy to turn into reality. Look at your business – do you have a marketing plan? How effective is it? Do you have a mentor or coach to help propel you forward? What are you actively doing to increase your business? Don’t be daunted by it being a big concept – increasing the amount of business you do is a very real possibility, so start working on what you’re going to do about it!

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by any one of these areas when it comes to actually putting it into action. I often find that if I break it down and set realistic goals in each area that I am able to plan out my time and efforts, and actually see results.