#303: 9 Must-Do Action Items to Fast-Track Growth

9 Must-Do Action Items to Fast-Track Growth

You want to grow — personally and in your practice. You’re working your buns off, but it feels like you’ve hit a block. You’re not sure how much harder you can work and ask yourself, “Shouldn’t it be easier?”

Yes, it should be easier, and it can be easier. In today’s episode you’ll find out what you need to do to put your growth on the fast-track.

Hello, my friend. How are you today?

It’s been a while since I’ve given you a catch up on what’s going on with me, so let me give you a little snapshot of what I’ve been up to.

My move to Sedona is still happening. I’ve been getting things squared away here in Northern California that need to happen before the move. I’m really excited about it and at the same time know it’s going to be quite the culture shock. I’m used to living in big cities — have my whole life — cities like San Diego, Los Angeles, even Cairo, Egypt for a year in college. And I never saw myself moving to a city that has a population of 10,000. It’s kind of mind-blowing when I step back and think about it like that. But I also know I’m going to love it.

I’ve been putting the finishing touches on Precision Planning for Law Firm Growth with is my new program. I have some really fun additions I’m making to it that are going to make it irresistible. I’ll be telling you more about it as we get closer.

And just the other day I sent out a few emails to my VIP email list to offer spots in another program I’m running for a limited time, and I brought together more lawyers to work on their law practices with me in that container.

It’s a bonus for all my one-on-one clients who get everything I do included in their coaching package with me, but I thought I’d invite heart-centered lawyers who were highly motivated to work on improving the long-term sustainability of their law practice into this program for 6 months.

If you’re not on my VIP email list, you wouldn’t have heard about this offer because it was something I only offered my VIPer. So if you want to make sure you don’t miss out on new opportunities I offer, I highly suggest getting on my email list.

When you go to the show notes – I’ve included a few different resources for you that you can sign up for with your email. Next time I put together something new, you’ll be the first to know about it.

You can download any of these resources at the show notes at dinacataldo.com/303

Alright, let’s talk about the 9 must-do action items that will fast track your growth.

While I’ve put these in numerical order, their order isn’t important. What IS important is that you pay attention to what can be strengthened. I will tell you that #1-#4 and #9 were foundational for me building the emotional courage to do the other action items.

1. Prioritizing mental well-being –

This was item number one on my agenda when I realized I was burned out. It can look a lot of different ways but it must become a non-negotiable. Yoga, running, eating healthy, meditation, playing the guitar, going for walks, coaching. I have a client who I shared that I did somatic breathing exercises with, and she tried that and she loved it. It’s now a non-negotiable to help her regulate her nervous system. Find something you love, and make space for it in your life.

2. Making space to think –

We can’t create a vision for what we want until we create space to simply think. Until we decide what we want, we run around chasing what we think other people want from us. And I know right now you may feel overwhelmed with client demands. But if you don’t make time to think, to create a vision and strategize what must be done to align yourself with your vision of what you want and who you want to be in the world, you will always feel overwhelmed. That’s one of the reasons my clients see results fast is because they devote 50 minutes a week to themselves and their practice. We use that time to help them clear their minds and tap into what they rarely give themselves an opportunity to tap into: their inner knowing. Their ability to problem-solve any situation. But until you make that time for yourself, you can’t make change.

3. Be kinder to yourself —

Doesn’t require perfection. When I have days I’m “off” so-to-speak, I don’t beat myself up for not getting more done. I acknowledge that I’m having a tough day, and that’s okay. What needs to get done will get done. When I don’t do everything I placed on my calendar, I’m not hard on myself. I recognize that either I wasn’t as focused or there was something that needed to take priority that day over what was on my calendar, then I reassign the task. I try not to have to reassign frequently, but it does happen, and that’s okay. Having or doing my calendar perfectly doesn’t mean anything about me. It doesn’t mean I’m a better human being. Just like not having the perfect calendar or not doing it perfectly doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. Be kinder and more understanding and compassionate to to yourself will make taking all the actions in the episode easier.

4. Create a Vision –

Precision Planning is about giving yourself the space to create that vision. Foundation for everything moving forward. Focuses our mind. Focuses our actions. Prevents so much wasted time. We tend to think that we need to get everything done in our case load before we make a vision, but what we actually need to do is sit down and create a vision to help us calm our practice and accomplish more of what’s most important.

5. Paying attention to your finances —

Inside Precision Planning I’m including a module on this as well as money mindset because it’s important that we look at what’s happening in our businesses. I was talking to a client who went through this training, and she didn’t realize how she could measure and use profit in her business or how much of a salary she should be giving herself. Once we get awareness around our finances — even when they can feel scary to look at — it helps us feel more in control of our futures. It helps us see what other actions we need to take to be in alignment with our vision of the life and practice we want to have.

6. Create systems and begin tweaking them —

I did a whole episode on this, and I’ll link to it in the show notes. I’m also including time management under this one because using a calendar is a system.

Think of systems as a living breathing consciousness. You can create it once, but it will need to be honed, trained, refined. That takes patience and attention. We tend not to have patience with ourselves or give ourselves much attention, so this can be challenging until we’ve done the prior action items. One of my clients started creating systems, and the more she looked at them over time, the more they evolved. The more she realized that not only was it making her life easier to have them, but she was seeing ways she could improve her clients’ experience working with her. And whenever you improve your client’s experience of working with you, you increase the value of your services. Systems give you an insight into your practice that you simply can’t have until you begin creating them and putting them into practice. If you’re curious, what my client noticed in her estate planning practice is that when a decedent’s family came in, they had the same questions. She realized that she could bring these questions up in her initial service of her client, so their families didn’t have these problems come up after the client passed on. Not only did it bring certain issues to the client’s attention but it it made the lives of their families so much easier when they’re already dealing with the grief of losing their loved one.

7. Expanding your contacts and reaching out to them for help —

This is something I’m committed to doing more of right now, and it’s something I haven’t always been great at doing. I did an episode called Adventures in Networking I’ll link to in the show notes where I talk about this more in depth. What I’m doing now is reevaluating my vision and seeing how I can grow my contacts, reach out to more of them, and consequently help more people. For example, if you want to begin doing more speaking engagements, consider reaching out to contacts to ask them if they know people in specific areas who have events or if they know those event planners. You can start with your closest contacts — the ones you see regularly at events or ones that you’re close friends with and expand that list as you go. Expanding our reach expands our impact. It’s not always super comfortable, but growth almost never is.

That brings me to…

8. Allowing discomfort instead of fighting it —

When we do new things or get outside our comfort zone, we will feel uncomfortable. We’ll know we’re uncomfortable if we observe what we’re NOT doing in our business that we know would expand our impact and/or increase profitability. This is where having a calendar system is so helpful. When we observe ourselves NOT putting something on the calendar like having a money meeting with ourselves or putting things on our calendar repeatedly and NOT doing those things, that shows us where our edge is. In yoga, the edge is that place you take yourself in your practice where you feel shaky and unsure of yourself. The practice in yoga is to keep taking yourself to your edge over and over even if it’s baby steps, or when you’re falling over or feel resistance come up. That’s where growth comes. That’s when we can expand what we can do in our practice. Same goes for feeling uncomfortable in our business. We need to get closer and closer to our edge. For example, if your edge is telling people your rates or telling people your rates without discounting in a consult you’ll feel uncomfortable. You may not even want to say them out loud and it makes it awkward in later conversations with clients when it comes to asking them to pay. You may discount without the potential client even asking for a discount. So your edge would be sitting in a consult, planning ahead of time to say your price out loud, saying it out loud, then sitting with the discomfort of being quiet while your potential client thinks. And breathing.

9. Put yourself around people who elevate you —

Not everyone understands when we’re trying to grow and evolve ourselves and our businesses. It takes a special kind of person to want to see our flaws and work on those flaws to better ourselves, so I commend you for being one of those people. You wouldn’t be listening to this podcast if you weren’t one of those people. Being around people who don’t understand us can be disheartening because they say things that may not be supportive or don’t know how to support us. And if we’re not able to communicate what we need, this can be a problem. One of the things that’s helped me in my growth is surrounding myself with people who elevate me. Who support me. Who understand the way I think about my business. I think about my business as a tool for my evolution. I look at it as a tool to expand my current capacity and to serve more people. I think it’s magical. And I’m always trying to challenge myself and my vision to expand. This requires that I surround myself with people and coaches who get me. I encourage you to look around and connect with people you see are on the same or a similar path as you’re on and who can challenge you to expand.

I want to support you and challenge you to help you fast-track your growth. If this episode really spoke to you, and you want personalized help to achieve your goals, I encourage you to book a Strategy Session with me. We’ll talk and if we both believe we’re a good fit to work together, I’ll tell you more about how we can do that. You can book a Strategy Session with me at dinacataldo.com/strategysession