Hello and Happy New Year! From all of us at The Hook here! We hope 2024 has kicked off positively for you? Maybe you come out with a BANG! of activity and productivity or maybe you’re taking it gently and easing yourself in with a healthy dose of recovery from the festive season? Either way… Starting a brand spanking new year can be a thing right?!

Well we started the year with our first Breakfast Club last week and for it I (Charlie) took some time to chat through some alternative ideas for growing my business that I don’t think we hear tooted quite so much. And just incase you didn’t get to make it along to Breakfast Club or you just wanted a reminder I thought I would reiterate some of what I talked about here. So let’s dive in…

1. Care Less

For so many of us our businesses represent so much more than “a job” or an income stream. If you’re anything like me, caring so deeply about you very own handspun biz, you can attach a lot of identity and self worth to the success and failure of it. Now that can great, being heavily and emotionally invested in your business can be a great motivator in growing and nurturing your business-baby! However, there’s a reason surgeon’s aren’t allowed to operate on their offspring… Clouded by love and fear of failure people don’t always make the best decisions and perform as brilliantly when it comes to the fate of the things we care for SO intensely.

So this year reminding yourself that, whilst this business might carry a huge part of your personality and talents, it isn’t fully representative of the wonderful person you are and the art and expansive list of your potentials and gifts. It’s just one part. Also… Your sense of worth is NOT tied to the success or failure your business. It might feel like BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE. You are just as brilliant, smart, worthy, unique and FULL of potential regardless of how much revenue your business has made this quarter.

Short version… You and your business are not one and the same.

2. Date Your Artistic Self

Yep, I’m going all artsy on you. But no, being artsy and crafty isn’t some kind elite activity for just the people who allow themselves to be called “creatives”. Guess what?! WE’RE ALL CREATIVE! Just as we were when we were 5 years old, when EVERYONE was encouraged to draw and role-play and have “non-productive” (although I’d argue all creative time is always productive) time trying something new out or making something with our hands. Why you ask?! Because being in business requires all of us to be creative, think creatively and problem solve creatively on a daily basis. Every time you decide if your logo looks good in that corner of the document, every time you write an Instagram caption or every time you think about the marketing avenues of a new product… YOU ARE BEING CREATIVE! So get yourself booked on to a pottery class or a community choir rehearsal or a photo walk (hint hint… see link below) and exercise those creative muscles!

3. Build Your Community

Erm… Do we need to say it anymore? Perhaps we need to sing it with a tambourine accompaniment wearing a giant top hat for those who still haven’t heard us bang on about… COMMUNITY OVER COMPETITION!!!! I can not put enough emphasis on how building a community of like minded biz pals around you will improve your business, your wellbeing in work and feed your actual soul! So dooooo it! Find your people. Message that persons work you’ve been admiring on Instagram and say “I LOVE what you do and I would just love a coffee or a Zoom chit chat one day!” Bring your people together. Come to networking events (hint hint… see Breakfast Club link below) and be bold and ask someone you click with for lunch or a drink.

Rarely our nearest and dearest in our personal and family lives are the people that actually “get it” in our self employed lives and that’s totally normal and totally fine. So find the people that do, be vulnerable around them and share your stories and your problems AND your connections. Be generous too! And I promise these gifts this will bring will be endless.

4. Go with the Fuzzy Feelings

There’s a whole world out there since being a kid that has told you to follow the pack, stay with the herd and take queues from those that have trod the path before you. Be humble, learn and follow the pattern. I mean is it the worst advice? No, that’ll get some places that you want to go for sure. BUT! The harm in this can be that as adults we find ourselves lacking a little in self-trust, instinctial decision making and imagination.

Ever listened to Diary of a CEO podcast? Every episode interviews someone who is a great figure of success and innovation within their field, they are asked always first up about their origin story and guess what?! I am yet to hear an episode where someone says “so I did what everyone else was doing and GOT RICH!” Nope. They all tell a story of deviating from the beaten track and following a nudge or a hint that this other thing that they didn’t even have a model for might be worth exploring. They either didn’t know what the end product would be or they imagined an alternative to what was already out there in the world. So this year, go with our gut, close your eyes and listen to the little voice that suggests “what about…” and “imagine if…”. Try something new or a new way to frame it or think about it! You just never know…

So what do you think? Will you take on the challenge of any of those to shake up 2024 in anyway? I’d LOVE to hear about if you are!

If you’d like to hear more from me on how I can help you and your business for 2024 why not check out my Business Goal Setting workshop in March? Or catch up with all of us at the next Breakfast Club? OR! Jump straight with your first “Creative Date” with yourself at my Photo Walk… We can’t wait to see how you and your business do this year!

Charlie, Lucie & Barbara xxx