The second Monday in October is designated as National Kick Butt Day—and it’s not just for fitness! National Kick Butt Day is a day to take stock of your life, your goals, and take action. But what does that mean, for beauty, fitness, and wellness professionals? Here are five ways for you to take inventory (literally and figuratively) of your business work flow, consider your short-term and long-term goals, and create an actionable plan to “kick butt” going into the busy holiday season. That way, when 2020 rolls around, you’ll be ready to start the new year off right!
1. Find Your Motivation
Before you can create an action plan for the changes you want to make, you must first figure out what’s working for you—and what could use a re-vamp. Discovering what motivates you and then focusing on it is a process that looks different to different people. It could be as simple as using phone notes to help you keep your eye on the prize or using your Vagaro software to designate regular times to focus on “big-picture” parts of your long-term plan. Remember, there’s no wrong way for you to find out what motivates you to dream bigger!
2. Write Down Your Goals
Notes in your smartphone, strategically-placed Post-Its,
Vagaro digital notes, designated times on your calendar, or even on the back of
a napkin—however you do it, write down your goals and dreams! Recent
studies show that people who regularly write down their goals and dreams are
42% more likely to achieve them. That’s no small measure of success! The
science behind this phenomenon is deceptively simple. When a person thinks
about their goals and dreams, they’re only engaging the right hemisphere of the
brain, which is the imaginative center. The act of transcribing a dream or goal
engages the left hemisphere of the brain, which controls human logical
functions. Essentially, the act of writing down your goals sends a message
through both sides of your brain that says, “This goal is important to me, and
I want to create a logical plan to achieve it.”
3. Don’t Wait for “The Right Time”
If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.”
Lemony Snicket, The Ersatz Elevator
Procrastination is loosely defined as the gap between intention and action. Did you know that globally, between 20-25% of the population procrastinate in areas of their lives as varied as academics, social relationships, professional decisions, and finance management? The reasons for procrastination vary, often rooted in anxiety, perfectionism, option paralysis (too many choices,) or fear of failure—and, strangely enough, fear of success! The long and short of procrastinating is this: it prevents you from kicking butt. After you’ve written down your goals, create an action plan—and follow through on it! —to turn “someday” into “today.”
4. Practice Mindfulness—and Gratitude
Essentially, humans mostly operate on auto-pilot settings, with 95% of our daily routines governed by the sub-conscious mind. However, consciously thinking about new habits and goals harnesses your brain-power to create new neural pathways. In short, that means once you’ve created a new habit or daily practice, you won’t need as much motivation to stay consistent. Likewise, incorporating gratitude into your plans can have an impact on their success. A study recently published by UC Riverside indicates that gratitude is an active, energizing force motivating people to pursue their goals. In fact, this study also showed that gratitude drives people to improve not only their own lives, but also to “pay it forward,” and help others.
5. Stay Consistent in Your Plan
Certainly, you’ve heard the saying that it only takes three weeks to develop a new habit. The science of it is a little more involved: for most people, it actually requires closer to 66 days of consistent behavior to create a new habit. But the good news is this: if you start today, you’ll be one day closer to your new practices becoming a familiar part of your daily routine, and you’ll be one day further on your journey to reach your goals!
Sample Scenario: Create a New Daily Habit with Vagaro
Now, let’s take these ideas and create a sample action plan to get both hemispheres of your brain firing and ready to kick more butt! In this sample scenario, our goal is to attract more new clients to our business. Here’s how use the steps above to break out of your rut and kick more butt!
Step One – What’s Motivating You?
I’m motivated by my
ability to deliver professional services to my clients and I want to increase
my earnings by expanding my client base to serve more people.
Step Two – Write It Down
My goal is to learn
more about how to be more effective in using my Vagaro marketing tools, and to
use these tools to bring in at least two new clients every week.
Step Three: Put It into Action
- Run a
Vagaro New vs. Returning Customer Report to give you an accurate baseline
of what your goal should look like. For example, if you’re already averaging 3
new customers per week, your new goal will be to bring in 5 new customers weekly.
- Draft a
marketing email with a referral code that gives a 20% discount to any
established client who refers a new client to you over the next 30 days.
- Create
a Daily Deal that’s exclusively for new customers.
- Get Featured on
the Vagaro Marketplace for two months and use analytics to monitor your
success with Get Featured. If you’ve created a new customer-exclusive Daily
Deal, this is where you’d want to showcase it!
Step Four: Practice Mindfulness and Gratitude
Every day, set aside at least five minutes to pull a New vs.
Returning Customers report, review Daily Deal analytics, email performance, or
your Get Featured listing. While you’re reviewing the data and numbers that
quantify your work towards your goals, take a moment to appreciate the work you’re
doing. For example, if your Daily Deal has brought in only one new client, that’s
still one more than your baseline, and proof positive that your efforts are
paying off.
Step Five: Stay Consistent
This one’s the easiest for you to accomplish, because Vagaro’s
automated reporting and marketing tools make it easy for you to stay consistent
in your efforts without creating a drain on your time. With Vagaro to help you,
it’s easy to kick butt—everyday!
How do you use Vagaro to set your goals and then smash them? Tag us on social media using the hashtag #nationalkickbuttday and tell us about your goals for the future, and how we can help you reach them.
Header Image: @TonyTheTigersSon via Twenty20
