Jen (00:01.45)
Welcome to the Mum Safe Movement Podcast. I'm your host, Jen Dugard, and after a couple of weeks off, I'm here to share with you my last podcast recording for 2023. I'd like you to come on a journey of reflection with me. Now I'm doing this at a timely time.
Because after I've recorded this podcast, I'm about to go into a reflection session with both our MumSafe membership and also MumSafe or one of our MumSafe mastermind teams.
I always think it's a really, really good idea to do a reflection session before you do a goal setting and planning session. And I also like to do them with a gap in between. And the reason for this is because I don't know that until you have a proper break, that you can actually set your path for the year ahead.
And what I mean by that is it's very easy to sit down and do our reflections and our goal setting at the same time. It's efficient. You think about what's being, you think about what you want to do next. But if you don't have this hiatus or this brain break or the creativity break in between, it's almost like you never get off that hamster wheel and give yourself the space to let new
ideas, new thoughts, new reflections drop in. So what I like to do is gather up all the reflections right now, write them down, and I'm going to go through my reflection sheet with you. Then allow space. So what you're not supposed to do or what I'm not supposed to do or anyone that chooses to do it this way is set any solid, real solid goals or decisions
Jen (02:00.554)
before you've had a break. Now that break can mean anything, can be different for different people. For myself, this year I feel like I need a big break. I need a big break in daily work. I actually intended to keep my podcast going over Christmas because I know a lot of people like to listen to podcasts over Christmas, but after a big November, a big October, a big November, I know that I need to take a break, pause.
do my reflections or do my reflections, then take a break, pause, and then come back in January or let all these ideas kind of marinate, maybe that's the word, and then come back in January or even early Feb, because who wants to work January, and then really get some solid things down on paper. That doesn't mean some solid things won't go throughout, get on paper throughout December, but I like to make a lot of notes, then sit with how it's.
feels to consider the things that I think I want to do in order to move me forward towards my mission, but then make the solid decisions come early next year. So I'm going to go through our reflection sheet. What I am also going to do is put a link in my show notes. So if you'd like to get this download, I've never given this out before. You're going to be able to do that. And I'll put another couple of resources in there because I think they're going to be helpful as well. Now this is going to be a relatively short podcast. I'm going to take you through the questions.
I may reflect on them a little bit myself, but then I'm also going to suggest that you pause. You pause wherever the podcast recording is at as we move forward so that you can do the worksheet as we go along. Alternatively, if you're listening in the car or going for a run or doing something like that, you might want to listen to the podcast now and then download the sheet and do it later. So do whatever you like really. Okay. So reflecting on 2023.
As you look forward, it's always a great idea to know where you've been, what you enjoyed, about what's got you to where you are today, and also what you might wanna leave behind. For some people, this might be a clean break, and for others, it's more of an evaluation of where you want to be moving forward. Now, I always start with making sure that we truly understand our two life values. So on your Reflections PDF, it's going to ask you.
Jen (04:25.098)
what your two life values are. It's really, really important that you write these down. If you still, or you've never heard of values before, I will put a link in the show notes to my heartfelt goal setting download. You can also download that. But I truly believe that until you know your two whole life values, you're going to struggle to build a business that is in alignment with your whole life. A lot of people can rattle off their business values, super easy.
But I want to know that you know what your two whole life values are. So get those down on the sheet Next up we want to know what our trigger feelings are So these are the feelings that are letting you know that you're out of alignment with your values now A lot of people can ignore these they think that they're normal which they are But they're not normal to be feeling all the time. So Write down any feelings that you experience that tell you
that what you are doing or creating is out of alignment with your values. So examples of this are things like resentment. If you're moving through your life and your business and your family, feeling resentful about things, then something is not right. A feeling of resentment here and there is not a problem, but if it's an ongoing feeling of resentment coming up over and over again, especially if it's about the same thing, then it's an issue and we need to do something about it.
The other one that comes up for me is anxiety. Also, resentment is actually a big one. Yelling at my kids, that was a really big one, especially when I was running face-to-face sessions. Like if I felt like my day had been so back-to-back and so, like there's so much crammed into it that I don't have the energy, the head space, anything else to give when I get home to my kids. And because they're often the easiest outlet, we yell at them.
they've done nothing, they probably had a hard day themselves. So we want to if we're constantly or consistently yelling at our kids, that could be a trigger feeling for you to go, okay, something in my business is not working, I need to change it in order to bring it in alignment with my values, and my values have to support my whole life, right? So write down some trigger feelings.
Jen (06:41.722)
Then think about now you've got your values and your trigger feelings right down the life areas that are currently out of alignment. So taking stock of what is not working. So remember your life values are business, love and romance, family and friends, health and fitness, spirituality, finance, personal development and leisure time. These are all on that worksheet. So if you've not downloaded it, make sure you grab that.
which of those areas are not in alignment. Often for a lot of people, love and romance can be left at the bottom of the pile. Now we think that, you know, we have a partner, we put all this effort into it in the early days, and then we just hope it survives, which often or sometimes it doesn't. You've got to put as much energy into your relationship as you do everything else. Maybe your health and fitness has suffered because now you're training people at the time that you used to train yourself and you've not managed to pick that up.
Maybe spirituality or religion for you and you've not managed to take time for yourself in your very busy or full world, or maybe you're ignoring your finances. So which of those life areas are out of alignment? Write them down, pause if you need to. Then have a think about what feelings indicate that you are in alignment. So examples of this could be moving through your day with feelings of calmness, connectedness, being present with the people around you and what you're doing.
Maybe it's a feeling of joy. So what are those feelings that help you go, huh, the whole world is okay. I am okay. The life I'm living is awesome. And we want more of those in your life. So write them down so that you can recognise the trigger feelings versus the alignment feelings. And we can move in 2024 towards more of those alignment feelings, which would be amazing. Next up.
I'd like you to write down your biggest achievements for 2023. And given I like to look at our whole world, you can write down achievements that are not just business related and then have a business column or business section and really, really connect with the things that you've achieved and take some time to go, look at where I am now compared to where I was last year or compared to where I was when I started my business.
Jen (08:57.806)
take a real good amount of time to recognize the achievements that you've made this year, because I think sometimes we don't stop, or we don't stop for long enough, or we don't recognize the milestones. So use this time as you're reflecting on 2023 to write down your biggest achievements for 2023. And I say biggest achievements, but they can be big or small, and get them documented on paper.
Okay, next up, we're going to start to think about the way you're operating your business. So I'd like you to write down your current products and services. So write down your current offerings, write down how you deliver them and what you charge for them and your capacity for each. So you may have heard me talk about this before inside of Mumsafe, we talk about opportunities to exercise, which means that we would know when our business is completely sold out. So for example, I could write down my current offerings are
Mums and bubs group training sessions. I deliver them face to face I charge $20 per session and I have the capacity for 10 people per session and I run two sessions per week So I have the capacity for 20 people per session Taking stock of where you are right now is really important because as we look forward next year We can start to go. Okay, where do I want to get to and how do I fill the gap? So really understanding what your current products and services are and getting them on paper
is super important. So write that down, pause if you need to break it up as much as you need to. I'm a huge advocate for line by line breaking things up so that you have a real clear picture of where you are right now.
Next, I want you to reflect on what you want to be known for. What is your mission in the world? So my mission in the world is safe and effective exercise for moms at every stage of motherhood. Now, for me, there comes a number of secondary missions underneath that. So the next part of the mission is ensuring all exercise professionals have a sound general knowledge in working with moms because we need that in order to get the first bit done.
Jen (11:03.882)
And then underneath that is making sure all exercise professionals that align with this first mission are running really fucking awesome businesses because I know that we need an army of trainers to get us to that first mission. I cannot possibly do this alone. And if you guys are not running great businesses, then we're not gonna ever get there because we need an army of trainers, passionate trainers, all driven towards the same mission that...
can sustain themselves and their families and they're having an awesome time in their business while they're doing it. So that is my mission. And every time I think to 2024, I go, okay, what have I done this year? What am I gonna do moving forward? And I keep checking and realigning my choices for mom safe and for safe return to exercise around my whole life values and my mission and taking stock of how am I getting done. So for example, this year,
I spent a lot of time traveling in October, November. Do I wanna do that again? I'm sitting on the fence still because sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But if I don't take stock of it and recognize it, then I can't reflect or make any changes moving forward. So what do you wanna be known for? What difference do you wanna make in the world? Write it down. And it doesn't have to be perfect, but let it be on the paper and adjust it if and when you need to.
The next one is write down your ideal client who is your ideal client or your ideal customer. So my ideal client is an exercise professional that works with moms that often happens to be a mom or that often is a mom. That is my ideal client for trainers that I work with inside mom safe. Of course we have people that are not moms working with us inside of mom safe. We have men.
But that is my ideal client when I'm talking about bringing trainers into the membership. Some of the work that I'm going to need to do this year is consider what other ideal, like what other avatars do I have as I'm thinking about what the next evolution or expansion of MumSafe is when I'm moving towards that mission of safe and effective exercise for women at every stage of motherhood. Because I know that it's not only trainers that will need to come with us on this mission in order to truly achieve that.
Jen (13:20.066)
that goal. Next up, I want you to write down your one line pitch. So this can be a tricky one. I might put another resource in the show notes actually. So there is another resource on understanding your perfect client and nailing your pitch. I think it's that I will pop it in the show notes, whatever it is. So I want to know that you can clearly articulate your pitch when somebody asks you, what do you do? Because if you can't articulate what you do quickly,
it's going to be very, very hard for people to want to work with you and engage with you moving forward. So I could say, uh, I'm Jen. I'm a fitness educator, and I run a company that trains exercise professionals in working with moms and connects them to moms themselves at mom safe.com.au. If I was a personal trainer running my groups still, I could say, simply say I'm Jen. I run a company called body beyond baby. I'm a personal trainer and I run group exercise.
sessions for moms with onsite childcare. So what is your one line pitch that makes people go, oh, I know exactly who you work with. I know exactly who I need to send to you, or if you even, if you're someone that I want to listen to.
Next up, I want you to start really reflecting on your offerings versus your values. So if you think back to some of the first questions or on the previous sheet, I asked you what your current offerings are. And I also asked you to write down your values as the number one thing. I'd like you to now think about how you currently feel about the products and services that you offer to achieve your mission.
and the alignment they have with your values. Is anything off track? So for example, if you know your mission, you know your values, and let's say your values, one of them is connection like mine, but you're consistently at the gym of an evening, unable to put your children to bed. Now for a while, I was the flip of that. I was at the gym early mornings and I was unable to get my kids ready for school.
Jen (15:33.066)
And for me that was okay because I was okay leaving them with someone else in the morning, knowing that I would be able to pick them up from school. I was okay with that until I wasn't. So then when I became not okay with that and started to think, oh, not taking my children to school every morning means I'm missing a big portion of their life and I don't wanna look back and have missed that portion forever. I needed to then draw on my other value of courage.
to change what I was doing in the mornings in order to get back into alignment with my values. And it's okay if things ebb and flow. Another example for me was delivering safe return to exercise, it used to take me away from my family at least one weekend per month. It was fine for a while until it wasn't. And then I needed to draw on my values of courage and connection or connection or understand my values of connection to my kids.
Also wanting to be connected to the people I was running courses for, knowing that I couldn't continue to do that volume of travel and then using the courage to change the way that safe return to exercise was delivered. Of course, COVID did help me a lot at that time and now you'll find me doing virtual courses as well as some invite only face to face courses. But you can see my point. I had another plan had COVID not come along to have my safe return to exercise master trainers in every state. So there was already a plan.
in place and then life through me some other curveballs and some other opportunities. So this is where I like to also just drop in here that there is, we have to be a little bit flexible in the way we achieve our mission. So I have a very strong mission and every step of my journey, I've had ideas around how I think I'm going to achieve that mission, but I also have to remain flexible on the how.
So if a new opportunity arises or something stops working, if I'm staying in alignment with my values, moving toward my mission, I can change up the way that I achieve each step along the way when I move towards my mission. So, and there's a lot of change coming for me in 2024, which I'll be excited to share with you guys at some point. So have a think about the way you're offering, your offerings right now.
Jen (17:53.658)
versus your values is anything off center for you. And if it is, write it down. I also want you to start to think about the growth of your business. And I know that we're not touching on, you know, moving forward that much in this, this episode, but think ahead about the growth of your business. If you were to add more of the same of what you do to grow, could this put you out of alignment with your values if you grew in this way? So this could be someone that's running
already as many face-to-face sessions as they want to run. They wanna grow their business, they wanna add more income, they wanna expand, but if they add more face-to-face sessions, then they remove time with their family or their children or training or whatever it is. So more of the same would move you out of alignment. So you might go, I've got what I've got now, this is great. But if I continue to grow in this way, it's not gonna be sustainable because I'm gonna be completely out of alignment with my values. So write all of that down.
Jen (00:03.71)
Next, I want you to think about or to write down your current income. So using your financial spreadsheet, if you have one, if you did absolutely nothing to grow your business in the next 12 months, what would your annual income be? So for example, if you go back to your current products and services, if you know across a week,
what your offerings are, what you charge for them, and the capacity for each of them, you should be able to do relatively simple maths to work out what your annual income is if you continue to do what you're doing now, assuming that you're operating in or at maximum capacity. So assuming you're operating oversubscribed. So if I had two sessions a week,
10 people per session paying $20 per person. That would be $200 per session times two would be $400 a week. Now, if I was to work 52 weeks of a year, I could come times 400 by 52. If I'm not working 52 weeks of a year, I could times 400 by 52 and divide it by.
no times it by 48. So assuming I'm going to take four weeks off. And then if I wanted to work out my weekly income from that, I could then divide it by 52. So I want you to know, regardless of what that looks like, or what how big the number is, if you did nothing more to grow your business, then what you're doing right now, what would your annual income be? Or what would your income be for the next 12 months?
Then I want you to have a think about what your goal income is. So where would you like to be in six to 12 months time? I'm going to make the assumption that you want your income to be higher than what it is now. You also need to be aware of what that means in terms of income. So is it income or total turnover or is it income after tax? If you're a sole trader, is it profit and wage? If you are a company, so have a think about
Jen (02:32.726)
what your income goal is for the next to six to 12 months. And then what do you need to do to move from where you are right now to achieve this goal? So again, because this is a reflection session, you're not starting to, you're not locking anything in stone. So it really is the permission to be creative and to use the space within your PDF download or a page in your journal or a notebook
brainstorm what you could do with your business to take the next step towards your financial goal. It's probably not going to be refined as yet, but it'll give you the head space to be thinking about 2024 while you have some creative and downtime during your Christmas break. So this is really about planting the seeds and then allowing them to grow during your time off.
As you're allowing things to grow and visions to formulate, you're gonna start to become aware of potential gaps in getting you from where you are right now to where you wanna be. So although your goal is not completely refined, you can start to use the next space in your PDF download or in your journal to think about what gaps you have within your business that will prevent you from achieving your next step. It is okay for this to be a little bit vague and it's gonna look different for different people. So for example,
you know, you might want to grow your business, but you've got two little kids at home that are not in school yet. So one of the things or the gaps is time. Now, unless you want me to put your kids in daycare and there's no judgment, I would never tell people to put kids in daycare, I would never tell them to keep them at home. But depending on where you sit with that will determined whether that is an actual solution to your problem of time versus
adjusting where you want to get to and knowing that's going to take you a little bit longer based upon the season of life that you're in. And given, you know, I do mostly work with exercise professionals building businesses that are moms, it's really important that there is a consideration taken on the capacity of someone who is the primary carer for their children in order to grow their business. If they don't choose to have
Jen (04:54.462)
lots of support and lots of or potentially paid support if they don't have family and things around them that can help. So I want to just make sure that you have permission to or an awareness of the season of life that you're in and your own unique circumstance. And you take that into consideration when you're setting the path moving forward into 2024. Because if you put all these massive goals on a page and you really
like need eight hours a day to achieve them, and you've only got two hours a day because of the season of life that you're in, well, then you're gonna be severely disappointed in 2024. I would much rather you go, this is my two-year plan, and for this year, while I've got limited time at home, this is what I'm gonna do and how I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna be okay with that because it keeps me in alignment with my values of, for me, courage and connection, the courage to slow my goals down or slow the progress toward my goals down in order to remain connected to my children.
And that is incredibly important. Like if you're going to build a business in alignment with your whole life values that serves you and your family, as well as having the impact that you want to make, you need to have longevity, which means you need to make it work over a longer period of time. Um, so write down what gaps you have. The other, another example of gaps could be maybe you want to launch, um, maybe you've not even launched your business yet and you want to launch your fitness business in 2024.
And one of the gaps you have is around business skills. Maybe you don't know the things that you need to put in place in order to run a really great business. To give you a little bit of an insight into the next stage from MumSafe is, I want to build a tech product that moves us closer to the goal of safe and effective exercise for mums at every stage of motherhood. I have no background in tech. In fact, I can't even figure out
when my email isn't working properly, which today it's chosen not to work properly. And I'm like, I don't know how to start fixing that. I'm not a tech person. So I have a gap between where I am right now and where I want to get to in terms of building a new product. Um, so I have to fill that gap and I have to gain more education. So I have an awareness that in order to fill that gap, I have to, um, have to put something into my life that's going to help me to get there.
Jen (07:18.506)
We are nearly there team. I want you then to reflect on what is working in your 2023 versus what is not currently working in 2023. What do you want to keep doing from 2023 into 2024? And what do you not want to keep doing and have some conscious thought around that? Then get real, real honest with yourself and think about are the actions I've taken this year in alignment with my whole life values and my mission in the world.
take some time to really think about that because sometimes we just get into cruise mode and we keep doing the things over and over again when we really need to adapt things. And then what adjustments do you need to take as you move forward? And then finally, what could your word for 2024 be? So I've had a word of the year for a number of years now, the word for 2023 was expansion.
And that was a word that fit into all my life areas. So personal expansion, business expansion, and previous to that, I've had other words that have really made a difference in the way that I've moved forward inside of MomSafe and previously Body Beyond Baby. And the words sometimes they stay with us the whole time and every decision that we make is in alignment with that word. But I've also had experiences where the words are
they kind of hang in the background. In fact, sometimes I've forgotten what my word is. And then when I've dug it out from wherever I've written it down, I've then seen how it set the pathway for the year ahead. So have a think about what your word for 2024 will be. If you're listening to this podcast and you wanna share your word for 2024, I'd absolutely love to learn it for you to share it with me. The best place to do that would be on Instagram. So at Jen Dugard.
If you found this podcast helpful, I would absolutely love for you to share this episode because I truly believe that if we're not consistently reflecting on what we've done throughout the year, to then make decisions about where we wanna go, we can get stuck in that hamster wheel of just doing the same thing over and over again, even if it doesn't feel right, but it's not quite uncomfortable enough to make a change. So full permission.
Jen (09:47.234)
to be ruthless with your reflections. And I hope that you are, because the more that you can reflect on where you've got to now and where you want to be, the more that you can make the necessary adjustments to ensure that you're truly building and a business that will have the impact you're truly capable of in a way that aligns with your whole life values. Team.
That is me for 2024. I hope you've enjoyed listening to series one of the Mom Safe Movement podcast. I've very much enjoyed bringing it to you. And as a little insight into what is coming in series two. So series one for me was all about making sure that you had some really, really great business foundations. And I'm not saying there will be no more business podcast episodes because I think I'm gonna drop about one a month in the business space or the, you know,
whether it's a story of how someone's built their mom focused fitness business, cause I think it's really helpful. But there's gonna be a real focus in series two on the technical side of being a mom in training, if you are a mom in training, or being a trainer that works with moms. So I'm gonna be reaching out to and inviting guests onto the podcast that can really share some insights in training and working with moms well. And also some controversial topics
You know, there's, there's things that I truly believe in not being done well enough in our industry. I think there's some confusion in the marketplace sometimes. So I'm up for both educational and what's the word? Investigational. Investigational? Is that a word? I don't know. Thought provoking podcasts, thought provoking podcast episodes moving forward that help us to better understand ourselves as women and working with our women and moms.
clients. If you've got any ideas of topics that you want to hear about, feel free again to get in contact with me over on Instagram, that would be awesome. But have a beautiful rest of your 2023. I feel absolutely privileged that you have hung out with me this year, you've listened to your episodes. And hopefully you've enjoyed what you've been listening to Spotify gave me one of those wrap ups. So I've seen there's a bunch of you listening on a regular basis, which is really, really exciting to me.
Jen (12:12.754)
I would absolutely love if you could leave a review as we're coming to the end of the year and I'll look forward to seeing you back here in 2024. Thanks for having me. Take care.
