381 How to Stay Motivated When LITERALLY EVERYONE is on Vacation
How to stay inspired, productive, and consistent in your business
Kelsey dives into how to stay inspired, productive, and consistent in your business even when it feels like the whole world has checked out for the last week of Summer Holidays!
(But also, if you want to enjoy a dang holiday… please take it!!!)
She shares personal stories, practical strategies, and mindset shifts that will help you separate yourself from the pack during what can feel like a ‘slow time’ in business, and strategies to use this time to plant seeds for Fall success.
Key Takeaways:
Why the “summer slump” doesn’t have to dictate your results.
The power of separation season: how to get ahead when others are slowing down.
Simple ways to set boundaries between work and fun hours.
How to make your workspace (and work routine) feel energizing again.
The difference between wearing your CEO hat vs. hobby hat — and why it matters most in the summer.
Timestamps:
[1:30] Why “summer slump” is soo common for entrepreneurs
[2:53] Rewriting the narratives on why slow months don’t have to be slow
[4:19] How to leverage “Separation Season”
[5:22] Tip #1 Boundaries and structures work/play hours
[9:50] Tip #2 Jazz up your workspace to bring back creativity.
[11:53] Tip #3 Keep your CEO hat on (experiment, track data, and stay consistent)
To connect with Kelsey:
Access the transcript for this episode:
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You're listening to the Visionary Life Podcast. I'm your host, Kelsey Reidl. Each week I'll bring you conversations with the most visionary humans on this earth in hopes that you'll be able to absorb their wisdom, avoid their failures, and feel less alone on the roller coaster ride that is entrepreneurship. This season, I'll be chatting with creative thinkers, masterful marketers, brick and mortar shop owners, brand builders, and people just like you who have a story to share or a vision that inspires. If I can share one quick secret with you before we get into the episode, it's that we all have a little bit of visionary inside of us. You know, that spark that nudges us to pursue our full potential in this lifetime. But perhaps somewhere along the line, it got covered up. I'm here to tell you that it's never too late to explore that inner voice and access the brilliance deep down inside of you.
Kelsey Rydle [00:00:52]:
It's in you. It's in all of us. Let's dive in. Hey visionaries. Welcome back to the show. Today we're going to talk about something that's on everybody's mind, something that you might be experiencing or maybe you went through a phase of this earlier this month or last month, but we're going to talk about the summer slump. What to do when your inspiration disappears, your motivation sizzles up and all you want to do is lay by the pool, sip on a cocktail, and just say, hey, I'll see you in September. Well, if that is exactly what you want, you can just shut down this episode right now and go enjoy.
Kelsey Rydle [00:01:32]:
One of my girlfriends who we talk all the time. She is known for taking the month of August off because the patterns in her business were really apparent over the past few years that August was a slower month and it was a great time for her to step back and create. But there's also a whole other side of the story. So many of you listening are building your business. You are hungry for a really productive of summer. You want to plant so many seeds for the fall. You want to make sure that your income is still meeting your desires, right? You have a goal of 2k months, 5k months, 10k months, 20k months, 50k months, whatever it is. And you don't care what time of year it is, whether it's summer, winter, fall, spring in between.
Kelsey Rydle [00:02:18]:
And I think it's very easy to let ourselves off the hook as business owners to say, oh, summer's slow. Christmas time is never that busy for me. Oh, the weather's getting nicer. Oh, people are back to school, so they're not paying attention. We can kind of make an excuse any month and just decide to attach a story to what's going on. But I also believe that we get to rewrite the narrative. I remember, and I've told this story on the podcast before. One of the first business coaches that I hired, I said to him, yeah, you know, July is just notoriously a slow month for me.
Kelsey Rydle [00:02:53]:
And he said, well, it doesn't have to be. And I was like, oh, yeah. And so I really started getting after it, and I ended up signing a bunch of clients when I changed my mindset. And I love summer for planting seeds and for just hitting the ground running, because I find that the longer days, the sunny, beautiful, warm energy, the fact that I'm getting out, I'm taking care of myself, I'm biking, I'm spending time with friends at the beach, all the things that also does reinvigorate me for the business. But I am not superhuman. I do fall out of routine. I tend to get a little bit more lax. I don't know if I would call it lazy.
Kelsey Rydle [00:03:31]:
I'm not being lazy. I'm just, like, living my life. And, I mean, hey, isn't that what we're supposed to do? We created a business because we want the flexibility. But all this to say, I still do believe that it's important to stay motivated. It's important to have some constraints around how you're going to show up, when, what level of work and hustle you're going to bring to the business. And if you are somebody who has big dreams for the next few weeks, I want you to stay in the game because this is a wonderful time to get ahead. And I've recorded full podcast episodes about this before. But Ed Mylett, who I know people love to make fun of him as a personal, you know, motivation guru, but he has the concept of separation season so separate.
Kelsey Rydle [00:04:19]:
Essentially, what he talks about is how seasons like summer or Christmas, they're separation seasons, because while everyone else is checked out, the people who are serious about their goals, who really want to hit the ground running in September, they're actually using this time to get ahead. They're reading the books, they're implementing the frameworks, they're getting really up to speed on AI. They're joining the masterminds because they know that July, August into September, it's a great time to leverage and harness our energy and not succumb to feeling like it's a slow season in business. Okay, so let's get into it. I want to talk about a few ways to stay motivated while everyone else is at the beach sipping pina coladas and doing nothing. And again, that's not a bad thing at all. I love doing that, and I am no stranger to enjoying a cocktail on the beach. But again, we also want to grow our business and and find the level of work and output that still meets our needs for growth, but also lets us live our life.
Kelsey Rydle [00:05:22]:
Okay, so tip number one is to create boundaries and have structured work hours and structured fun hours. This one sounds obvious, but if you're still newer to business, you might feel yourself working all the time. In fact, I was just chatting with a client who feels like she has been pouring into her business nonstop. And she said, kelsey, I don't feel like I've had a lot of fun lately and summer is passing me by. And I was like, holy crap. Like, stop everything. Write a list of 5 to 10 bucket list items for your summer and go do those things. Because business is a long game.
Kelsey Rydle [00:05:59]:
You are not supposed to just put your head down, work as hard as you can, burn yourself out, realize you're miserable, and then quit all within four months. That's not the point. You really want to make sure that you have structured work hours so that you're not working all the time and so that you respect yourself and end your work at a certain time so that you can go live your life. Go do the things that you love. You're going to feel so much better because you're not running on fumes. You feel like you're living out your ideal summer schedule and that your hobbies can actually fuel your enjoyment of your work. Boundaries. Hey, visionary.
Kelsey Rydle [00:06:40]:
The search engine game is changing fast. I mean, how many times now do you open up ChatGPT where you used to actually just open Google or Bing? AI driven tools like ChatGPT are rewriting the rules of what it is to play the digital marketing game. But. But don't panic. You just need to pivot ever so slightly if you want to rank your business in ChatGPT. And if I could just interject for a second and go off script, I am getting so many leads these days who are saying to me, I found you on ChatGPT. So here's the deal. You guys know I'm passionate about SEO.
Kelsey Rydle [00:07:17]:
Google still matters, but AI is a new layer to this game that you cannot ignore if you want quick wins. I want to teach you exactly how you can do it. And. And I want to simplify it for you. What you can do is head over to kelseyridle.com chatgpt I have a brand new free bonus training on how to rank on AI search engines. How to rank on ChatGPT essentially. So I want you to jump in and future proof your marketing strategy. Grab this free training Kelsey ridle.com/chatgpt or click the link in the bio.
Kelsey Rydle [00:07:52]:
This Training is only 30 minutes long and it's going to teach you everything you need to know to get more leads on more clients and more money into your bank account. So a couple things that I do in my own life I book mountain bike rides with friends for a certain time. So I'll say hey let's meet at 5pm because that means I shut my laptop by 4:30 and I'm on the bike by 4:50. So that's one way to make sure that you have structured fun hours. Second way that I do that my son naps from 12 until 3 every day. So for me those are the hours that I will often devote to work and then outside of that it's all fun. So I'm not checking emails, I'm not trying to yeah like be on my phone replying to clients. I know that I can tell someone on a non workday, hey, I'll probably check in between 12 and 3 if you need anything urgent.
Kelsey Rydle [00:08:49]:
It'll have to wait until then. So notice how I'm not bending my boundaries. I'm really making sure that I have the time for my work but also making sure there's loads of time for me to enjoy life so that I don't ever feel like I'm missing out when I am working in the basement on a beautiful hot sunny day. Something that I find about having hobbies in the evening, having just like lots of things that I want to fill my cup with, is that I really only have a certain number of hours in the week, let's call it about 18 hours where I am working and I have a lot on my plate at this moment. So when I am sit down I know that this time is so precious. I'm not on YouTube, I am not scrolling instagram, I am not like on my text messages replying to people. I'm just working so that I can get it over with, do it in a laser, laser focused approach. Like not be distracted by pings and dings and buzzes and just head down, get my shit done so I can get back to life.
Kelsey Rydle [00:09:50]:
Okay. Number two is to try and jazz up your workspace so if you feel like you're losing Motivation in the summer especially, why not move your workspace around? I have not done this this summer all that much yet, but I used to have one of those awesome desks that. It was like a very desk. I have a different version of it now, but it used to be this really small platform. And I would place it on my picnic table outside. And then I would stand at my picnic table, and I would do so much of my at my picnic table while looking over the river. I would take a lot of my calls where I didn't have to be teaching or instructing right there, and I would just enjoy being outside more. Um, I would also, when time permitted, and this was before having kids, but I would actually take my paddle board two hours up the river.
Kelsey Rydle [00:10:43]:
I would get Dave to drop me off on my way to work or on his way to work, and I would just like, sit on the paddle board and answer emails. And so I know that totally kind of goes against what I was just saying of having structured work hours, structured fun hours, but these were actually structured work hours where I literally floated down the river so I didn't have to paddle because I was sitting down. And the river current takes you. And I would shoot emails back to clients, and they would have no idea that I was on the river. Not that they would care, but I actually just felt like my brain would fire on so many different cylinders in that situation. Maybe for you, that means picking up and going to a coffee shop to write your newsletter or brainstorming content while you're at your bestie's pool. Maybe book a hangout date with another entrepreneur friend and say, hey, while we're together, can we shoot some content together? Can you review my website copy? Can we go over this upcoming program that I'd like to launch in September? So I think just like making your workspace, making your work routine a little more fun, in the winter, it's more acceptable to just like, I don't know, go sit, crank out some work. But in the summer, I think we want to be stimulated.
Kelsey Rydle [00:11:53]:
Maybe it's just picking a bouquet of flowers, a beautiful cut garden of flowers, and putting them in front of you and just being inspired by the beautiful nature and everything that we have around us. So that's tip number two. And my last tip for not losing motivation is to make sure that you keep your CEO hat on and not your hobby hat. So I find that a lot of new business owners, they treat their business as like, oh, if I feel like it, or, yeah, that's a nice to have Even if it's a revenue driver in their business. So here's the thing. When summer hits, a lot of people are in vacation mode. It's easy to start treating your business differently. Like, it doesn't really matter if you miss a podcast.
Kelsey Rydle [00:12:40]:
Like, who cares if you stop this one marketing strategy? Like, you can just sit back, relax, and you'll just pick up steam again in September. But that's when you're going to see massive revenue fluctuations instead. I love to encourage clients to stay consistent, to show up a little bit each day to make sure that you use the summer months to actually deepen your, your level of knowledge around what's working. So say your podcast is currently being produced once a week, you love recording it, and you're noticing that a couple people have started saying, hey, I found you through the podcast. This would be such a great time to say, okay, so I'm not gonna like do as many interviews, but maybe I'll practice some solo shows. Maybe I'll experiment with running some ads on the show. Perhaps I'll do a unique call to action for people to fill out a form or get a freebie so I can see how many people listen to that advertisement on the podcast and actually clicked through through. So why not test some experiments? Treat your business like you are a CEO, because you are, and try to run some fun experiments because perhaps you have a little extra time, a little extra bandwidth, maybe just that extra bit of mental energy that you can actually devote to thinking beyond what you're currently doing.
Kelsey Rydle [00:14:00]:
And I find that if we're just looking at our business like a hobby, if we don't have any numbers, we're not managing any data. So. So we're like, yeah, I do a podcast, but I have no idea how many downloads or what the funnel is. Yeah, I post on Instagram or LinkedIn, but there's no real strategic method to the content that I post. There's no content themes, and I don't even really know if I've gotten into any conversations that have been productive. This is a great time to just look at this with a fresh set of eyes and say, why am I doing this? What is one experiment I can run to see if this will convert at a higher level and what could I possibly change so that this is working for me and for the business and actually producing way better results. So there's some tips for you if you're feeling like you need a little bit of a shake up from your summer slump. Maybe your inspiration has gone a little MIA and this is your way to get it back.
Kelsey Rydle [00:14:56]:
So just a quickie today. Hope you guys enjoyed this and I will talk to you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Visionary Life. I love bringing you these conversations on a weekly basis, so it would mean so much to me if you could help me out by rating and reviewing the show on either itunes or Spotify. It just takes a second. And if you don't want to rate the show, you could also just take a screenshot of the episode and share it on your social media platform of choice. Tagging me at Kelsey Reidl. I'll catch you in the next episode.
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