Episode #15 Transcription - Feeling Lost? 5 Ways to get Unstuck

Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald, interior designer, mama and CEO of a thriving interior design business, built on authentic word of mouth referrals. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate architecture job to build my own dream, one that would allow me more time with the people that I love, the ability to serve my clients at the highest level, and to make a great living. It wasn't always easy, and I've made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today, and I've learned a thing or two. This podcast is for you - the inspired, creative, ambitious, and let's admit it,  occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives by transforming homes. Join me and my guests each week as we walk through practical ways to build an interior design business you love, and helps you transform your clients' lives. You can do this. 

Hello, my friend, and welcome back to another podcast episode, I am so happy to be hanging out with you today. I am very excited for today's episode. Today we're going to talk about feeling lost. And five ways to get unstuck. The reality is it's easy to feel lost in business. And today I'm hoping to first of all normalize it right? Everyone gets stuck from time to time. So you know, just really shining a light on the reality of you know, how we can find ourselves stuck. And then also just some ideas for how to get unstuck and start to make progress. And whatever it is, whatever area it is that you might be feeling stuck in. So the lack of clarity is debilitating. 

Whether it's in business, whether it's in life, whether it's in personal relationships, lack of clarity, is a problem, it prevents momentum, it causes stress. It can, it can strain other relationships, right. I, I know that my husband and I went to work with business mentors now. But there was a time where, you know, we'd like to talk about business, and we enjoy that. But you know, I'd come home or come home, I've been working from home for years, but he would come home. And you know, the moment he walked in the door, I would just like, you know, dump on him like this thing that I'm trying to figure out. And I don't know how to think about it, I don't know what my next step is. And, you know, there were seasons where he would do that too. And it can really strain a relationship too. So, you know, luckily now we've got folks who we can have those conversations with so that we can keep our conversation to the things that relate to our family, we still talk about those things from time to time. But you know, just thinking about, you know, some of the effects of having a, you know, lack of clarity or direction on whatever it is that you're you might be struggling with. 

You know, lack of clarity is caused by a number of things. It can be caused by overwhelm. Maybe you have competing agendas in your day, maybe you've got, you know, all of these things that have seemingly identical priorities. And so you're overwhelmed with trying to figure out how to manage and deliver on your, your, your obligations, the things that you need to deliver, whether that's client work or working on your business, right? Maybe you've got all these things that you want to do to work on your business, but you can't get through to the client to make time for that. You know, that can cause overwhelm when you've got competing agendas. Lack of clarity can come from pressure from social media, you know, let's be real people don't post the hard stuff, right. This view of other people's success from this little black screen is just that it's this tiny little picture. It's not the whole picture and just realize that social media I mean, I go through periods where I just hate social media. But you know, I do it is one of these things that a lot of people, you know, enjoy the mind numbing scroll aspect of it from time to time. But when we do that mindlessly for hours on end, you know, you can start to feel this like weight of this pressure of like, you know, you chances are you probably follow a lot of other interior designers, I know I do. And you can be looking at that. And it starts to feel like oh, my gosh, everybody's got their stuff together. But me, right, like, like all these beautiful portfolio pictures, look at these install pictures, look at this success, this progress. 

So just, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to preach and tell you to get off of social media, but pay attention to how it makes you feel. If you're feeling good about what you're seeing, that's great. If it feels like it's causing this unnecessary pressure, maybe, maybe take a break, maybe you find different accounts to fall. I know I've recently, this last year, started to follow a ton of gardeners, I love to garden personally. And so I started following these gardeners and it to me, it's just really beautiful to look at. And I always feel a little bit better. But that wasn't always the case it was you know, it can often create unnecessary anxiety. So the other thing that can cause you to feel stuck is when when you're in this phase of indecision. And the result is you don't you don't know where to start, you don't know what to focus on right now. And when it comes to indecision, if you are someone who struggles with a decision, I want to challenge you to really pay attention to what's going on there. Is it that you're constantly seeking validation from others versus trusting yourself? Or are you and I'm going to raise my hand over here, because this tends to be me constantly researching, you're researching, researching, researching, and you get stuck in this research loop. And instead of just saying, You know what, I need to make a decision, and I just need to start doing the thing. So that is a trap, I have to be on the lookout for myself a lot of times. 

But here's, here's what I do know. So we know that the lack of clarity prevents momentum, it causes stress, it can be taxing on your relationships. But there's some good news. This feeling of being stuck or lost. It is described as discomfort. And what I have found is true in my life. And I think if you give this some thought you can maybe come up with some examples from your own life. Discomfort is usually a sign of a major breakthrough. I'm gonna give you an example that doesn't have anything to do with business. But it's my own relationship with my husband, Mike, I am very fortunate I have a lovely marriage. I am happily married. I can count on one hand, how many times we've had major fights. Okay, we've been married for some time. Now, it may be approaching my second hand, but pretty minimal, right. And I feel very fortunate for that. But what I recognized happened anytime we had a major disagreement was we would come out on the other side of that disagreement with an insight about the other person and something that we'd hadn't known before, that was festering under the surface. And we needed that disagreement or that fight to crack that open and to examine and to look at it, talk about it and you know, usually would feel good, you're like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that you felt that way. Or I had no idea that something that you wanted to do or didn't want me to do, or whatever the case may be. But that discomfort is usually a sign of a major breakthrough. 

So instead of getting down on yourself, if you're feeling stuck, or indecisive, I want you to just take a beat, take a breath and recognize that it's normal. And in a month, three months, six months, a year from now you're going to look back at this in you're going to be so it's going to feel like it was so it's so far away from you now and you've you've made so much progress. So today we're going to talk about, you know, a couple of ways to get unstuck. I'm going to give you a quick you know just story about my own struggle with getting stuck. You know, this has happened many times in my business. And it just takes some time to work through it. But one big one that I can recall was right before we left Denver and moved to Texas, I was experiencing major, major burnout. And, and I know why I had been I had been taking on way too many projects. I had been overextending my staff, I had lost some staff, some really high quality staff because of burnout. And that was tough. That was really tough. I was moving at the speed of light, I had signed a lease for a really cool office space that overlooks downtown. In this loft, it was it was so beautiful. And I did sign the lease, and I was ready to just really start to scale the business. And it was doing this despite knowing that I was already feeling burned out.

It was about that time that Mike came to me and shared with me this job opportunity in Texas. And at first I was like hell no, I'm not moving to Texas. I'm from Texas, it's hot, there's bugs. It was a resounding no. But for a lot of reasons, including the fact that my family lived there, we ended up deciding that it was something that we wanted to try. And it was secretly this like, huge relief off of my plate to say, oh my god, I could just cut ties with everything right now I can just burn it all down, start from scratch, figure it out. And so we did it, we moved to Texas, I wrapped up some projects, I you know, some projects that, you know, we're just getting started. And I had to figure that out. And we did it. But then I moved to Texas, and I ended up spending. I had this luxury and I and I'm very aware of my privilege in this case, but I had the privilege and the ability to not work for a little bit while I figured things out. I mean, at first I was you know, getting our house unpacked, getting kids integrated into school, it's a big deal to move across the country with kids. So there was a lot to do anyway. But eventually, I just found myself stuck. I did not want to experience that stress and anxiety, again, of the overwhelm and the feeling burned out that I had, you know, in the months prior. I knew that I needed to rearrange things, I needed to change things in my business, I knew I wanted to do interior design, but I had been sort of playing around with some other ideas and business models. Retail was one, you know, and I was just spinning my wheels for months. And there was this, I realized one day there was this mindset that I had, you know, moved from this big city to we move to Waco, Texas. So by all accounts, it's a small town, as far as I'm concerned, I don't know what the population is there. But it's not a small small town. It's a small midsize town. But I had this mindset that, like, nobody's gonna pay my rates, I'm gonna have to cut my rates, you know, reduce my rates, which is a load of garbage. And I needed to figure that out, but it didn't happen right away. 

Anyway, so, you know, I ended up taking courses, I hired a coach and worked through it. And eventually, you know, I just word of mouth got one project. And that was the momentum that I needed. And I found myself back into client work, doing the exact same thing I was doing before. But I doubled my rate, excuse me, I almost doubled my rate, I raised my rate. And I became extraordinarily picky about who I worked with. And those were the kinds of changes that I needed in that moment. But I remember just going through this season of feeling completely disabled, like I just couldn't make a decision. And it was a really trying time. So for me, it was a combination of things. And some of those we're gonna talk about here in a minute. But it was a combination of seeking some guidance, taking some courses and building some community. That all helped me to kind of work my way out of that. So then, last thing I'm going to say before we move into this, these five things was one, one problem that I see over and over again, with the designers that I work with, and it's something that I've definitely experienced, is we are trying to fix too many problems at once too many issues at once or focus on too many things at once. And so I want to challenge you that if you are feeling like you're being pulled in 100 different directions, whether that's marketing, whether that's you know, working on your website, or you know, streamlining your processes or whatever, you know, hiring who knows, I want you to see if you can isolate and figure out the one most important thing for you to be working on right now and just focus on that and give it give it 30 60 90 days you depending on what it is you're going to decide how long it's going to need your complete focus and just everything else can wait right. Everything else can wait and you know right now and designers are wasted There's so many things. I'm an Enneagram. Seven, I've got ideas for days. And I would try to do them all at the same time if I could. 

And I realized that that stuff is going to create burnout. So every month, there's a focus internally with me and my team to say like, Okay, this is what we're focusing on this month. And next month, it's this and next month, it's that you know, and sometimes things take two months, sometimes things carry over. But really being really diligent about saying to myself, I'm not going to move into this next project until we button this one up, we got to finish this. And obviously, I'm not talking about client work, this is all the work that you do on your business, alongside the work that you do for your clients. So yeah, you know, if it's, if it's burnout, you know, look at first you need to look at why is it because you have too many projects? Is it because you're not charging enough? Is it because you're saying yes to too much? Is it because you don't have good systems in place? Isolate the issue and ask yourself why. And once you figure it out, then you can start to work on the solution. So maybe the solutions are that you need to hire, maybe it's that you need to raise your rate. Maybe you need to use more discernment about what kind of projects or clients you take. 

So let that be your focus after you figure out why. And then work on it. Another example. Is your pipeline drying up, right? I know there's a lot of chatter right now in the normal Facebook groups, because I'm in it, I see it, I hear it, I even engage in it from time to time. You know, the big R word. There's a lot of fear and anxiety around that. No need to panic, just stay steady. But if your pipeline is drying up, you want to look at why. Where is the disconnect happening? Is it because there's no increased nobody's knocking on the door ringing the doorbell filling out your form, booking your discovery call? Well, then that's a visibility problem. And you need to work on focusing on increasing your visibility, whether that's in person or online networking, getting out from behind your screen and going and talking to people. Talk about talking about what you do, is it that you have lots of opportunities to talk about what you do, and how you help people but you're shy about it, maybe you don't know how to talk about it. Those are all things that you can start to focus on. An increasing visibility is a bit 

Are you getting inquiries, but they're unqualified leads? Well, that is going to have a different set of solutions than having no inquiries. That's going to be looking at things like your branding or refining your messaging, and how you're and how you're talking to people before they get on the phone with you. That's a that's a clearly a branding issue. Are you getting lots of qualified leads, but you're experiencing burnout. Okay, so is this a solution of hiring, raising your rates, getting a waitlist started saying no to more? And those answers and maybe a combination of them, but those answers are going to depend on your goals. So figuring out what that what that is, and in this and here's some ways to help you kind of start to think about it. 

Five ways to move forward when you're feeling stuck. The first one is find community and I mentioned this a minute ago with community has been so important in my life. Your spouse, in your partner, they don't get it your best friend doesn't get it your assistant doesn't even get it. Your therapist, your priest, your rabbi your guru also doesn't get it. You need to find community with people who get it so I'm talking about running a small service based business or a large service based business. There are unique challenges that service based businesses experience Over product based businesses, there is a different set of challenges that a high ticket service based business runs into versus a garage door repair business, right their service industry to. But that's a different set of issues and challenges than some, you know, interior designers who were dealing intimately with clients. We're working with them long term. There's a lot of money involved. It's very personal. So finding community who gets some of that, right. They don't have to, they don't have to be.

All interior designers find professionals across other industries. In fact, I think it's really wise to find professionals across other industries that are service based professionals. Cheers designers are gonna get it best. But we can also learn a lot from other premium service based businesses. Think of photographers realtor's personal assistants, graphic designers, wedding planners, landscape designers, architects, I have a landscape designer friend, and she and I were out to coffee, and she and I were just cracking up at you know, she had a client who was blaming her for the Japanese beetle infestation? Well, it's laughable because, you know, for us here in Colorado, it's statewide and beyond. But just being able to, to, to banter and, you know, kill some time with somebody that totally gets the nuances of this is so important, you know, community is this sense of belonging is fundamental to the way humankind organizes itself. You know, look for a membership, look for a mastermind. Looking for an accountability partner, what are some ways that you can find community, both in person and online, that can help keep you accountable? Right, so somebody that gets it, or people that get it, and that are there to support you. And when and once you find that group share and be honest about what it is that you need help with, people love to help and whenever you can, make sure that you reciprocate in however you can with that community. So community is a big one. 

All right, number two, read books. I know thats real profound right. Books can help us open our eyes to ideas we couldn't think of on our own, they can show us a new way of doing and thinking. And throughout my career, I have turned to books whenever I was feeling stuck. Whenever I was reinventing my services and how I worked, I'll just share some books that I've read that have been life changing for me. Daniel reports, Firestarter sessions love that book. When I was experiencing burnout, and I thought, Oh, I'm moving to Texas, I'm gonna have to cut my rate in half, right? Because I'm moving to a little little town. All I read the book worth every penny. Life changing, that totally helped with burnout. There's a season when scaling and hiring was a big focus. And I read the book rocket fuel changed, changed my life to this is a book that really helps me understand the need to find somebody who can be the yin to my Yang, right? The person who is going to help take I'm an idea generator, right? We talked, I mentioned that a minute ago and Enneagram seven. And it's great. I love I love it. I love being an ideas person. But my biggest downfall is I could have too many ideas, too many pots on the fire and it creates burnout, overwhelm and burnout. So having somebody who can help filter those ideas to the best ones, and prioritize them. So that book rocket fuel is really big at helping me understand who and what type of person I needed to hire to help balance out the team. So rocket fuel is a big one. I recently just bought the book measure what matters. 

I have not started reading it because we were in a big season here at designers Oasis and with clients. And so that's my book for the fall that measures what matters really because I'm very fascinated and interested in focusing on the right kind of data that helps us make decisions in business. And there's a lot of data to look at. And sometimes it's just not clear on what's the most important. So that's a book that I have in my queued up early on the very first book and I think an old boyfriend gave it to me actually, the book $100 startup, and it's a very simple small book, and it really helped catapult me into this mindset of Oh wait, I have entrepreneurial potential and I didn't see that in myself before. So books can be a gateway to helping unlock clarity when you're feeling stuck. Another resource I just found recently is called Book clubs.com. Now ideally, if you can find a local book club and you can be in person that is that is wonderful. I think we need more human connection in that way and in face to face, but they, they have a book club, they have a lot of book clubs, but they have one specifically on these types of sort of nonfiction business related books, if that's your jam, book. clubs.com is one option. And here you're marrying, reading and learning alongside community. So you're kind of knock it out number one, and number two all at once. All right, moving on. 

Number three, take a course or master class. So we're books. And this is sort of a gross oversimplification. But we're books simply offer ideas. Course courses, usually good ones, at least are going to provide you with a process to implement what you're learning. These are actionable step by step guides for how to do something. I have personally taken many online courses over the years, some good over the years, some good, others regrettable. I've gotten better at vetting the good courses and the great courses. But I will tell you, there have been times where I took a course from somebody or bought a course from somebody because they have so much visibility, they're all over the place. Everybody knows their name, right? So it's got to be good. And I took it I was like, This is rubbish. This is total garbage. Like tell me something I don't know, this could have been an email, right? So but the best ones, the best courses have always been the ones where I've walked away with actionable steps and a plan. I've taken courses on social media photography, on selling on SketchUp on copywriting, business speaking, productivity mindset, letting go digging in clearing out. So there's a course for everything right. And so if that's something you can do to help you get unstuck, find, find the right one for you and take it and then remember, you get out of course, as what you put into them, Do not waste your resources, and pay for courses that you're not going to actually finish, right. So a couple of things, a couple of ways that I have created accountability for myself and made the most out of the courses that I've taken. 

Number one, I have a Google Drive folder called education. And inside that folder, I have subfolders that are all labeled with topics. So the topics of copywriting, marketing, branding, so on and so forth. That's how we keep it organized. I personally, I'm kind of old school, sorry, trees, but I like to print my resources whenever I can. You know, unless it's like a 60 page document, I do like to print resources, because I'd like to highlight and take notes and write on them. So for me printing the resources is always really valuable step and then mapping out a plan. So usually, this would be one to two hours on Friday morning. And I try to spend half of that time absorbing the information. And then this is the really, really important piece, the other half of the time executing on what you've learned, I will admit, I have taken courses and I have absorbed all the knowledge write all the information, but then I didn't set aside time to implement what I learned. So that's a really important factor, whenever you're taking a course is to map out a plan for when you're going to work on it, put it in your calendar, and then set aside half of the time for learning and half of the time for implementing. And just try to avoid the research trap.. So it can be very tempting. I speak from a lot of experience here, you know, taking a course and it sparks an idea and then I'll start to research the idea. And, uh, research and research and research and then all of a sudden, like, Okay, it's time to make a decision, right? You can't keep doing this forever. So you keep that little voice in the back of your mind saying okay, it's time to turn off the research and it's time to make a decision and get stuff done. So I love taking courses to help me get unstuck whenever I'm feeling like I don't have a path forward, okay. 

Number four, get quiet. Journal, meditate. Put away the social media. Getting quiet for me does not come naturally. I don't know about you, but it requires a great deal of intention. But when I do it, it's extremely. It's extremely valuable and effective. So getting quiet, can look a number of ways. You know, I'll just say it again, it doesn't come easy for me, it's very easy for me and my husband to perhaps to wait and take the kids, the very last minute take them to school, kids just started school again. And if I drive them, it's a three minute drive. But it's a 12 minute walk, right, so I'm only saving a few minutes. And then if you calculate parking and getting out walking them up, it's just about the same from where we live. And if I would just make it a priority, and I'm working on getting better at this. When I take that walk to school instead of driving them. Not only is it better for the environment, but my kids and I get access to nature, we're waking up and getting exercise, we're getting to spend more time with each other. And then I get a long time on the walk back home. We have a nice trail by our house. And that's how we get to the school. And that has to be intentional. If I'm seeking out ways to find some quiet time. 

So if you're like me, and you know, setting aside, quiet time isn't already a part of your daily routine. I want to challenge you to find a way to implement some quiet time into your daily routine. And we're gonna talk about a couple of ideas right now. So walking, meditating, journaling, yoga, massage, taking a hot shower, taking a cold shower, taking a nap, getting in the garden, walking. I love to go on a good walk. But my dogs want to take a walk with me. It's so stressful. So sometimes I tell my husband, he's like, can you take the dogs like no, this is for me, this is my time. So if you've got stressful dogs, if you don't, if you have perfectly well behaved dogs, great take them on a walk. 

But if you're like me, you might want to prioritize yourself and just say you know what this walk isn't for the dogs this walk is for me. Maybe you take your voice recorder along every Apple phone, and I'm sure Android too, has some kind of a little recording device on it. If you're walking and you get an idea, just jot it, just pop it into your phone, make a note about it. Walking spec meditation, start with 20 minutes a day. I'm a huge fan of the calm app. It's I think it's like $57 a year. To me, it's totally worth it. I use it in the morning. I use it at night, I use it in the afternoon. My kids use it because they have kids stories. But there's lots of apps out there. You don't even need an app to meditate, but just want to give a plug to the calm app because it's one of my favorites. Start with 1020 minutes each day. Maybe meditation for you is deep breathing, maybe meditation for you is simply quiet. Maybe it's prayer. Whatever way you choose to meditate. I think making it as a part of your daily habits. And starting small if that's where you are, it's 10 minutes is all you can get in. It's better than nothing. You know, but I want to I want to push you to aim for 20 minutes each day before you get started. It's really powerful with that quiet time can do for you. journaling. A study of Japanese university students and recent graduates has revealed that writing on physical paper can lead to more brain activity when remembering and it helps with retention. So, physically writing in a journal is a great way to get quiet. 

You can start free writing if that feels a little loosey goosey and you need some prompts. You know look for writing prompts online. I'll give you a couple right now. Okay. And these can be silly. There's my first one's kind of silly. Pick a color and describe it in as many ways as you can. So you're gonna get Forrest Gump with this one fried shrimp, grilled shrimp butterfly drum with me. Okay, pink, name all of the different shades of pink that you could come up with salmon, iridescent, dusty, pink, whatever, and then go to the next color. The point is to just allow creativity flow ideas to flow and start writing. And maybe that moves from writing down colors to writing in your thoughts and feelings and whatever it is that might help you sort of think through those challenges that you're facing. Another writing prompt, write out your dream day is your most successful self and I'm talking about success on your terms which we'll hit on in a minute. What is your morning look like? What do you eat for breakfast? Who are your clients? What time do you enjoy your day? How do you spendyour evenings. I want you to craft and write out your dream day. So just a couple of writing prompts to get you started. If that's something if that's one way to get quiet that feels in alignment with you yoga, dance movement, any way you can move your body. I've recently taken up hip hop dance classes with a friend, that's a teacher. So fun, join your YMCA go swimming. There's a there's a company called stretch lab that just opened recently. And I think I'm gonna go try it out. Any way that you can move your body that feels good, do it movement is so impactful for helping get the brain flowing. Taking a therapeutic shower. Now, there's a difference between a regular shower and a therapeutic shower. You know, the age old joke that the best ideas happen when you're in the shower. It's true. So you know, regular shower, you happen when rinse, wash, repeat. It's very mindless, you're on autopilot. Whereas a therapeutic shower, you know, it's slower. You tune in with your body, maybe put on some music, there's no pressure to end it. Maybe you have essential oils, get out some peppermint, maybe give yourself a scalp massage. But you're allowing yourself to just relish in the shower for as long as you want. And my kids know, if they hear the shower going, they better not try to talk to me through that door is that house rule? Oh, don't make that mistake. 

Okay, naps, take a nap. There's research all over that shows the psychological and emotional and mental health benefits of taking just short power naps, 20 minutes a day in the afternoon. Get in your garden. There's all kinds of ways to just get quiet, turn off, turn off the podcasts, I'm saying that as I'm recording one, turn off all the things and just get quiet. Doesn't have to be ours take 15 to 30 minutes at a time. What's your transitions between your activities? I know, I feel so stressed out when I go from getting the kids off to school sitting down and hopping on a meeting, back to back meeting. You know, go straight from I slammed my laptop at the last second hightail it to school, pick them up, get them snacks, feed the dogs, walk the dogs, all the things, go cook dinner, and there's literally not just a hot second in between transitioning between one activity to the next. And I have found that when I am intentional. And I give myself just a little bit of time to transition, I feel so much more relaxed and at ease. So one of the activities that I like to do is before I start cooking dinner is taking 15 minutes, I like to sit on our front porch, we have a lot of people that walk in our neighborhoods and are friendly with our neighbors. But just sitting down for 15 minutes and hanging out on the porch and chatting with my kids, if they're they're asking about their day, really just not doing anything putting away my phone. You know, find ways like that, that you can transition in the morning, you know, after you're done getting dressed and you're ready to start your workday, it's a great time to do a meditation before you get going. 

Listening to I'm gonna butcher this word binaural music. So binaural beat therapy is an emerging form of sound wave therapy, it makes use of the fact that the right and left ear receive a slightly different frequency tone. Yet the brain perceives these as a single tone. And it is an emerging therapy, but it's associated with improved mood, concentration and memory recall. And I'm not going to nerd out on this here because I'm not definitely not an expert in this. But I do find it nice. I do listen to binaural music and beats whenever I'm writing, as is the best time for me or when I'm cooking or maybe going to bed. But there's two different kinds. There's theta and beta actually, there's more than that there's a whole bunch of the Greek alphabet, but the theta and beta wave patterns are or theta is associated with meditation and creativity. So it's a little bit slower. We're beta waves are a little bit faster beats and you do have to listen to these with your, like airpots in or whatever used to listen to music, because it does need to be binaural has to do with both sides of receiving information on the left and right ears. Anyway. I hope that makes sense what I just said and then the beta waves are associated with improved concentration and alertness. So you know if you're having your quiet time, maybe you could incorporate some binaural music into your into your quiet time. You can find loads of this through Spotify, YouTube, they're all over So wherever you listen your music, you could you can find them. 

Okay, and then the last one is to get physical. So this starts with closing your laptop, getting physical is all about extracting yourself from your typical environment and mixing it up. So when you are feeling stuck, you're feeling lost, like you don't have the clarity that you need to work on something in addition to these other things. This is just really about brainstorming, right. So a couple of ways you can brainstorm, I love a good old fashioned marker board, I'm looking at my giant one over here. I've got some notes scribbled from the other night when I was out here cleaning my office and tidying up and I just had a thought that come in came in my head and so I jotted it down. And so it's there. But you know, a big marker board is a great place to just start writing ideas. And there's something about that, like physical act of writing the large format of the, you know, gross motor skills of, you know, getting actual pen to paper, in this case marker to marker board. That is just different, right? It's just different than typing your notes. So I want to encourage you to get physical in that way. I love a good sticky note session. I've talked about this before. So sticky note sessions are brainstorming sessions. And the way I suggest you do this is to turn on some music. By the way, this is a total aside. One of my absolute most favorite songs right now is called robot street musicians. It came through in one of my Spotify accounts, go turn on Spotify and search the song, robot street musicians and put the if you want to use the song for your sticky note session you can I absolutely am obsessed with the song. It's so cool. And when you hear it, you're gonna know why.

Yeah, so you turn on some music, and then set a timer for 10 to 15 minutes. And no distractions don't. You're gonna take this time. 

So on each sticky note, you're gonna write down as many ideas and solutions to the problem that you're facing. So let's get into some examples here in a second. But you one idea per sticky notes, you're just going to fire away as many as you can. And I want you to just get wild, how crazy can you get? What are some outrageous ideas you can throw out there, no one will see them. It doesn't matter how bizarre crazy something sounds, the idea is that you're generating ideas, you're letting them fly, you're gonna throw a lot of stuff out there, and there's gonna be some that stick and some that don't give yourself permission to just get crazy. This is where the best ideas come from. Right? Okay, so some suggestions, let's say you are you you've recognized that you are lacking visibility in your business. So you're going to focus on marketing, right? If you're trying to increase visibility in your business, what are all of the ways that you can think of to do that, this certainly doesn't mean you have to do them all. In fact, you shouldn't. This simply is brainstorming. Remember, energy begets energy when you are done with your sticky note session, arrange them in order of the ideas that get you the most excited, that feels doable. And then go ahead and pick one that might feel awkward or scary and do that. And if something doesn't work, you're not a failure, you've you've you've just simply come back and try something new, something different. So, sticking out, brainstorming, physical session, turn on some music, dance it out, write out your ideas, get crazy, then you're going to organize them and then you're going to focus on narrowed down to one, two, maybe three, and figure out how you're going to start working on on those and it's gonna be anything I just used the marketing as an example. 

You can go for a walk. I mentioned that earlier, when we talked about getting quiet, going for a speed walk, getting your blood flowing and taking your voice recorder. And or find a friend maybe you find a friend who's also a service based business person who kind of gets it and maybe you guys can arrange to go on walk and talk dates, right? That's building a community that's getting physical. You're pairing these ideas in one so that's another way but you know, getting physical again, it's all about extracting yourself from your typical environment, turning off the laptop, turning off your phone, getting physical getting out there. Maybe even getting out of your office, maybe go work at a coffee shop for a day. So, I hope this helps give you some ideas to get you unstuck when you know, clarity is just not feeling attainable at the moment. And real quick before we go, I wanted to mention, there are countless ways that you can find community and, and obtain knowledge. 

And today, I just want to share with you one of those ways. So at the time of this recording the membership, the designers of this membership will, the doors are gonna open very soon, I believe they might even be open by the time this goes live. I don't know that off the top of my head, but I think so. And though the doors open for a little bit of time, so I just want to share a little bit about the membership with you in case, this might be just the thing that helps you build that community and gain that extra knowledge that might help you get unstuck. So there are 1,2,3,4,5 features of the membership that I just want to very quickly share with you. Number one is our community. We have a private Facebook group. This is one of the most loving, supportive, smart, resourceful, and savvy groups of interior designers you've ever met. And I know there's a ton of interior design related Facebook groups out there. And I'm just going to tell you, I'm a little bit biased. But this one special, it's very special. Just an incredible group of smart, talented and caring individuals that are there to help cheer you on and help you get unstuck. 

From time to time, we also host pop up events, you know, unscheduled couple of times, we've done some, as we have office hours, kind of working sessions, implementation hours to help be there alongside you while you're working on your thing, right, maybe you're updating your website, whatever. So from time to time I will do pop up events. 

The other thing inside the membership is the interior designers business blueprint course, there's three modules one is called define Module One is define your interior design blueprint, business blueprint with four key decisions. Module two is to create an irresistible brand that attracts your dream client. Number three is to attract your dream client without feeling overwhelmed. So all three of those are in there for you to go through at your own pace. And then the membership group, the Facebook group, and the q&a session is also there to help you sort of work through any questions that come up as you're working through that course. Speaking of q&a, there's a monthly q&a session. And honestly, our next one is coming up in a few days. It's my most favorite thing to do and be a part of. It's on the first Tuesday, excuse me first Thursday of every month. And members can send in their questions anytime all month long. If you just have a question that pops up in your head, you open up this tab because you bookmarked it, you send in your question, and then once a month, I hop on and we go live. And I go through all of the questions, and we answer all of them. In addition to that, the most commonly asked questions, we save those into the q&a vault which you have access to I just looked Currently there are over 50 questions that designers have asked these are frequently asked questions. And you can access this anytime there are video and audio versions so you can take them on the go if you want. next guest experts. Every month we invite guest experts to come and share their knowledge. And these are curated specifically for interior designers. And we cover all kinds of topics, business money, finance mindset, we've had technology trainings on SketchUp and dubsado. We also have product companies that come and share about their products that help you in your design business. We've had porcelain OSA they came and talked about their x two and large format. Porcelain slabs, we had row furnishings come and talk about their their lines, their their customizable furnishings. We have monogram appliances, that was so cool. All of the archives are available.

 So when you join, you can watch any of the past ones as well. But when you join the live ones, then you get to ask questions in real time to the experts there. And then finally is the resource library. So this is an ever expanding library of tools, templates, and guides all designed for interior design business owners, always adding to it. In fact, it just got a little glow up. We reorganized everything to make it easier to find they're organized by category, because it just kept growing and we were like, Okay, we gotta wrangle this in and get a little bit organized. So we're excited to have rolled that out. So scientists voices.com forward slash join. We would love to have you join us inside the membership. I created this because I saw two things in our industry that really rubbed me the wrong way. Number one is this really insular world of infor Asian designers feeling secretive about how they run their businesses. I operate from a place of abundance. I believe there's enough for everybody. And I wanted to change that. But there are, you know, other types of interior design, business courses and memberships. And there are some similar ones out there. The problem I saw with that was they have a one size fits all approach to how you run your business. And if you don't have the same career goals as them, if you don't have the same vision, or aspirations or measure of success that they do, while you're a square peg in a round hole. And so I wanted to create a space, a membership, a community that offers, you know, time tested, processes and strategies, but it's also flexible enough so that you can first define success on your terms, and then map out a plan that makes sense for you. Maybe you do want to grow a firm, and you do want projects nationwide. You have big dreams of, you know, landing your project on the cover of Architectural Digest or House Beautiful. You have a home and this membership. Maybe you want one dreamy client and big meaty project each year and a small team to help you execute it, leaving plenty of time for travel, raising a family whatever. You've got home with us. 

I just interviewed Lauren Sullivan of well, by design, she's a member. And that interview is coming up on the podcast in a few weeks. Lauren runs a luxury virtual design firm with clients all over the United States. But she is completely virtual. And she thought about doing an in person design. And she absolutely doesn't matter if you're her next door neighbor. But she did this in I love her fortitude. This is a very intentional decision that she made for two reasons. Number one, she knows herself and what lights her up in project management and does not light her up. Right. She doesn't want to have to oversee all of that, or a team to oversee it. So she just wanted to keep things simple. And number two, she loves to travel. And this model gives her that freedom. Sherry is another member who in addition to working with clients runs an e-commerce Store that helps her diversify her income. And there's many more just like them inside the designer. So it's this membership. So the point is, you get to define success on your terms. And then you make a plan and we're here to help you map out that plan so you can learn more at dissenters races.com forward slash join. 

Alright, let's recap today's episode. Five ways to help get unstuck. Number one, find community. Number two, pick up a new book. Maybe even join a book club. Number three, take a course to learn how to do something new. And number four, get quiet. And number five, get physical. All right, my friend. That's all for today. Thank you so much for spending part of your day with me. I hope you will join me next week for another episode of the designers Voices Podcast. Bye for now. Thank you so much for letting me spend part of this day with you. If you're loving this podcast, please share it with a friend who you think might also love it. Or perhaps you can take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating. And if you have just an extra minute, go ahead and leave a review. This helps me so much and it helps other designers like you to find the podcast. It also adds fuel to my motivation to keep making great episodes just for you. However you choose to help, please No, I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you next time