WORD OF THE YEAR (how to choose yours)

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Time to think about 2023. If you’re anything like me your head is swirling with ideas on how to grow your business or career.

Picking a word of the year can bring clarity and focus to who we want to become and what we want to accomplish in life. A carefully chosen word is a type of mental mentor — something to help us stay motivated as we move toward our goals in 2023.

See below the show’s transcription:

1:38

Hi everyone. So this is a new time for the show, 15 Minutes of Fain is still here, but it's not at 12pm anymore. We're trying out 2pm on Tuesdays Tuesdays at two. What do you guys think? Just want to see if this is a better time slot for everyone. Hi everyone. I'm Mary Fain Brandt, I'm you're 15 Minutes of Fain. This is really short and sweet. Every episode is either LinkedIn based app or program based, right? Because I love my apps and programs business development. And right now we're going to be talking about goals. I don't know if anyone else out there loves thinking about their goals more than me, raise your hand. Give me a heart or a thumbs up. Tell me where you're watching from.

2:35

Before I dive into today's topic, I have two announcements. One, LinkedIn Local Phoenix, we've already booked our first event for 2023, February 7, at the Better Business Bureau in Phoenix. We're going to have new things new sponsors, new raffle prizes, and I just want to share that so if you're in the Phoenix, Scottsdale, Chandler Gilbert area, I think I've got them all covered. If you're in that area, and you're not signed up on our list, sign up on our list. I'm gonna I will drop in the link to the website so we can stay in touch on LinkedIn local. Second announcement is for all my career professionals. If you know that I host an audio event on Mondays at 7am called "The B Show" with my fabulous co host, Laura Bashore. Get it. That's what we call it the B show, Brant and Bashore anyways, we are whipping up a new joint service package. She has specialties. I have specialties we refer clients bouncing back and forth to each other. We thought, why not create a package that serves everyone. So we're coming up with a package where you get two coaches for the price of one you get everything that you need to launch a successful career search. So if that is something that's interesting to you, send us a message on LinkedIn. We'll be setting up a separate email just for that soon. But what else do I have to announce. There you go. There's your official screen. Shout out. Thanks for joining us. Before one more thing. Oh my gosh, you guys like the look and feel of this show. Right? Let's go over here. Let's take that banner off. Let's put that one on instead. It's just so fun. You know, tell me where you're watching from. Let's see what else okay to change some of these because they're outdated. Let's take all those little tickers and banners off but you liked the look and feel of the show. You know the intro video. There's an outro video if I remember to play it. Well, that's all possible by StreamYard who is the official sponsor of 15 Minutes of Fain. I've been using StreamYard for years, they sponsor this show, and I got to give them a shout out. It's so easy to go live, you literally hit a button up here that says go live and you click on things to make things appear on the screen. So technical, right. But it's so easy to use. So if you like the look and feel of this show, after the show, I'm going to drop in all my links, some are affiliate links, some are links to get to know me better what services I have. But if you sign up for StreamYard, I offer anyone a 15 minute like, setup session, just because I love the platform so much. Yeah, the streamer is top notch makes it so easy to go live and look so professional. So I will drop those links from an undisclosed location.

6:37

Let's dive into today's session, which is all about goals. I don't know where your mindset is, who here is already thinking about their 2023 goals? Raise your hand. Okay. Or give me a thumbs up or say yes, in the comments. Just let me know. Are you already thinking about your 2023 goals? Yeah, I've been thinking about mine since September. And we're just going to talk about a simple exercise to guide you in all your decisions for the next year so you can reach your goals. Well, we all know what thinking is. It's like step negative one of goal setting, right? Because a goal without a plan is just a dream. So Oh, and and you are definitely thinking about your goals? Well, I think and the you're really gonna like this very easy tip. I think everyone is it's so easy. It's not overwhelming. So it is time to think about your 2023 goals, and basically, you should be thinking about your goal quarterly. So whatever goals you set for 2023, you need to revisit them quarterly. What worked, what didn't work, what do you have to tweak? What do you have to add? What do you have to adjust? Okay, planning and writing out your plan. Good job as I'm actually going to a a goal setting workshop tomorrow for a couple hours, has already done some of the work. But here's a very simple exercise I have been doing this exercise for I think five years now I first learned about it in a women's networking group in San Diego. So picking out a word of the year can really bring you clarity and focus. So choosing a word, and being solidified in that word, can help you decide on all the actions you take. will it move you towards your goals? Can you see that? That chalkboard for 2022. I've expanded it and mindset, focus plus space, equal abundance. So my word for 2022 was abundant. Right? And I'm going to share with you some other words I've had over the year. And and like how that worked for me. So one of my words was fearless. Like five years ago I was so fearful of not seeing not being seen as the expert. I was. I was fearful of my business not growing, right. I was so fearful of everything that I chose the word fearless for my words and guided my decisions all year, I was fearless, not fearful. It's so powerful what a word can do for us. I love all this. I want to go on a goal. Right? goal planning is amazing. Yes, this is the exercise. Okay? We're gonna get right to it. It is okay to reuse a word. So you're going to pick a word, one word for 2023. Is it growth? Is it stretch? Is it fearless? Is it scale? Is it abundance? Is it consistency? One year, my word was consistency. Because it was early in my, my business, and I wasn't consistent. I wasn't showing up consistently for my business. And the strange thing about that word is I actually picked growth. And then after sitting in a small mastermind, group five people, I realized that to get growth, I need to be consistent. So I don't want you to choose your word today, I want you to think about it. And I'm going to tell you, here's a little exercise to get the brain going, oh my gosh, all these my words didn't work out. Yes. Thinking of words. Okay, so I don't like resolutions, right? We, we get a New Year's resolution, and they work for two years, or two weeks. So instead of New Year's resolutions, I like to come up with a word and I really solidify it with a few things. And we're gonna go over that.

11:36

So the first step in creating anything that you want, is to identify self awareness and specific intention. So what is going to be your intention for 2023 A word of the year, we're really helped set you in the right direction, by bringing more awareness to your intention. So here's how to start choosing your Word of the Year, grab a piece of paper, make two columns. On one side, write down everything that went well. On the other side, write down everything that you'd like to change. Okay, and this might help you write you had a word, what is everything that went well and 2022 to everything that you would want to change in 2022 to review the list, the side that went well? How does this make you feel? What do you want more of choose one of the five words, they speak on how you want to feel? So don't worry about grammar and all that? Do you want to feel rested? Joyful, excited, calm, peaceful? How do you want to feel that's important to know, write, review them all together, and then narrow it down to the one that you need more in your heart, or your business. Right? You can do this personally, professionally, or combined. What I like to do is I like to think of the word and I prayed about it, I think about it a large sheet. I think about the word what do I want in 2023? And for me, part of that has to do with health. Right? So I know that somehow 2023 maybe it's balanced? I'm not sure I'm going to put that out there right now. Maybe it's balanced? I'm not sure I'm going to, I'm going to think about it. And then I'm going to have a conversation with my coach, and a couple other business people. And we're going to talk about our word, what do we want 2023 to look like, and then I'm gonna see if that word still fit with what I want 2023 to look like, feel like and just see like, what word makes it so you can work remotely. That's called retirement, and that's called retirement. Okay. So let the word sit for a day or two. So maybe you want growth in your business. Or maybe you want reduced hours, maybe you are getting towards retirement. Maybe you want more flexibility. Maybe you want to speak on bigger stages. Maybe your 2023 is just like off the charts. I'm going to be a global speaker. I think that word means big, right? So like bigger, do a life planning session for 2023. So literally, I'm going to do two. So now what I do, like I said, I add that on my chalkboard. When you come up with your word. I want you to have it physically in your office somewhere. You can have it on your screen on your desktop, but I want you to write it on a chalkboard or a whiteboard. Because when you're not sure if you should say yes or no to something, if you're not sure if you should take on that client speak on that stage. Write a book create a course. Look at your word. Does that mean Does that action that you're teetering on? Does that make sense? Does it support your word for the year? Life planning rolled up into your business plan? Absolutely. The two are intertwined, right? So now to take it even a step further, I find a song that goes with that. And I want to share my past words with you. So let me bring this up. Let's see if we can get this up. It's, I don't know, it's, it's always amazing for me to just kind of look at some of the passwords. Let me go over here. You can see. So I've chosen fearless stretch, change, and then focus and face, I do the song in a Bible verse to support that. I'm gonna go back over here. Want to get that in there. So focus was all focused on my health, right? And what I shove into my mouth, I'll focus on my time and where I spend it, right. So I was being very intentional. Then one year. Here we go, I have a motto, I have a song. And I made those little like, poster thing. But my song when my word was changed, and the reason I chose change is because I needed to change the way I was doing things in my business and personally. And so you can't expect the same results when you're doing the same action. Right? So my word that year was changed, change the way I thought change the way I do things change my perspective. And so I have that song by Francesca Battistelli. This could change everything. One action could change the course of my life. And that was my word for that year. So I want you guys to just choose the words. You know, if you want a Bible verse to go with it, if you have a song, and if you have a one line motto, I think that that really helps, right? Really helps him get that off, really helps in bringing it full circle. The first time human was all stressed out, okay, you definitely don't want to pick that song unless you want to be all stressed out, make a word cloud of it. But I really want you guys to think what is your word? For 2023? What do you want your life to look like? And you're just gonna scribble it all down, make that list. Think about it, talk about it with business colleagues, your family, I tend to not talk about it with my family until I have it done. Right until I haven't chosen, but who's your three people that you can have this conversation with? So you can solidify your word for 2023? Because that's how you start setting up your year of success. Okay. Song, I bet is I don't know, done versus down, that I have something in there. Those are just my notes personally.

So Was that helpful, have a word have a song have a mantra, no abundance, focus, plus faith, I had to have faith. I had to be focused on my business, I had to have faith. That new packages that I launched this year would build up, they would gain traction. And I'm happy to say they did maybe not as fast as I thought they would. But they're definitely gained traction, my VIP intensive. That's my most popular service now. And it's the one that I love to work with. Four hours go from boring to badass, get it done, get you up on LinkedIn, show you how to use LinkedIn. And it just serves my clients who are busy professionals. It serves them by getting it done and not dragging out LinkedIn training. Right? So focus plus faith that package would serve the right people. I'm so glad that this was helpful, you guys, it's it's not all business related. So I wasn't sure and David of one of I aspire to inspire others. So I inspired you guys today. I'm a happy camper. I'm a very, very happy camper. So I'd love to know like when you guys work through this, you know, drop your words over on LinkedIn tag us. Let us know what your word is what your intention is for 2023 You're gonna see over the next six week goals, posts on gold coming out every week for me and gold checklists and things that you can download because I really want everyone to get this you know wrap start before the end of the year what your true goals are. And for all the business owners out there, are you meeting with your accountant about what 2023 is going to look like? Have your packages changed? Have your services changed? You know, are you selling the best package, right to make the most money. So I had a $4,000 package, but after reviewing it with my accountant, that really actually wasn't the best use of my time to make my financial goals. A little more complicated than that. But I'd encourage you all to look at your services in your packages, do they still serve you and your clients going into 2023? A little million miracle. And a million little miracles? Right? I love that. And I see like little stars and stuff. That's great.

21:00

Well, you guys, I promised to keep these for like 15-20 minutes. I'm Mary Fain, Brandt, this is 15 Minutes of Fain. You can find me here on Tuesdays at 2pm. My new time. And next week, I have a guest, who is a ghost writer. So we're going to be diving into what is the ghost writer who should use when when do you use a ghost writer, and how to find them. So please join me next week. If you've got questions ahead of time, you know what to do message me over on LinkedIn, send me an email. I'm working on my first online course. Well, and there you go. You have your first goal. So now you have to work backwards. What are three action steps, that's another show. But what are three action steps that will move that needle forward to that goal. So please ring my bell on LinkedIn to get all my notifications if there's a topic that you would love for me to talk about. Go ahead and message me. We'll be doing some more goal focused shows throughout the end of the year and some career stuff. So if you know anyone that's like not happy at their job has an awful boss is not getting the praise that they deserve, or they just need to change. Right, it's time for them to pivot. I'd love to have a conversation with them to see if I can help them. If I'm not the right fit. No big deal. Let's find someone who is because I believe everyone deserves to find a career coach that supports them, encourages them and gets them to the finish line of finding a new job one that they're happy at one that aligns with their skills and talents. Oh my gosh, you guys really made my day today. So take care and I'll see you online.

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