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Hello everyone and thank you for joining me. At the time I am recording this episode I am just back from a trip to Worcester to celebrate one of my nieces’ and one of my my nephews’ birthdays. I have 12 nieces and nephews and 4 were born in September, 5 celebrate in September making it an active month of birthday parties.

In the last episode I continued our exploration of the Cycle of Change using the analogy of a card game which was first introduced to me by iPEC Coaching. If you have not listened to the first two episodes covering the Cycle of Change I recommend you go back to the episodes titled Respecting Where You Are on Your Journey and The Secret to Clarity is Reflection and Research, respectively. These are quick episodes and will catch up on The Cycle of Change.

The Cycle of Change

I mentioned in The Secret to Clarity is Reflection and Research how I had moved into the Shuffle Phase and so I required more time to reflect and begin researching different options for the direction of Women Taking the Lead.

Another thing that I was fully aware of but it started to become a problem in this Shuffle Phase is the constant feeling I have of being busy. I feel, and I want to stress the word feel, I feel like I’m always overbooked and up against several deadlines. This causes me to constantly abuse the busy word and it impacts my mindset and how I “BE” in my life.

What had been happening was I was not honoring my flow; I time-block to get project work done, and have separate time blocks for meetings and consults. But I find I am constantly giving away my project time blocks because, let’s face it, I consider other people’s time to be more important than my own.

And here’s my dirty little secret. I am constantly working on the weekends because my projects get pushed from the work week to the weekend. Don’t get me wrong, I love the work I do, and would probably choose to do a little bit for my business every day but that’s not what’s happening. I wake up on Saturday and Sunday knowing I have to do several hours of work each day to play catch up before the work week begins all over again on Monday.

I’m done with that. So on Saturday when I thought through what was happening and what I really wanted in this Cycle of Change for Women Taking the Lead I realized I don’t want to be doing project work every weekend. So I moved all my tasks to the coming week so I could not give my time away.

Wish me luck and send me your love and energetic support as I commit to taking better care of myself, while leaving other people feeling honored and supported.

Now, onto The Deal Phase.

Phase 2: Deal (Preparing/Developing)

In the Cycle of Change using the card game analogy, The “Deal” Phase comes after The Shuffle Phase and before Playing the Game. The Deal Phase is marked by an increase in activity – this will include networking, testing out interests or experimenting, training and skill building. Thus, the plan that was developed in the Shuffle phase is beginning put into action.

You will have more energy and a more positive attitude because you now you can actually do something; you are following a path, you have a direction to go in. You’re open to new experiences, new people, and preparing yourself for the intensity of the next phase.

When you are in this phase you are more optimistic, seeing life as an opportunity, and so you experience more confidence in this stage than in any other. You are the proverbial adventurous student of life eager to stretch, learn, and grow in new directions.

When you first enter this this stage you will shy away from making commitments. Remember, this is the phase of experimenting and because of this you’ll tend to want to keep your options open and take things “one step at a time.”

Before entering the next phase you’ll make a firm commitment to trust yourself and the choice you have made. In the next phase you will be assessing and evaluating the plan but what’s important in The Deal Phase is your ability to move to the point where you can make a choice to move forward and make something happen.

Here you’ll also be looking around for allies, mentors and guides who can help to see you through the next phase successfully.

You’re now developing a new plan that will take you beyond networking and experimenting. You will identify one or more goals for the next phase and the work at the end of The Deal Phase is to have a strategy and a plan formed. Anticipation, excitement and energy will increase as you gain more clarity around all of these pieces.

There is also fear of failure or success, likely a combination of both, but you will be poised for action.

What will be helpful to you in this phase is…

Having a vision of what success will look like in the next phase. This will not only get you excited for what’s to come but may also help to identify any gaps in resources or training that you will need to set you up for success.

In the last phase you were identifying your core values and how you wanted to live your life. Here it’s also important to know what brings you alive, what value you want to bring and at least a sense of what your purpose or mission is. If you can connect your goals to these things it will fuel your fire.

Don’t overthink purpose, mission, and the value you want to bring. This can be something you experiment with in this phase. For instance, in my case I can boil down my purpose to the statement, “my purpose is to wake people up to how awesome they already are so they can get on with their purpose.” That is clearly tied to the goals I have for Women Taking the Lead and yes, it fuels my fire. It motivates me on the days when I can’t see progress or I just don’t feel like it.

Start with the change you’d like to see in the world and let it unfold from there.

If you are externally motivated, have an accountability partner or group. This will keep you from backtracking. It’s not to say you cannot pivot based on what you are learning from your networking and experimenting. Forward movement coming from informed decisions is what you are looking for here. The accountability is about ensuring, for you, that this is what’s happening.

As always, having trusted advisers who have your highest good at heart and who can listen intently, cheer you on, and help you clarify your next steps is priceless. If you have some like this who is also great at setting priorities and making a plan, especially if this is not your forte, bonus!

A Tool to Have in Your Toolkit

If you are in this phase and you have not yet read my book Accomplished: How to Go from Dreaming to Doing I’m going to strongly encourage you do so. A lot of what you need to do to navigate The Deal Phase successfully is in this book. From creating a vision to success, to getting at your core values, your purpose and mission, Superpowers, and even creating goals and designing a plan are in this book. It’s a tool you do not want missing from your toolkit.

If you have read Accomplished and you are finding yourself in The Deal Phase, read it again. This book is a process that will take you to new levels of knowing yourself and finding success with each reading.

Okay, that’s The Deal Phase. We only have one more phase to cover, Playing the Game phase, and I’ll be doing that in the next 100% Jodi episode.

As always, I hope this was of value to you and here’s to your success!

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Resources

Checklist to Ask Your Company for Coaching: Would coaching help you become a stronger leader? Wondering if your company would pay? It doesn’t hurt to ask!

Leadership Operating System Quiz: Wondering what kind of Leadership traits you have? Take this FREE, FAST quiz and find out more about yourself as a Leader.

Leadership Coaching: If you interested in finding out more about my coaching process, the cost of coaching, or how to ask your employer to pay for you to work with a coach, schedule a call with me.

Accomplished: How to Go from Dreaming to Doing: The book containing a simple, step by step system that gives you the foundation and structure to take your goals and make them happen.

The Women Taking the Lead Podcast

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