When it comes to superpowers, Jo Dodds reveals hers is “googling” (although arguably it could be the fact she gets to inbox zero everyday). It’s a skill that has helped Jo move from working in HR to publishing several magazines, to teaching people to set up websites and social media, to launching her own coaching practice for those running a home-based business.
“If I can’t do it, I will google it until I can,” she says. “You can find out anything… and I can do anything as long as I have the answers but you’ve got to have the confidence… I was never frightened to press a button.” And it is that ‘go for it and see’ attitude that has seen her consistently take action and develop her business.
But it hasn’t always been without a cost. Her coaching programme, Power To Live More came about after a seizure. “I was overdoing it. I knew it was stress, lack of sleep, eating the wrong things, drinking too much,” she admits. She now helps home-based coaches and consultants run a business without burning out.
Helping you achieve P.O.W.E.R.
Within her membership, Jo teaches five fundamentals to help you achieve better P.O.W.E.R., which stands for:
Productivity
Organisation
Wellbeing
Energy
Resilience.
The following five fundamentals will form a solid foundation for any home-based business owner to protect their mental health, energy, and improve productivity without burning out.
Self-care: Protecting your energy and making sure you carve out time for yourself to do things you enjoy and which are good for you.
Simplify: Gaining clarity about what you do and aligning that with your values.
Systemise: Doing it with ease and implementing automation to keep your workflow streamlined.
Share: Getting other people involved – delegating and outsourcing tasks to free you up to focus on what you do best and maximise your time.
Sustain: The rituals and development to keep it all going so that you don’t burnout.
When it comes to working from home, she believes these are all key factors to help prevent distractions and stay focused without succumbing to ‘shiny object syndrome’ – jumping from one new thing to another.
She believes it often happens when people don’t have clarity. “It’s partly because they haven’t sat back and got really clear on what they’re doing, who they serve, and the transformation that those people want and how to deliver that.”
How to make consistant progress
Once you have the clarity, she says the next hurdle is breaking down the projects into smaller tasks. When you take small, positive, daily actions, you start to see the upwards trajectory over time.
She recommends getting other people involved as soon as possible, something which she covers under her ‘Share’ principle.
“Outsource and get people to do those things so you can focus on what you’re good at rather than getting stuck in all the things you can’t do,” she explains.
Part of her service to her members is troubleshooting the small things that can hold people up: their websites, their email list, even the basics of knowing what they need to work on.
She says although it’s important to recognise when something isn’t working, one of the biggest mistakes is that we give up too easily. “We put something out there, we put something on social media, introduce a new offer, make a new Facebook ad and we think we’ve made a mistake… We have to give things longer and keep pushing through that pain barrier where you think it’s a failure or not going to work. If you can get past that initial feeling, then quite often things will work and will do better than you’re expecting.”
Dealing with procrastination
Procrastination can be one of the main challenges for people working alone. Jo suggests you use your intuition and reflect on it. “Time can be valuable to process why you might be procrastinating… The things I procrastinate on for a long period of time weren’t right.”
While she is all for moving forwards and making progress, she does advocate something she terms: Productive Procrastination. It’s choosing to do another useful task instead of the one you think you should do. Occasionally, this can get you out of a procrastination rut or complete paralysis. “As long as it’s not sitting with your feet up, if it’s still moving your business forward, it makes you feel accomplished and frees you up to do the other thing later.”
Power To Live More CALM incorporates Community, Accountability, Learning, and Materials in a membership for home-based coaches and consultants.
Find out more: https://powertolivemore.com/
You can also find Jo in our Homeworker business directory under coaching
Advertorial in collaboration with Jo Dodds
Dedicated to helping you thrive when you work from home, The Homeworker publishes articles that are designed to keep you healthy, happy, and more productive in work and life.
