23 Random Life and Business Lessons from 2023
Each year I like to do a roundup of lessons I’ve learned from the year. Here are my 23 random life and business lessons I learned during 2023.
Be careful who you take advice from:
Follow the path of people who have successfully navigated what you’re trying to do.
Listen to the advice of those who share your aspirations, goals or vision.
Be cautious of advice from negative bystanders who don’t take action themselves and then discourage you from the sidelines.
If someone isn’t willing to do what you’re doing or hasn’t walked in your shoes, don’t listen to them.
On building a business:
If you don’t have an audience, create
If you have an audience but not sales, promote
If you have sales, but no time, automate
Now wash, rinse and repeat until your business runs on autopilot
(from Steve Mellor)
Don’t watch the news. It’s full of negative content that mostly has no impact on your life. I stopped watching the news years ago and it has helped a lot with anxiety or feeling stressed about things I can’t control and that don’t impact my day to day life. People sometimes say “but you’ll miss important events” - but that’s not true. If something is important then I always hear about it via social media or my family and friends - then I can go and read about it if I want or need to.
Being enthusiastic improves almost everything.
On what it takes to be an amazing designer:
Bad designers don’t take much seriously
Average designers take their client work seriously
Good designers take their client work and business/marketing seriously
Amazing designers take professional development, personal excellence, discipline, lifestyle, health, fitness, client work and business/marketing seriously
(adapted from an idea I saw Coachlisle during the year)
Find a period in your day where you can work deeply on projects that are important to you. For me this is the early mornings, but if you’re not a morning person your time might be later at night once kids are in bed or whatever. The aim is to find a few quiet, sacred hours each day to move your business and personal goals forward.
Always work to a deadline - whether it’s a 60 minute working sprint or a set date to deliver a project. Deadlines stop perfectionism and require you to take action.
Physical excellence is a direct reflection of self respect. Excellence comes when I do these things consistently:
lift heavy weights
eat foods that love me back
walk each day
prioritise sleep
Nothing more positively impacts all areas of my life as much as the pursuit of excellence in health and fitness - I feel better, my mindset is better, I’m more confident, I’m easier to get on with and I look better too :)
Success comes from showing up and doing the work even on days when you don’t feel like it. These are the days that separate the hobbyists from the professionals.
Creating lots of high quality content leads to an increase in audience growth, which in turn drives higher revenue. This is not just a numbers game - it’s also a skill building exercise. As I produce more content my expertise in content creation improves. This results in content that is not only more engaging but also more valuable to my community. An engaged community is more likely to share and recommend my content and this then creates an ongoing cycle of business and personal growth. Create more content!
Kids grow up really fast - make the most of the time they want to spend time with you as it passes quickly and then they don’t want anything to do with you. :(
Don’t measure goals and aspirations by someone else’s ruler. What is right for one person/business isn’t right for another (adapted from a book I read this year by Kevin Kelly).
The best formula for a life of enjoyment, freedom and success:
Do what you love
Do what you’re good at
Do what the world needs
Do what people are willing to pay for
(The Japanese call this finding your IKIGAI)
Writing this list each morning is a game changer - one word answers are totally fine:
5 gratitudes
Plans for the day
Any fears or resentments
Things to watch out for
Things to strive for
(from Hubermanlab)
As my business grows there are more and more copycats, but they fuel me to constantly innovate and differentiate. I also continue to focus on what sets me apart - and that is the fact that there is only one ME :) It will always be impossible for others to replicate the depth of my experience, stories and what I’ve achieved. That is what I continue to share with my community and it can never be copied.
You’ll never win anything fighting with haters online - delete their comment, block them and move on. Their problem, not mine.
Success is normally defined by complexity and growth, but I continue to choose to keep things as simple as I can and align all decisions to my ultimate goal of lifestyle freedom. That way I can focus on only doing the work that really matters each day. In my business, this means only growing to the point that I can manage the business on my own and not being tempted to add employees and products until I’ve created a business machine that I hate to work in.
Success is achieved by intensely focusing on a single idea, for years on end, despite the temptation of many other ideas/opportunities and the challenges that come with repetition and monotony. My continued concentrated effort over an extended period of time has allowed me to grow a very successful business, while I have watched others start one new idea after the other and rarely see anything through.
I want to continue to try and get better by 1% each day in everything I do. It’s the small, consistent improvements each day that add up to big changes over time.
In 2024 I want to strike a better balance between maintaining a professional image through my business and keeping certain aspects of my personal life private.
Biggest health hack learned this year that has given me the greatest results: eating more protein.
Challenges in life are inevitable but the way I respond is optional. I am in complete control of the way I respond to everything that happens in my life - the good, the bad and the seemingly impossible to get through (e.g. my 3 brain operations in 18 months).
Thanks for reading and catch you in my next post :)
Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
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