#010: Mindset Shifts for Procrastinating Perfectionists with Lauren Cash

by | Mar 2, 2020 | Podcast | 0 comments

More About Lauren

Lauren Cash, MA, MS, RDN is an eating disorder dietitian in private practice who specializes in mindset coaching for procrastinating perfectionists. She provides her clients not only with tactics for time management, she helps them to dive deep into creating a new relationship with time and themselves.

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Welcome to The Unconventional RD podcast, where we inspire dietitians to think outside of the traditional employment box and create their own unconventional income streams. We’ll talk all things online business to help you start, grow and scale your own digital empire.

What to Expect in This Episode

Are you always thinking there’s just not enough time in the day to get done what I want to get done? Are you in this constant state of overwhelm in your life or your business? If so, this is the episode for you.

Today we have dietitian and certified life coach Lauren Cash here to give us some advice for self-identified, procrastinating perfectionists. She’s going to share with us some mindset shifts and some exercises that we can all do to help calm that overwhelm and find some peace with our own schedule systems and goals. I hope you love this episode.

Let’s dive in.

Erica: Today on the podcast we have Lauren Cash and I am so excited to chat with her today about mindset shifts for procrastinating perfectionists. So thank you so much for being here, Lauren.

Lauren: Thank you so much for having me, Erica.

Lauren’s Background in Dietetics and Coaching

Erica: So, I feel like your expertise and specifically the fact that you specialize in mindset work is so intriguing and important for our community. So I’m just really curious, starting out, to understand kind of, what your background is, what led you to dietetics and then how did that sort of shift also into mindset work?

Lauren: Yeah, so it’s interesting. I did not come to dietetics like a lot of other dietitians that I seem to meet along the way, although I do meet a lot of second career dietitians. I came to it because I was studying psychology. So I thought I wanted to get a PhD in clinical psychology to treat eating disorders. So I got my masters in that and then I decided to “drop out” (I like saying that cause it’s like the only real rebellious thing I feel like I’ve done in my life) to then become a dietitian so that I could treat eating disorders still, but not have to do the whole six years plus licensure to be a PhD in clinical psych.

But then the mindset work, how that came in. Obviously interested in psychology from the beginning. And then, so I was, I had just finished my dietetic internship. The spring of 2017 I was working for an eating disorder treatment center about 30 hours a week and building my private practice up at the time. And I had been listening to a podcast called The Life Coach School for about three or four years at that point. Loved it. Really wanted to become a certified life coach even though it was very controversial in my like psych world to be interested in life coaching.

And the owner of that company had sent on her weekly email that summer, “PS, I’m still hiring one more customer support rep that can work remotely part-time, very flexible, very well paid.” And I was to the point in my private practice where it didn’t make sense to do 30 hours a week at the eating disorder treatment center. And so I was looking for something to supplement as I built my private practice.

So I decided to become a customer support rep, which made no sense to me. But then long story short, I ended up getting tons of promotions, took a break from my private practice, became an executive director for The Life Coach School. And then this past summer I relaunched my private practice and stepped away from working for them full time.

Erica: Wow, that’s such a cool story and I love that you went for it. Even though maybe on paper I didn’t make sense, but like maybe in your gut you were like this is somehow going to lead to something. I feel like that is a common story. Like you see in retrospect how it all worked out, but wow, that’s cool.

So through your experience working for The Life Coach School, did you do like did some sort of certification to become a life coach?

Lauren: Yes. I became a certified life coach through them while I was working for them. After I was working for them, I was able to go through their program, which I then ended up running and being the director of. And now I get to manage all the coach instructors still as a part time contract job, which is awesome to have multiple streams of income in my practice. And then now I’m going through master coach training with them. They have, that’s like their highest level of training.

Erica: Do you see, kind of, blending the life coaching and the nutrition counseling? Or would it be like two different clientele? Like how does that work?

Lauren: Yeah, so I already do blend it a lot. And right now if you go to my website, I’m pretty much only speaking about procrastinating perfectionists who I work with.

But I’ve found that a lot of them, those that I attract for the time scarcity stuff also tend to have food scarcity stuff and tend to overeat or consider themselves binge eaters. So I ended up getting folks that either come to me for nutrition therapy and then I weave the coaching model that I teach into their work with nutrition therapy, counseling and all that.

Or I get folks that come to me for the time coaching and we’re coaching primarily on that. And then a lot of the food and body stuff comes up and so I can help them with that as well. So it’s cool. Yeah.

Erica: That’s awesome. That’s really nice blending. That makes a lot of sense.

Were there mindset hurdles about becoming a life coach?

Erica: Did you come across any mindset hurdles with taking on the life coaching title? Maybe, you know, letting go of just the prototypical RD title, or identity, I guess I should say, or fear of judgment from I guess either other RDS or even the psychology world. How did you overcome that and get through that?

Lauren: Yeah, I would say I was more fearful of all my psych friends who actually are finishing or finished their doctorates having thoughts about the life coaching cause there still is some stigma around it. But I just knew I had gone through therapy myself so long and I had some relief from my social anxiety from it, but nothing as profound as when I actually got coached and did self-coaching using this model that Brooke Castillo teaches at The Life Coach School.

I hadn’t ever had a transformation that big, so I just knew for myself that it was so powerful. So if I can lead with that and just let other people think what they want to think, then I know that I’m doing okay because like, it’s worked for me and it works for my clients so much more. I’ve seen such better outcomes using, integrating those tools with intuitive eating and with everything else.

And so, and the base, like for all of the life coach school, like, coaching philosophy is very psych-based. Like Brooke has a bachelor’s in psychology and it’s all it’s very related to a lot of what I learned in psychology. So I think if people understand that it’s actually causal coaching, we’re trying to get at the root issue, it’s not just like action-oriented, then people are more open.

Erica: That’s really great insight. Yeah, I thought I wanted to be a professor too, but in psychobiology and like neuroimaging stuff. But yeah, it’s so funny how we end up.

How our mindset around time can hold us back.

Erica: So based on your expertise about working with perfectionist procrastinators and entrepreneurs and things like that, since a lot of the people listening to this podcast are dietitian entrepreneurs, in what ways do you feel like entrepreneurs can hold themselves back with the way that they view time? Like what, what do you mean by that? And you know, how, what should people be kind of looking at and being aware of when they’re thinking about how they manage their time?

Lauren: Yeah, so most of us tend to have what I call time scarcity, which means that we think that there’s not enough time. So when we’re looking at managing our time, we’re using that lens or that bias that there’s not going to be enough time.

And even how we manage our time as humans these days. Like there is a finite number, like 24 hours in a day, which is a Newtonian way of looking at time, rather than believing that there’s plenty of time and that it doesn’t have to fit within these chunks of 60 minutes that we’ve come up with.

And that might sound a little weird, but what I like for folks to start to notice is how much do you blame on time and how many times are you saying there’s not enough time? I have too much to do, there’s not enough time. That’s what I hear the most – I have too much to do. There’s not enough time.

And when you say that and you think that, how do you feel? Usually, folks feel overwhelmed and then when you’re in overwhelm, you don’t have the ability to make wise choices and to actually move any projects forward. So you stay stuck in the overwhelm and you’re unable to come up with higher-level solutions for things. So just starting to notice that is really key to then being able to get out of that.

And considering that there is actually plenty of time for absolutely everything that you want to do, you might not be able to do all of it in this season, like if you’re having kids and whatever and building a private practice. But being really cautious about, then, how we’re allocating our time.

I see a lot of folks not looking at what results am I working on creating by doing this activity? That’s really huge.

What to do if your time-mindset is holding you back

Erica: So what can people do if they feel like they really resonate with that description? And that their mindset around time is holding them back.

Lauren: Yeah. So the first step is to know that you’re just thinking a thought, which is a sentence in your brain, that there’s too much to do and not enough time. That that’s not actually reality. That’s not the circumstances. Because in reality, there’s actually all the time we’re supposed to have and there’s the exact right number of things to do.

So if you’re in that state, though, of believing that there’s too much to do and not enough time, what I recommend doing is doing a to-do list download, which Brooke and I and Tyson teach in a course we did called Monday Hour One.

So you’ll take everything in your brain, like all the to-do lists swarming around in your brain, take them all out and put them on paper. So that helps you separate it from being in your mind and your being able to see on paper that there are a bunch of thoughts that you’re having of things that you think you need to do.

And also our brains, if we can’t close a loop or if we don’t get something done, it’s just going to keep trying to hold that for us in a way to try to help us to survive. So if we can get it into a different system, which I teach putting it on your calendar, when exactly you’re going to get it done so then your brain doesn’t have to hold that, a tool or your computer can hold that instead of your brain.

So get all of that, like download everything you think you need to do on paper and then ask yourself what else and keep asking yourself until you get everything out on paper. And then what we teach is that then you assign from all of that, you decide how long each thing is going to take, which everybody freaks out because they don’t want to know. Like they think they don’t know how long something’s gonna take. But you get a lot better at it when you first start deciding. Just like this thing is gonna take this long.

And that also helps with perfectionism. If I decide I’m going to write a blog post, draft one copy in like 90 minutes, then I at least get that done and I’m like, good. Pretend I’m going to turn it into a teacher, like for a test. And then I can schedule like when I’m going to edit it or when I’m going to do more work on that.

So basically, yeah, get it all on paper and then decide how long it’s going to take and then getting it on your calendar. So using your calendar as where you’re actually getting results done, rather than having all these to-do lists, swarming around everywhere, that’s going to help you tell your brain, actually, there’s plenty of time. We’re doing exactly what’s on my calendar. Instead of thinking you don’t know where it’s going to go cause you actually don’t know if it’s not on your calendar.

Erica: That’s so funny to hear that description, because I’ve never worked with a life coach or anything or been introduced to that model. But that’s what I do like in my regular life. It was just like, I don’t know when I developed that habit, but yeah, if you could see, I have like a notebook over here with everything I need to do and then kind of time slotted in.

I only time slot it in like the day before, maybe like a few days before. How, how soon do you recommend doing that?

Lauren: We do it weekly, so that’s why it’s called Monday Hour One. So we recommend doing this process every Monday, or I do it usually like on Sunday as I’m getting everything out of my brain and onto paper. And then onto my calendar and then you throw away that to do us. You don’t have the list anymore, you just follow your calendar exactly.

But most people don’t have the self-trust built that they can trust themselves to do that, so that’s a lot of the work I do with my clients then, is when you have the urge to do something else other than what your calendar says.

And also getting better at what you put on your calendar, having it be a results-oriented thing rather than just like research SEO keywords. Like actually knowing what exactly you’re looking for and what is the result you need to produce in order to then write the article that’s going to be great for your business.

Should you schedule your down-time?

Erica: That makes a lot of sense. Do you also recommend scheduling in downtime? Because I feel like that would be my issue. I’d like write everything down and then try to plan it in and there’d be nothing left.

Lauren: Yeah, that’s such a good question. We actually in the program tell you you have to schedule your free time first, so that’s the first thing that you schedule is free time first and then everything else.

Erica: That’s really good. How much free time do you recommend that people have throughout the week? Is it personal?

Lauren” Yeah. It really depends and it depends on if like you’re also a stay, like if you’re taking care of kids, right? If you’re not, how many hours do you want to work? Which I was going to talk to you about too.

Like people, when they decide how many hours they want to work, usually if I ask them, how many hours do you want to work, they go to, well, I should just work 40 hours because that’s standard. Or my employer’s saying I have to work this many hours. Or they go to somewhere outside of them, rather than choosing from themselves.

Because even if your employer says it’s 30 hours a week, you’re the one who decided to take the job that was 30 hours a week. So ultimately it was your responsibility to choose how many hours a week you want to work.

And then from there, building out your free time. How much do you want? Do you need it more like on a daily basis or do you need it on a weekly basis? For me, I now just take Friday sundown to Saturday sundown and don’t do any work. I try really hard not to check my email or go on Instagram or anything like that and do nothing that’s like work-related and I try to not even like grocery shop or her do laundry, stuff like that, for a good 24 hours and that’s helped me a lot.

Erica: That’s something I definitely need to work on. I think I’m in a space where I’ve been like adding more. My business is growing and then things just keep creeping in and then now I’m realizing I’m out of balance. I think hiring a team or at least an assistant is probably going to be happening in the next two weeks probably.

The power of language and personal responsibility

Lauren: Yeah, and noticing too, like when you say, like, things keep creeping in, how that’s like giving the power away to these things, when really, you’re choosing to bring them in. So that’s a lot of the language shifting… is this responsibility that we take or not take, you know?

Erica: Dude I’m having like a mini-coaching session. I love it.

Lauren: I can’t help it.

Erica: It is true, obviously, like I am my own boss, so I am willingly taking these things on. But I think it’s like coming from a place of wanting to continue to move forward and not get stagnant, but then realizing that I can’t keep my old habits as I keep adding new things. Cause then it’s, it’s not gonna work.

Taking the bigger picture view

Lauren: So, right. Which then you come to the finite, like as much work that you can do yourself and then you need higher-level solutions, which includes hiring and delegating.

Sometimes it’s to actual humans. Sometimes it’s to like text expander app that helps you type faster. Or it’s to like SEO tools that help you find the, you know, keywords to use or whatever it is. But we forget that there’s so many different levels of delegating or creating a more effective workflow.

Erica: Yeah. And then just honestly making the time to do that, you know, you do have to set aside time to make sure that you’re not so in your business that you haven’t like pulled back and been like, “Is this the most efficient way? “

Lauren: Like you know, yeah, we can get caught up in doing the systems that we have been doing and just being the worker bee within our business rather than actually being the CEO and looking at how everything is flowing in. If it even makes sense.

Like, why am I even writing the Instagram post or whatever? Like is this actually getting me clients? Or where are my clients coming from? What’s the point of all this activity I’m doing? Is this actually money in my business? Or am I just thinking I should do it just because everybody else is or not.

Learning to let go and the mourning period for high-acheivers

Erica: Totally. I resonate with that a lot. And then I know you mentioned that sometimes high achievers almost have to go through like a mourning period. Can you elaborate on that?

Lauren: Yeah, so we almost started talking about it. It’s like when you were talking about how you’re kind of reaching this end of yourself, where you’re going to need to hire somebody else. So we get to this point where we literally can’t do anything more in our days. Like we can’t get it any more efficient just us and like technology that we need to outsource or we need to drop some projects or we have to make those hard decisions.

And so it’s sort of this mourning process I’ve found, even for myself, that I am actually human, that there is an end to me, there is a limit to what I can take on as my load, which a man… Swenson I think is his last name, talks about. What the definition of margin is. And so, it is the space between your limit and your load.

And I’ve really been finding that in our society right now, nobody keeps really that margin of free time or margin even in their workdays between their limits and their load. We’re usually like overcapacity. And then we’re so like not doing well mentally because we don’t have that margin. And so I want to help people create more of that margin so that they can have better mental health around work too. But yeah, you have to grieve like there is an end to you.

You can’t do absolutely everything right now. You can do huge, amazing things in your business and practice and scale it to wherever you want to and you’re going to need help and you’re going to need to have better solutions for things.

Reflecting on what YOU need most in this moment

Erica: Yeah, and I think something that I’ve noticed ,just in the entrepreneur community online too, a lot of times people are speaking or giving advice from like where they are right now in their business. But then also as someone who’s paying attention to those conversations, recognizing whether that’s also you at that moment…

Like, I know when I was just starting my business and I was barely making any money and I was just a solopreneur and maybe I had like a bunch of side gigs, I kept seeing like, Oh, you need to outsource. Like if you’re not outsourcing, you’re doing it wrong or whatever, but maybe that’s not always accurate for you right at this moment.

Like now in my business, I can definitely see that. I do need that, but I don’t actually think I needed that, you know, three years ago.

Lauren: Yeah. Which goes back to what I was saying about like, what result am I trying to create? And so if you’re early in your business, are all the “activity”, like the activity that you’re doing, is that bringing in a client today? Or is that bringing in a new consult today? Or whatever it is that you’re doing that generates in your business. Or are you just filling your calendar with things that you are hoping will bring that about?

Like instead of that, like paring that all back. And that’s what I did really well this time building my practice. I used to like, have all the blogs and do all the things the last time and wasn’t really bringing in much revenue and this time I only did revenue-producing activities.

I didn’t let myself start Instagram or a blog or anything until my practice was pretty much full. And that was incredible to be able to do that rather than thinking I need to outsource and have an assistant right from the beginning when my business revenue wasn’t to the point where I could afford that yet.

Erica: Totally. And that’s a really great point too about, I guess it depends on your business model, but if you are working with clients one-on-one yeah. Like you know, filling your calendar is really important in those revenue generating activities. And like for me, what I do and teach, since I don’t see clients, I do do a lot of like content creation but then that is monetized, you know? And I feel like sometimes there’s a missing link there, between like why you’re doing it and where you’re trying to get it to lead in your business

Lauren: You know, even what you talk about, like in your, the earlier episode on this podcast, the one about SEO and like how you had just been writing all of these blog posts without paying attention to SEO, or like if it was actually bringing people to your website. And I totally have done that. And am doing that and want to change that because you’re not even looking at is this even worth all the time? I’m writing all of this and putting it out there, when you really need to be looking at the whole reason behind writing articles.

Like today it’s not to have a blog, it’s for SEO. Like that’s the only, I mean in my opinion, like the only reason to have it. Yes, I want to help people and I want them to read it, but they’re never going to find it unless it like appears on the search engine. And so I think that ties in really well to what we’re talking about here too.

Erica: I, yeah, I feel like when you’re starting out, or maybe it’s not like this today, but at least when I was starting out, the internet was still kind of like a foreign place. Maybe younger people now, like they’re more way more familiar with it. But yeah, I just had this perception that like all of a sudden you just make it and like everyone would know about you, you know? But there actually is a strategy, which just took some time to learn, which is totally normal.

Lauren: Yeah, but I really think that you’re right on with that, making sure that you are making your time decisions around what phase of your business that you’re in. I think that’s critical.

And not outsourcing too early. I have some clients that have outsourced a ton in their businesses and their businesses are in debt right now because of that and if you want to do that, that’s totally fine if you want to start your business that way. But for me, I’m not a fan of that.

Like I want to be debt-free. I’m still paying off student loans this year, but like starting it out, knowing you yourself have plenty of time to generate the revenue in your business and starting there and then when you get to where Erica has that like she knows it’s time. She has the revenue to outsource and have an assistant and create more time so that she can continue to scale her business.

Erica: Yeah, that’s great advice.

Managing overwhelm as an entrepreneur

Erica: Do you have any advice for managing overwhelm as an entrepreneur? Like, say you did write out like everything you have to do and you’re feeling completely overwhelmed. Like, how do you help prioritize what to tackle first? That type of stuff.

Lauren: Yeah. So it’s going back to like, what, why is this even on my to do list? Should I even be doing this? If you’re early in your business, is this going to bring in money today? Like, ask yourself that. Like will it today bring in money or even this week?

And if it’s not, I would say eliminate it until you get your business to the place where you are generating enough money that then you can start to scale and build all the content that you need for courses or other things that you’re building beyond one-on-one work.

So it really depends where you’re at, but asking yourself what you can eliminate or even if you’re doing things you “shouldn’t” be doing anymore. Like should an app be used for that? Like, should you be using Zapier or something else and you’re like manually doing all these things that you don’t really need to be doing? Or could you hire somebody on Upwork or Fiverr to do this thing that you have enough revenue to hire to do? Or is it time to hire an assistant and you should be delegating to the assistant?

Like asking yourself does that even really need to be done today? Am I just thinking I need to change business banks and I can do that next quarter? It’s OK to intentionally like put things off if it doesn’t make sense for this month, this week, right now. What is the goal of the business today?

How to identify your revenue-generating activities

Erica: Do you ever come across people where they’re like, okay, I don’t even know what my revenue generating activities are? Like, do you have any suggestions on how to wor backwards and keep track of what you’re working on and what’s working best?

Lauren: Yeah, so I love to keep stats like for my business.

So if you’re seeing people one-on-one, making sure you’re always asking them how they found you and making sure that even if they like found you online, like did they hear from somebody else to search you and figure that out?

So figure out where are your clients coming from. If you’re seeing them one-on-one or if you’re doing a course online or something, like in the order form, asking them – how did they hear about you? So that you can use that as data for where to put your attention and to continue to invest in what’s working.

Erica: Yeah, no I do that too. For all of my courses, I make it a mandatory field that they have to fill out where they heard about me.

And that way, like for example, the SEO that I’ve been doing for my nutrition blog, that was a concerted effort to see if blogging with strategy and getting eyeballs on my stuff could funnel people into joining my paid membership site.

And I tracked that by like, Hey, how did you hear about us? And as my blog became more visible, the percentage of people that heard about the membership site and signed up, there was more and more people saying Google, Google search, online search, like that type of stuff. And that was reinforcement that what I was doing was working.

Lauren: Yeah. And analytics too, right? Like making sure you have analytics on your website. I’ve been like looking at that every week now to see like, Oh, is this listing that I have that I’m paying for even bringing people to my site? No, it’s not. And so maybe I won’t renew that. And that’s not really like your time, but just knowing like where are people coming from and where are you generating money in your business and shifting that focus whenever your business shifts to.

Erica: Yeah. I, I analytics are great. It’s, it’s interesting to see where people come from even, you know, even podcast interviews, I’ve had good success people finding me through those avenues. So yeah, I’m a huge fan of tracking and stats, but I’m like kind of a data nerd.

Do you use any tools or anything to keep track of that?

Lauren: I just love spreadsheets, so I even do that for myself. It’s really cool. I created last August a scorecard basically is what I called it for myself. And I put the main activities. I knew if I did them, like I set a goal for myself for each of them. If I did those activities, I knew for sure I was going to increase my revenue. So it was like things like how many conversations with people I would have just even telling them what I’m up to.

Having relaunched my private practice, how many events I went to to just network in person, how many consult requests, how many consults I actually did, how many clients, how much money. And doing that since last August has really shown me like what moves the needle.

And when I focus on those things, that also helps my brain because I really boil it down to we just have to have a conversation today with someone about like, what’s up with me. Like it will come up about business to just naturally having a normal conversation.

So helping your brain by boiling it down to like, what is the one result that you need to create to move the needle forward to on a regular basis. Then you’ll see compounding results.

Erica: Yeah. I have a spreadsheet too, just like a really like an Excel spreadsheet. It’s not even in the cloud or anything really old school, but it does, it helps when you see the, like the, the numbers ticking up for whatever you’re trying to accomplish. You’re like, all right, it’s working.

Lauren: Yeah. And it helps us differentiate the drama from the math. So the math are like the facts, the circumstances, actual numbers that we’re seeing and then all the dramas, everything we make those numbers mean in our brain.

How to handle comparisonitis

Erica: Yeah. Do you have any tips on separating yourself from like the keeping up with the Jones’s mentality? I feel like that’s really big. Or just like comparisonitis, almost, with other businesses or practitioners that you might see around you.

Lauren: I really like to just remember what my why and my goal is and being focused on that and not being on social media that often. And setting time limits around how much I’m going to be on social media. I really don’t spend that much time on it except for yesterday cause it was my birthday.

But I really like to focus on what am I after? Like why am I even in business? Why am I even on social media? And just keep bringing myself back to that. And that helps me not to compare it to other folks.

And when you do start to notice yourself comparing to other folks, knowing that that’s normal part of your brain and switching it to celebrating them, because if there’s somebody out there that’s able to have great success in something, even similar to what you’re doing, that means that there’s a need in the market. And so that means you’re going to be able to be successful too. So I work on celebrating them as well. And that’ll also like bring it more to you and be more open to attracting all of that for yourself.

Erica: That’s a really good tip, a really good mindset shift. I should’ve seen that one coming. Mindset shifts.

Yeah. And I, I feel like there’s something that helped me in that arena – not getting caught up in, Oh, this person is doing XYZ thing, and then feeling almost like distracted or like pulled like, Oh, maybe I should be doing that too. When maybe that doesn’t even fit into your life dreams or your goals, you know, you just like see someone else succeeding in a certain area.

For example, for me, that would have been private practice. I would see people doing incredible things working with clients one-on-one, even though every time I tried to work with people one on one, it just didn’t feel right. And then eventually, I guess it’s sort of similar to the mourning of your time thing, like mourning that that’s not for me and just accepting that and refocusing my energy on the things that are in alignment with me. Even if I don’t see as many examples of people doing that around me.

Lauren: Oh yeah, totally. That’s huge. I feel like I even go through that too. Like I am not a typical dietitian, which is why I’m on this podcast. Like I don’t even, yeah. Like I don’t give meal plans. I don’t want to, I hate recipes. Like I don’t want to cook. I don’t want to teach people how to cook. Like I just want to help them move past all the mindset stuff and sure, I’ll educate them about carbohydrates if it’s going to help them with how their eating disorder is viewing it and telling them like lies about it. That’s awesome. But yeah, I love just looking at like what I love to do and really focusing on that and knowing that the world needs that. Like other people listening to this are amazing at the recipes and we need them and they’re online and I can send my clients to their websites and their services for that part of it. And knowing that we each have a place exactly for what is needed.

Erica: Yes. Yes! And I feel like we have this innate knowing, but we don’t always listen. Or maybe it takes a few tries before we’re like, Oh, okay. Yeah.

How to utilize tools and systems for time management

Erica: What are your thoughts on tools and systems? Like what’s the difference between a tool and a system? How do they play together for managing your time?

Lauren: Yeah, so a tool would be like something like Google calendar or text expander or Zapier or any of these types of applications. And even my phone, like setting a timer, those are tools, but then systems are more like processes. So the way that we use those things in order in a way to achieve our results.

So I have a particular system for when I have a new client onboarding, like I add them to Practice Better and I have them in Click Up and then I order them their flowers and then I, you know, tag them a certain way.

And I like, I have a particular system that happens that I can use tools to speed up that work. So like in my email platform, I have like a canned response about like how to get started. And then I, in the system, I’m using that as part of the process that I’ll put in.

And systems are really cool because then you document them for your company and then when you do hire your assistant, then you just give them the systems and the processes and they can just follow those exactly. And then it’s not just in your brain and you’re not the bottleneck. So I like systems for that.

And then also you can evaluate systems and see like does it make sense? Is each step super necessary? Is there any way that I can make it more effective for the results that I’m looking to achieve?

How to create systems in your business

Erica: Yes. And I feel like that’s something that often gets put on the back burner in terms of prioritizing. Like, oh, I’ll do that another time. I know what I’m doing in my head. Do you have any tips on getting over that and actually getting those systems down on paper and formalizing them?

Lauren: Yeah. So just say the next time you’re actually doing it yourself that you need to do it in your business, just have yourself actually document it then and even record process videos. Like you can use Loom and record it even just as a video of you doing it and telling somebody like what you’re doing while you’re doing it could be even faster. And then you could always go back later and type out but like main points of it or have your assistant actually do that for you the next time.

But having yourself not sit down and do X when you don’t really need to be doing it in your business. Like multitasking, basically, of executing the thing that actually needs to be done. But then you’re taping it in order to create it so that it can live on in your business later on for somebody else.

Erica: That’s a really good tip. Yeah. Now that you say that, I, I’ve really, I think I recently heard someone talking about that Loom tip on a podcast specifically where they, rather than taking the time to document it all super neatly in real time, you know, they just did it and recorded it. And then like you said, sent it to a VA or something to create a more formal document, more organized.

Lauren: And videos are a lot better for folks to learn from because you don’t even remember specific things you click on sometimes and it’s easier for visual learners too. You can still have like the outline and the text form, but always having a supporting process video and those types of things is what I recommend.

How to prevent tool overwhelm

Erica: And I think it’s important to understand how the tools and the systems interplay, like we’ve been talking about, cause I do think that there is a little bit of “Oh this new cool tool is going to solve everything!” And then you buy it because it’s on sale and then it sits there.

Like I know I’m guilty of this, especially with my social media scheduling tools. I’m like, I can see why this is valuable, but then I don’t ever develop the systems behind it and it’s just kind of sitting there even though I’m paying for it every month.

Lauren: Yeah. So I think for solving that, it’s like you’re not allowed to buy something new unless you actually have implemented and integrated what you’ve purchased in the past.

Like I’m doing that with online courses too. Like I’m not allowed to buy any new ones until I actually know I’m going to take it and do it and have the time to allocate for it.

Erica: Yes. That’s so good. That’s a really good kind of framework to give yourself for sure. And then also auditing, I think kind of going through, I guess this relates to if you, if you are in the habit of looking just at your financials, keeping track of the things that you are subscribed to, double-checking to make sure that they’re needed in your business as well.

Lauren: It’s a good habit. Yeah. I was actually doing that in my personal finances recently and I’m gonna start doing like, I’m not allowed to actually subscribe to something new unless I then document it in my spreadsheet of like all the subscriptions I have because you don’t even remember things that are like annual subscriptions until they’re about to like charge you. So yeah, I’m doing that too.

Erica: Yeah, and I’ve noticed since I am talking, I talk a lot about tools in my courses and just over the 12 months from when I initially made the course and was talking about a tool, to like a year later when I’m ready to update the course content, oftentimes they’ve added so many new features and things like that over the time period, it can almost make some of the tools that you’re using redundant. And maybe you can faze some of them out because some of the other tools you’re already paying for have new features and things like that.

Lauren’s closing thoughts

Erica: So yes, absolutely. Did you have any other kind of thoughts that you’d like to share on time mindset? Or anything that you really feel passionate about that our dietitian entrepreneurs listening should be aware of?

Lauren: I think starting to do that process and using your calendar rather than a to do list, like can you break up with the to do list?, would be my big question to you.

And then starting to ask yourself higher-level questions of am I the one to be doing this? Can I use an application or a system or another human depending on where I’m at in my business?

If I believe there’s plenty of time, how would I be approaching my business differently?

And then starting to look at results too. Like what is the point of me doing this? Like asking what’s the point a lot and seeing if you even want to be doing what you’re doing and if it’s even getting you towards your end goal or are you just busying yourself because you think that you’re productive.

Then when you’re just like doing all these activities and knowing that your worth doesn’t come from checking off a box or getting something done that you already are 100% worthy and everything else is just for fun. And if it’s not fun, I’m like, why are you doing it? What’s the point of your business?

Erica: Yeah. And also just because maybe you don’t have it optimized right now… Like I feel like sometimes you spread yourself too thin, especially as a new entrepreneur with like, Oh, I gotta be on this platform or this platform and I’ve gotta blog and I’ve got to do Instagram stories and blah, blah, blah.

Sometimes maybe you just like overeached a little bit, overshot it and because you’re spread so thin, each thing is suffering. And I love that advice to maybe pare it down and figure out what’s working and focus on that and optimize that. It doesn’t mean in the future you can’t expand because most people do.

Especially for The Unconventional RD brand. I mean, I didn’t mean to start it as a business, it was just a Facebook group, but it’s grown into a business and that was purely just through the Facebook group pretty much. Like I just focused on one thing and now I’m expanding into podcasting and more content creation on my website.

But you can build really successful things being kind of like a minimalist.

Lauren: Yeah, I love that. We call it constraint at The Life Coach School. So what can you constrain to and get really good at? Just one thing.

So like when I was building my practice, I first did, I started on Instagram before I even started my email newsletter and stuff like that. And then like can you get really good at that one thing before you add on the next thing? I wouldn’t do Instagram next time, by the way. But what is the one thing?

And I like doing it monthly, sort of like that scorecard thing that I was telling you about. Like what’s the one thing I’m focusing on this month and getting really good at and the next month maybe I’ll add something on or maybe not. Maybe I’m still honing that one skill and seeing if it’s effective.

How to connect with a life coach

Erica: And for people listening, if they’re intrigued by the thought of life coaching or mindset coaching, especially around these time management things that we’ve been talking about, how would someone know if working with a coach would be beneficial for them?

Or how do you even find, I mean obviously they can reach out to you, but how do you, how do you reach out and find a coach?

Lauren: Yeah. So The Life Coach School offers coaching too. And there’s a whole listing of all certified coaches by The Life Coach School, a huge listing, tons of different niches and opportunities. So I’d obviously recommend going there because they all teach and coach this causal coaching, which means that we get at the root issue and work through the beliefs that are really like creating your whole reality right now so that we can change them and that it’ll stick longterm.

So with my clients, I help them break their identity of being a procrastinator. Like a lot of them come to me thinking that’s just something that’s inherent to who they are and that they can’t become anyone different. And so we work on breaking that, and whatever thing you’re working through, a life coach can help you do the same thing. So thelifecoachschool.com or obviously me if you are looking for a particular life coach too, I know a lot of them so I can refer you as well.

Recommended resources on mindset

Erica: Great! What about, do you have any other fun places if people want to just learn about mindset? Like podcasts, books, blogs, that type stuff?

Lauren: Yeah. So The Life Coach School, their podcasts obviously is amazing. If you’re looking to work on selling, one of our life coaches has a podcast called Making Money as a Life Coach. But even if you’re a dietitian and unconventional, and I think that would be amazing as well. She has a program called 2K for 2K that helped me get over my like selling mindset blocks. And so her podcast is amazing and you can apply it to your, like any one-on-one private practice work. Even if you’re not a life coach that I would recommend.

And then a book called You’re a Badass at Making Money I think is really good. And then there’s a cool book. It’s not mindset, but it’s just like on systems and getting things done more efficiently. It’s called Clockwork by Mike… I always Mike M…. it’s the same dude that wrote Profit First, that a lot of us know and love.

And then if you’ve ever wanted to get good at focused work, Deep Work by Cal Newport or Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, both of those are super good too.

And then if you want to learn how to calendar and everything I was talking about for that, like using your calendar as how you get everything done and create whatever result or goal you want. We do have a course called Monday Hour One that you can check out at Mondayhourone.com.

Erica: Awesome. That was really helpful. A lot of the things that you mentioned actually, those books and stuff, they’re on my radar but I have not read them, but I’m like, Oh yeah, I’ve definitely heard of that. And I’ve heard The Life Coach School being mentioned a lot. So I need to check out all of these resources.

Yeah, I came across one sort of accidentally back in the day. I signed up for B school. And Marie Forleo runs B school. I think she originally started it with Laura Roeder who’s like another social media person who then started Meet Edgar, that like social media scheduling tool. So I found her affiliate link and I was really excited. She had like an online course about, I don’t know, creating like online fame or something like that. And I was like, Ooooooh, back in the day.

Totally the wrong goal….. But anyway, she was paired up with a mindset lady and they were co offering an affiliate offer. And I didn’t even know this other person. I really just wanted Laura Roeder’s thing. But turns out that was like the mindset course. It was Denise Duffield Thomas.

That was my favorite thing that I ended up getting. And her private community and her courses are really powerful. Even just being in the room with women who are making hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and comfortably talking about and embracing it and cheering each other on or recognizing and working through those blocks of, you know, worth and your money stories that you learned when you were a kid maybe that are coming up. It’s so interesting and I’m so grateful that I accidentally stumbled my way into that group cause it’s, it’s really, really been helpful.

Lauren” Yeah. I love her as well. I’ve listened to them on audible so you could check that out.

Erica: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t want to, I don’t know if the B-word counts as swearing for the explicit rating on iTunes, but it’s “Get Rich Lucky B.”

Lauren: Yes.

Erica: Yeah. And then she kind of embraced the bee thing, so now her mascot for the brand is like an actual bee, like the animal, even though, you know, that’s not the bee we’re talking about.

Lauren: Yes.

Lauren’s free resource for getting to inbox zero

Erica: Yeah. Well thank you. That was really helpful. And I know you have an offer for people as well. A free resource if anyone wants to check it out for managing their, their inbox, yeah?

Lauren: Yeah. So if you want to start with your inbox, I found that that’s a really cool place to start. If you want to get to inbox zero, I teach you in this freebie exactly how to get there first and then how you maintain it. You can actually create so much more time in your day if you’re at inbox zero and if you have a different way of viewing your emails. So you can get [email protected]/inbox.

Erica: I need that. I’ve got 117,000 unopened messages.

Lauren: Yes. You’re one of my people.

Erica: Yes. Yeah. I actually listen to a lot of Pat Flynn’s podcast and I think there was one point where he was like, I had to hire someone to like manage my inbox. That’s probably, I could see that being me. because it’s not my forte.

Lauren: Your assistant will do that.

Erica: Okay, cool. Well thank you. I will put a link to that opt-in that you are offering in the show notes for this episode and all of the other resources that we’ve mentioned.

And then you also have, you’re going to come out with maybe like a group coaching program?

Lauren’s group coaching program

Lauren: Yeah, so I’m taking applications right now. It’s applying the Monday Hour One process and creating margin that I was talking about in your life. So we’re going to, in 12 weeks, create one result. So if you have a project you’re working on, or a certain number of clients that you want, or patients that you want in your private practice, I’m going to teach you exactly how to do that using your calendar in a 12 week program. And so we’ll do all the tactics work, but also all the mindset work. So I’ll coach you on all of it and it’s going to be really fun so you can check that out on my website as well.

Tools Lauren uses to run her group programs

Erica: Awesome. Can I like nerdily ask you, like what program are you using to run that and in that type of techie stuff?

Lauren: Yeah. So I’m going to use Slack for like the community space cause we use Slack a lot at The Life Coach School for that. And then Zoom to record the group programs and I’m just gonna put them on in Slack for the first round.

And then I’m going to use, I’m going to be developing another program for master coach training and I’m going to be using Teachery just because I got it cause I work with I got into the program Wandering Aimfully. And they, that’s their platform for courses. So I’m going to check that out.

Erica: Is that kind of like Teachable?

Lauren: Yeah, it’s a little bit, yeah. But yeah, but for the group program it’s primarily, I’m going to have worksheets in Slack and like Slack “Ask Lauren” and then zoom group coaching.

Erica: Cool. Yeah. I’ve never done a group coaching program, pretty much just online courses, so I’m just always curious about the differences and how people keep it all organized.

How many people are usually in a group coaching?

So I mean I do 10 like groups of 10, so pretty small group. Intimate. So everyone gets enough time to get coached on time. And that’s how we do online coach certification too at the life coach school. So I’m just used to like groups of 10.

Erica: Yeah, no, that’s really cool and really helpful. I think I always to ask like the weird detailed questions. And then what if people want to connect to you more? I know you said you don’t spend a ton of time on social media, but…

Lauren: Yeah, Instagram. Yeah. So it’s @vivereco and you can check me out there. My business means to be fully alive in Italian. So that’s a funny name.

Erica: Cool. Yeah. And I did not know how to pronounce it, so I’m glad that you’re saying it.

Lauren: I don’t even say it right. My friend who’s in Italy told me I don’t even pronounce it right. So that’s awesome.

Erica: No one will know! Cool, and then obviously I guess we already mentioned your website. People can go there to get the opt-in and then maybe connect with you if they want to work with you?

Lauren: Totally. And if it’s too hard to say like my actual business name, you can always go to thelaurencash.com and it redirects.

Erica: Oh, that’s great. Did that used to be your website name? Or you set it up like that on purpose?

Lauren: I set it up like that.

Erica: love it. Well great. Thank you so much for being here. I think we shared a lot of good actionable tips and just like kind of mindset conversation too that I think people will really resonate with. So thank you for the tips and best of luck with your group coaching program that you’ll be launching soon.

Lauren: Thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun to talk.

Man, that was such a fun and invigorating episode. I love talking about mindset stuff, and I hope that there is a lot of actionable tips there for you to take away and implement in your own life to overcome some of the overwhelm that you might be feeling in your life or business.

And of course, as always, I greatly, greatly appreciate any ratings or reviews that you might feel inclined to give this podcast in iTunes. It really makes a difference. I love hearing what you guys think. And I hope to continue to serve you guys through this podcast. It’s been amazing so far. And thank you so much for being a listener.

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Erica Julson is a registered dietitian turned digital marketing pro. She has over 12 years of experience blogging and building online businesses and has taught over 900 wellness professionals inside her signature program, SEO Made Simple.

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