The best goals are created with intuition
Guest piece by author Annie Ridout
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⏪ Last time, I shared why your story really isn't that interesting. That's here.
⏩ Today, a guest piece by Annie Ridout on setting intuitive business goals.
I like to say providing “value” in your content doesn’t mean having all the answers. Instead, you need questions, curiosity—a yearning to explore. It means being willing to lead the conversation, to invite us on the journey of an idea by vetting your perspective, your convictions in real time—by creating a body of work pressed through the lens of your premise.
And that, in so many ways, comes down to your intuition.
As author
says: “When you run a business—or work for an employer—from a place of inspiration and excitement, that will shine through.”Below, Annie shares what it takes to set intuitive business goals—and how to set aside worrying about what people think and instead pay attention to what you feel inspired by, knowing that’s what will draw the right people to you.
Grab Annie’s latest book, Raise Your SQ, out in paperback this week!
When I was 29, I’d had my first baby, lost my job as a copywriter for a film-streaming company, desperately put out feelers for freelance writing work and then started my first online platform: The Early Hour.
I applied to join a free Prince’s Trust business scheme and was invited on to a four-day program, where I learned the basics of running a business. It was brilliant.
I created a business plan for The Early Hour, with projections and notes on competitors, then I presented the business plan to a board of entrepreneurs.
They got to decide whether I’d go through to the next round, where I’d be given a business mentor. It was a bit like being on Dragon’s Den, just not televised.
Thankfully, the board saw merit in my business and I was accepted on to stage two.
However, I never did make the kind of money from The Early Hour that I’d predicted. I thought cash would flow in from sponsored content and, while it was one (small) income source, it didn’t bring in what I’d hoped.
Instead, my platform led to me getting a deal to write my first book, The Freelance Mum, and, with the momentum which that brought, I launched an online course.
It was then that I started making the kind of money I’d hoped to from The Early Hour. In some ways, it was linked—many of my customers had been readers of the articles on The Early Hour—but it wasn’t a direct link.
From that point on, I stopped creating business plans and started to be more intuitive in terms of my business decisions.
I would get a sense that an online course was going to go down well with my community, get to work on it, share my excitement online in the lead-up to opening sales and—sure enough—every single course sold enough spaces to make it well worth launching.
As I noticed how many of the women I was connected with on social media were saying they felt a lack of confidence about starting a business—selling, promoting themselves, sharing content on social media—I came up with the idea for my second book, Shy.
When this book was published—reframing shyness as an attribute, not a flaw—I started to attract more shy and introverted coaching clients. I was delighted.
Now, every step I take forward, backward or to the side is intuitive. I no longer worry about what people will think if, say, I go from offering straight business advice to injecting a dose of SQ. I know, intuitively, that it’s right to be sharing whatever it is I feel inspired by and that this then draws the right people towards me.
If you work for yourself—freelancing, or running a business—part of your job might entail pricing up products or services. It can feel like a fine art, but it’s also an intuitive one. We will be led by what others selling something similar are charging, what we want or need to earn and how we value what it is that we’re selling.
You can ask yourself these questions when working out what to charge:
What would you like to charge for your product or service?
What amount feels exciting?
What are your business peers charging for something similar?
Where would you like to sit in the market?
Close your eyes, put your hand on your heart and ask yourself: what is the right price for this?
Go with whatever comes up. See what happens. And then decide where to go next.
When you run a business—or work for an employer—from a place of inspiration and excitement, that will shine through. However, if you’re running a business from a place of desperation, panic and simply doing what you think you should be doing, that leaks out too. And it isn’t very attractive.
So listen to your body, your mind and your heart. If a strategy is generally thought to be really effective but feels rubbish to you, don’t do it. There are always other options. Think outside the box.
Share the things that inspire you, make you feel alive and give you energy. And you’ll inspire others, make them feel alive and give them energy. Then they’ll likely buy your products or services when you tell them about those in a way that feels aligned.
This is an extract from Raise Your SQ: How the Power of Spiritual Intelligence Can Change Your Life in 7 Days—out this month in paperback. It’s full of coaching exercises and ideas for using spiritual tools and rituals to enhance both your home and work-life. You can pre-order your copy in the UK here or in the U.S. here.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear if this sparked anything for you. Drop a comment or hit reply. (Hearing from you is almost as good as getting a freshly sharpened pencil bouquet sent to my door.) 🫶
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