A few weeks ago I spent some time with a dear friend of mine who I hadn’t seen for several years.  We talked about so much and inevitably talked about business.

There was one particular thing she said that really resonated and I saw how it applied to everything in life and business.

She’d had a conversation with a great business coach who said the answer to EVERY “how do I?” question is always the same.  No matter what we’re trying to achieve the answer never varies.

Whether it’s:

• How do I get more sales?
• How do I find my dream clients?
• How do I create a website?
• How do I hire a team member?
• How do I structure a sales conversation?

Very different questions – surely the answer will be different for each one?

Often when we’re asked such a question we immediately answer with tactics (at least I have always done that).

But if we take a step back and look at the bigger picture the answer is always the same:

Time & Attention

So simple

So mind blowing

Isn’t it true?  Whenever we want to do anything we have to spend time learning how, time on implementing, time on gaining mastery (if that’s what we want) and we have to give it our full attention.

Think of those jobs we find difficult or dislike doing.  We procrastinate for ages but once we actually carve out time to give it our full focus and attention we often discover it’s a lot less difficult than we thought it would be – sometimes we even enjoy it!

18 months ago I decided I needed to transform my money story – I wasn’t doing any marketing or anything to grow my business, and debts were starting to mount – it was a very slow and steady increase which meant it was easy to ignore as it never reached crisis point.

One day I realised that the “big win” I was hoping for – which would wipe out all my debts and give me oodles of money to do whatever I wanted – was never going to happen.  I saw with crystal clarity that if I wanted to be wealthy and have a surplus of cash I had to put time and attention into my relationship with money and how I managed it.

So I spent many hours tracking expenses and monitoring income.  I plugged up all the leaks and cut all unnecessary spending and within 3 months the debts had stopped mounting.  I then put time and attention on increasing income through my business.

Within 8 weeks it started flowing and has been steadily increasing.

And it all started with a very boring spreadsheet for tracking income & expenses on a daily basis – something I’d resisted for years but once I started doing I found it to be fun and I’d choose to do it over other things.

When I look back at my relationship with money – it’s totally transformed.

And what did I actually DO?  I gave it time and attention.

I think we often say we want something – yet we want it to arrive by magic – in truth we don’t want to put in the time and attention that’s required.

Yet everything we do focus our time and attention on – and we do it wholeheartedly – magic happens.

Early on in my money adventure, there was one occasion where I didn’t know how we were going to buy groceries unless we put it on a credit card (which I was committed to stopping).  Then out of the blue we got a last minute booking for our Airbnb.  For the exact amount we needed for grocery shopping that week.  It blew me away.

When I put time and attention on two things:

1. Connection – simply connecting with people in a pop-up Facebook group.  No agenda, my intention was simply to connect with love.
2. Updating my website so it reflects the work I’m doing now rather than what I was trying to do a year ago.  Practically this meant deleting one page and replacing it with an invitation to a Sacred Selling Audit.

I made some wonderful connections and felt great when my website was updated.

The following morning I woke up to a booking for a Sacred Selling Audit – from one of the awesome women I’d connected with yesterday.  Someone I’m so excited to speak to.

I put time and attention on my sales process and on connection.

And magic happened.

Whatever we want to create, whatever we want more of – time and attention is the key.

If we want more fun in our life – we need to put time and attention into doing things that are fun.

If we want more clients – we need to put time and attention into our sales process and connecting with our dream clients

If we want more money – we need to put time and attention on our money flow and money management.

Simples!

So  where will you be putting your time and attention this week?

Do share in the comments below.