Episode 571: 5 Steps to Prepare for Q4 (Mindset & Self-Care)

EBT571 – 5 Steps to Prepare for Q4

Intro  00:01

Hey food bloggers. Thank you so much for joining me in this mindset and self-care focused episode here on Eat Blog Talk. One of the reasons I started a blog talk was to hold a space to talk about the importance of mindset and self-care. Being an entrepreneur can be a lot. If we are not taking care of ourselves, then getting actionable information about SEO Pinterest or whatever else is all moot. I will meet you back here every Wednesday to discuss various mindset and self-care topics. So you have the energy and space to tackle the rest.

Sponsor (Kara Myers)  00:37

Hey, bloggers, are you feeling overwhelmed by your blogging business and unsure where to focus your efforts to grow? Do you have trouble finding systems that work for you? I’m Kara, food blogger at sweetlysplendid.com. And full service blogging business coach, there’s so much that goes into blogging and finding what works best for you is the key to growing and making profit. I don’t believe in a one size fits all solution. It’s about what’s right for your business, not what the industry says you need. With my person first approach, I see the person not just the business, because at the end of the day, burnout won’t make you profitable. We’ll work together to pinpoint bottlenecks, make customized solutions and provide actionable steps in a one to one environment that fits in with your life and your time constraints. your blog and your success are the priority and main focus of every coaching session. My coaching program isn’t just another blog coaching system where you get a generic list of things to do. I would love to chat with you about how we could work together to grow your business for any questions or to sign up, just head over to sweetlysplendid.com/coaching to get started.

Megan Porta  01:42

Food bloggers, hello welcome to this self care and mindset focused episode of Eat Blog Talk. In this episode, we’re going to talk about five steps to prepare for Q4. Some of these steps have to do with mindset, and some are more tactical. But all should help you to put a good plan in place so that you feel like you’re ready for Q4 and you can get through it without burning yourself out. Whether you’ve been a food blogger for a year, or maybe less, or 15 years or more. You know what a big deal Q4 is for our industry. People love food. And people especially love food from approximately October 1st through the end of the year, every year. The holidays are a time for indulging for so many for celebrating, gathering, eating, drinking, just enjoying people and friends and family and food and drinks, which puts the content that we create and share in the spotlight. This is such a blessing. I have to remind myself of this sometimes, because the season gets fairly stressful for us food bloggers. But really, it’s incredible having a season when a lot of food bloggers, I would say most food bloggers are pretty much guaranteed to get increased traction and traffic and therefore increased revenue. While this is really great, it can add a good deal of stress to our businesses and therefore our lives. Because of that pressure that we feel right about now each year, around mid summer, I start hearing the rumblings of food bloggers getting ready for Q4. I hear questions like, Am I ready? How do I get the most out of the holidays this year? How do I prepare for this? Am I behind? It’s crazy that in summer, we’re already thinking that we could be behind with Q4. But this is a common worry. A lot of worry surrounds the topic of Q4 because it is such a fruitful quarter. And we want to get as much juice as possible out of the season. At the time this episode is being published, it’ll be published in early August. That gives us over six weeks before Q4 is here. This gives us plenty of time to get our minds our plans and priorities in the right place. So I’m glad you’re listening to this now I hope this helps you. If you want help putting an actual plan together, I do a 90 minute one on one planning calls where you will have an end goal and you will have action steps that we’ll get to through these next few months so that you can actually meet whatever your end goals are. I’m offering $100 off these sessions for four people. But you need to sign up before the end of August to take advantage of that. For the link to sign up go to eatblogtalk.com/Q4plan that is the show notes for this episode. And you will find the link to purchase that 90 minute call within the show notes. Okay, let’s talk through five steps to prepare for Q4.

Megan Porta  04:59

Number one, change your perspective. I believe that no matter the topic or issue that we might be talking about perspective is absolutely everything. Let’s say you have a surgery coming up, for example, and you get it in your head, that is the most awful thing you can’t believe you have to go on for this surgery, you’re afraid, you don’t want to do this, you’re going to be in so much pain afterward, blah, blah, blah, all of those things will come true. Plus some negative outcomes you probably haven’t even thought about yet. But if you go into it, thinking about how relieved you’re going to be to be past the surgery, and post recovery, or how grateful you are to have access to good doctors and medical care and hospitals, and how this will change the quality of your life, the better, then you’re going to prime yourself to see the good things that come from the experience. 

Megan Porta  05:57

If we as food bloggers approach Q4 with trepidation and fear, worrying that we will never be prepared, we’re going to miss out on traffic if we don’t get our crap together. how everyone else probably has a much better handle on things and a better plan than we do. We will feel all of that negativity plus some. But what if we approach the season with an entirely different perspective? What if we cover the entire last part of the year with gratitude and maybe even a bit of awe. Think about how awesome it is that you get to do what you do, you create and share food content, and you get paid for it. And if you’re not monetized, yet, you’re on your way to getting compensated for doing something you love. How freaking amazing is it that you are able to take extra time off in the summer, or maybe it’s a different season of the year depending on your niche to spend time with loved ones, because you intentionally created this incredible business, resulting in a life of freedom. And how cool is that there are so many human beings in this world who really enjoy eating delicious food during the last few months of the year. And that you get to deliver quality recipes directly to those people. Q4 is ripe with opportunities for food bloggers. So change your perspective. So you can see this. And so you can feel that gratitude for the absolute abundance that comes from this season. 

Megan Porta  07:28

Number two, Delegate automate and eliminate this is the prime time to get our crap together with our businesses. You know, all those times during the year when we say to ourselves, I should really delegate this task, or I’m not sure I need to be doing this anymore. Now is the time to evaluate those things. And to take action on them. Clear the path now, so you have time and energy to focus on Q4. To do this, I highly recommend that you commit to three to seven days of time logging. A lot of people resist this recommendation because it feels like too much work to do up front. And people haven’t seen the results yet. So they don’t know how powerful it can be. But it really is as simple as just logging what you’re already doing. And the result is so cool. Log every single thing you do in your business right down to the 32 and a half minutes you spent an email on Monday, and the 12 minutes you spent creating a reel Instagram on Tuesday, everything log at all. The more data you have the changes you’ll need to make and your business will be much more clear. You can use an app like Toggl that is spelled T O G G L it is a totally free app. I use it all the time, it is great. Or you can just create a new Google Sheet. It doesn’t matter how you log just log. Once you have everything logged for preferably seven full days, you can evaluate what just happened. The goal will be to pull out three main things from your time log. Which tasks or projects am I currently spending time on that someone else can do? Which tasks or projects am I currently spending time on that can be automated? And which tasks or projects am I currently spending time on that I can stop doing either permanently or temporarily, sorting through these things and acting on them is going to open up space in your business for you to breathe and is going to open up space for you to focus on optimizing your Q4 content, your Q4 strategy and your Q4 projects. 

Megan Porta  09:48

Number three, make self care and mindset a priority. Anytime I know I’m standing at the precipice of a busy season, I level up But with self care and mindset work. At the beginning of this year and 2024, a lot of big things were about to go down, I could feel the weight of them. And I knew that if I didn’t proactively start taking really good care of myself going into the year that I was going to sink, I prioritize daily physical exercise, meditation, creative time, gratitude time, and just consuming uplifting podcasts and audiobooks and things like that. You do not want to get to December 1 and realize that you’re burned out. I have been there. A few years ago, I flew into Q4, at about a million miles an hour thinking I could keep up at a frantic pace. On top of that, I went to all the holiday parties and dinners. And I made all the cookie trays and did all the things. By the second week of December, I was literally unable to function. And I did not enjoy the holidays at all that year. The holidays are typically a really fun and enjoyable time for me. So that was really sad and really hard. That’s the tricky thing about our most fruitful season coinciding with the holidays. We want our businesses to thrive during this time. But we also want our bodies and our minds to continue to function. So that we can enjoy the season. It’s a very tricky balance. So having a proactive approach with this. And staying on top of your mindset and your self care is going to serve you. You already know the things you need to do to feel good in your mind and body. Put those things in your calendar. And starting today, not next week, right now put them in your calendar and do them consistently. Even if it feels like it might be overkill, or like it’s way too early to even think about this, do it anyway. Maybe it’s taking walks in nature or in your neighborhood or journaling or meeting friends for dinner regularly or just getting out of the house in some capacity, or creating space to get quiet on a regular basis. Whatever those things are for you, get them in your calendar and prioritize them. 

Megan Porta  12:09

Number four, stay in the game. I have talked about one of my favorite mindset slash business books ever here on the podcast quite a bit. The Gap in the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. This book changed my life. And that is not an exaggeration. It changed my life personally and professionally. It changed the way I think about everything I do. The concept of the book is to focus on how far you’ve come versus what you have yet to do. Obsessing over what hasn’t yet been done creates this gap, where we’re never satisfied. And we’re always wanting. And that very much puts us in a lack mindset. But measuring where you’re at now versus last year, or last quarter, or even just yesterday, creates this feeling of satisfaction because it allows you to see how much progress you have made. If you have not yet read this book, and you enjoy reading, I strongly encourage you to go get a copy today and read it or listen to it. If Reading isn’t your thing, just sit down with an empty Google Doc and type out all of the areas of your business and your life where you have made progress in the past year. Write down things like revenue increases, traffic gains, skills, you have learned business connections you’ve made investments you’ve made, maybe Instagram or Facebook followers you’ve gathered email subscribers on your list that you didn’t have a year ago, peer groups you become a part of write it all down. Keep a close eye on this list. So you get into the habit of seeing things from this new perspective. Anytime you’re tempted to lament about where you’re not yet or what you haven’t yet achieved, do a reframe and look at your list. Sometimes I just do a quick check in when I start feeling myself get into that lack or gap mentality. And I just asked myself a couple of questions. I’ll ask something like what am I doing now that did not seem possible six months ago or 12 months ago, or what progress has been made in my business in the past year. And then I’ll just think of all those things that come to mind. It’s so easy to do this focus on those things that you have accomplished all the progress you’ve made. The gratitude you feel will build this magical momentum that will serve you and help you get through Q4 with the right mindset. 

Megan Porta  14:41

And number five put a plan in place. I will tell you no plan that I’ve ever created for myself has panned out 100% as I thought it would yet every plan that I’ve ever created for myself has prompted me to take action and to keep moving toward my ultimate goals. Know what your goals are for the end of Q4, this year, maybe you’ll have published a specific amount of content, or you’ll have created that holiday ebook. Or you will have, I don’t know, three email opt ins pulling in a certain number of subscribers. Write down those main goals that you have, as well as what your why is, why are you setting these goals in the first place? Why do you want to crush Q4 this year is it to bring in enough ad revenue so you can take a vacation to Hawaii with your family in January, whatever it is, don’t lose sight of that. Emotionally stay in really close touch with your why as you move through this season, so that you are more likely to stay on track. When I’m planning I also like to include which projects or tasks I will not be working on during a certain season or year. It’s so tempting to want to do all the things especially as food bloggers, but during this time during Q4, and in the time leading up to it, you’re gonna want to make sure that you are being super intentional about the things you focus on, which will require you to not focus on other things. It’s currently the beginning of August, so set some guideposts for yourself to accomplish as you move through Q4. Another thing you can do is look at your calendar and just establish which days you’re going to be working from now until the end of the year. Also set days that you’re not going to be working you will need some time off in order to breathe and reset. So get those established too. 

Megan Porta  16:32

Making plans like this is one of my personal favorite things to do for food bloggers, I have helped over 100 food bloggers get plans for their year or Q4 in place. If this is something you want help with, please let me know. And I would love to do that. I’m offering $100 off for 4 people for a 90 minute one on one planning session. Go to the show notes for this episode in order to grab your spot. You can find that at eatblogtalk.com/Q4plan. 

Megan Porta  17:02

To summarize five steps to preparing for Q4 are change your perspective. Two delegate automate and eliminate three make self care and mindset a priority. Four, stay in the game. And five put a plan in place. Q4 is such an important time for us. But by having a plan having these steps in your mind, you will get everything you need from the season without burning out. You’ve got this I have all the faith in the world in you. Q4 is going to be fruitful and rewarding and you’re going to feel like a much more accomplished food blogger on the other side of it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode food bloggers. I will see you next week. 

Outro  17:45

Thank you so much for listening to this mindset and self care episode here on Eat Blog Talk. If you are a food blogger providing a service for other food bloggers, and you want to spread the word about the value that you offer. I would love to offer you a free way to do just this. Send me a 60 second audio clip to be featured in a mindset and self care episode. Here on Eat Blog Talk in 2024. Go to eatblogtalk.com/audioclip to learn more