September: How to Make 2023 Your Best Year Yet

Happy September update to the 2023 Goal Setting Challenge: How to Make 2023 Your Best Year Yet, September Edition! If you’re new here, throughout 2023, I have implemented a goal-setting challenge to hold myself accountable to my big dreams. Each month, I’m serving updates via the Blog and Podcast to keep you informed (and hold me accountable to making progress). We’re covering topics of success, where I’m facing blocks, falling short, and where I plan to improve over the next month. Each update is becoming a small piece of the 365-day puzzle where I’m actively tracking my progress over one year. My overall goal for this year has been to seek balance in every aspect of my life. This challenge has been an excellent source of motivation to show up each day as the best version of myself possible.

August was another amazing month (and not just because it was my birthday)! With the arrival of my twenty sixth birthday, I spent a lot of the month deep reflecting on my goals for this year and the new goals I’m setting for this next year. As I sat down to record the podcast, I became overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude for this last year. This year has been full of great accomplishment, success, learning, and failure. As I was exploring this on the podcast, I realized where I want to shift my goals for the remainder of 2023. We’re almost three quarters of the way through 2023, and I’m determined to finish out the year strong. Over the month of September, my primary goal is to focus on the intimate goals of La.Rue, deprioritize signing new clients, and focus on internal growth of the brand as a whole.

August Reflections & September Progress

Mindset

August was a truly fantastic month. I felt an added excitement with the birthday energy and all the hullabaloo that comes with celebrating. I spent much needed time with friends and family, giving myself time off to reset for the next month. That being said, I’ve still been facing mindset struggles that I’ve opened up about on the podcast more recently. As I continue to prepare for my first ever Forbes 30 Under 30 conference (holy moly I can’t believe that’s happening), I’ve been facing issues around confidence. It’s intimidating going to such a huge networking event. I’ll be surrounded by people around my age who are incredibly successful in their field, literally changing the world. And while my confidence in the value of what I offer has never wavered, my approach in sharing it is.

As I’ve spent the last year clarifying my business goals and my five-year plan, I’ve never felt more confident about La.Rue. However, when it comes to this conference, I’m intimidated thinking about introductions. It’s very easy to understand someone who’s a tech entrepreneur with a startup that’s already hit $1M. It’s more difficult to explain the nature and structure of La.Rue. It typically requires more than one sentence and a longer elevator pitch. So my goal over the next month leading up to the conference is to work on both my confidence and solidifying a (near) perfect elevator pitch. I fully believe in the value of La.Rue. It’s about easily and effortlessly explaining that value to someone who’s not invested in it like I am.

Resistance

I’m so thrilled about all of the ways I’m working on growing La.Rue in the coming months. As I’ve been hinting at, the next phase of La.Rue will be launching soon—STAY TUNED! My priorities in the remaining months of 2023 are focusing on networking and preparing for this next major launch. However, I’ve definitely noticed some resistance to those goals. While growing my client book is very important to the growth and success of La.Rue, I need to find a way to reprioritize it. By signing so many clients, I’ve been making excuses as to why I can’t work on internal projects. When I sign a new client, I’m making a commitment to them. So when it comes time to choose what I’m working on next, it’s easier to argue client work is more important than literally everything else because I’d rather fall behind on my work than theirs.

The resistance that I’m facing is rooted in a fear of success and change. The next phase of La.Rue is going to be major. The launching of our online community will take thoughtfulness and great dedication. It’s not something that I can create overnight and launch. And once it’s launched it will become my primary focus to nurture its growth. The resistance I’m feeling is fear of sidelining income and prioritizing this growth. The bottom line is that if I want to really have the time to build this out properly, I need to limit the number of clients I’m signing. And while it feels very exciting to have such a long waitlist growing, it feels a little scary to be limiting.

How I’m growing in September

I do feel truly excited about the upcoming projects and events. It’s good to feel nervous and pushed outside of my comfort zone. I know that this is all promoting growth. Over the month of September, my goal is to remain faithful to my intentional routine as much as I can. Being intentional personally will help me remain grounded professionally. As long as I keep practicing habits that allow me to stay focused and mindful, I know that I can process each step individually and with confidence. Over the next 30 days, I’ll prioritize myself, allowing me to make decisions that are aligned with these goals.

UPDATES

Want to follow along even more on the journey to make 2023 your best year yet: September edition? I’m also updating you and going into far greater detail once a month on the podcast! You can follow along there and subscribe to the La.Rue Thrive Hive Newsletter as well to follow along for updates on my 2023 progress. I’ll update you on the podcast on how I plan to improve next month. I’ll continue talking about what resistance I’m facing and what solutions I plan to find! I encourage you to comment below on your progress so far in 2023 and how you plan to improve. Feel free to drop any questions in the comments, and I’ll see you next month!