The Life Audit Reset

I take you behind the scenes of a three-week forced break after cataract surgery and the unexpected life audit it triggered. I share how grief and responsibility pushed me into autopilot, then how simple systems helped me feel in control again. 
• cataract surgery forcing a complete stop and space to think 
• doing a life audit by looking at every part of daily life 
• losing my dad and taking on responsibilities that erased my own needs 
• spotting what needs to change and where urgency can be reduced 
• building simple systems that work in life and business 
• implementing changes in week three and returning with a clearer head 
• choosing progress over perfection and showing up anyway 
• treating systems as the backbone of business operations 
My DMs are always open. You can always come through, talk to me about it, ask me questions. 

Transcript

Surgery Forces A Full Stop

Grief And Losing Yourself In Duty

Building Simple Life Systems

Implementing Changes And Returning To Work

Control, Progress Over Perfect

Systems As A Business Backbone

Your Prompt To Audit And Act

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hey everyone, it's Victoria here, and welcome back to another episode of Business Built with Strategy. So this week's ep is a little different, and we are going to be talking about life audit. Now, I hear you thinking, what the hell is she going on about? And what I mean by that is, say personally for me, I have had a cataract operation and it was a little bit more in-depth than I thought it would be. And so therefore, I have literally had to take three weeks off. And I'm now ready to get myself back to my business and carry on. But I am carrying on as I I don't know if I'd say a different person, but definitely armed with a life audit that I have done over the past three weeks. And when I say that, I mean I've never been in a position where I've had to not do anything. I I couldn't even bend down to pick anything up. I literally was forced to rest. Now that wouldn't have been so bad if I could have used my laptop, but I couldn't because everything was way too bright, and yeah, I I just was not able to use my laptop. And so I literally was for three weeks pretty much sitting in my lounge watching Netflix. It got to the third week and I was able actually to pick up the laptop. But in the first two weeks, I I did a lot of thinking, a lot of thinking. And I realised effectively I was I was auditing my life. I was looking at every aspect aspect of my life because there wasn't anything else I could do apart from watch TV. And there is only so much Netflix, Disney, and and goodness knows what else that you can watch. And you know, some days I would, you know, I sat here in silence, TV off, you know, no music, nothing, not even, you know, not even a podcast in the background. And I just thought, and I was thinking about, you know, obviously, as a lot of you know, I lost my dad last year very suddenly he was he was only 66, and I had to step out of my business, and I took on the biggest responsibility, amount of responsibility that I ever have done in my whole life. And and that was difficult. That was that was so, so, so difficult. And I think I have said it on here before that what happened was my life didn't become my own. It it was I didn't even feature in my life, you know, the last 13, 14 months. I haven't featured, and it's all been about what I've been doing for other people. And of course, you know, I don't begrudge that because I was left a certain amount of responsibility that and I knew that I was going to be left this responsibility, but I knew that okay, something's gotta change, something's gotta give here because, you know, my dad wouldn't want me to be living a life that doesn't even feature me, you know? And so unbeknown to me, I suppose it was kind of consciously, unconsciously, but I started to order audit my life and I started to look at where I could change things and systems that I could implement. What systems could I implement that would take some of this urgent responsibility, like the urgency of it, off of me? How could I do that? And that's what I worked on through those two weeks. And then once I'd kind of got the crux of what I was gonna do, the systems that I was gonna implement, very, very much the same in business. You have to have systems in business. I've done an app on this. It is paramount that you have strong systems in business so that you are not actually running around like a headless chicken. It is so important, but actually, it's important in life as well. So I worked on these systems, and some of these systems were so simple that because at the time I couldn't think through, there was so much going on, I just couldn't think through it. It was it was like I was on autopilot. So I've spent two weeks mulling over in my head, this has got to change, that's got to change. I've got to focus on myself. It is so important, you know. I've got to focus on myself as well, which we all have to. But I think some of us are on autopilot all of the time that we forget ourselves. And I don't know, maybe it's like in the back of my head, I knew that things had to change. I knew I knew they did, but I didn't really have the capacity, the brain capacity, the time to sit down and go, okay, well, how am I gonna do this? And you know, having that operation, I was forced to, but it was a good thing. It was it was a positive. And then on the third week, I then began to implement those systems. I'm now going into the fourth week. This week I'm getting back to normal. I'm going back into the office, into my dad's business, and I'm now gonna carry on writing my strategy for my business. The difference is I'm armed with systems now because on the third week I implemented them all. So it took me two weeks to life audit. It took me a week to implement. Now, the fourth week, I've got up today, and look, I'm gonna be honest with you, things are never perfect. They're not. I'm I hate the perfect word. I'm recording this to go out today. Now, in a perfect world, I'd like these done two to three months before. But you know what? I'm showing up. I'm getting things done, and it's the only way I can kind of work it at the moment. Now, in the future, we are gonna be having guests on, so they will need to be done two to three months in advance. But the positive is you can change things. You know, I'm not saying you have to do a big life audit, but you can change things up. You you you really, really can. And I got up today, and I think I got up at like 5 a.m. and there was a change in me. I think for the first time in 14 months, I've got up today and I've thought, okay, I'm in control now. Anything that comes in in regards to all the responsibilities that I had to take on, I'm in control. I have a system or systems, and it's very much like that in business. In business, you have to be in control. And the way the one of the ways to do that is to have systems. They are the backbone, the operations of your business. And it's very much like that in life. You know, I remember, you know, working when my son was small and I had an events business, which had, you know, I had that for gosh over 10 years. And I had to have systems in place to be able to cope. You know, I was here, there, and everywhere. He he played football. We were up and down the country, here, there, and everywhere. I was working. At one point, I was even performing at the same time. So I needed systems in place to cope with it. That doesn't just stop when I don't know, maybe you've got children and they get older, or or something stops and changes in your life. The systems still need to be there. So, what I will leave you with this week is a little bit of a short air, but what I will leave you with this week is if you want to change something, you can. I think a lot of us just procrastinate and go, I can't change that, I haven't got time. And yeah, it has helped me that's a bit of a weird thing to say. It's helped me that I've had an operation, but it did help because I was forced to do nothing. So all I could do was think. And I cannot tell you how much that has helped, and it's also made me feel so much more positive because I feel more in control. It's exactly the same with business, exactly the same. Look at your business this week. Hey, you might want to look at your life and go, you know what, I'm gonna do what Victoria's done, I'm gonna do a life audit. But if you don't do that, look at your business this week and say, okay, where do I need systems in place? I've I've done enough about systems before, and I think it's also because I know how important they are. They are so important. Have a look, see where you can implement a system this week. My DMs are always open. You can always come through, talk to me about it, ask me questions. I've loved recording this set this week. It's been a little bit here and there, but you know, things aren't always perfect, and I think you get the crux of what I'm trying to say. Take care, everyone. I'll speak to you next week.