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INSIGHT • INFORMATION • INSPIRATION

Dedicated to helping you work from home better

Join the community and get tips, thoughts and exclusive offers with The Homeworker newsletter.

THE HOMEWORKER

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"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things,

learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing

your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing

Something."

- Neil Gaiman

postural problems (p.44).

An exciting addition to this issue is our fabulous travel section staring on page 48, where we explore some of the best getaways over winter for homeworkers.

One of the perks of working for yourself is being able to take leave when you choose for as little or as long as you like. I’m liking the look of the ecopods in Wales or further afield, the Yoga Magic Retreat – and there are special offers available to Homeworker readers.

We hear from Claire Hone about her struggles adapting to the work from home lifestyle and the loneliness that can bring. We also profile Sam of Mindful Mortgages and we have a wonderful inspirational interview with the founder of The Women In Business Club, Raimonda Jankunaite (p.26).

This is the issue to help you capitalise on all the energy that New Year brings and help to steer you in the right direction with a clear goal and the tools to help you get there.

Welcome to not just this issue but a new year and new decade!

I’m excited to see what this year brings.

If I’ve learnt anything from the past year since launching The Homeworker, it’s that you really never know what is round the corner or what can happen if you just keep chipping away and working towards your dream.

Of course, one of the first things to establish is exactly what that dream or goal might be and this is the issue where we have you covered!

From looking at some of the resolutions to make (p.12), to reigniting that spark if you’ve lost a little motivation over the Christmas holidays (p.14), we look at how to go about creating your ideal vision board (p.20) and resetting your work and eating patterns (p.8) to ensure you’re taking the best care of yourself that you can.

When it comes to your health at home, take a look at the tips from ergonomics specialists, Posturite, with plenty of advice on how to avoid those aches, pains and

Editor's Note

L O U I S E G O S S

E D I T O R + F O U N D E R

Louise

HELLO!

T H E H O M E W O R K E R : I S S U E 5 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0

Editor: Louise Goss | editor@thehomeworker.com • Design work: Louise Goss

Published by: Louise Edmondson, 2020

www.thehomeworker.com

G E T I N T O U C H :

Advertising and Marketing Opportunities: advertising@thehomeworker.com

Contributions and Queries: hello@thehomeworker.com

Facebook: @thehomeworkermag • Instagram: @thehomeworkermag • Twitter: @homeworkermag

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P . 3 E D I T O R ' S N O T E

P . 5 C O N T R I B U T E R S | C O N T A C T S

P . 6 D E S K E D I T

P . 7 W E L O V E

Recommended books, podcasts and resources

P . 8 — 1 1 W E L L B E I N G

Reset your clock: your natural biorhythms

P . 1 2 — 1 3 F R E E L A N C E R E S O L U T I O N S

P . 1 4 — 1 5 R E I G N I T E Y O U R P A S S I O N

Renewing your motivation

P . 1 6 I N C O N V E R S A T I O N W I T H . . .

Sam Cattell, Mindful Mortgages

P . 1 7 O R A C L E C A R D S

2 0 2 0 V I S I O N : P R O D U C T I V I T Y

P . 1 8 — 1 9 G O A L P O S T S

How to set goals that really align with you

P . 2 0 — 2 1 2 0 2 0 V I S I O N B O A R D S

P . 2 2 — 2 3 C R A C K I N G Y O U R C O N T E N T Planning your content for maximum productivity

P . 2 4 — 2 5 M A K I N G T H E M O S T O F Y O U R P R

P . 2 6 — 2 9 P R O F I L E

Raimonda Jankunaite

P . 3 0 — 3 2 F O L L O W Y O U R L E A D

How to be your own leader when you work from home

P . 3 4 — 3 5 C O P I N G W I T H I S O L A T I O N

P . 3 6 — 3 8 W O R K I N G A L O N E A T H O M E

Personal insight into dealing with loneliness

P . 3 9 — 4 0 T H E P O W E R O F N E T W O R K I N G

A journey in overcoming the fear of networking

P . 4 1 O R A C L E R E A D I N G S

P . 4 4 — 4 5 W O R K I N G T H E E R G O N O M I C W A Y

P . 4 5 — 4 7 H O M E O F F I C E M A K E O V E R

Revamping your workspace without blowing the budget

P . 4 8 — 5 6 T R A V E L

The best places for warmth, self-care and re-energising

P . 5 7 D I R E C T O R Y

Highlights

P R O F I L E P . 2 6

Raimonda Janjunaite

A Look Inside this Issue

ContributorsEmma Cossey | Resolutions

Anita Faulkner | Reignite Your Passion

Ekaterina Ward | Goal-setting

Fiona Minett | PR

Claire Winter | Content Planning

Barchi Fojkar | Oracle Cards

Sharon Draper | Mental Health

Claire Hone | Working Alone

Jenny Stallard | Networking

Katherine Metters | Ergonomics

Cynthia Lawrence | Interiors

Rachel Sherwood | Travel

Be SocialEmail: hello@thehomeworker.com

Facebook: @thehomeworkermag

Instagram: @thehomeworkermag

Twitter: @homeworkermag

THE HOMEWORKERFor a healthy mind, body and business when you work from home

T R A V E L P . 4 8

Winter Escapes

Be InvolvedContribute: Pitches and contributions

Be Listed: Put your services in the directory

Be Featured: Profile of you and your business

Be visible: Full-page advertising in every issue

W W W.T H E HOM E WOR K E R .C OM W W W.T H E HOM E WOR K E R .C OMI S S U E # 5 I S S U E # 5

Minty Bon Bon Candle

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Law of Attraction Deluxe

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Goal-setting, planning,

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P R S C H O O L :

Y O U R T I M E T O S H I N E

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SilverWood Books

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the confidence to write your own press release, contact and pitch to the media and create a longer-term PR strategy.

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H Y P E Y O U R S E L F

Lucy Wern

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Practical Inspiration Publishing

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With insider advice straight from the mouths of editors and journalists from

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The book takes you through a step-by-step process to plan and execute getting you and your brand into the media. In an easy, straight-to-the-point fashion, Werner guides through the dos, and importantly, the don’ts of securing

publicity. There are useful case studies, examples and check-lists to ensure you have all the tools to give yourself the

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The Desk Edit We Love...

T H E M E D I A I N S I D E R

P O D C A S T

with Helen Croydon

www.ThoughtleadershipPR.com

This new podcast from author and journalist-turned-publicist, Helen Croydon, gives you the inside track on what editors and journalists are

looking for from your pitch. In under 30 minutes per episode, Helen poses the questions that all entrepreneurs

and business owners want answering. With guests so far ranging from

commissioning editors for Huff Post, Red and Good Housekeeping to the

editor of easyJet Traveller magazine and the head of planning for ITV London,

you come away with plenty of actionable tips and ideas of where, how and who to

pitch to.

L I G H T B U L B :

E N T R E P R E N E U R & P R E S S

H A N G O U T

Facebook Group by Charlotte Fall

Run by journalist and entrepreneur, Charlotte Fall, this group brings

together entrepreneurs and those in the media to help the former share their

stories and gain publicity and the latter find the stories, content and case studies

that they need.

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T H E P R B R E A K D O W N

Fiona Minett

£2.99 Kindle edition

To DIY your own PR, the tips in The PR Breakdown give you the framework to get started on your own. By sharing tips that the big businesses use to gain publicity, PR expert and Coach, Fiona Minett, introduces you to this sometimes daunting world, making it accessible and showing you why PR is great for small businesses. This ebook is a quick read that is still full of tips and takeaways.

Fiona also has her own membership group: the Boss Your PR collective

The latest PR tools and

resources to help small business

owners.The desk accessories to help you plan goals, write them down, shed light on them and help you make them come true.

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Affirmation Cards

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has an inspirational affirmation to

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£19.99, A Life Inspired

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The start of a year is often a time when we want to reset and start afresh.

It’s the perfect time to capitalise on your motivation and adjust your work and lifestyle behaviours and patterns.

While many are thinking about weight loss goals or exercise regimes, one area that might not be grabbing your attention are your biorhythms. But getting these sorted can impact on all the other

areas of your life. It's time to go back to basics.

The Homeworker speaks with nutritionist Anna Mapson about why it’s time to reset your clock.

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ING

Are you a clock-watcher? Counting down the minutes until you break for lunch or constantly hitting snooze until you know you have to get up?

There’s another clock we need to be paying more attention to and it’s our biological clock. We’re not talking about it in the sense many a childless woman nearing 40 gets warned about, we’re talking about your Master Clock. The one that governs your circadian rhythm. Working on an approximate 24-hour cycle, it is what controls many of our physiological processes — essentially all of the functions our bodies carry out to keep us alive.

The master clock, otherwise known as the

suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), is the one which sends messages from our brain to the other parts of our body. The 24-and-a-quarter-hour cycle on which it operates keeps our bodies aligned with the natural sleep-wake cycle. It helps our bodies prepare for sleep, it helps our gut get ready for digestion and even controls things such as blood pressure and body temperature.

So imagine if this were all a little out of synch. It wouldn’t take much for us to start feeling less than optimal.

E A R L Y B I R D S V S N I G H T O W L S

Anna Mapson, nutritionist with Goodness Me Nutrition, explains that we also have a series of peripheral clocks in all the cells of our body. If these are working in synch with the master clock, then we generally feel well. However, she explains that these cells take cues from our environment and behaviour as well.

“When we go out of synch with the natural awake-in-the-day patterns and not eating, just sleeping at night time, that’s when you can start to see problems,” Mapson says.

It could be said that whether you’re a lark or a night owl, it is in part already written in your DNA. One study found correlations in particular genes associated with circadian rhythm in those who described themselves as ‘morning people’.

Of course, there are the self-proclaimed night owls who have a preference to skew their day to rise and rest later. In fact, if the plethora of top performers and execs who jump out of bed at 4 am to meditate and run makes you feel a little slack, take comfort that the likes of Barack Obama and Elon Musk are often heading to bed in the early hours.

Another study, has shown those up later are alert for longer and have higher levels of intelligence.

But regardless of your night owl or early bird status, getting your body into a healthy rhythm is what’s important. As a homeworker, you can be more flexible and adjust your day to suit you and work to your energy levels.

The key things, according to Mapson, are to think about when your body is meant to be fasting and resting and whether you’re getting enough natural daylight.

G E T T I N G Y O U R B O D Y B A C K I N S Y N C H

W I T H I T S N A T U R A L R H Y T H M S

RESET YOUR CLOCK

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“It depends on when you get up and your routine,” she says. “Allow eight hours in bed even if you’re not asleep for the full eight hours. If you wake up naturally, then you’re going to bed at the right time. If you feel bad when you wake up, either you’ve not had enough or it’s been a poor quality sleep.”

Good quality sleep can be encouraged with adequate exercise, a good diet with not too much sugar crashing and no alcohol at night. “It can be a habit to have a glass of wine at night; cutting it out can make a big difference to your quality of sleep and weight gain,” says Mapson.

S O A K U P T H E S U N

One of the best ways to set your circadian rhythm is to get outside into natural daylight as the SCN is responsive to the amount of light our retinas receive.

“Getting into daylight before noon is really beneficial to set those circadian rhythms,” says Mapson.

Although this is something we can schedule in when working from home, it is also very easy to neglect. “When you work from home, unless you have a school run, you get up and shower and are straight into work,” Mapson notes. “You may not look up until lunch time, so try to have a walk before lunch.”

Science journalist, Linda Geddes has spoken a lot about the importance of having natural light in your workspace and getting outdoors for a walk in the day.

Mapson echoes this, saying, “Even if it’s cloudy, the light levels are still higher than our electric lights in our home so it’s great for stimulating our awake and sleep cycles.” She adds, “ If you’re home all day and haven’t left, you can feel a bit restless by the time it comes to going to bed.”

A 20 or 30-minute walk in the morning can signal your body to wake up, make you more alert and it is also a time when we can think through ideas and be more creative.

C U T D O W N T H E B L U E L I G H T

Short-term sleep loss can lead to poor performance, increased stress, memory issues, lack of concentration and mood problems.

Longer-term, it can impact with more serious health conditions, reducing your immune response, lead to a higher propensity for obesity, heart disease and diabetes, due to how the body processes glucose.

The tendency for us all to use our phones at night while watching TV and before going to bed means we’re submitting our eyes to more blue light wavelengths. While these are fine during the day because they can boost attention and mood, they

are interfering with our circadian rhythm. They suppress our bodies’ secretion of melatonin, the sleep hormone, and as this Harvard article states, lower melatonin levels could explain certain cancer links.

The same article reiterates the issue of higher blood sugar levels in those who shifted the timing of their circadian rhythm to later.

R E S T T O D I G E S T

Indeed, the timing of when you eat your food can also have a bearing on your body’s performance.

It is very easy to find ourselves grabbing snacks later at night, and if as a homeworker, you find yourself working later, you may also tend to continue eating later at

night as well.

There are studies which show that restricting our eating to a ten-hour window is beneficial for our health.

Time-restricted eating can help prevent high cholesterol, diseases such as diabetes, and reduce obesity. The health benefits were attributed to the eating patterns being in better synch with our cellular clocks, eating when our genes are most active in the daytime.

N A M E

VHK EducationW E B S I T E

www.vhk.education

Mapson refers to studies showing that those who restricted their food intake to earlier in the day had better health outcomes with regards blood fat, weight gain and insulin resistance, compared to those who skewed it to finish eating later in the day. “It’s not just about losing weight,” she says. “It sounds simple but when we eat later in the evening or in those periods when we should be fasting, our body is less able to process fats and sugars, especially in the night time.”

She suggests that when working from home, we’re better positioned to eat a larger lunch and a lighter meal in the evening, therefore consuming more of our calories earlier on.

Giving your body time to digest throughout the day is also important. Mapson says, “It’s easy when you work from home to keep going up and get a cup of tea or coffee and it’s easy to grab a biscuit at the same time. Although there are no birthday cakes [from colleagues], no one is watching so people will quite often just nibble away on things.”

This means your body is constantly working to digest food. She advises moving things such as biscuit jars away from the kettle so as to break any habit of taking one with a cup of tea.

T H E R I G H T K I N D O F S N A C K I N G

The temptation to keep wandering into the kitchen is a common complaint among homeworkers and there is only one form of snacking that Mapson advocates.

It’s something Dr Rangan Chatterjee talks about in his 4 pillar plan. “What I’ve discovered as an adult is that the kitchen can be a very productive place to exercise,” he writes. “Instead of automatically reaching for your smartphone or the TV remote, why not use the time effectively?”

Mapson agrees, adding that if you work from home, you have the best opportunity to do short but regular workouts. “While you’re boiling the kettle, do a few lunges or squats. Get dumbbells and do a few lifts. Snack on movement.”

A further advantage to being at home is your ability to cook or reheat homemade food. Mapson suggests a simple tray of roasted vegetables can be stored in the fridge and used throughout the week. She says, “Add some protein to them, blend them into a soup, you don’t have to rely on packet sandwiches when you’ve got your own kitchen.”

O N E S T E P A T A T I M E

There is also a tendency come January to think that we need to do it all at once. If we rush to start a new diet, a new exercise routine, develop a new sleep pattern, take more breaks, cut out phone use and stop snacking, the likelihood is that we’ll give up within a matter of weeks.

Mapson suggests doing just a couple of things that you can change in January. “It’s more sustainable and done daily becomes a habit. Then you can do more in February,” she says.

Anna Mapson is a Registered Nutritional Therapist and creator of the 7 Day Gut Reset. The 7 Day Gut Reset is a gut health education for life - accompanied by a seven-day meal plan with shopping list. You receive daily emails and short informative videos to optimise your digestion and health. In addition to online courses Anna works with private clients in Bristol and online across the UK.  

NOTE: This article should not be considered medical advice. Any changes in diet, exercise or lifestyle, especially if you’re on medication, should be discussed with a doctor.

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I will make time every week to do four tasks to grow my business.

Get into the habit of doing some business development weekly. Every week, decide on four tasks you’ll do across the following categories to help keep that client pipeline topped up - social media, networking, referrals and pitching. These could be as small as updating a pinned post on Twitter with your latest promotion or package, or as big as attending a new networking event and delivering a talk. By doing these little things often, you avoid the pitching panic that sets in when a client contract ends.

I will set working boundaries (and stop being a bad boss to myself!)

Working 12-hour days? Not taking lunch breaks? Accepting client calls at ridiculous times? You’re being a bad boss to yourself! You wouldn’t expect this from an employee, so why are you being so tough on yourself?

RESOLUTIONS

I will book a self-care day off a month

The last Wednesday of every month is a Self-Care day for me. I don’t book any work in, and keep it free for some guilt-free self-care. More often than not, this is either getting out for a hair cut, beauty treatment, or staying in for a Netflix marathon and a Dominos. C’mon, you’ve never ordered a lunchtime Dominos since working from home? Rectify that immediately. The other bonus of this is that you’re sneaking 12 days of holiday time into your year.

I will save at least 30% each month

If you’re not already putting 30% away a month, this is the one resolution I must demand you put into place now. It’ll cover your tax and NI, and if you over-save, you’ll have money for a buffer account or a post-tax treat. There are plenty of ways to do it. Bank accounts like Coconut will tell you how much you need to put aside, while apps like Moneybox will help you put money aside each week or month.

I won’t discount my fees!

We’ve all, at some point or another, been asked to discount a price. Even if you haven’t been asked, it’s likely you’ve felt the urge to reduce your prices for a dream client.

If a potential client asks for a discount, you should only discount the amount of work you can do for that amount, NOT the price. For example, if a project involves four articles a month for £400, but the client only wants to pay £300, then you can offer them three articles for £300, or four much shorter articles for £400.

(There are a few exceptions, such as if you’re running a flash sale or offering them a discount if they pay upfront).

I will send (and confirm) my terms and conditions with clients before starting work

No, no it’s not a sexy topic. But terms and conditions will set the boundaries and standards for your work together going forward. It gives you something to refer to if they’re late paying and makes it clear what hours you are available to communicate. They don’t need to be very long, the important thing is that they’re clear and you get written confirmation from the client that they’re happy with them. You could also include these in your services agreement for ease.

I will review and improve my processes

When you’re freelance, it can be easy to fall into habits and not notice that you’re not being as effective as you could be. Have a look at how you’re spending your week, and how long each task takes you. Is there an automation you could try to save you time? Have a look at tools like IFTTT and Zapier for ways to speed up your processes.

I will wear a bra/top when someone knocks on the door

Ladies, treat yourself to a postman bra*. It’s a strapless bra you chuck under your top when the doorbell goes so you don’t poke their eyes out.

Gentleman, same but a t-shirt. Nipples are not for your neighbours

*Yes, I made that up.

But all jokes aside, treat yourself to some clothing that’s smart and comfortable. You’ll feel more motivated if you’re wearing something you’re fine with jumping on a Skype call with, then if you’re wearing joggers covered in holes.

I will make time daily for mindfulness

Mindfulness is an important habit for everyone to develop, but especially so for freelancers who can struggle to switch off their brains. I use the Calmer You app to remind me to take time out and be mindful, jot down my gratitudes and meditate.

It’s a brand new year, and inevitably the debate over resolutions has kicked in. As a goal-setting geek, I’m fully on Team Resolutions. It’s a chance to visualise how you want the year to go and create the resolutions that will help you achieve them. The excitement and enthusiasm is there too (even if it’s slightly tinged with an Irish cream and carb hangover). 

The problem is, resolutions are often just badly developed goals. “I want to be thinner this year’, ‘I want to morph from McSlob into Marie Kondo’ or ‘I want to be a millionaire’. So by January 30th, they’ve been cast to the side. 

Instead of these vague, unachievable resolutions, how about some goals you can actually tick off in 2020?

Freelancer and coach, Emma Cossey, looks at some realistic resolutions that will improve your work AND personal life:

I will add basic self-care to my daily to-do list

You are your business’s greatest asset, and it is so important that you look after it. Make sure you’re covering all the basic foundations - meals that fuel you rather than drain you, getting some exercise, hydrating, socialising and taking care of your mental health. How are you looking after your business asset? Make sure you prioritise self-care in your day.

Find Emma, coach for the self-employed: www.freelancelifestyle.co.uk

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REMEMBER YOUR WHY

As a homeworker, you probably escaped the confines of the nine to five for a reason. So remember it!

Stick photos of your family, pets or holidays around your workspace to remind yourself why it’s wonderful to be working from home.

“My ‘why’ is freedom to work around my little boy, doing something I’m passionate about. My gorgeous writing bureau is decorated with family snaps, and they certainly make me grin into my coffee when I think of the stressful office I left behind.”

VISUALISE YOUR PATH

It is easy to become so busy working in your business that you forget where you are going.

Whilst you may already plan six to twelve months ahead, why not make a vision board with your long term goals? (see page 22)

“I have several Pinterest boards filled with wild dreams of fizzy book launch parties and exotic research locations. And why not – dreams are free.

I heard so many tales of people’s vision boards coming true, it seemed churlish not to make some. There is huge power in declaring your ambitions and keeping them firmly in mind.”

JOIN A COMMUNITY

Let’s be honest – sometimes being a homeworker is lonely. But it doesn’t have to be so.

If you network with like-minded, successful people it is amazing how quickly you start to feel more driven and inspired to take action.

“Mums in Business Association (MIBA) is a fantastic place to start – I found their group on Facebook, and they have local networking events too. I also love The Homeworker Magazine Community’s Facebook group, where you can chat daily to other homeworkers, declare your weekly goals and even find yourself an accountability partner to keep you in check.”

INVEST IN YOURSELF

Improving yourself is improving your business, so don’t feel like you’re not worthy of monetary investment.

You can learn plenty of skills online for free, but if you’re financially invested, you are more likely to pay attention, progress more quickly, and be truly motivated to make it work.

REIGNITE YOUR

PASSION FOR

WORKFIVE WAYS TO RENEW YOUR

MOTIVATION AFTER A BREAK.

“This has been a huge revelation for me. In my previous career as a solicitor, I didn’t think twice about all those uni fees. However, when I began my new career as a writer, I felt guilty about spending money to help myself grow. When I paid for business coaching last year, I couldn’t believe how quickly I started powering forwards. I wish I had valued myself enough to do it sooner.”

FIND A NEW CHALLENGE

There is something energising about having a new project.

Go through that list of things you really ought to be doing in your business and pick something that excites you.

Why not learn a new skill, become a mentor, or perhaps take on a charity event? You could even turn it into a PR or social media opportunity for your business.

“This time last year I set up my mummy blog. There was so much to learn that I didn’t have time for any new year blues. After a year dedicated to bringing up a baby, it was just the kick I needed.”

Anita Faulkner is a blogger, freelance writer and romantic comedy novelist. Her new blog is focused on helping other writers with mindset, productivity and getting noticed. anitafaulkner.co.uk

Sign up to receive her three top productivity tips here.

Join her buzzing community for readers and writers of chick lit here.

Writer and blogger, Anita Faulkner shares her five top tips to help you reignite your passion for work this January, so you can return to your desk feeling that little buzz of

excitement.

Ways to invest in yourself:• Relevant courses

• Business and lifestyle coaching• Books and subscriptions

• Outsource help• Spending time on your self-care

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What’s your story? Where do you need to be? What’s going on? Rather than: Do you want to fix for two years?

“If I can find out more about you, I can take what I need and tell you what my advice is going to be. All my conversations are so different but they’re all based on a little digging and getting to know what’s going on beneath the facts and figures. I love getting people the best deals.”

Her ability to access the whole of the market to find the best lenders means she knows who to recommend for her clients' individual needs.

She has expanded in the past two years so her husband now works full time in the business and she employs a second mortgage advisor and a VA. They also have a separate office for client meetings where there’s a space for children to play.

Many of her clients are those in self-employment and mums, and a lot of her business comes through recommendations. In the two years since she started the business she says, “It has rocketed.” She believes a lot of that is down to the connection she makes with people and her belief that: “Houses are more than bricks and mortar.”

Her passion for what she does shows through not just in how she talks about her dedication to her clients but in the personal touches she brings such as offering stress packs at the start of the process and welcome packs when people secure their home.

She also offers classes in essential oils and mindfulness courses to provide a truly holistic experience to buying your home.

Her favourite aspect is knowing that she is helping someone through a key time in their life. “People don’t want a mortgage, they want a home… I get real fulfilment from my job.”

It says a lot about the way Sam Cattell works and how she approaches her role as a mortgage advisor when she says she might naturally associate herself with a career as a yoga or reiki teacher. But it’s this love of all things holistic and nurturing that sets Sam apart with her mortgage business.

Having moved around a lot as a child and not having had a traditional mum and dad upbringing, it was only buying her first home with her now husband that she felt that sense of home. “I felt as if we belonged there. I don’t think I’d had that before. That feeling is so powerful,” she says.

She now wants to help others experience that and does so by guiding them through the mortgage process.

“The thing that sets me apart is I actually don’t talk very much about mortgages,” she says. “It’s more about trust. A house is one of the biggest assets you’ll ever own or buy so it’s about building trust in the relationship… I don’t have a sales pitch; I’m not about the numbers and that comes through instantly. People know I’m not just trying to get them to buy something; they know I’ll be by their side.”

She started out working as an estate agent after leaving school but quickly realised she was more interested in the people. On leaving her role, she went into business with a friend who was setting up as a mortgage broker. They built themselves up to be quite successful but after having her first child, Sam made the decision to set up her own business.

“When I thought about it and what mortgages are about, the fact they’re all about your home, helping people have stability and a roof over their head, I knew I could do this my way.”

With fifteen years’ experience, she started Mindful Mortgages, taking a much more person-centred approach to offering mortgage advice and, she says, “Making something quite dull… quite enjoyable.”

“I don’t go on about interest rates or all the jargon… Of course, we do have to go through all the steps and there are documents to explain,” says Sam, acknowledging that it’s a heavily-regulated industry. “But you can make it warmer. I try to make it as easy and rounded going through the process. It’s about adapting to each individual and asking:

IN

CONVERSATION

WITH...Sam Cattell

M I N D F U L M O R T G A G E S

F A C E B O O K

@mindfulmortgageW E B S I T E

www.mindfulmortgages.co.uk

ORACLE CARDSFulfilling your potential

O R A C L E C A R D S H E L P Y O U R E C O N N E C T W I T H Y O U R O W N I N T U I T I O N .

M O R E F R E E F R O M S T R U C T U R E T H A N T A R O T C A R D S ,

T H E Y O F F E R S P I R I T U A L G U I D A N C E W H I C H Y O U C A N W O R K W I T H

T O H E L P Y O U I N D I F F E R E N T A R E A S O F Y O U R L I F E .

A S K Y O U R S E L F T H E F O L L O W I N G Q U E S T I O N :

H O W C A N I T A P I N T O M Y F U L L P O T E N T I A L I N 2 0 2 0 ?

Oracle Card Readings by Barchi Fojkar: Clarity and empowerment guide: www.wild-women-wisdom.com

Choose a card and turn to page 41 to reveal your card reading

"People don’t want a mortgage, they want a home."

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You want to build a business that serves the life you want, not vice versa.

Start by asking: Who do I want to be? and What kind of a life do I want? ensures that the list of projects or ideas you generate are in alignment with what is important and meaningful to you.

Values are known as the human motivators and are the powerful force that see you through when things get tough. Any work aligned with what is truly important feels natural and energising.

Ask yourself:

Who do I want to be (this year)?

What kind of a life do I want (this year)?

What do I need to do to be/have that?

P R U N E

In the same way pruning promotes vigorous new growth, it's vital to let go of projects or ideas that do not serve you, before wasting time and resources. Your time is precious because your life is. If you are the only person in your business, be ruthless here.

When in doubt, tap into your body’s sensory, analytical and intuitive resources by asking:

‘Does this project feel draining or energising?’

As G.Keller explains in his book: The One Thing, focusing on one project or idea often sorts out the rest as a natural fallout.

Ask yourself:

Does this task have to be done by me?

What can I automate, delegate, eliminate?

What is the one thing I can do right now that will make everything else easier or unnecessary?

A L I G N

Checking that every goal is aligned with the vision of your life right now, is the key. Setting your business goals in a vacuum, not considering what season of life you’re in, will only cause frustration, guilt and disappointment.

Ask yourself:

‘Is this goal / task aligned with what I want in my life right now’?

B E L I E F S

Also known as the filter through which we perceive reality, our beliefs become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you catch yourself operating from the belief that: I need to be constantly busy to bring in money/make a real impact. You will most likely be …constantly busy, rushed and overwhelmed.

A simple first step is checking: What do I need to believe to make this easy? and start looking for evidence of people living this belief. What you see might surprise you when the filter has changed.

Ask yourself:

What do I need to believe to make (my goal) easy?

Who encompasses this belief?

S T A G E S O F C H A N G E

Before we get any closer to action, any new habit or behaviour (or ditching an old unhelpful one), we go through three stages:

Pre-contemplate, Contemplate and Prepare — and not in linear progression. The book Changing for Good by Dr Prochaska et al describes the spiral of change as a six-step process and helps to shift the feeling of frustration into compassion.

No amount of planning will work unless you do, each day.

As you break down your monthly or quarterly goals into your daily schedule, it is good to remember that the main goal is not fitting more, but more of yourself on your to-do list.

Email: ekaterina@nova-coaching.co.uk to get a free pdf: ‘Set yourself up for a spacious and profitable 2020 in line with the truth of who you are’ Quote: ‘Homeworker’

What could I possibly say about setting goals that you don’t already know?

And do I even want to? SMART goals seem to be running our lives as we enter a new decade.

In my experience, people who achieve their goals and feel good with the outcome, have very clear rules about that relationship.

Goals fulfil the truth of who they are, and not what the world expects or requires of them. Goals serve the vision of their life, not vice versa.

Using the ‘rock, pebbles and sand’ analogy, they fill the glass jar of their life with the rocks first (the 'important stuff'), so that the pebbles and the sand (the ‘other stuff’ that keeps us busy) fits in comfortably around it.

Facilitating a goal-setting process in line with this analogy is an important part of my work and some of the benefits I have witnessed are feelings of spaciousness, purpose and fulfilment.

It is not you, but the goals you set, that cause frustration, overwhelm, and feelings of unmet needs. The shift might just be a question away.

F E E D B A C K

In the same way the soil needs time to become fertile again after harvest, so does your creativity and productivity after achieving a goal.

Allowing yourself time to slow down, process and integrate the learnings after completing each project or goal, supercharges the next one. Also called: ‘The breakfast of champions’ by K. Blanchard, feedback comes with a warning: Do not skip.

Ask yourself:

What went well? What gave you joy? Who was with you? What didn’t go as planned? What could have been done differently?

How are you going to use what you’ve learned?

GOAL POSTSA S Y O U F O C U S O N S E T T I N G A N D A C H I E V I N G G O A L S ,

D O Y O U K N O W E N O U G H A B O U T T H E R E L A T I O N S H I P Y O U

H A V E W I T H T H E M ?

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In the room where artist, Honorata Chorąży-Przybysz works, the floor is covered with piles of magazines, cardboard, scissors, glue and coloured pens.

The explosion of craft goods is the start of her vision board process.

There are multiple benefits to creating a board. On the one-hand, there is the simple pleasure of making one. You can use personal photos and find pictures that you love. “It takes time but it’s cutting and sticking and something you can do in the evening on the sofa,” she says.

For Honorata, the main benefits come from the act of creating and then using your board. “It is a reflective process. As you start reflecting what to put on your vision board, you’re reflecting on what you want to put into your life. You start reviewing your own values, goals and dreams.”

Every board is unique to the individual who makes it and can have very meaningful connections to the person’s life. “As you stick on images, you’re making choices and behind those choices are certain thoughts and aspirations and reasons why you’re choosing those images. They have personal meaning,” Honorata explains.

Often, there’s a story behind each image. Pictures mean different things to different people. A plate of apples on one person’s board is because of their desire to eat more healthily. For another, that image conjures up a memory of their mother giving them apples as a child and it is about reconnecting with a relationship.

Your visual compass

The final benefit is in the visual aspect of it. Your vision board is something you put on display; near your desk, on a wall, on your fridge. The idea is that it is something you will look at daily.

“Our brain is fed on images,” says Honorata, explaining how we sometimes find ourselves buying something because the image from a TV advert is stuck somewhere in our mind.

“Once you keep looking at the images that keep you inspired, on a subconscious level, you move your life in those directions because you will continuously look and remind yourself without even realising.”

It acts as a visual compass. Seeing something on your board can trigger thoughts and therefore behaviours.

“In a hectic life we can easily get distracted,” Honorata says.

“We start with great goals and visions in mind in January. February comes and we don’t even remember what they were.”

She gives the example of how your vision board can be a cue for you to make subtle changes in your life.

“For instance, if you put something on your board about having relaxing time or more self-care, which is often lacking from our lives, you might find at 9 pm when you finally stop from a busy day that you see your board and realise you’ve not had any time for yourself… Even if you just have 15 minutes, you will ask yourself what you can do with that 15 minutes. Will you go and fill it with social media and not relax, or will you go and have that bath?”

It sounds simple but the onus is on you to do the work.

Creating your ideal board

“In my experience, most people never find a problem with designing a board; they know what they want to put on it straight away,” says Honorata.

Structure

Usually, there is something in the centre and you create it a little like a mind map. You have a core theme or element and branches coming out of that.

Some people like very defined sections and others are more free-flow and have less structure.

Equipment

Old books, pamphlets, magazines, even theatre programmes are great sources of images and words. You can add your own phrases, create interesting typography, use photocopies or your own photographs.

A large piece of firm card or paper as a base or the side of an old cereal or parcel box will do.

If you think your visions might change regularly, or you like to adapt them, you can create more temporary displays using cork board and pins or magnetic boards.

A vision board can affect your life in the long-term. As a result of the reflective thinking, your self-awareness is increased. It might not happen overnight but it helps set you up for what you want to achieve and receive throughout the year.

Honorata Chorąży-Przybysz is a therapeutic creative arts facilitator and adult learning tutor in creative arts for mental wellbeing.

www.artlysing.com

V I S I O N B O A R D S A R E M O R E T H A N J U S T M A T E R I A L F O R S O C I A L M E D I A

P R E T T I N E S S . T H E P R O C E S S O F C R E A T I N G A N D T H E N D I S P L A Y I N G

Y O U R B O A R D F O R C E S P E R S O N A L R E F L E C T I O N A N D E V A L U A T I O N

A N D C A N H A V E P O W E R F U L R E S U L T S F O R Y O U R A S P I R A T I O N S A N D

S H O R T E R - T E R M G O A L S .

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2020 VISION

I D E A S F O R Y O U R B O A R D

Dream Big: The dream house, health, career, relationships and lifestyle you aspire to have.

My year: Aspirations and goals that you want to achieve. Eg. new clients, fitness goals, revenue targets.

Health: Physical and mental health goals, self-care, mindfulness, exercise routines, dietary changes.

Selfcare: How do you care for yourself? Chats with friends, a bubble bath, a small present on payday, a simple coffee.

Celebrating you: It’s easy to be self-critical so this board is an exercise in celebrating your positives. What do you appreciate about yourself? What are your positive traits? What have you achieved? Who have you helped?

Relationships: Family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, the person you see in the shop every morning, chats with the postman, the friend you always write to, the important people you interact with or wish to interact with more.

Balance: Work-life; how you wish to create more balance in your life?

Time: How and where to spend it. Time for yourself, time with friends, time for work and time for fun.

.J oy: A board looking at how you plan to incorporate more happiness into your world on a daily basis. A cup of coffee made by a friend, holding your child’s hand on the school run, half an hour of journalling.

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1. Know your stats. It’s vital that you track how your content is performing. I would highly recommend doing an audit of the content you produced in 2019 by checking your Google and social media analytics. What worked well, what didn’t? Look at your competitors. What are they producing that is doing well? Look on sites like Buzzsumo to see what is trending.

2. Nurture your funnel. Your marketing funnel is basically the steps a customer has to make before they make a purchase from you. Your funnel needs to include three different types of content: Top of Funnel, Middle of Funnel and Bottom of Funnel.

Freelance writer, Pete Wise explains: “The ToFu MoFu BoFu content marketing model is effective because content is broken down into three categories belonging to different stages of the sales funnel. Top-of-funnel is designed to introduce people to a brand and the problems it solves. Middle-of-funnel content guides people on how to find the right solution. Bottom-of-funnel content is meant to really sell people on why the brand is the best choice to meet their requirements."

3. Choose your themes. I recommend planning your content out quarterly. I identify four core themes in my business that I am going to write about and then choose four topics for each of my themes.

My core themes are based around my customer’s pain points and what they need help with. The themes are: content planning, content ideas, blogging and pitching to the press. All my products, my membership, mastermind and 1:1 training packages are around these themes.

Once you've picked four topics for each of your themes, you'll have one for each week for the quarter of the year you are working on. These topics can be a long form of content like a blog, podcast, infographic or video. It’s much better to create one piece of quality content a week than something that is not effective. You then create daily social media posts that back up the weekly content you have created.

4. Include an editorial calendar. Journalists work with editorial calendars and it’s important for businesses to keep across important dates too. Key selling days, like Valentine's Day and Mother’s Day, should be mapped out and also make sure you look at key awareness days too where you might be able to join in certain hashtags and be seen by a wider audience.

5. Block out time to create and schedule your content. I recommend spending one day a month or one to two hours a week to create content and schedule depending on your schedule. Make sure you keep all your content in one place, so you can repurpose and recycle the high performing bits of content. There are lots of great online scheduling and planning tools you can use for this but also jotting it down in a content planner works well too.

6. Be clever with your content. Cascading content is great way to make your content go further. For example, if you write a ‘listicle’ like ‘Ten ways to Pitch to the Press’, you can upload it as a blog to your website and do a Facebook live about it on your business page or in a group if you have one.

You can also do a batch of pre-recorded videos about the topics you have covered, and upload them to LinkedIn and Instagram. Last but not least, you can make each point of your ‘listicle’ into a social media post.

7. Be responsive. Having a plan and scheduling your content means that you have more time to respond to customers, trends and news stories. Being social on social media is important, make sure you engage with people in your audience and respond to all their questions and comments.

‘News jacking’ or jumping on trending stories means that your content is more likely to be shared and commented on.

Paul Brewer, CEO of Currency Online Group agrees: “A plan is vital but the nature of social media is naturally very fickle and responds well to current events as they happen. A recent post of ours made a play on an image of No.10 Downing Street and the upcoming negotiations for Boris Johnson as he headed to the EU Summit with a simple headline, "Heading to Europe soon? We've got your cash covered". This had a good response because of its timeliness. Content like this is very difficult to plan for.”

A content plan enables you to map out where you are going and helps to reduce feelings of overwhelm. If you are scaling or working with a team, having a plan in a shared drive is important. Creating content with a purpose that resonates with your ideal customers will also improve your conversions and lastly —remember it’s not a plan unless it’s written down!

Claire Winter is the founder of the Cracking Content Club and an avid tea drinker. She is passionate about helping business owners to sell with stories via her online membership, mastermind and 1:1 training. If you want to map out your content for the coming year you can download her free 2020 content planner.

sharing content that can help them. They are landing on your website and social feeds looking for answers. Make sure you provide them! Hannah Martin, founder of the Talented Ladies Club says, “Planning ensures you have the right variety of content to achieve your business goals and also give your audience what they want. This is especially important if you want your content to tell your brand story. Your content often plays an important role in your marketing funnel. By planning your content you can ensure that your customers and potential customers are getting the right messages in the right order to help move them through the sales funnel.”

Having a coherent flow of different types of content scheduled at the right times across all your platforms means you reach your audience much more effectively. You are not left in a panic when you realised you haven’t posted anything for a while. Constant scheduling of quality content will help keep your audience engaged and will help to build trust. You also won’t miss important dates and will have a clear idea of what to create and when.

Here are some tips to help you with your planning.

How To Plan Your Content For Maximum Productivity

W O R D S : C L A I R E W I N T E R

We live in a content-saturated world, every time you pick up your phone or log on to your laptop you are bombarded with information. If you are a small business owner or self-employed, you need to be creating content that makes you stand out from the crowd.

But in this attention-deficient age, how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors? You need to create content that connects with your customers.

They need a reason to buy from you and not from bigger businesses, which have larger advertising budgets.

Knowing why you are selling something, who you are selling to and what social channels they hang out on is vital. Content planning will enable you to save time and money because you are directing your energy and time in a focussed way. A scattergun approach to content doesn’t work.

Content planning will make you more productive. It also keeps you focussed on your ideal customer and their needs. Content marketing is not about you; it’s about your customers and

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MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR PR WINS

A R I N S E A N D R E P E A T F O R M U L A F O R M A X I M U M V A L U E

low conversion rate. Every win you achieve when it comes to visibility has value, no matter what the initial impact may have been. The amount of value a win gives you depends on how well you leverage it.

A successful DIY approach to PR comes down to implementing processes and building habits into your day to day business activities. Just as you can create a process for achieving visibility, you need a process for leveraging your results, a checklist to work through and cover the bases that will help you maximise these results.

A huge part of the value of PR isn’t always in sharing your brand with a new audience but in sharing these wins with the audience you already have. Media coverage, speaking engagements, award wins, and the like, are a great way of demonstrating your expertise and providing proof of your credibility. You gain a kudos that can be very convincing in converting followers into fans and observers into purchasers.

Let’s break down some of the steps that you can take to leverage a PR win:

Thank the journalist or contact who made this result possible. A quick follow up email shows your appreciation and is part of continuing to build fruitful media relationships and promotional partnerships that will support you and your brand.

Visit the NLA Media Access website — this details copyright restrictions for certain print/online media outlets and what can and can’t be shared on your website and social media. You may need to obtain a license, although there are ways to avoid this and avoid infringing on copyright.

Share your news on social media. Don’t assume that because you’ve shared it once on Instagram or Facebook that everyone has seen it. Share on your LinkedIn profile and other social media platforms in order to reach your audience convincingly. Also don’t be afraid to share these wins more than once. Time doesn’t diminish the power of these achievements; revisit them sporadically to continue to benefit from the validation they can offer.

Share in a newsletter and blog post. Tell the story of the win; Maybe you were interviewed and you have some anecdotes to share or you were incredibly nervous before speaking on stage but ultimately thrived in the environment. Give your audience something extra when you’re sharing on your blog or via your newsletter.

Send a press release to your regional media. If your result is in the vein of an award nomination or win, a big speaking opportunity, a TV appearance or a celebrity turn out at a key event or similar, it could

be a great story for your regional newspaper to cover and a great way to give you further mileage from your initial PR win.

Add the logo of the outlet, the award you won, or the event you were featured at, to your website. An ‘As seen in’ or ‘Featured by’ area on the homepage is always a great way of anchoring the credibility endorsements into your communication.

Add an icon to a specific product or service that was featured in a magazine, ‘Loved by Red’ or ‘As seen in Prima’ across the corner of the relevant image for example. This gives an additional interest factor to elements of your offer and gets these results working to convince and convert browsers into customers.

Mention wins in your social media profiles, especially if you have influencers or celebrities that have been seen in your product or have used your services; ‘Loved by …’, ‘Worn by….’.

Add key awards logos or magazine logos to your email signature. This demonstrates your expertise in a subtle way and reinforces your credibility each time you send an email.

Take testimonial captions from any influencer or celebrity endorsements you’ve received and use these quotes across your social media platforms and through your website. Maybe you’ve received commendations from awarding bodies or words of praise from industry figures that could also add weight and gravitas to your brand.

Celebrate a win with your audience by offering a ‘value add’ opportunity or a discount; an incentive to purchase can be a great way to give back and thank your audience for their support and encouraging them to celebrate with you. This further maximises your sales potential for each win you achieve.

There are three key aims with this activity. To make sure that you get the full worth of any PR result and truly maximise each opportunity. To leave people in no doubt that they have landed in the right place after seeing an influencer endorsing the product or a mention in a magazine. Finally, to demonstrate your credibility to your current audience.

The result is just the starting point; the value of the mileage following is what you make it.

Fiona Minett is a PR coach and founder of Boss Your PR.

www.bossyourpr.com

Instagram: @bossyourpr

Instagram: @bossyourp

You work hard to get your business seen, either through your own time and effort or a financial cost in outsourcing this activity. Either way, you are investing in your visibility, so why should any resulting pieces of coverage be the only end game in mind?

Make your results work harder for you.

It is impossible to predict or control the initial impact of a PR win, whether it’s a speaking opportunity or media coverage. You could have an avalanche of sales or it could leave you slightly underwhelmed with a

You’ve bagged some coverage in a national newspaper or scored a coup with an influencer. You celebrate your win, but what do you do next?

Achieving the result is only the start of the value. A PR win is always amazing; it gets you in front of a new audience, it attracts traffic to your website or followers to

your social channels and (hopefully) drives sales. Beyond this initial impact, though, is so much more value that can often go untapped.

W O R D S : F I O N A M I N E T T

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Being an entrepreneur was never a question for Raimonda Jankunaite, it was a given. It was something she felt drawn to and although she admits she didn’t know how it was going to happen, her biggest motivator was freedom. “Freedom of choice, freedom of how I work and who I work with,” she says.

She started her first business at 21 after graduating from business school. The intention was admirable: reducing plastic waste with “an innovative water solution to refill plastic bottles.”

It failed and she didn’t make a penny. “I was quite depressed after my first failure because it’s really heartbreaking when you have that big dream and that dream is crushed. I was made to close the company,” she says, recalling having to ask the manufacturer to remove the huge water-refilling station.

This early failure played on her mind and made Raimonda much more cautious approaching anything new. “I was scared to land on something else in case it didn’t work out,” she says. The thought of investing her “all” again was a daunting prospect.

She admits she did have to go and get other work. She “dipped in and out”, doing a little consultancy work, marketing and even worked for a law firm where she says she was “treated very badly”.

This experience was a catalyst for Raimonda. “I thought I’d never go and work for anyone else again. I never wanted to feel not good enough… It got me to take my entrepreneurial journey a lot more seriously because I didn’t want to feel like that again.”

Despite these initial setbacks, she bounced back.

Today, her bio showcases a stack of credentials and accomplishments. She is the founder and CEO of Crowd Velocity, an online learning platform for start-ups and entrepreneurs.

She is passionate about supporting women in business and technology and crowd funding.

She is a part-time lecturer at Westminster University teaching Entrepreneurial Practice and last year, she hosted over 65 international speakers and other women as part of Women In Business Club.

P R O F I L E

RAIMONDAJANKUNAITE

Women In BusinessT H E H O M E W O R K E R S P E A K S T O T H E F O U N D E R O F W O M E N I N

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Women In Business Club never started out as a business idea. It began as one event, a way of connecting with like-minded women and empowering others. For Raimonda, it was a way of growing a support network and creating a safe space for women to network and collaborate.

The first meeting was free to attend. One hundred and twenty-five people signed up for 60 seats and the question at the end: “When is the next one?”

“I had no idea,” laughs Raimonda. “I didn’t have a plan for this. It just grew organically… I could see that women needed this and it was much bigger than me.”

She was seeing a rise in women coming together, strong and united, developing businesses and how important that support network was that she hadn’t been able to find.

She began by creating a group to retain the connections, then hosted a virtual summit, and before long had enough content to open up a membership site. She put everything into it. “I had just finished a project I had worked on raising money for businesses, so at the end of a successful raise we got a good payout. I must have had about £6000. I just chucked it all in,” she says.

She hired a team, developed a brand and describes the past two years as surreal. One of the biggest successes was the explosion in followers she found on Instagram. “I didn’t open an Instagram account until I knew I could commit to one post a day,” she says. In the first three months she had amassed over 10,000 followers and now has more than 138000.

She can talk about tactics and strategies on Instagram but key to her success is what underpins her values in business: kindness, generosity, and compassion.

They are values she shares with her team, a small remote workforce based in their homes around the world. “The way of working has changed,” she says. “My team are in different time zones, their little babies are running around wanting hugs. That’s the reality.”

It’s the people, not their locations, which is important. “If you have the right values in your business, it will come through and you will attract the right people… You can’t fake it, you can’t manufacture it,” she says.

“I could see that women needed this and it was much bigger than me.”

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T I P S

• Commitment:

Be consistent and 100% committed.

• Understand your audience and know what they want.

• Be very specific with what you post: Coherent branding and sharing good

visuals for a strong look.

Women In Business use pink, directed to the audience. “We had comments that pink is too cliché but we grew 10000 followers

in 3 months so it works for us.”

• Be giving: Follow back and engage.

“I want to grow a community, I want to engage, I want to talk to my audience, I want to follow them and listen to them

and respond to their messages.”

Her values are the same ones she tries to instil in the Women In Business Community. “If they resonate with the values and ethos and they believe in the same things, they will be people from the same cloth and they will treat people the same way,” she says.

“I give to those who I work with, to those in my community. I lead with that. It’s what’s in my nature, and everything I do, everything we create, I do with love and compassion. I think some people do it for the wrong reasons and just want to make a sale.”

She has other people, coaches, who try to tell her where she’s going wrong and how she should be doing things differently. She has had to stand her ground and “walk away” from certain people.

“People have to be aligned and believe in what I’m doing. I have to stand my ground quite firmly… I’ve been questioned by my partner, my family, my sister, friends. That’s ok. I’ll keep doing it. My partner was freaking out and worrying it wouldn’t go well. I say, ‘You just leave it there and let me get on with it.’”

Of course, there are moments when she has experienced self-doubt and in those moments, she says, “I remind myself that what I’m creating is not about me.”

Raimonda is a big believer in learning from your mistakes and over the past few years, she has learned a lot: “I’m much more resilient than I thought,” she says. “And there are no limits. Quite often we have limiting beliefs… If you’re on the right path, there are no limits to what you can do.”

She is testament to her statement. Raimonda has created a thriving community for women, providing them a safe and supportive place. She shows strength and wisdom and is forging ahead as an influential woman in business yet doing so with grace and kindness, for that is her superpower.

Raimonda Jankunaite is an inspiring public speaker on entrepreneurship, women in business and technology and crowdfunding. She is a founder of the online learning platform Crowd Velocity and Women In Business Club.

Find Women In Business Club:

womeninbusiness.club

Instagram: @womeninbusinessclub

Facebook: @womeninbusiness8

“If you have the right values in your business, it will come through and you will attract the right people… You can’t fake it, you can’t manufacture it.”

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RCatch-Up

The word leadership conjures up different thoughts depending on your experience of it. If you’ve experienced poor leadership, you may recall somebody who was non-communicative, never took responsibility for failings, was full of self-importance, maybe even displayed narcissistic traits.

Of course, a good leader will lead by example. They are accountable, they are interested and invested in their team, they own their lack of knowledge and they have integrity.

Good leadership will inspire you, encourage you, help you to grow and recognise your potential.

But what about when you’re leaderless? What about when you work from home alone and have no other person to help guide and motivate you? Nobody to turn to for constructive feedback or the occasional pep talk?

Where do you find that challenge and support in the context of working alone? How do you become your own effective leader and take responsibility for your own growth and development?

S E L F - A W A R E N E S S

“We have a weird view of leadership that it’s only something that happens when you have a big team around you,” says Emmanuel Gobillot, leadership development consultant and co-author of Unleash Your Leader with Katherine Thomas.

If you’re self-employed and the nature of your work is client-based, you may have to step into a leadership role to help guide and direct your clients, but what about leading yourself?

“There are certain questions we can ask ourselves,” says Thomas.

• What kind of relationship do I have with myself?

• What kind of time do I spend thinking aboutmyself?

FOLLOW YOUR LEADHOW TO BE YOUR OWN LEADER WHEN YOU WORK FROM HOME

• Am I going in the right place?

• Should I lead myself to another place?

• How can I be better doing what I’m doing?

• How can I be more effective?

When there is no one else automatically asking these things of you, finding somebody can be a challenge.

A degree of self-awareness comes about from seeking feedback and understanding your impact on others.

“It is really hard to find the people who are genuinely going to hold a mirror to you,” says Gobillot. “If you’ve been locked in your office all day, you finally come out and greet your family, it’s a weird conversation to start with: ‘Tell me about me.’"

Thomas agrees that the lack of proximity to others serves up the challenge of how you orchestrate the level of feedback that we all crave and benefit from.

“We may not like feedback but we all like the attention and the fact that someone cares enough to say something about us,” says Gobillot.

We fear coming across as too direct if we ask somebody for feedback yet Thomas recommends we are more proactive in doing so.

Gobillot suggests finding a circle of trusted advisors or a source of trusted advice. “People you know who are going to tell you the truth,” he says.

Whether that source is a partner, client or former colleague, wherever you find it, both agree that it is critical.

Becoming more self-aware also sheds lights on your own strengths and weaknesses. It is unavoidable to be impacted and influenced by others (think abosut the autobiographies you’ve read, people you’ve met, posts you see on social media). But it is often “too easy” says Gobillot, to resign yourself to the fact you’re not as good as another or ought to be more like somebody else.

He adds that what is important is acknowledging and accepting that you may never be the same as that particular person but to look more inwardly to your own strengths and worry less about how you compare.

Equally, you need to be aware of how you’re spending your time and who with. Relationship mapping, an exercise they cover in their book, gives you an understanding of where your time goes and “being pretty ruthless with your time”.

When mapping out your relationships, Gobillot advises, “Don’t just put the people at work, put the people who go and fetch the kids because you’re late. Put the people you go to and cry with and the other people who help make you successful… As long as you work on the relationships with individuals around you who understand that’s who you are and they can accept who you are,” he adds.

They warn that as good leaders, we must develop an awareness of when things start to slip, particularly when we become busy and are faced with deadlines. “You tend to focus on that and everything about relationships tends to get moved out. Be careful. We encourage people to keep it at the forefront of their minds.”

S E L F - D E V E L O P M E N T

Aside from the more obvious means of self-development such as taking courses and reading books, the word ‘self ’ here becomes very important.

Gobillot talks of energy as a transaction, a currency exchange.

“The life of a consultant, the same as the life of a leader or self-employed individual, is about energy,” he says. “You’re constantly giving energy to other

people… You’re selling your energy, you’re selling your work.”

One of the areas we sometimes miss when we think about leading is considering ourselves in the equation.

“What are you interested in as a human being? What is ‘Your why’?” Gobillot asks. “Like a battery, where do you get your energy from?”

Having a separate energy source is another critical point so that you can sustain momentum and grow and develop.

“If you’re interested in painting then you should be able to paint, even if it’s not your profession,” he suggests. “You need to have a source of energy somewhere.”

He points out that most people get their energy from home and spend it at work. “Over time, it is a form of abuse unless you bring something back,” he says.

What is important is how you supply your own energy, considering yourself as an individual and as a professional and how those two parts of you work together and developing that awareness at those different levels."

Another key area for self-development is the ability to network. In order to get that feedback, to challenge your own ways of doing things, to gain different perspectives, meeting and learning from others is an important part of growing personally and professionally.

“When you’re homeworking, what I’ve found is that opportunities to connect have to be scheduled,” says Thomas. “Of course, you can pick up the phone to people or use instant mail but it’s not the same as eyeballing somebody.”

S E L F - D I S C I P L I N E

Managing your life successfully as a homeworker is about “the discipline and framework that you’re prepared to apply to that model,” states Thomas.

She tells the tale of a friend who after years working from home from her living room, found herself with a spare bedroom after one of her children left home. This ability to separate herself from the house and close the door on work at the end of the day she describes as an “interesting and life-changing experience.”

“It’s knowing when the point has come when you need to do something differently,” she says, again

Managing your life successfully as a homeworker is about the discipline and framework that you’re prepared to apply to that model.

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not necessary to completely force yourself to stop.

“Now, I would delightedly work at weekends because if there’s something really exciting and interesting that needs to be done, that is fine,” she says.

Gobillot agrees, saying, “We have such a dysfunctional view of the world of work…The construct that you go to work for someone else is relatively new in human history. Go back one hundred years or so, people lived together, worked together. We haven’t got to reinvent ways.”

In fact, although it is widely understood the importance of taking time off and having regular replenishing breaks, he warns of what you can miss if you shut off entirely from work.

“Some boundaries can stop you from having experiences that inform your work,” Gobillot says.

He recalls a meal in a restaurant where he and his family were reflecting on how terrible the service had been due to mismanagement and disorganisation.

“We had this weird leadership conversation from this experience out with my family at lunch but that’s what we do. There was a lesson from that restaurant. [We found] there were two simple things he could have done to change it.”

Their point really prompts the question about whether the self-discipline required is, once again, about striking the right balance. It comes down to having a deeper understanding of yourself: knowing when you need to switch off and stop completely to avoid stress and burnout versus when you can comfortably integrate life and work without it negatively affecting others — and when equally, you require the discipline to put in the extra hours or sacrifice some leisure time to keep on top of your work and become a more effective, high-performing individual.

Working from home gives you the opportunity to dictate your own schedule in much more detail. When done successfully, work and life can be in harmony, when you can manage yourself in healthy and constructive ways that allow for both personal and professional growth.

“Your broader life experiences can be incredibly generative for what you do at work,” says Gobillot. “But understand the impact on people around you.”

“My biggest worry when we talk about balance and work and life, is that you automatically sacrifice one for another. Balance means only half of both or just one or the other… I want both – full-on work and full-on for life.”

Unleash Your Leader

Emmanuel Gobillot & Katherine Thomas

Urbane Publications

RRP: £12.99

referring to a friend whose workload nearly killed him. “He was so desperately swamped, he didn’t have a chance to raise his head above the weeds and see what he could do differently.

“That’s the risk. We talk with rose-tinted glasses about how your life will be more your own in that environment but it’s not necessarily so.”

It seems that being disciplined around your work, your schedule and your boundaries is very much linked with your own self-awareness.

Often, the discipline required to work is easier to come by than the discipline to shut down and finish for the day when work is always present. This is when boundaries become important, when they affect your health and the other people in your home and those you live with.

However, Thomas argues that there are times when it is

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There are advantages to working alone, some anecdotal and humorous including no irritating co-workers and overbearing bosses, but social connection is necessary for us to thrive. It helps us feel a part of something bigger, encourages motivation and facilitates in problem solving.

Working for yourself can be extremely isolating, which can make us feel very alone in the world, more stressed and overwhelmed because we alone feel the pressure and responsibility.

Isolation is known to be the start of a slippery slope into depression. It’s not healthy to be alone in our thoughts 24/7.

You might engage with people on a day to day basis but usually these are customers or other professionals. This is more of a service relationship, not authentic, reciprocal person-to-person connection — the kind of interaction that encourages emotionally deep conversations and empathy.

Even with a supportive partner, relating to people who are in a similar situation to you can be a huge emotional support since they will really understand what you’re going through.

For some, talking to a pet offers a level of comfort. Although having pets makes you feel less alone and is known to be a

stress- reliever (especially if you allow yourself to mindfully pet them), they aren’t able to provide the engagement we need that can only be received from another person. People regulate their emotions through other people. This happens when we feel heard and understood. Although your darling cat might look at you with soulful eyes, you won’t feel understood by her, not really.

What do we need in order to feel connected?

To feel connected to someone, we need to feel as though they’ve grasped the meaning of our words. We need to be able to observe the change in their facial expressions (or tone of voice) and become aware of an energy shift which we perceive as being understood.

This promotes feelings of belonging. You feel accepted and part of something larger than yourself. Feeling a part of a group of like-minded individuals helps to make our lives more meaningful.

Having someone to bounce ideas off of can also help you to understand yourself better. If someone paraphrases what you’ve just said, it will help you reflect on your thoughts and confirm the point you’ve just made or it could help you explore more avenues around the concept or tweak what you’ve just said to something more specific.

Introverts also need connection

Introverts obtain their energy from within so will need individual de-stimulating time away from other people. This is a very different thing to feeling lonely or alienated.

Knowing you have people you can call on is a good step to feeling less alone but it’s important to be able to reach out to others for connection and not only expect them to make contact with you. If you want to meet up with someone, call them.

An almost 80-year-old Harvard study proved that being part of a community is what helps us feel happier and live longer. Robert Waldinger who is the Director Psychiatrist in charge of the study said: “The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health.

“Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too. That, I think, is the revelation.”

“Loneliness kills,” he said. “It’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.”

So, if you ever feel alone in your work, reflect on who you can call to speak with. If you’re not sure where to start, think about your interests and look up events in your area that you could attend. This might not be directly related to your work but it will still be an opportunity to meet like-minded people which will help colour your life with more joyful connections!

Sharon Draper, psychologist: www.sharondraper.com.au

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Self-Belief

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Confidence

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Opportunity

Positive Thinking

Connection

Decision

ATTITUDE

PsycheAttractPotential

COPING WITH ISOLATION

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It’s hard to believe that I have been working from home for the last 16 years. When I began my working life, I never imagined I would be doing the work I am now, or imagined the freedom away from the 9-to-5 grind of a traditional office job. Whilst I love working for myself, my 16-year journey has not always been easy. There have been many obstacles, both large and small, to overcome. The biggest one, and something that nearly drove me back into the ‘traditional’ workforce, was loneliness. This is the story of how I overcame that loneliness, and learned to look after my mental, social, and physical health.

All my life I had spent my days surrounded by people: family; friends; schoolmates; housemates; and co-workers. As a social person, I have always enjoyed it and love the energy, exchange of ideas, and the laughter that generated in social situations.

In 1997, I migrated from the UK to Australia with my husband and daughter. Holly was just four-months old when we boarded the plane. To cover my notice period before we left London, I went back to work when she was just a few weeks old. It was a huge struggle leaving my tiny newborn to go and work long hours, arriving home late at night only to flop into bed, exhausted. We decided that when we got to Australia, I could be with Holly and I wouldn’t need to go back to work until I was ready.

The first years after our move were my first introduction to loneliness. Swapping central London, my friends, family, and a

hugely busy job, for suburban Melbourne was a total shock to the system. With only Holly for company, I would pounce on my husband the second he had his key in the door, telling him every single, tiny detail about my long, lonely day. He was the only adult I had to talk to, and it didn’t take long for me to realise I was slowly, but surely, going stir crazy.

I knew I needed to have more in my day and began searching for local activities. I joined everything I could, some baby-related, some for me. Slowly, I began to make new friends and started to build our new life.

The next years flew by. I was an active full-time Mum involved in raising my little toddler, going to classes, having adventures down at the beach and long walks with our dog.

Before Holly turned two, she had a little brother, Rob, who was born with autism. What followed were days full of appointments with paediatricians, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, psychologists; there were so many, but we were so grateful for their help. It was nearly five years before I seriously thought about work again.

When Rob started Kindergarten, I began looking for work options. Ideally, I wanted something that would fit with school hours, allow for the school holidays and would provide me the flexibility to take him to his specialist appointments. I quickly realised there was no way a standard 9-to-5 job was going to fit the bill.

WORKINGALONEATHOME

As luck would have it, I came across an article about virtual assistants and home-based transcription. This sounded as if it would tick all my boxes. I felt I had a strong skill base from my previous career and my secretarial training. I knew I had the ability to focus on work while at home. We had the basic equipment I needed with our family computer. Feeling excited, I found out what I needed to do to set up a small business in Australia, I created a website, bought pedals and some headphones and never looked back. Well, almost never. While I was actually working it was okay, as, being a transcriber, you are listening to people speaking, so you feel as if you are party to a conversation. But in between jobs, the silence in the house was deafening. I found the only time I was going out of the house was to go shopping, or do school pick-up and drop offs. I never knew when I might have a job come in, or a potential client contact me so I was always on alert. I had become a silent prisoner to my home office. I was once again isolated, lonely, and it wasn’t good for my mental health.

I took a while to realise that the whole point of working for myself was flexibility and the freedom to choose when I worked. I wasn’t using this at all for myself, only for the children. It suddenly hit me that I was the one totally in charge of my day and my routine, and I needed to create one that would meet my personal goals of keeping physically and mentally fit and socially active, as well as meeting my work deadlines.

The first thing I did was set myself office hours. I decided when I would start work each day, when I would break for lunch, and when I would finish each day. And I gave myself permission for leeway; if I wanted to finish at lunchtime on a slow day and go do something else with my afternoon, I could. The world would not end.

I then had to set boundaries with my friends and family. They still thought I would be available at any time for phone calls, and random drop-ins. To be honest, they really found it hard to understand what I did, and anyway, it’s not a “real job” if you’re working from home, and so the assumption that you could just call in was fine. It wasn’t.

I always was so happy to see them of course because I was lonely, but it would always be just when I was rushing to a deadline, or expecting a call, all of which added to my anxiety.

Once I got the balance back, I could organise times to see them where I could be my best self, not watching the clock and rushing them through a cup of tea. I had to be patient and firm, and frequently remind them I was working for clients with deadlines and, yes, it really was a real job. Setting office hours and boundaries had the two-fold effect of being able to advertise my hours of availability, and inform family and friends that I was not free for them to drop in on any time they chose.

Once I had my hours back under control, the next thing I did was to sit down and write about how my perfect day/week would look. What did I want my life to look like? What were my priorities with fitness and hobbies, family time and friends?

I wanted time to quilt, swim, play piano, travel and see friends. I looked at ways I could fit some of those things into my life and not let work become all-consuming.

I began by joining the local gym and taking their classes. Before starting work in the mornings I did a workout. My body felt toned again from using weights; my mind felt calm and clear after yoga classes, and swimming meant that I could go early with a friend and have a quick chat in the spa afterwards, allowing me time to nurture my friendship. I allocated certain days for lunch, or a picnic in the park with my parents. I got to see far more of friends and family outside of work, outside of the house. It was hard work sticking to the schedule I’d set myself, but within a few weeks, I regained my balance.

But I was still missing one vital connection. Nobody understood what it meant to work from home as a transcriptionist. I wanted to be able to connect with people who I could share my day with, who understood what it felt like to finish a difficult audio file with numb ears and fingers thick from typing.

So I searched and found a few forums to join where I could talk to other transcribers who completely understood how easy it is to become siloed working at home, who felt my pain about someone placing a microphone right next to the coffee machine, and could sympathise, as well as provide valuable tips that would improve how I worked.

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NETWORKING

The fading chorus of Auld Lang Syne, the realisation that the Christmas tree needs to come down before it’s a pile of needles on the floor, and that last turkey sandwich – as well as an extra nip in the air – all signal the passing of New Year’s Eve and the dawn of another January.

Along with the memories of Christmas and parties comes something new, something fresh along with that air: Resolutions.

While we might vow on a personal level to be healthier, kinder, or take up a hobby, when it comes to work, and in particular self-employment and working from home, some of us might resolve to expand our contacts, to meet new clients or customers and get out from behind the computer or inside our little bubble of homeworking.

And if you resolve to network more, don’t you find networking is often a dirty word? We don’t all like to do it and it can conjure up images in your mind of power suits, The Apprentice, name badges, firm handshakes and doing deals. It goes hand in hand, often, with jargon like reaching out, or having an idea shower. Networking has also changed dramatically with the advent of social media. For many of us, our connecting is done online, via apps, on social media sites or sites such as The Dots or LinkedIn, meaning we don’t have to do it in the flesh.

There’s a safety there, and if we are working from home (especially if it’s somewhere more remote), online connections can become the norm. But they’re arguably not the best type for our mental health.

While there is a real power in Facebook groups for freelancers, or sharing ideas on Twitter, I believe there’s no replacement for a smile in person, a ‘real-life’ handshake, a laugh and a shared slice of cake or canapé.

Particularly in the past year, I’ve found a real power in networking, if you do it in a way that really works for you. The idea of ‘getting out there’, especially in these colder months, can feel like a huge slog. We want to see some kind of instant reward, and that’s not always the case when we network.

For me, there’s almost a circle of emotions that I go through when I go to a networking event. I approach it, hoping I’ve got the right venue, that I’ll find the right door and I’ve worn the right thing. The voices in my head saying that I don’t deserve to be with these people, or that I won’t find the courage to speak to other people, loom large. Once through the door, there’s the sway of emotions from: who to speak to first to how to get away from a conversation you’re not enjoying? Everyone eyes each other up, like a group dating event where you’re all trying to work out who you ‘fancy’ matching with to talk about yourself and your business.

Freelancing, for me, has many parallels with dating — I wrote a lot about dating in years gone by — and networking is the embodiment of that. From one-on-one meetings (dates) to events (speed dating, argh!), it really feels like you are trying to put yourself out there, and the nerves, the self-doubt, the anxiety, are all very real.

In the past year I’ve been to a range of networking events, from the IPSE National Freelancers Day to Red magazine’s Smart Women Week and then smaller things such as meet-ups, or Freelance Heroes Day, which was a day of talks with a lunch and a chance to chat. I believe that, on reflection as another year dawns, the biggest thing I’ve learned about networking is that it doesn’t have to be about promoting your business. There’s a mental health element to going out and meeting other people that comes with going to an event.

The Power of

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Forums are a great place for helping others who are starting out, sharing knowledge and experience, and even picking up the odd new client, as well as a new friend or two.

Finally, I made it a priority not to renege on any of the social commitments I made — no matter how hectic my working week.However tired I am when I knock off from work, I am re-energised as I share a meal and laugh with friends and family.

There are a few things on my wish-list for a perfect day that I haven’t achieved yet, and what makes a perfect day has changed for me over time, so I make sure to revisit this exercise a couple of times a year. We now have a camper trailer, so I’ve started getting away every opportunity I can with my husband and friends. Sometimes, if it’s a longer trip, I’ll take my work with me, after all, I can work from anywhere I can get internet connection. But I’ve also learned to give myself permission to not take any work at all. To just go and enjoy.

Work has changed and grown over the years and, in 2016, I started a new venture, Top Team Transcripts, with my business partner, Sonya. This changed my life again. Moving from a subcontractor to a business owner, where others are reliant on you for their income was another huge challenge.

It is more tempting to work longer hours. More now than ever, I have to reinforce with friends and family that I really am working, and that I really am busy. I do have freedom, but as a small business owner, if there’s work to do, there’s work to do. It’s become even more important for me to keep reassessing and tweaking my time to ensure balance, as well as realising I cannot be all things to all men; the load needs to be shared.

You can’t pour from an empty cup, and it is so important that, as home workers, we strive to keep that cup overflowing with good health and creativity. You simply can’t do that if you’re run down, isolated and exhausted.

Our company now has clients in the UK, US and Australia and a team of 13 contractors.

Sonya and I also created a course, TranscribeRight, a training course so that others can do what we do, work from home. Tips and tactics for surviving the home office environment are topics we revisit and build on several times in our course, because it is so very important for long-term success.

I can honestly say I am so glad that my life took the direction it has. It has been such a rewarding time of my life and I would recommend it to anyone. However, I would advise anyone planning to work from home to put as much planning into ensuring you maintain social contacts and routine as you do into your business plan. Your physical and mental health depends on it.

With her business partner Sonya, Claire Hone provides transcription services with their business Top Team Transcripts.

You can also find their range of training courses to become a transcriptionist at Transcribe Right.

I made it a priority not to renege on any of the social commitments I made — no matter how hectic my working week.

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Yes, there were moments at each where I stood by myself wondering if I should speak to anyone if I could speak to anyone. At the first event of the year, I didn’t give out any business cards and I felt like such a failure. But as I came away, I set the intention to create and build Freelance Feels. If I hadn’t been to that day, I wouldn’t have truly begun what is now a growing community.

It’s so interesting to think of the ways going to a networking event can help your business beyond ‘doing business’. That you might just make a friend, or learn something about yourself or your business that hadn’t quite occurred to you thanks to a chat with someone from another side of things.

You might find someone who knows someone else who might want to do business with you; it’s not always about the people who are physically there, it can be about those they know and can put you in touch with.

I feel almost naïve that I’ve just learned this but I think it’s important for us all to realise that, going to a meet-up or a talk, a podcast recording. Podcasting is another great example. This year I’ve launched a podcast for my platform, Freelance Feels, and I’ve gone to meet interviewees in person. It’s been so enlightening, and rewarding to meet them in person, to share a cup of tea and biscuit with them, and see their reactions to questions, rather than just hear them.

At the London Podcast Festival, I went to some live recordings and learned another valuable networking rule; that you might actually not speak to anyone and that’s also liberating. At the recordings, I had the intention of chatting to loads of people, gathering guests, blazing a trail. Instead, I learned to sit back and just ‘be’ there. It was such a relief to give myself permission to do that and I’d urge you to do the same. Don’t want to ask a question at a panel talk? Don’t! Remember that it’s perhaps a big deal that you went along at all.

At a podcasters meet-up group that I’ve been to twice, I’ve found myself with an increased confidence in my own idea as I’ve run it past like-minded souls. It’s not always about sealing the deal so much as putting another piece into the giant jigsaw that is your business you’re building.

So should we network all the time? Well, halfway through the year, I tried to do some ‘super networking’. To go to as many events as I could, to immerse myself in it, to be totally in the moment and be a super networker. Spoiler alert: It was exhausting. I found myself full of caffeine, tired and confused. I had signed up for anything and everything, not filtering through which events might be best for me personally, or my business and future plans. Some were at times that didn’t suit my diary and I found myself rushing and cursing as I tried to get there on time. The conclusion to the experiment was that if you do want to go to lots of events and immerse yourself in networking, then you need to build in some self-care in the time around that. Don’t go out five evenings in a row unless you’ve also found time to rest in the other times of the day.

What I have truly found, which I’d like to share because I hope it might help those who feel anxious at the idea of networking, is that the more I networked, the more relaxed I became about it. I suppose much like a new gym routine, or indeed with dating, which I found easier when I did more of it. Practice makes perfect... or at least gets you towards perfect. And most of all, I would have to say: don’t be afraid to leave! Just like a bad dating event, a bad networking event doesn't deserve your time.

I've now joined a local freelance meet-up to network in my local area, which I'd never have done without my ‘super networking’ month. It's been a revelation to network, and I'm learning more about collaborating. Networking can be a path to lead you through this coming year if you choose, and it starts with a single click on ‘accept’ or ‘going’. The choice is yours, and I hope that your steps towards networking in 2020 are happy ones.

C A R D 1 : 8 O F F I R E

If you want to tap into your full potential, first connect with things you love, things that spark joy, the ones that light you up and raise your spirit. It might sound too easy but it is the fastest way for you to manifest your desires.

You are full of creative energy which is ready to be released. Number 8 symbolises strength and rebirth. Every new change demands some flexibility as well as persistence and you have both. Tap into your heart, make new things, create out of love, curiosity, passion, don't let the world limit you. You are exactly where you need to be, the world is now waiting for you to share your magic, your ideas, your creations and your precious self. You are here to bring something new to the table — let the journey begin.Let this card be a reminder to tap into the energy of adventure and strength you carry within every time everything around you seems to be black and white. *

C A R D 2 :   S T R E N G T H 8

Number 8 represents strength and it is also a sign for infinity. If you have ever doubted in your strength, then every time you experience moments of uncertainty, remember this card. Your strength lies in silently navigating through life; you are the strongest when you are deeply relaxed, trusting that it has always been you who is in charge. Your force comes from your heart, your force has a gentle way. You aren't here to push hard or fight the stream, you are here to relax into the now, whispering the words of affirmation which will comfort your fears. Having the objects of your desire always before your eyes, you can manifest whatever you want. Be focused and persistent and you can move mountains. The world is at your feet, just trust yourself. What is it that you will choose? *

C A R D 3 :   8 O F W A T E R

The first thing to remember is to travel with the tide, or the Moon. Some days you will be full of inspiration and there will be times when you will feel the need to nourish yourself by stepping out of the public eye, working alone, perfecting your craft or simply resting.

Your work is the one that has an impact. You don't need to worry about your personal image or brand, it is all about the content. What you provide has value beyond measure. Find the way if you haven't already that it reaches the right people who will benefit from it. Lastly, treasure what you have: your knowledge and your skills, and that attitude will reflect on who you attract. You are ready for the next level, ride with the tide and trust your strength. *

*All three cards have the same number, which is a pleasant surprise. No 8 is the luckiest number in Chinese culture which means wealth and fortune, especially when multiplied. Let's take luck into your own hands. Set yourself up for prosperity and with every act that you do ask yourself: "Am I acting out of abundance or out of scarcity?"

You will be guided. All the very best to you.

ORACLE READING

B A R C H I F O J K A R R E A D S T H E C A R D S T O R E V E A L

Y O U R A N S W E R T O T H E Q U E S T I O N :

H O W C A N I F U L F I L M Y P O T E N T I A L I N 2 0 2 0 ?

( P I C K Y O U R C A R D O N P A G E 1 9 )

C A R D D E C K B Y C O L L E T T E B A R O N - R E I D

Jenny Stallard is a lifestyle journalist and founder of Freelance Feels:

"Wellbeing for humans who work for themselves"

Instagram: @Freelance_Feels

www.jennystallard.com

" T H E M O R E I

N E T W O R K E D , T H E

M O R E R E L A X E D I

B E C A M E A B O U T I T .

M U C H L I K E A N E W

G Y M R O U T I N E ,

O R I N D E E D W I T H

D A T I N G … P R A C T I C E

M A K E S P E R F E C T . "

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POSTURITE

Work active with OpløftFinally, a desk made for modern life. We’re going faster and further than ever before,

so why should we be stuck in our seats? Opløft transforms any surface into a sit-stand desk so you can enjoy more movement while you work.

www.posturite.co.uk/oploft

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At home, left to our own devices, it’s easy to slip into unhealthy working habits. In an office, we’re helped by purpose-designed environments and the fact that we’re on show. There are people around to look out for us and question our decision to slump on the staff-room sofa for eight hours with a laptop and a whole family pack of cheese puffs.

At home, it’s up to us to make good decisions. No one’s going to know if we’re answering emails sprawled face-down on the bed (well, until we get a bad back and have to take time off sick, or end up producing poor work).

How often have you snapped out of a spell of deep concentration to find yourself in a poor position — nose millimetres away from your screen, or your legs numb because they’re tangled up underneath you?

While this level of focus is great and can bring short-term productivity gains, further down the line, sitting still for too long in unsupported postures can lead to musculoskeletal disorders, eye fatigue, other health problems and longer-term loss of concentration. One survey found that more than a third of home workers have experienced back pain since starting to work remotely, with 27% admitting to working at a kitchen or dining room table, 11% from a sofa, and a shameless 3% from bed.

In my line of work — as a Chartered physiotherapist, ergonomist and lead consultant for workplace health company Posturite — I see and hear a lot about musculoskeletal disorders related to poor home working habits, especially because at home, people tend to use laptops, tablets and phones rather than desktop set-ups. While portable devices are great for giving us mobility and the choice to work in different places, they’re not designed for prolonged use — particularly when inputting, because of the unsuitable postures they encourage us into.

Don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to be at a perfect ‘regulation-compliant’ workstation all the time to avoid musculoskeletal disorders. The body is a great,

resilient tool but we often rely on its resilience too much. More and more of us are, intentionally or not, becoming agile workers with the freedom to work where, when and how we need to. Work isn’t so much a place we go, it’s what we do, and sometimes that means working in non-traditional places like cafés, hotels, or on public transport.

This can be great for productivity (if we’re doing the right tasks): it gets us up and moving, stimulates our brains and helps us stay creative and motivated. Just try not to slip into behaviours that might impact your health negatively. Here are some of the good habits I recommend to my clients:

Establish a good work pattern

We know it’s bad to sit down all day, but how often should we be standing up and moving around? Researchers at Cornell University suggests dividing your day into 30-minute chunks, with each chunk looking like this:

• 20 minutes of sitting• 8 minutes of standing (you’ll need a sit-stand deskfor this)• 2 minutes of moving around or stretching

This may be unrealistic for most of us but we get the picture — regular movement is the key. At the very least, make sure you get up every hour. Set an alarm, lunge walk to the toilet, do fifty star jumps, stretch, do some floor exercises, put the bins out, load the washing machine. All of these activities use your muscles and your heart, shake you out of poor postures and give your eyes and brain a break too. You get household things done, freeing up more time at the end of the day for leisure activities — and no one’s even around to see how ridiculous you look.

Invest in a good desk set-up

I’m a big advocate of well-planned agile working but I do recommend setting up a workstation that adheres to ergonomic principles, especially if you’ll be inputting for longer periods of time.

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Equipment wise, I recommend using:

• A chair that fits your dimensions and moves withyou• Adjustable monitor arms for your screens, or astand to lift it to a suitable height• A mouse that suits you and how you work• A compact keyboard (with detachable number padif data inputting is part of your job)• Sit-stand desk or platform to allow you to regularlychange your working position

If your main computer is a laptop, I suggest you use the following with it:

• Adjustable laptop stand• Compact keyboard• Mouse

If you’re reading documents, browsing on a screen, or chatting on the phone, this is the time to use a more relaxed set-up like an armchair. Just make sure you get good support for your back and don’t let your head come forwards or create tension in your hands.

Consider supporting screens on stands or tables and using headsets to allow for good relaxed positions. Wherever you choose to work, take plenty of breaks — whether that’s looking away from your screen into the far distance for twenty seconds, cycling through a few simple stretches, or walking to your local cafe.

Stepping away from work often revives our energy levels and shakes us out of productivity slumps. Keep in mind, the worse your position, the more frequently you need to move.

Katharine Metters (Head Consultant, MCSP MSc. Erg, CMIOSH, IIRSMop) is head consultant at Posturite, a leading ergonomics company, specialising in healthy working behaviours and wellbeing.

posturite.co.uk

WORKING THE ERGONOMIC WAY

H E A L T H Y W O R K I N G B E H A V I O U R S F O R H O M E W O R K E R S

W O R D S : K A T H E R I N E M E T T E R S , P O S T U R I T E

B E S T S E A T E D P O S T U R E :

- Adjust your chair so your knees are slightlylower than your hips

- Place your keyboard at elbow height.

- There should be a slight gap behind thebacks of your knees.

- Make sure your back (particularly your lowerback) is supported. Try adding a cushion ifyour chair doesn’t support you very well.

- Your feet should be supported on the floor,or on a footrest if they don’t quite reach.

- Your forearms should be horizontal at aboutright angles to your upper arms, and your eyesshould be about level with the top of yourmonitor.

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HOME OFFICE

Six ways to revamp your workspace without blowing your budget.

By Cynthia Lawrence

G O G R E E N

For homeworkers, there never seems to be enough hours in the day, and quite often we hardly see any of it, so why not bring the outdoors in? Lush house plants or mini succulents can really inject colour, life and some added oxygen to your space!

Whether you place them on your desk or on a shelf, you can invest in stylish planters to compliment your style. M&S do lovely gold metal planters with legs, that go well with pretty much any interior. These brass pyramid wall planters are from Made.com, £29

Of course, if you’re not a keen greenfingers, you can find some beautiful, faux plants that look just as good as the real thing. At least you won’t have to remember to water them! Set of 5 Faux Succulent Plants in Pots from Melody Maison, £16.95

Makeover

L I G H T E N U P

With the on-going, gloomy weather, the lack of natural light can affect our moods and workflow. Changing the layout of your office could really help. If your desk is located in a dark corner of the room, reposition it near a window to create a brighter space. Or better still, facing the window can offer a lovely view (as long as it’s not a brick wall!).

If you don’t have a window that is accessible, invest in a high-spec desk lamp. There are so many practical, task desk lamps available with adjustable heads and stands. It’s useful to remember the taller the lamp, the more desk area it will light up, so consider what area you need to illuminate. If you spend a lot of time staring at your computer screen, LED bulbs are generally recommended for task lighting. We love the sustainable rubber wood stand on this Folgate desk lamp from Garden Trading, £50

D E C L U T T E R

Declutter your workspace (and mind!) It’s easy to accumulate a build-up of paperwork or materials covering your once spotless desk. But all you need is a little organisation and savvy storage to make life easier. Keep the bare essentials on your desk and everything else can be stored out of sight. You can find versatile accessories to compliment your office décor. Organise your paperwork in stylish files or storage boxes. Wilko does some beautiful and affordable desk organisers. We also like this Paperchase A4 magazine holder, £8 and these pretty storage boxes by Cambridge Imprint, £19. (above)

You can also get creative and use woven, rattan baskets or wooden crates for storage that you can often find in charity shops. These are also all available in most High Street stores. H&M sells some beautiful, jute baskets at under £15 and we spotted this magnolia patterned basket from TK Maxx for £14.99

W R I T I N G O N T H E W A L L

It’s not uncommon to lose your ‘mojo’ or suffer a case of 'writer’s block’. Be inspired by wall art. Arrange a gallery wall of your favourite art, photographs or motivational typography in your workspace. Typographic posters have proved popular for those uninspiring moments, and you can find a great selection such as these at Desenio for under £10Spruce up your wall with different sized frames or colours that reflect your personality. This a great way to lift your dampened spirits!If you’d rather display your favourite things, invest in decorative floating shelves (just check your walls will take the required fittings). Shelves come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, such as contemporary cube sets which look great in compact spaces and this circular display shelf from Next.

C R E A T E A H Y G G E H A V E N

We spend most of the day sitting at our desks, so it’s important to create a cosy and tranquil work zone. The first thing to invest in is an ergonomic yet stylish chair that suits your office needs. Ideally, it should be adjustable to help with correct posture and height.

Bring in colourful, soft textures or accessories. A throw, such as this Zig Zag cotton mix throw from Cult Furniture, £21, would add to the cosiness. Vibrant or geometric rugs by your desk can also add character to your workspace. This also acts as a lovely divider if your office also happens to be your lounge or dining room.And for those finishing touches, add scented candles or fresh aromas of reed diffusers to help put you in a zen-like space, and increase productivity.

U P C Y C L E Y O U R D E S K

If you’ve had your reliable desk for a long time, it’s probably in need of some TLC. Rather than dumping it to find a replacement, why not give it a fresh makeover instead? Get a paint colour chart to choose a shade that would suit your style. It gives you options to go bold and bright or to lighten it up for a fresher look.

There are plenty of specialist paints that can be used on laminated or varnished surfaces, but it’s always best to ask for advice at the DIY store if you’re stuck. However, the cost of a brand new desk versus a tin of quality paint, is a no-brainer! Annie Sloan do a great range of chalk paint, ideal for upcycle projects. With blue being the shade of 2020, you might like this Duck Egg Blue or Napoleonic Blue.

Cynthia Lawrence is a freelance journalist and editor, specialising in lifestyle features. She covers interior inspiration and savvy space-saving ideas over on her blog: www.cynamon.co.uk

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WINTER WARMERS

By Rachel Sherwood

Or would you prefer a spa day at Lime Wood in the New Forest? The moment you turn onto the sweeping drive to this laid-back luxury hotel, you know you’re in for some serious pampering. The Herb House Spa is elegant, stylish and inspired by its forest surroundings. Set over three floors, it’s large enough to keep you ‘busy’ for a day with its 10 treatment rooms, rooftop gym, workout room and 16-metre lap pool. Yet, it’s designed in a way that makes you feel cocooned.

Soak in the hydro pool with its wall of glass overlooking the woodland. Stretch out in the spacious timber-clad sauna. Detox in the private mud room and massage your muscles in the steaming outdoor hot pool. By the time you’ve wound down, you’ll have worked up a healthy appetite. Feast on guilt-free food in Raw & Cured café with its shelves of dog-eared cookbooks you’ll want to take home.

Full spa days start from £180 per person including treatments. www.limewoodhotel.co.uk/spa/

I T ’ S J A N U A R Y A N D F O R M A N Y O F U S , T H E

M O S T C H A L L E N G I N G T I M E O F T H E Y E A R .

I N T E N T I O N S F O R 2 0 2 0 A R E H I G H Y E T

T E M P E R A T U R E S A R E L O W .

T H E Y S A Y C H A N G E I S A S G O O D A S A R E S T

S O I F Y O U ’ R E T H I N K I N G O F E M B A R K I N G O N

A N E W A D V E N T U R E , W A N T T O F I N D T H A T

C O S Y R E T R E A T W H E R E Y O U C A N T A K E S O M E

‘ M E T I M E ’ , O R S I M P L Y S T A R T P L A N N I N G

Y O U R Y E A R W I T H A N I N S P I R I N G V I E W ,

R A C H E L S H E R W O O D T A K E S U S T H R O U G H

S O M E O F T H E B E S T P L A C E S T O G O T O

I N J E C T A L I T T L E W I N T E R W A R M T H T O R A I S E

T H E E N E R G Y L E V E L S .

Let’s start by turning up the heat just a little with a couple of nights in the Wolf Wood Treehouses nestled in rural Devon. Think hot-tubs on decks overlooking the tree canopy. Wood-burning stoves in cosy wooden cabins reached by rope bridges. Long soaks in claw-footed bath tubs. Crisp winter walks, board games and time to reflect, plan and reenergise.

These luxury treehouses were dreamed up in 2016 by Sam and Rachel Holden who wanted to capture the spirit of the wilderness. Built in local timber, the three separate lodges are wonderfully playful with names like Black Wolf and Stargazer. What better way to indulge your inner child for a few days and have some fun?

Rates start from £200 per night during the winter months: wolfwoodtreehouses.co.uk/This page: Lime Wood, New Forest. Opposite page: Wolf Wood Treehouses, Devon

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Want to turn up the heat a little more?

Try a long weekend in Seville. Average temperatures in this southern Spanish town reach 16 degrees in January, 18 in February and 21 in March. Stay at the historic Hospes Las Casas del Rey de Baeza with its 18th century traditional exterior and contemporary interior styling. The hotel is a 15-minute walk along winding city lanes to the main sights of Seville so you won’t need a car while you’re there unless you want to get out and about in Andalucia.

Take a hushed stroll around Seville Cathedral, climb the Giralda bell tower, see how the other half live at the Real Alcázar palace and people-watch in the Plaza de España, arguably Spain’s most beautiful square. Evenings are for tapas and flamenco in the Triana district. And, if the weather’s exceptionally good, the hotel has a rooftop pool to dip your toes while sipping a sweet orange Seville wine.

Rooms at the Hospes Las Casas del Rey de Baeza from £130 per night.

Fly directly to Seville from a number of UK airports during the winter months.

https://www.hospes.com/en/casas-rey-baeza/

If it’s your creativity that needs kick-starting, how about warming up while learning a new skill? Eirian Studio Glass in the beautiful Welsh border town of Hay-on-Wye offers glass-making taster days for complete beginners. Working in groups of three, you’ll learn how to gather glass from the furnace, shape it, add colour and create your own unique piece to take home (after it has cooled overnight). The half-day class includes a glass-blowing demon-stration. If you’re curious to blow the glass yourself, opt for the full-day course.

Half day £125 and full day £230

www.glassgallery.co.uk/glass-blowing-courses.

While you’re in Wye, stay in one of the luxury eco-pods at Cynefin with their iconic curved walls and sliding glass doors overlooking the valley. Each of the four pods has an en-suite bedroom with romantic floating bed, open-plan living area with wood-burning stove, underfloor heating and wooden deck.

Watch the sun come up over a morning coffee before browsing the book shops in nearby Hay. Or lace up your hiking boots and explore the Brecon Beacons. There’s nothing quite like a walk in the hills when you’re coming back to a private hot tub under the stars. Toast artisan marshmallows from the Honesty Stall over the fire pit before curling up in front of the log burner with your bookshop find.

From £170 per night.

The Homeworker readers receive a special 10% discount for any stay of 3 nights or more between January 3rd and March 19th 2020. Quote promotional code WinterWarmer

https://cynefinretreats.com/

Or take a short break to defrost in Cyprus where the winter temperatures are the highest in Mediterranean Europe. Flights to Paphos and Larnaca run all year-round from the UK. Hire a car and meander up to Apokryfo, a unique hideaway on the edge of the pretty village of Lofou in the foothills of Mount Olympus.

The hotel is a cluster of old stone houses painstakingly renovated by local architect Vakis and his interior-designer wife Diana so you know they’re going to be picture-perfect. And they don’t disappoint. Each has its own personality, some have open fireplaces and all have country-style kitchens. There’s a restaurant serving Cypriot cuisine, a spa with gym, sauna and steam bath and miles of hills with mapped trails to walk off the winter excesses.

If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, head up to the peak of the Troodos Mountains where, until the end of March, you can ski under Mediterranean blue skies before heading back for a lazy afternoon by the hotel pool.

Rates from £150 per room B&B with discounts for stays of 2 nights or more and options to purchase half & full board packages.

https://www.apokryfo.com/

This page: Hospes Las Casas del Rey de Baeza, Seville, Apokryfo, Cyprus Opposite page: Cynefin, Wales

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Still not hot enough?

Let’s go to Tenerife and get our blood flowing with a week’s walking holiday. One of the warmest Canary Islands in winter, Tenerife is so much more than sunshine package holidays. During this 8-day trip with KE Adventures, you’ll discover meandering trails, secluded beaches, volcanic mountains, rich history and beautiful flora.

Explore the dramatic west coast and hike through sleepy hamlets to the lighthouse of Teno. Spend two days in the Teide National Park and sleep in a mountain refuge where the stars are among the brightest in the world. Hike through lava fields to summit Mount Teide (3,718m) at sunrise. Take a day to recover in the UNESCO gem of Laguna before experiencing some of Europe’s best coastal walking in the Anaga biosphere reserve. Your last night will be spent in the island’s capital Santa Cruz with its pavement cafés and pretty harbour.

Groups are limited to 16 people and many are solo travelers so this is a great option if you’re feeling the need to connect.

From £795 including some meals, group leader, land transport and airport transfers.

Departure dates: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, and Oct 2020

Flights are booked separately but available year-round to Tenerife South airport.

www.keadventure.com/holidays/tenerife-walking-teide-volcano-canary-islands

Or how about an ‘Edge of Sahara’ holiday in Morocco? This magnificent desert region with its Lawrence of Arabia beauty sets the scene for an unforgettable 8-day trek. Home to dramatic plateaus, acacia trees, hidden villages and shifting sands, the Sahara holds a magic of its own.

After experiencing a traditional Berber camp, you’ll follow remote walking trails deep into the heart of the desert. Here, you’ll be immersed in a rich variety of landscapes from snaking wadi valleys to majestic dunes with sweeping crests. At night you’ll sleep under star-filled skies, waking each morning to a deep red sunrise.

From the Draa River up to the great dunes of Zahar, this is a walking holiday that’s guaranteed to open your mind and give you space to think… until you get to Marrakesh on the final day and the bustle of the souk overwhelms your senses.

£525 including all meals, group leader, land transport and airport transfers.

Departure dates: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Oct and Dec 2020

Flights are booked separately and available year round to Marrakesh

https://www.keadventure.com/holidays/morocco-trekking-sahara-desert-marrakech

This page: Hiking in Tenerife Opposite page: Walking the dunes in Morocco

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Are you getting warmer yet? No? Looks like we’re going to have to jump on a bigger plane.

Ever tried Tobago? Just 26 miles long and 6 wide, it’s the smaller half of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and home to an eco-chic hideaway called Castara Retreats. Nestled on a west coast hillside with a backdrop of rainforest and views over the Caribbean Sea, Castara is a cluster of treehouse-style lodges. Five star they’re not, but a subtle kind of luxury capturing the island’s essence.

Rooms are hand-built and open-sided with hammocks for lounging. There’s a restaurant with panoramic views over the beach but it purposefully doesn’t serve breakfast; guests are encouraged to savour the local village scene. This is a holiday for indulging the senses. Watch hummingbirds feeding in the gardens and fireflies at twilight. Listen to the waves are you drift off to sleep. Feel the wooden deck as you stretch into a yoga pose. Smell the ocean as the local fishermen bring in the daily catch. And taste the fresh juice as you sip from a coconut husk.

There’s a minimum stay of 6 nights until April 30th but you won’t want to leave anyway.

From £160 per night for a one-bedroom lodge between December 15th and April 30th

Fly to Trinidad and hop over on the scenic ferry or fly via one of the larger Caribbean islands.

https://castararetreats.com/

Castara Retreats, Tobago

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THE HOMEWORKER DIRECTORYB U S I N E S S C O A C H I N G

Alissia Knight Coaching Strategy, action and accountability = The business you

love with less hustle.

www.alissiaknight.co.uk

hello@alissiaknight.co.uk

Facebook: @alissiaknight.co.uk

LinkedIn: alissiaknight

Danielle Uhl

Multipassionate Success Coach

Manage your Multipassions & Create your Success

without Overwhelm or Burnout

www.danielleuhl.com

daniellebethuhl@gmail.com

Facebook: @DanielleUhlLLC

Instagram: @danielleuhl_coach

Ekaterina Ward, Nova Coaching ExchangeMindset Coach and NLP ractitioner

Navigating motherhood and business? Our powerful framework transforms daily stress and overwhelm into focus and profit.

ekaterina@nova-coaching.co.uk

Instagram: @ekaterinaward

LinkedIn: Ekaterina Ward

Teresa Brooks CoachingQualified Business Coach & NLP Practitioner

Working with YOU so you can work with your business.

Communication | Confidence | Sales| Marketing

www.teresabrookscoaching.com

hello@teresabrookscoaching.com

Facebook: @TeresaBrooksCoaching

Instagram: @teresabrookscoaching

L I F E C O A C H I N G

Barchi FojkarClarity & Empowerment Guide

Soul calling readings — revealing your true calling &

excellence.

www.wild-women-wisdom.com/private-session

Tel: +1 506 899 2660

barchi@wild-women-wisdom.com

P R O O F R E A D I N G

Anna Gow Proofreading Services

Whether you print on paper or digitally, I focus on the

detail so that you can focus on the bigger picture.

www.annagowproofreader.co.uk

AnnaMGow@gmail.com

Imprimatur Editing

Providing high quality copy-editing, proofreading and

translation services for authors and businesses at af-

fordable rates.

www.imprimaturediting.com

anthony@imprimaturediting.com

Twitter: @ajpwright

LinkedIn: awright87

Or how about an Indian eco retreat? YogaMagic in North Goa is perfect if you’re struggling to make it through ‘Dry January’; you won’t find a drop of alcohol in the resort. What you will find is mouth-watering vegetarian food, sunrise meditation, daily yoga classes and Ayurvedic massages.

An hour from the airport and a 5-minute tuk tuk ride to the beach, the retreat is set among paddy fields with grazing water buffalo and gardens where much of the food is grown. Guests sleep under a mosquito net in one of 7 vibrantly-coloured Rajasthani tents furnished with mats, silk cushions and local furniture. There’s no running water in the tents but large urns are replenished daily for bathing and there are hot showers a short walk away. If you’re not a happy camper, book one of the 2 suites in the main house. Unlike the tents which close in May when the monsoon rains arrive, the suites are open year-round.

YogaMagic is a true retreat in every sense of the word; a place to relax around the meandering pool, nourish your body and revive your soul.

From £75 per person per day for a fully-inclusive yoga holiday. Subscribers to The Homeworker receive a 15% discount.

Direct flights to Goa available from the UK with low-cost airlines.

https://yogamagic.net/

Rachel Sherwood is founder of Low Season Go Season, the inspirational guide to luxury off-peak travel. She has travelled to 60 countries, sees the world through the eyes of a photographer and loves to share stories. She describes herself as a ‘Mobile Homeworker’.

For more low season travel inspiration, visit: lowseasongoseason.com

Instagram & Facebook: @lowseasongoseason

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THE HOMEWORKER DIRECTORY THE HOMEWORKER DIRECTORY

B E L I S T E D I N

T H E D I R E C T O R Y

If you want to reach the people who

need your help, get your details listed in

The Homeworker Directory.

The majority of our readers are small

business owners, sole traders and those

in self-employment or starting out in

their entrepreneurial journey. Put your

business in front of the eyes looking for

your services.

For a small annual fee, your details will

be included in an exclusive directo-

ry listing that will appear in the quarter-

ly magazine, the print issue and on our

website.

We keep the number of listings small

per category to keep the directory easy

to navigate and to give your business

optimum exposure.

More categories coming available.

If you can help with people's outsourcing

needs, put your services in The Home-

worker Directory.

DIRECTORY LISTINGS

advertising@thehomeworker.com

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B U S I N E S S S U P P O R T

Banks’ Business Solutions

Specialising in simplifying the technology you use to save

you time, money and help you grow your business .

https://banksbusinesssolutions.co.uk

hello@banksbusinesssolutions.co.uk

Tel: 07736 938480

Facebook: @banksbusiness

Twitter: @banksbussolns

CS Virtual Assistant

Expertly and proactively supporting you in office and

business administration to achieve your desired result.

www.csvirtualassistant.co.uk

Tel: 07859 044127

Facebook: @CSVirtualAssistant

LinkedIn: christinesoutham

Day Eight: VA | Project Planner

Remote support to give creatives more time to do what

they love most!

www.dayeight.co.uk

bethany@dayeight.co.uk

Instagram: @day.ei8ht

Facebook: @dayei8ht

M A R K E T I N G & P R

Boss Your PR PR training and coaching helping small businesses

share their voices and get visible.

www.bossyourpr.com

bossyourpr@gmail.com

Instagram: @bossyourpr

Claire Winter

Helping coaches and creative entrepreneurs to be more

profitable by teaching them how to create content that

converts.

clairewinter.info

claire@clairewinter.info

Instagram: @clairewinteruk

Pip Christie | Unedited Marketing

Let’s make your customers feel at home with heartfelt

digital marketing, copywriting and website design.

www.pipchristie.com

hello@pipchristie.com

Instagram: @PipUnedited

T R A I N I N G

Transcribe Right

Freedom and flexibility whoever you are. Work that

moves with you and grows with you.

www.transcriberight.com

contact@transcriberight.com

Facebook: @TranscribeRight

Twitter: @VAonthebay

H E A L T H & W E L L B E I N G

Sharon Draper A curious, person-centred Psychologist who strives for

creative and effective ways to live our lives.

www.sharondraper.com.au

info@sharondraper.com.au

Facebook: @sdpsychologist

Instagram: @sharondraperpsychologist

VHK Education GP educators delivering bespoke health education events,

empowering proactive decision making about lifestyle and

wellbeing.

www.vhk.education

info@vhk.education

Facebook: @vhkeducation

LinkedIn: heidi-kerr-3577b615a

Moakes Health and Safety

Offering professional, approachable and fuss free H&S

support for small and medium sizedbusinesses.

www.moakes.co.uk

jodies@moakes.co.uk

Facebook: @moakeshealthandsafety

Instagram: @moakes_healthandsafety

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