When I talk to passionate business owners about how they handle low-energy periods in their businesses, they tell me that they do one of two things:

• They succumb to it by completely avoiding work, which feels powerless
• They resist it by pushing through, which creates a false sense of power (until it doesn’t)
  Not surprisingly, both of these approaches create negative ripple effects for you, your business, your self-esteem, and your health.

Luckily, the Bare Minimum Method exists.

The Bare Minimum Method isn’t about white-knuckling your way through until exhaustion, but it’s not about giving up all of your power, either.

It’s about channeling calm ownership, authority, and power over your situation, no matter the circumstances.

During the upcoming free, live 5-day Bare Minimum Challenge, you’ll get hands-on experience using this process; then you’ll be able to whip it out on your own in the future.

Here’s the 4-step process:

1. Rate your current energy level

You’ll use a 1-10 scale to determine your current mental, emotional, and logistical energy level, no matter what’s currently impacting it—like your physical health, jet lag, an intense life circumstance, or a seasonal low-energy period.

2. Make your Bare Minimum Protocol

Using the 7 Bare Minimum Method questions, you’ll make an easy-to-follow action plan that matches your current energy level. You’ll make it crystal clear for yourself what’s actually going to get done in your business, and what you’ll intentionally dump, delegate, or delay.

3. Follow your Bare Minimum Protocol

Using the follow-through techniques that I’ll teach you, you’ll take action on your plan. You’ll do what you said you would, and enjoy the freedom and relaxation of purposefully not doing anything more.

4. Shift your emotions

As you follow your predetermined plan, your brain will try to convince you to do more. Instead of responding to this shame, guilt, fear, and anxiety like you normally would (by unhappily taking stressed-out action or procrastinating), you’ll learn to actively reduce your negative emotions and increase your positive, productive feelings—all while getting the true rest you’re craving.

Most people don’t come out of their low-energy periods feeling better about themselves and their businesses—but you will.

It all starts on October 31st with the 5-day Bare Minimum Challenge, when the ticker below runs out. 

Click here to grab your spot for free.

See you inside the challenge!

Cristina

P.S. If you want to hear about the backstory behind the Bare Minimum Method, as well as more details about the live, virtual challenge, this bonus episode of the Half-Finished to Done Podcast is for you.

This is the work we do in Half-Finished to Done, LIVE. Let’s hop on a consult and talk through any hesitations that you have about your self-trust. I’ll give you doable strategies that we can implement during our 8 weeks together. 

And here’s something to consider: You might be concerned about joining Half-Finished to Done, LIVE because you think you don’t have enough self-trust. But if you did think you had enough self-trust, you wouldn’t even be considering joining a program called Half-Finished to Done, LIVE! 

So don’t let your doubt about your level of self-trust hold you back from a program specifically designed to help you build self-trust.  

Click here to book your 45-minute, 1:1 consult with me.

Let’s talk about your level of energy in your business. When I refer to energy, I mean 4 different kinds of energy:

• Cognitive
• Mental
• Emotional
• Physical

Lack of energy is one of the biggest reasons that people who want to say yes to my program, Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, don’t.

Here’s the #1 problem that I see when it comes to energy management: You’re likely treating your energy like a nonrenewable resource.

This means you’re constantly trying to preserve your energy—but you do it in ways that actually end up depleting your energy over time.

Like:

• Pushing off decisions
• Putting off your work until “later”
• “Resting” in ways that drain your energy, like mindlessly scrolling social media and binging Netflix
• Avoiding hard convos with your clients, contractors, or family members
• Giving in to others (but building up resentment inside)
• Doing it yourself because you think it will be easier that way
• Winging it with no plan

And because you’re so focused on these misguided attempts to conserve energy, you’re not spending time to figure out and do things that would actually give you more energy.

Like:

• Getting your most important work done
• Going on a walk or working out
• Taking a real mental break
• Closing open mental loops by making decisions
• Letting go of something that you’ve been holding on to unnecessarily
• Delegating in your business and personal life
• Setting and enforcing better boundaries
• Setting up a plan ahead of time that you just need to execute on daily

Here’s the two-part solution:

1. Find any energy leak and repair it, one step at a time
2. Pinpoint things that are energy-giving for you, and create the conditions to make it easy to do them

This is the work we do in my program, Half-Finished to Done, LIVE. Let’s hop on a consult and talk through any hesitations that you have about your energy. I’ll give you doable strategies that we can implement during our 8 weeks together. 

Click here to book your 45-minute, 1:1 consult with me.

Let’s talk about how you use your time in your business.

If you’re like most people I work with, you often disagree with yourself about how you should be spending your time.

And you’re right to disagree with yourself!

Because if you aren’t consistently finishing valuable projects in your business in a way that you like, it means that your time is misaligned.

In fact, you’re likely spending up to 70% of your time on actions that do not produce the actual results you care about.

Actions like:

• Getting distracted
• Under-planning (winging it) or over-planning (nitpicking and adjusting your plan)
• Obsessively engaging in perfectionistic habits—like tweaking, over-researching, and editing—past the point of diminishing returns
• Allowing yourself to go down rabbit holes
• Making things way too complicated or elaborate, in the name of “value”
• Questioning what to do next
• Spinning out emotionally
• Worrying about the right decision, so you end up in analysis paralysis
• Trying to talk yourself into doing hard things, instead of making it easy on yourself
• “Helping” your stakeholders too much, in ways that create more work for you
• Trying to manage things that are out of your control
• Multitasking

How much time per week do you spend doing all of these actions, collectively?

If you don’t like your answer, it means you’re in the right place!

Most business owners tell me they waste a minimum of 10 hours per week, and up to 25 hours per week.  

Concerns about time will hold you back from joining the next round of Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, but the program is specifically designed to give you more time—which creates a Catch-22. 

The good news: The program only requires 3 hours per week but will give you back hundreds of hours over the next year. 

So let’s hop on a consult with me and talk through your time hesitations. I’ll tell you how exactly how I’ll help you reclaim the time you’re currently wasting. If it feels doable and valuable, you enroll and we get to work! 

Click here to book your 45-minute, 1:1 consult with me.

Long-term success in your business is contingent on your ability to produce the amount of money that you want, when you want it.

When you believe that generating money in your business is outside of your control (because of your available time, your circumstances, other people, your level of confidence, the time of year, etc), you become overly cautious with your money.

And when this happens, you miss opportunities to strategically invest in things that will bring you way more money in the long run. Like coaching!

You’ll know this is you if:

1. You’re not willing to stake a significant (whatever that means to you) amount of money on making your best ideas come to fruition
2. You don’t understand the opportunity cost of your current habits (the exact amount of money you could be collecting but aren’t)
3. You don’t believe in your ability to generate money on demand (you think you need more something before you can make money)
4. You view things as expenses, not investments (you’re focused on the money you’re losing, not the money you stand to gain)
5. When investing in things, you think short-term (you think about the time you’ll have access to the resource, vs the lifetime value of implementing the resource)
6. When faced with a business investment, you turn to your personal finances (you don’t automatically think “What would I need to produce in my business if I want to make this possible?”)

These symptoms will show up when you’re making the decision of whether to invest $2,000 into joining the next round of Half-Finished to Done, LIVE.

If you’re interested in joining Half-Finished to Done, LIVE but concerns about money are holding you back, let’s hop on a consult with me and talk through your hesitations. 

Click here to book your 45-minute, 1:1 consult with me.

When it comes to your half-finished projects, do you often think “They’re all important”?

Or “They all have to get done”?

These thoughts might sound innocent, but they’re likely creating a lot of angst for you.

Let’s play it out.

When you think the thought “They’re all important” or “They all have to get done,” about your projects, it probably creates a feeling of overwhelm, panic, or confusion.

When you feel overwhelmed, panicked, or confused, chances are that you dabble in all of your projects, you don’t prioritize, you don’t make clear decisions, and you don’t calmly assess if you can in fact take all of them on. This leads to procrastination and maybe eventually full-out inaction on all of them.

So the pressure-fueled thought “They’re all important” has created this backfiring result: You end up treating none of them as important.

The thought “They all have to get done” almost guarantees that none or very few of them get done—and likely in a way that feels crappy. 

Take a minute to let that sink in: The thoughts “They’re all important” and “They all have to get done” might be true, but they’re rarely helpful.

But it’s solvable.

Here are some ways to reframe this thought process:

 “I’m going to re-evaluate and find out what’s truly the highest priority right now.”

 “I’m going to find out if I could make it all work.”

“When I’m clear on what I want from my projects (time, money, social capital, impact, or positive emotions), what my project priorities become more clear.” 

“I’m willing to prioritize anything in order to move forward on something.”

 “It’s possible that I can make any of them the right project.”

“The right project is the project that gets done.”

And here’s a powerful question: “If I had to choose one top priority, what would it be and why?”

If you’d like tools for figuring out your top priorities, sorting out what you can realistically get done in a given week, and then following through, my program Half-Finished to Done, LIVE is for you.  

Your journey starts with the next round of Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, the program for those who want to master a sustainable, fun, repeatable project process and start enjoying life as a project finisher. 

Click here to get started.

“I don’t think Half-Finished to Done, LIVE is for me, because I don’t really have projects in my business.”

I get this comment from business owners sometimes, but after some chatting, we always figure out that the person does in fact have unfinished projects in their business.

Because all business owners have projects.

In the Pique Coaching world, we define projects as:

1. Something with a specific purpose and outcome
2. That has multiple steps
3. That can be done on a specific timeline
4. That is designed specifically to generate a return on the time and energy you invest (in the form of more positive emotions, more money, more time, more social capital, and more impact)

Here are some examples of projects that you might want to complete in an 8-week Half-Finished to Done, LIVE sprint:

• Recording an audiobook
• Writing a section of a book
• Creating an evergreen online training
• Designing and hosting a webinar series
• Recording a musical album
• Creating a simple website
• Putting together a live virtual or in-person event
• Launching a podcast
• Writing a landing page
• Putting together sales collateral
• Doing a research project or paper
• Organizing and decorating an office space
• Executing on a study guide for a continuing ed certification or program
• Writing a client or employee handbook
• Setting up client tracking systems
• Writing a marketing automation
• Setting up your business’ financial systems

Once you realize that you have valuable projects waiting to be done in your business, you’ll start seeing project ideas everywhere.

Let me teach you how to harness all of those awesome ideas into finished projects, done in a way that you love, with results that you love.

Your journey starts with the next round of Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, the program for those who want to master a sustainable, fun, repeatable project process and start enjoying life as a project finisher. 

Click here to get started.

When you join my signature program, Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, you’re putting yourself on the path to finishing 18 impactful, meaningful, fulfilling projects in the next 3 years.

You’re also joining a community of like-minded but diverse people who are also working on their 18 unique, world-changing projects.

There are currently almost 5,000 people in the Pique Community, and that number is always growing.

That means that there are 90,000 projects waiting to be created, right now.

Just imagine the ripple effect of this.

It starts with people like you believing in the importance of your projects; daring to take up more space; respecting your own boundaries more; giving from true generosity instead of resentment and guilt, channeling your passion strategically; and accepting your negative emotions with more self-compassion.

In turn, these projects touch the lives of those who identify as LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent; across all races and genders. They’re creating more equality, access, and support for marginalized communities.

Some of these projects are repairing familial relationships and teaching valuable emotional management skills to the next generation.

Other projects are bringing more joy and peace and creativity into the everyday lives of so many people through writing, music, design, photos, and so much more.

This is the Project 18 Movement, and you’re invited.

Your journey starts with the next round of Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, the program for those who want to master a sustainable, fun, repeatable project process and start enjoying life as a project finisher. 

Click here to get started.

When you join my program, Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, you’re saying yes to finishing one project, in 8 weeks.

But you’re also putting yourself squarely on the path to Project 18.

Project 18 is the idea that when you use the 8-week Half-Finished to Done project sprint process repeatedly for 3 years, you’ll finish 18 projects.

If 18 projects doesn’t sound like a lot to you, picture each of these blank spaces filled in:

Every time you work on a project using the Half-Finished to Done method, you’ll be crystal clear about what worked, what didn’t work, and what you’ll do differently with your next project—which means that every one of your projects will become increasingly more meaningful, fulfilling, valuable, and efficient.

And it’s not just your projects that will evolve. You’ll evolve, too.

The process of creating these 18 projects will make you more bold, more confident, more relaxed, more calm, more self-assured, more daring…whatever you want to be more of.

This is the path to Project 18.

Your journey starts with the next round of Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, the program for those who want to master a sustainable, fun, repeatable project process and start enjoying life as a project finisher. 

Click here to get started.

The Half-Finished Project Vortex is a shitty place to be.

It’s the place where self-proclaimed procrastinators unintentionally hang out; dabbling in many different projects at once or frozen, working on nothing at all.

How do you get into the Half-Finished Project Vortex in the first place? You feel overwhelmed, inadequate, and confused, which creates half-finished projects—and then you judge and criticize yourself for being stuck.

In an unfortunate twist of events, this self-judgment makes you more—not less—stuck.

You now have guilt, shame, and embarrassment piled on to the overwhelm, confusion, and inadequacy.

Getting out of the vortex is totally possible, and I can help you do it.

First, it takes awareness of where you are right now:

You think being a half-finisher is just who you are, because of your past.

You want all of your projects done ASAP, which overwhelms you and backfires every time.

You’re in the “project plan rock and a hard place,” where you know that winging it doesn’t work, but making a project plan doesn’t sound enjoyable to you, either.

You’re at the whim of the “Motivation Fairy,” meaning you wait for external motivation and accountability to get you going, instead of intrinsically motivating yourself into action.

You haven’t mastered focus yet, so your attention is scattered and you get distracted easily.

In my 8-week program, Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, we solve all five:

You’ll rewrite the story of who you are—from self-proclaimed procrastinator to self-assured project finisher.

You’ll experience the true value of slowing down and choosing one project at a time to focus on at a time.

You’ll make a doable, compelling project plan that you actually want to work on.

You’ll continually acknowledge and work through unproductive feelings that would have stopped you in the past, like overwhelm, shame, inadequacy, and fear. You’ll also generate productive emotions, like motivation, commitment, determination, and inspiration, that get the project finished.

You’ll master focus on demand—how to focus for one hour, one week, and 8 weeks.

You don’t belong in the Half-Finished Project Vortex, so let’s get you out.

Once you’re out, you’ll experience the resilience, resourcefulness, and self-assurance that comes with being someone who repeatedly starts and finishes any project you want to do.

It’s all inside the next round of Half-Finished to Done, LIVE, the program for those who want to master a sustainable, fun, repeatable project process and start enjoying life as a project finisher. 

Click here to get started.