Business Creative Archives

April 10 2022

ReCharged and ReFocused

Ashley Blog BrandHelp, Business Creative, flexyfit, Harmony, livingflexyfit

I’ve you’ve tuned into the last few blog posts, you may have noticed that I am shifting into a new gear and getting back to the root of my vision and passion.

When I started FlexyFit, its as originally about getting my physical flexibility and fitness back on track. However, as I progressed on this journey, I realized how much this bled over to other parts of my life. I realized how important it is to be flexible and fit in ALL areas of life and how being agile makes the ups and downs of life more manageable.

The ups and downs of my life got the best of me for a while. No shame…I AM HUMAN. But I hit the reset button and now I’m getting refocused and recommitted to what I set out to do initially. While not on any specific timeline, I am looking forward to bringing projects and goals to life and getting these resources in your hand, to your ears, and in front of your eyes.

More of what you’ll see me share will be based on things that I have found to be super important to me and to the work that I do with and for others. Some of those topics include:

My other love (besides flexility, fitness and aerials) which is business. Many people don’t know, but I’m not just a fitness coach. I am also a creative business coach. And when I’m not dangling in the air or coaching, you can find me putting my MBA and marketing expertise to use to help solopreneurs and small business owners in Fitness, Aerial, Health & Wellness, and Beauty achieve their creative business needs and better communicate with their community.
Supporting other Pole / Aerial instructors. Over the years, I’ve received endless questions about teaching, certifying, classroom management, teaching different body types, how to maintain my body while teaching 7 days a week, and more. So I will be sharing more insight into the solutions I’ve found helpful in hopes that they will help others.
Addressing issues I see too often in the pole/aerial world and ow we can do better.
everyBODY training. This one is HUGE for me. I started off as a non-traditional (or plus-size) pole dancer and this really impacted my journey and my approach to teaching. I am a coach for everyBODY and I recognize the need to educate others that are students, studio owners, teachers or plan to become teachers…because teaching and learning isn’t one-size-fits-all.
And then of course even more on self-care because it’s just so important! Being an advocate for yourself and taking an active role in your Health and wellness is essential.

Why these topics? Because these are the topics that are a part of my every day life. These are the things I get asked about most often. These are the things that I find are missing. These are the things that are woven into my DNA and I want to teach what I feel connected to and what my voice has a purpose in a passion for.

April 1 2022

Goal Better 2.0

Ashley Blog BrandHelp, Business Creative, flexyfit, Harmony, living FlexyFit

Goaling Better 2.0 is about a better way of setting and actually achieving goals that I have been putting into practice over the last few months – and with great success I might add. At its core, it’s about making the required habits and behaviors for accomplishing a goal, manageable and repeatable.

BTW, this is version 2.0 because as I was trying to think of a name for this post, I realized that I had already used the title for a previous post that I wrote about goal setting as we were preparing to enter 2020. (And what a wild ride its been since then, huh?!?)

So what am I doing now to make my goals, and the steps involved, more manageable and repeatable? I’m downgrading them. Did you just cringe a bit or see it as less of a win when I said downgrade? Well don’t. Downgrading naturally has a negative connotation, but I don’t think it’s a bad word. It simply carries the weight we give it. And in this case, I choose to see it as a helpful tool that creates a pathway to more consistent success. Slow and steady wins the race because its about consistency, and consistency is the key to results. Manageable + Repeatable = Consistency.

I’m sure you’ve heard the acronyms SMART as it relates to goal setting. (Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-based) and while each of these elements are important, for me manageable and repeatable are even more important. So now when I break ground on a new goal, whatever is my initial landing spot for that goal, I immediately think about the 1-stop downgrade. This serves as a bit of a reality check for me and also provides me with options so that I can adjust (or #livingflexyfit ) as needed.

Solving the Laundry Conundrum

I ask myself, will I really be able to do this everyday for the rest of my life? Or if every time an excuse may arise, will I take it? For example, I’m good about washing clothes. Terrible about putting them away. I’ve had months of clean clothes laying about for months at a time more times that I can count. And whenever I did finally go to put them away, it took forever because there was just show much. So I decided I wanted to get better about putting my clothes away sooner. Initially decided that I should put them away as soon as the dryer buzzed. FAIL. Half the time I do laundry it’s on my way out the door because #ProductivityWhileImOut is a major win. But not being home meant missing that call to action provided by the dryer buzzing. Then I’d get home and forget all about the clothes. Or if I was home, I was probably working and even less likely to be called away by a dryer and non-essential work.

So next I decided I’d put them away as soon as I took them upstairs, well the problem with that is I could leave the clothes in the laundry room and never take them upstairs and actually put them away. I finally hit upon a recipe that worked with I met myself and the clothing chore in the middle: as soon as I take them out of the dryer I take them upstairs and put them away. BINGO, for whatever reason, this works for me. I think the act of physically taking my clothes out of the dryer means that I’m already doing clothes chores, so I might as well finish. Plus when I do take the clothes out that means that I actually remembered that they were in the dryer and also that I probably have a moment of free time if I though about them and took them out. This also means that I have a max of 2 loads of laundry, instead of months of laundry. So putting my clothes away takes 20 minutes or less…way better than a 1 hour+ clothing marathon.

I know you’ve heard the saying, “if you want to floss regularly, start with flossing one tooth.” It’s so overused, but its so true. You really do need that spark and manageable approach. And if you haven’t read it, you should definitely check out the book Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg – it’s an incredible gem! I’d love to say that I read it right before I made the clothing change and it changed everything. But the truth is I read it years ago when it first came out. maybe I implanted some of the things I read, maybe I didn’t. But now, years later, those lessons are coming full circle and making so much damn cents that they actually made change!!!

I share this to say that goal setting has to be manageable and we have to be agile about it until we find a working recipe that works for us. There is no one-size-fits-all for everyone, or even for the same person with different situations. Everything will need a tweak. Everyone will need a tweak. You have to keep tweaking until you find what works for you.

I leave you with these questions to ponder:

What is one thing you want to do or get better at doing that you’ve had trouble maintaining?
What about it prevents you from doing it?
What is a goal you can set now and what is a 1-stop downgrade to make that goal even more manageable and repeatable?

Thoughts, questions, feedback? Or just want to share? Comment below or feel free to email me anytime!