How do you build a daily routine for your coaching business when you have spent years learning to trust your intuition?
If you wake up, check in with your inner guidance, follow it faithfully and still find your calendar short of clients, the question deserves a direct answer. Intuitive flow is the practice of letting your inner guidance decide what you do each day instead of following a set schedule. It is a genuine gift, and a business needs something beside it. This article looks at where flow serves a coach, where a routine has to take over, and what research on planning and habits says about building one that holds.
Where flow serves you
Flow is the right instrument for creating and receiving. It tells you what to write, which message is alive in you this week, which client conversation needs your whole attention, and when your energy needs rest. A coach or healer who cannot reach it loses the very thing that makes her work distinctive, so nothing in this article asks you to give it up.
Where flow leaves the calendar empty
The tasks that bring clients are mostly repetitive. They include showing up where your people can find you, following up with the women who showed interest, and extending invitations to work with you. These tasks do not wait for inspiration, and your ideal client does not check your inner weather before deciding whether to hire a coach. When posting, follow-up and invitations happen only on the days that feel aligned, they happen irregularly, and an irregular business reads from the outside as one that comes and goes.
A woman in midlife who has built her life on listening inward can find this hard to hear, because routine can feel like a betrayal of the gift. A routine can be understood as devotion to the gift. It is the decision to give your work a container, so that the people who need you can find you reliably.
A routine is not a betrayal of your gift. It is devotion to the gift — giving your work a container so the people who need you can find you reliably.
Why a strong intention is not enough
Psychologists distinguish between a goal intention, which names the outcome you want, and an implementation intention, which names when, where and how you will act on it. In a 1999 paper in American Psychologist, Peter Gollwitzer described implementation intentions as plans of the form "whenever situation x arises, I will initiate the goal-directed response y," and showed that they help people who have trouble translating goals into action, whether by failing to get started, becoming distracted or falling into old habits (Gollwitzer, 1999). A later meta-analysis by Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran, which combined 94 independent tests, found that forming such a plan had a medium-to-large positive effect on goal attainment (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).
This research concerns what happens between deciding and doing, and it finds that a plan which names the moment of action makes the doing far more likely. For a coach, the practical translation is simple. "I will be more consistent about visibility" is a goal intention. "After my morning practice, I will write and publish one post before I open my email" is an implementation intention, and it is the one that fills a calendar.
How long a routine takes to settle
A 2010 study by Phillippa Lally and her colleagues at University College London followed 96 volunteers who chose one behavior and repeated it daily in the same context for twelve weeks. The time it took for a behavior to reach its plateau of automaticity ranged from 18 to 254 days, and missing a single opportunity did not materially affect the process (Lally et al., 2010). Two lessons follow. A routine can take months to feel effortless, so a coach who gives up after three weeks has stopped early. And a missed day does not undo the work, which leaves room for the rest, the travel and the unplanned days that any life contains.
How to build a routine that holds your intuition
Begin with three anchors, each written as an if-then plan, and place them on your calendar at the same times each week.
- A visibility hour. For example, "After my morning practice, I will spend forty minutes creating and sharing one piece of content with my people."
- A follow-up hour. For example, "When I finish lunch, I will answer comments and messages and invite two women into a conversation."
- A weekly review. For example, "On Friday afternoon, I will sit for twenty minutes, look at what happened this week and ask my intuition what next week needs."
Inside the visibility hour, flow remains in charge of what you say, and the routine decides when you say it. You can ask each morning which message is alive and write it within the time you have set aside, which gives your intuition a reliable place to arrive.
Protecting your energy
A routine also protects your energy, because a decision made once does not have to be made again each morning. When you no longer decide whether to show up today, your energy is free for the work itself. Rest belongs in the routine as well, as scheduled time and never as a reward for everything finished.
If you are weighing flow against structure in your launches as well as your days, my earlier episode, Feminine Energy Launching vs Masculine Launch Strategy for Coaches, takes up a related question. And if you would like help building the systems behind a routine like this, from the messaging to the follow-up, that is the work I do with women coaches at badassbutterflyalchemy.com.
Today's conversation
I take this up live at 2:00 PM PT today, and you can watch the live or replay here.
Which part of your week is still waiting for you to feel like it?
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References
- Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493-503. https://www.socmot.uni-konstanz.de/sites/default/files/99_Gollwitzer_Implementation_Intentions.pdf
- Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119. https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/entities/publication/2e749bfb-8533-437c-8203-7e788c910c5f
- Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009. https://repositorio.ispa.pt/entities/publication/fae72a1c-b2b6-4991-9951-5d20b607f688
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Crystal Lynn Bell
Founder of Badass Butterfly Alchemy
Visit www.badassbutterflyalchemy.com →Crystal Lynn Bell is a Spiritual Business Mentor, visibility coach, and founder of Badass Butterfly Alchemy Coaching. Her work sits at the intersection of deep inner transformation and serious business architecture. Since 2011, she has guided more than 800 women through the process of building coaching businesses grounded in their genuine experience and designed to produce real, sustainable income.