Hello and welcome to The B-Side, a mastermind group for entrepreneurial women! On the first of each month, I share my business-related goals, challenges, and triumphs while inviting you to do the same! I'd love for you to join me; you can learn more about participating by clicking here.Welcome to the July B-Side Meeting! It is now officially half way through the year! Unbelievable! Time flies so hopefully you're having fun! Here's how I did last month:

Last Month's Results

1. Set up a PASSIVE marketing system for one of my product. This was my only goal for last month and I'd say I partially completed it. I made a lot of headway on automating things in generally but I still have a ways to go. This will definitely be a long-term goal going forward.

This Month's Business Goals

1. Continue setting up automatic, passive-income systems. Oh, systems, systems! How I love thee, yet loathe setting you up! Systems take work to setup ya'll! (Said in my Texas transplant drawl...) I'm still way behind the proverbial 8-ball when it comes to building out my email marketing system, Facebook ad system, etc, etc. On top of that, I'm now helping business market themselves offline (didn't I say last month I wasn't going to take on any new projects? Smh...) so I need to get a better accounting system in place so I don't get a rude awakening come tax time. Oh, the joys of running a real business...
2. Resume 2x weekly posting. So...I didn't post last month. Like, at all. I have a more detailed post coming tomorrow explaining my experience but I got really burned out last month and decided to take an impromptu hiatus. While this was great for my mental clarity, it's obviously not good for the blog (thank you all for checking on me though!) so I want to resume my posting rhythm. I have a lot share so I'm practically bursting at the seams to blog about it!
3. No more "grinding!" Again, you'll have to check out my next post where I discuss this in detail, but during my impromptu hiatus, I realize that I was approaching my goal to grow my business all wrong. I was so focused on "grinding" that I wasn't giving myself any grace and not surprisingly, I got burned out. I'm committed to chasing my dreams but now I'm committed to honoring myself and my wellness as I do it. My goal this month is to truly operate in a spirit of grace as I pursue my goals and try to make things happen. I believe this is the only way to really stay balanced and enjoy the journey on the way to success.

Current Challenges

Appreciating the space "in between". It's such a tricky thing to, on one hand, experience some success yet on the other hand, not be where you ultimately want to be. Truth be told, sometimes I get so frustrated and impatient that I haven't yet achieved full-time status. It's like the more I learn and the more glimmers of hope I get, the easier it is to loathe my current situation. I know that is a TERRIBLE attitude to have but if we're being honest, that's a real struggle I'm dealing with lately. Sometimes I wake up in the morning like "Whyyyyyyy...why do I have to go to work? WHY can't I do what I want yet? Ugh!" So I'm working to appreciate this "in-between" phase of my journey and just be GRATEFUL.

Current Successes/What's Working

Trusting My Intuition. This month's B-Side post is quite touchy-feely, isnt' it? :-) But seriously, focusing more on my own intuition, making gut level decisions, and just moving quickly in the direction I feel led to move has been working wonders for me. When I first decided I wanted to grow my business, I spent a lot of time studying best practices and learning what others in my industry were doing. While I know my studies have paid off because I now have a lot of valuable knowledge, I feel myself shifting into a space where I'm making decisions based on my own "feel" and less based on what the "rules" say I should do. I think continuing in this path is going to help with my commitment not to "grind" anymore as I continue to carve my own path to success!

Your Turn!

Mastermind Rules

• Share your goals, challenges and successes in the comments.
• The goal of this mastermind is to support each other, so be sure to read all the comments and check out all the participating blogs and businesses! If you have something to offer, leave a comment and help each other out!
• If you are a blogger, feel free to create a post sharing your entrepreneurial goals, challenges, and successes (via the format above) on your blog and link back here. You can even grab the button and include it in your post:

B-Side Facebook Group

Be sure to join the B-Side Facebook group! Since the B-side post will come out monthly, this women-only Facebook group will serve as a "hub" for us to ask questions, share what we have going on, and generally connect with each other on a day-to-day basis. You can join right now: http://facebook.com/groups/bsidebythinkandgrowchick