Intentional Goal Setting for Sleep Consultants, with Allison Henderson
On today’s episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast, I am joined by Allison Henderson, business coach and social media strategist who specializes in helping sleep consultants grow their client base both locally and online. She blends practical strategy with mindset and energetic growth practices, helping her clients build sustainable businesses and, for many, replace their corporate income.
As we wrap up 2025 and look ahead to 2026, we focused this conversation on goal setting and intention setting for service-based business owners. We talked about where to start when goals feel overwhelming, how to think about money without guilt, and why clarity and consistency matter more than chasing every strategy you see online.
This episode is especially relevant for sleep consultants who are wanting their goals to support both their income and their lifestyle. Alison shares practical ways to turn intentions into action, stay focused on what actually works, and tune out the noise that can lead to comparison and burnout.
If you’re heading into the new year thinking about how you want your business and your life to feel, you’re going to love this conversation!
Links:
Website: Allison Henderson
Instagram: @allisonhenderson_coach
If you’d like to learn more about becoming a Sleep Consultant, please join our Facebook Group: Becoming A Sleep Consultant
CPSM Website: Center for Pediatric Sleep Management
Book a free discovery call to learn how you can become a Certified Sleep Consultant here.
Transcript:
Intro: Welcome to Becoming a Sleep Consultant! I’m your host Jayne Havens, a certified sleep consultant and founder of both Snooze Fest by Jayne Havens and Center for Pediatric Sleep Management.
On this podcast, I’ll be discussing the business side of sleep consulting. You’ll have an insider’s view on launching, growing, and even scaling a sleep consulting business. This is not a podcast about sleep training. This is a podcast about business building and entrepreneurship.
On today’s episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast, I am joined by Allison Henderson, business coach and social media strategist who specializes in helping sleep consultants grow their client base both locally and online. She blends practical strategy with mindset and energetic growth practices, helping her clients build sustainable businesses and, for many, replace their corporate income.
As we wrap up 2025 and look ahead to 2026, we focused this conversation on goal setting and intention setting for service-based business owners. We talked about where to start when goals feel overwhelming, how to think about money without guilt, and why clarity and consistency matter more than chasing every strategy you see online.
This episode is especially relevant for sleep consultants who are wanting their goals to support both their income and their lifestyle. Allison shares practical ways to turn intentions into action, stay focused on what actually works, and tune out the noise that can lead to comparison and burnout. If you’re heading into the new year thinking about how you want your business and your life to feel, you’re going to love this conversation.
Jayne Havens: Allison, welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. I always love chatting with you.
Allison Henderson: Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you.
Jayne Havens: So I wanted to bring you on today to talk about goal setting. Because we’re wrapping up 2025, headed into 2026, and people inside of my Center for Pediatric Sleep Management community, this is something that comes up every year. It’s like, how do we set intentions? How do we set goals? What is it look like fresh year, new start, new you? And so I guess the first question I’ll ask you is, when you think about goal setting for service-based entrepreneurs, where do you recommend that people even start?
Allison Henderson: What excites you? Is it money? Is it helping people? Really, get a piece of paper out. This is where I would start. Get a piece of paper out and just jot down. If you literally had — think, I guess, zero expectations. I would say zero expectation. At the end of the year, how would you want to feel, and how much money would you like to have in your bank account? Or how many clients would you have like to have served this year? I think I’d start there and just kind of free flow, just free flow writing in a journal. This could be in a Google Doc, by the way, too.
Just kind of let your mind go to the possibility of, do you want to have 100K a year? Do you want to have just maybe five clients a month, which would maybe be like a couple thousand dollars? Who knows? Like, what would make you really happy? What would really excite you? So kind of think of yourself a year from now, sitting in December 2026, how do you want to feel at the end of the year?
Jayne Havens: And so I love the whole “how do you want to feel?” I agree with that. Then the money piece, I get tripped up on because I do think we should have financial goals. I do. But is it the money that makes us happy? Sometimes it is.
Allison Henderson: Yeah.
Jayne Havens: Sometimes it is. And sometimes it’s like the way your work makes you feel is what makes you happy. Right? I don’t necessarily think those things should be mutually exclusive. I think we can derive joy and satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment from our business and also earn money and not be apologetic about it. Right? But do you feel like women — I feel like women, in particular, have a hard time admitting, like, “I want to make X amount of dollars.” Because the people who get into this line of work—sleep consulting, parent coaching, postpartum support—they’re helper people.
They’re not necessarily the people whose brains gone towards, “I want to make X amount of dollars a year.” So how do we navigate both of those feelings at the same time?
Allison Henderson: I just think no matter what — I’m very much a kind of a woo-woo spiritual person — the more that you give, the more that you’re going to get. I just think we live in such an abundant universe, abundant world. And I think so many times, we put that pressure on ourselves of like, “If I ask, if I say I want this amount of money, I’m taking from somebody else or something.” It’s like the universe is not on a budget. I see this quote all the time: “The universe isn’t on a budget.” There’s enough money.
There’s enough clients for everybody, right? I think so many times, we just get so tripped up on giving ourselves permission to want something for ourselves and to say that it’s okay to want financial success.
Yes, I think a lot of people, you guys are listening and you just want to help people. Because of that, I just always say like, because I am helping this person, I will get abundance in some way or some form. It might not always be in money. It could be somebody gifted you something that you really wanted, or somebody paying for a vacation or paying for your latte. It could come in other ways. And so I think so many times, we just trip up on, “Oh, I don’t want to be greedy and saying I want this money.” It’s like, but you’re not greedy. I don’t know.
What are your thoughts on that? I just feel like that’s the story that a lot of women create in their head. Of like, “I’m taking something from somebody if I decide to start this business or decide to want more money for myself.”
Jayne Havens: Well, when I think about my own goal setting journey—I’ve had my business for several years at this point—in the beginning, my first ever year in business, the goal was not about money. It was literally just, have something to do professionally that didn’t take away from me being a present mother to my kids. That was literally my goal. I wanted to make money. I didn’t put a dollar amount on it.
I wasn’t like, “I want to make X amount of dollars.” I just was like, “I want to contribute financially in some capacity to our household income and not have to hire a nanny or put the kids in daycare. I wanted to be the primary caregiver.” That was my goal. And so it wasn’t necessarily financially driven. It was more lifestyle-driven. I also just wanted to have “a successful business.” Meaning, just that it worked.
Allison Henderson: What does that mean? Yeah.
Jayne Havens: What does it mean to have a successful business? Right. So what it means to have a successful business in the beginning for me. And I know this is different for everybody. But for me, it was literally just like the logistics were there. I had an offering and I had a way for people to pay me, and I had a system in which I could then help people. I just wanted to have a functioning business and also be a good mom. That was literally my goal in the beginning.
Personally, when I goal set year after year after year, I always try to keep, I guess, my long-term goals in line with my initial goals. Because I’m still the same parent that I was. Of course, I want my business to grow financially, but I also want to maintain that status where I’m available for my children. So it’s a balancing act. As my business has gotten busier, I really want to make sure that I’m not then having that take away from my kids.
Luckily, my business has grown. As my kids have gotten older, they go to school full day. So now I have more time, right? So it looks different now than when they were babies. But that original goal always stays sort of like front of mind.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently. Because when I first started, it wasn’t a money goal. Then at some point along the line, it was like, “I want to make X amount of dollars.” Or, “I can’t believe I made X amount of dollars. I want to make Y amount of dollars this year.” It was like, I wanted to grow financially.
Now, however, many years later, I actually truly do not goal set that way anymore. I am just goal setting in like, I want to have a business that makes money—I don’t have a dollar amount in mind—and be able to play tennis in the middle of the day and meet a friend for coffee. It’s more backed to that lifestyle goal that I have originally.
Allison Henderson: Yeah, it’s weird how that season of your life is like that. I want to say, when I first started, for me, I was actually very — I’m still money-motivated by the way, everybody. I’m still money-motivated. But it’s now like, how do I want to wake up every day? So really think about your goals and go, “What do I actually value?
How do I want to wake up in the morning? How do I want to feel when I go to bed at night?” So it’s not always about the dollar amount inside my bank account. Because we all know that, yes, money can make you happy. But after a certain dollar amount, I kind of forget how much it is in the states of like, once you’re over like $75,000, actually, money doesn’t bring you that much joy.
Somebody asked me a really great question recently. Like, if I just give you $2,000,000, how would your life change? I was like, I don’t think my life would change really at all. Honestly, I don’t think my day to day would change that much. I’d have more money to give. I’d have more money to donate, or I would be able to maybe spend more time volunteering with something if I really wanted that. But your life wouldn’t change that much if you had that much more money.
To me, something’s had to click. I was like, but who do I want to be? Like you kind of said, I’m somebody, when I wake up, I want to be able to create my own reality. I want to be able to create my day. I don’t want my job telling me, “Oh, you have all these things you got to do today,” and just kind of jam-packing it with calls or jam-packing it with things that really don’t bring me much joy, right? I think that’s what we need to remember.
It’s like your business is supposed to bring you a lot of joy. Your life is supposed to be joyful. And if there’s some things along the way, that like, “Oh, God. I’m really burnt out,” kind of just ask yourself. Like, what’s out of alignment right now? Always coming back to your truth of, like, what is the life that you want to have? What does success actually mean to you? What do you actually value? What do you want your day to day to look like?
It could be like, right now, like you said, you’re in a season of like you want to make a lot of money. That’s awesome. I want that for you. Because maybe you have big money goals because you want to pay off dead, or you want to go on these luxurious vacations. You want to buy a new car. It doesn’t really matter. To me, it’s like the goal doesn’t matter, but how do you want to wake up and feel every day? So for me, it’s very lifestyle right now. But yeah, I want to feel alive every single day. Like, how can I be more alive?
Usually, money just follows that. Money isn’t attracted to stress. Money is attracted to fun. And I notice this. Every time that I actually rest or I go do something really, really fun, I make more money. There’s just something about it. But when I’m like sitting at my computer and I’m like hammering away doing all things—there is a season for that. But now it’s like, okay, my website is done. I don’t have to really fix or update my website very often. I have actually solid offers. The foundation has been laid.
Once the foundation is laid, it is a lot easier to make more money because you have more space in your calendar. So I have more capacity to have more aliveness in my life. So yeah, it really all depends where you’re kind of at right now. It’s like just asking yourself some of these questions of like, how do I want my day to feel like? Who do I want to become? It might be unbecoming some of the things. Your identity has a lot to do with if you’re successful or not, right? What behaviors are you doing? What actions are you taking every day in order to have the business that you want to have?
Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think that’s all great. Actually, when you were talking, I was thinking about, last night, I said to my husband — it was 8, 8:30 at night. We had tucked Ivy, our youngest, into bed. My older son, he puts himself to bed, so there’s nothing to do there. I said to him, I was like, “It feels so good that I don’t have to crack my laptop open right now—Sunday night, 8:30—and I didn’t have anything pressing to do.” I said, I was like, “I love a Sunday night when I can just leave my laptop closed.” And look, there’s always more to do in your business.
Allison Henderson: Always.
Jayne Havens: If I didn’t have anything on my actual to-do list, I could have generated something to do. Maybe there was a time — there definitely was a time in my business where, on Sunday night, even if there wasn’t something pressing, there was something I was still doing. Cracking my laptop, open it at 8:30 at night on a Sunday. And I just said to him, “It’s so nice to just leave my laptop on the floor. I’m not even going to pick it up. Let’s watch a show.” That is, for me, where I am in my business right now.
My goals look like that. I want to just enjoy myself and let my business coast a little bit. And if that means that I’m on fewer calls, if that means that I’m doing a little bit less, I’m okay with that because I just want my life to look a certain way.
Allison Henderson: Yeah, exactly. Honestly, I think a lot of people, that’s what they want. That’s where they want to get in their business at some point. It’s like not feeling at every moment of every day that they should be working. Maybe it just comes with time where like now we kind of sit there and go what’s important to us. It isn’t constantly being in the hustle, which there is a time and a place for that. We did that. We did that.
There’s probably a lot of nights where you’re like, “I’m staying up late so I can finish this thing,” or, “I can get back to all these people that I couldn’t get back to today.” So there is a time and a place for a hustle. Then there’s also a time where you can go, “What do I actually want right now? What do I need? What do I actually need?” It might be a nap. It might be like, “I just need to take a day off and do nothing.”
That’s kind of what I did yesterday. I ordered takeout. My kids were out of the house. I literally read a book all day. I finished a book. I was like, I’m reading it from start to — I’m not leaving this bed. I don’t want to do anything today. I just let myself, I gave myself permission to not feel guilty about that. I think, so many times, like old Allison from three or four years ago would sit there and go, “Get out your laptop. What are you talking about? You want more money. You’ve got to work harder.” Now we’re kind of getting into this era, I guess I’d call, of like, “Do we need to be working harder, or do we need to be working smarter?”
At some point, I’ve kind of earned that mentality. Because now that my business has the foundation has been set, I have the audience, and I have the things in place, that I can send off an email and get replies. It took time to do all that. When you’re starting from zero or you’re in those first couple years of your business, it might not be so that you can relax. But sometimes you just have to go, “Can I relax? Maybe I just need to give myself permission to chill out.” Give yourself a season of being in chill mode or play mode instead of hustle all the time.
Jayne Havens: Yeah, I’m thinking about some of the people who are listening to this podcast, I know for sure, are either in the very, very early stages of growing their business. Or maybe they haven’t even started yet, and they’re just thinking about getting into this field. We’re talking from the perspective of like, “We’ve put in the work. We’ve been grinding. Now we’re sort of seeing the fruits of our labors. We can just sort of chill.” Our priorities maybe look a little bit different. But I’m trying to put myself back in that headspace from the beginning, where we really were hustling and grinding to achieve those goals, right?
Allison Henderson: For sure, yeah.
Jayne Havens: I guess what I want to ask you is: is there a healthy way to set financial goals without feeling like everything is about the money?
Allison Henderson: I think, for me, every time you want to really hit a big goal, break it out a little bit. So it’s like, okay, you want to have, for example, 5K a month. Cool. What do you need to be doing every day to hit the 5K month? So kind of breaking that down. It’s like, okay, content. Cool. What about content? I want to create a story today. I want to send off an email. I want to put something on my grid, or I want to post in my Facebook group. Really just get intentional with, like, what are the action steps that you need to be doing every day?
Of course, over time, everybody, these action steps get easier. Or you have a lot of content you can repurpose. That’s like the working smarter, right? So, now, if I really needed to, I can go back through 1,000 posts that I probably created over the last few years and pick something that I can be like, “Let me just throw this up here.” But at the beginning, you don’t necessarily have that. Get really clear.
I don’t know if you guys ever heard the wheel of life, where it’s like you have your career goals, your relationship goals, your fitness goals, health goals. You can sit there and go, “Okay. Out of all of these, what’s actually really important to me right now?” So if right now, your finance goals and your career goals are your top things that you need to be focusing on, just break those down as far as you can go. Then break it down even further into tasks, right? Like I said, what about content? Break that up. What are your daily action steps that you need to be taking?
Then this is the thing, too. So many of you have kids. That’s fine. You can build a really profitable business with kids. Both of us, Jayne and I have. I have two kids myself as well. They’re a little older now, which is great. We have more time and flexibility in our calendar. I started my business when I was pregnant. I had a newborn. I also have a four or five year old at home, right? So I know what it’s like to try to work while you’re trying to do all the things at the same time.
Yeah, I just was somebody that I was really determined. I really wanted to make this work. I wanted to replace my corporate income. I put it in my calendar. Like, I’m working from this time to this time. I’m going to be focusing on making connections, building relationships.
Really, I got so disciplined and determined to make all of this work because I had such a passion. I really do feel, if right now you’re feeling really every morning you wake up and you’re semi obsessed with your business, you are on the right track. Because that really is what it takes for you.
Because you’re going to have those days where you’re feeling tired or a little burnt out. And you still have to show up even when you don’t feel like it unfortunately when you want to build a six-figure-plus business, or even if you want to be getting a 5K month or whatever. I get that. But you still have to put in some effort to build relationships and to actually be visible to somebody, to an audience. That doesn’t just happen because you say, “I want a 5k month.” Cool. But what are the actions you’re going to do?
So, of course, Jayne and I are talking from a perspective of almost a decade of us being in business. You know what I mean? But when we first started, we were hustling. We were putting in the effort. We were staying up a little later, or waking up a little bit earlier, or doing the nap time hustle. We decided, during those little moments of time, to work, to figure it out, to ask for help when we needed help. When we felt stuck, we didn’t just stay stuck. We sat there and went, “Who do I need to talk to that probably would have the answer to this?” Right?
So I think that has a lot to do with it too of like you being in that mentality of, “I’m not just going to sit here and wait for things to come to me. I’m going to go and create opportunities for myself. I’m also going to take action. I’m going to get uncomfortable and take action on things that I’ve never done before.” To get to that level of success, you will have to do things you probably have never done before. I’m still in that mode too of, like, if I want to hit half a million dollars a year, well, I probably will have to do things like maybe ads, or a YouTube channel, or whatever. Because I have to get in front of more people.
That’s really sometimes the answer to, like, why is my business not working out? It’s like you got to be visible to a whole new group of people that don’t even know you exist yet, right? So it is a numbers game. I would sit and do some math. I think a lot of people don’t do the math of, like, how many clients do you need a month? How many conversations do you need to be having? Do you need more referral sources? Get clear on, what are more action — I’m not saying I want you doing a more and more and more but like, who else do you need to be talking to?
I’m sure you’ve heard of this quote before. “Your net worth is in your network.” So how can you spend some time building up your network so that you can hit your financial goals? At some point, you can kind of be like Jayne and I, where we’re kind of like, “Hey, you want to get coffee tomorrow morning?” Because I have four hours of spare or whatever, right? Our kids are now in school, so we have a lot more extra time.
The weird thing is, Jayne, at the beginning of this year, when both of my kids were in school full time, I sat there and had an identity crisis. Where I’m like, I have all this time. Oh, my God. What is happening? What do I do with myself? This is crazy. Because there was a part of me that was like, “I can just work. I want to work…” But then there was also like a, “Chill out. This is your time to do the things that you’ve been putting off for the last few years.” So if you want to read a book all day, cool. Do it. Or if you want to go out to lunch with friends, make some new friends.
I’ve made so many new friends this year. I started going to a dance class. There’s been things where I’m like, “Wow, I get to create my life now the way that I want to.” Of course, I still get to work, and I still get to help people. But it’s not so like, “I have to work, and I have to do these things.” I do those things now because I love it and I find joy in it. So all the things in my business that I’m like, “I don’t really love that,” I either learned to love it, I found a way to make it more fun for myself, or I just don’t do it anymore. And that’s that.
Jayne Havens: When you were talking, I was thinking about whether the term ‘goal setting’ was the right term. Is it goal setting, or is it setting intentions? Then as I was thinking that, you said, “Get intentional.” I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” Okay. So I think we’re setting intentions here rather than setting goals. Maybe there’s some overlap. But in my mind, I was really trying to wrestle with those two words, trying to figure out if they’re the same or if they’re different.
What I loved about what you just shared and what makes me think that it’s really more about intentions than goals is that when you’re setting intentions, there’s follow up there, right? You were like, “Make a list and then actually do those things,” right? And if you need to get out and talk to more people, or if you need to do this, or if you need to do that.
Sometimes we just put goals on paper and then there’s nothing else. It’s just sort of like a — it’s a dream. It’s a vision. It’s not an action plan. What I like about the thought of setting intentions is it’s like, this isn’t just a dream. This is something that I’m working towards. Here are the steps that I’m going to take to get there.
Allison Henderson: Yeah, I think that’s what we need to remember though. It’s like you have a goal, but you have to have the action plan in order to achieve the goal. Of course, we have desires. I have a belief that whatever I desire also desires me. But I also have a plan for that desire. That’s why a lot of what I teach is, “Hey, you can’t just wait for clients to come to you.
Have a plan to go to them. Get in front of them. Create those opportunities for yourself. Because if you just have the goal, it’s very unlikely that these opportunities are just going to come to you, and you’re just going to sit back on your computer and just wait for emails to come. What if you had a plan that you actually decided to have conversations with business owners, or actually people that are in your audience right now? Have a plan to get new followers, whatever that is. Be intentional everyday of, when am I going to work? So you might have to have actual conversations with caregivers, your spouse.
Really sit there and go, “Hey, I’m starting a business.” Or, “I have this business.” Maybe you have been a little unorganized with this. This is the year where you get really organized with your schedule. Because we have kids, it sometimes is hard. You have to sit there and go, “I’m having a hard conversation with you. I really need two hours every single day to do XYZ, okay? Can you help me with that? Can you actually make time in your schedule to make my dreams a reality?” I think sometimes we just have to have those like—
My husband is also an entrepreneur, so he gets it when I’m like, “Hey, you need to figure out what to do with the kids today because I have to work all day or whatever.” We’ve had those conversations. Now I’m lucky that we have grandparents and people to help us out. But it was really hard at the beginning when we were both kind of juggling, “When are you going to work? When am I going to work, blah, blah, blah?” We had to have everyday family meeting of being like, “What’s your schedule like? What’s going on? This is what I want to do today.” Yeah, he also has to kind of be on board with me of making my dreams, or our family dreams, a reality.
Jayne Havens: What I see inside of the sleep consultant community—just because that’s obviously where I’m immersed, right—is that everybody feels very inclined to compare themselves to others, which I think is a really natural thing to do, right? But when you’re first getting started and maybe someone else who also got started at the same time as you is getting momentum a little bit faster, gaining traction a little bit faster, it’s very easy to feel like a failure—when really you’re just maybe on a little bit of a different trajectory, or a different timeline, or maybe your work ethic is different, or maybe your time availability is different. There are so many variables, right?
How do you tell people to still hold true to their goals and to sort of think big while also tuning out some of the noise?
Allison Henderson: If you’re definitely getting triggered by other people’s — I don’t want to just say their success. But it’s like, “Oh, they started when I started. They’re already hitting this money goal” or whatever that is. I want people coming in your community and sharing that stuff because that’s exciting. But if you’re getting triggered by that, just ask yourself why, number one. But you can also tune it out a bit.
Either maybe you can mute the group for a sec. There’s people on Instagram where I’d be like, “Why are you still following that person?” You keep getting triggered. Even if it is like a business coach or something, I don’t care who it is. If they’re triggering you, try to mute them or unfollow them if that’s a possibility for you.
You have to remember that not everybody’s business journey is going to be the same. Like you said, there are so many different variables of why somebody became successful faster than you. They could have a different network for a sleep consultant. Maybe their husband is a doctor. He just has a lot more network that you can tap into that you just don’t have right now. Or the time piece. Both of our kids were in school. So if I just started a business right now, I’d have a lot more time to actually make it successful faster. Plus, we have more knowledge. I think this is also a piece too.
Some people come into business with already a sales and marketing background, or they’ve just been maybe in the baby industry a little longer than you. That’s okay. I wouldn’t compare your business to somebody else’s business. Because every single client I’ve ever coached has been on their own client journey or their own business journey. It has nothing to do with the tasks or the amount of time or effort that you guys put in. It’s kind of weird to think of it like that. One person can literally blow up your whole business. They might have found their person, you know.
Jayne Havens: I always really try, personally, to tune out all the noise around me. I am really convinced—this is just truly something that I 100% believe in my mind and in my heart—that there is enough business to go around. I run two separate businesses, my consulting business and then also Center for Pediatric Sleep Management. In both arms of my business, I feel that there are people that are right to enter my universe and people that are not right to enter my universe, and they’re right to enter somebody else’s universe.
All of that is fine. And so I’ve always just been a little bit in a competition with myself. I’m always just trying to grow not just financially. Financially is a piece of it. But I’m always focused on every year wanting to either learn something new or improve my business in a way that previously was bothering me, but maybe not enough to do something about it, you know.
One thing that I’m really prioritizing for next year in my own business is my email list. I want to do a better job of emailing, segmenting my lists, being more automated, having a better schedule. That is a goal or an intention. It’s hopefully going to lead to financial gain, whatever that looks like. But it’s just sort of, I don’t care what other people are doing. I want to do this for me, for my business, because this is what feels right now. I wish that green, brand-new entrepreneurs would take that mindset or adopt that mindset, and really just figure out what the next step is for them.
Because if I think about it, there are sleep consultants that have been in business for way shorter of a period than me, and they figured out their email list way better and way faster. And here I am, however many years in, and I’m still trying to figure that out. Everybody is on a different trajectory. Everybody’s work and business looks different. And it’s like, what can you do to advance your knowledge, your expertise, put better systems in place so that you can grow? Forget about what everybody else is doing around you.
Allison Henderson: Yeah, I hear this all the time where it’s like, “Allison, should I have a blog? Allison, should I have a podcast?” I’m like, “Do you want a blog? Do you want a podcast?” Because guess what? You’re not going to do the things if you actually don’t want to do them. So at some point, Jayne, maybe you’re like, “I don’t want to focus on my email.” And so you didn’t. Until now many years and you’re like, I’m being called to do that. Feel those little nudges. But sit there and just ask yourself that question. Why do I want to blog?
Is it the should? “Oh, everyone else has a blog, so I should also have a blog.” I’m like, you’re shitting yourself to death. We need to just ask, how do you want to get leads? It could just be, “I want to build relationships locally.” Cool. Then really go all in on that. Every day, be contacting somebody in your community. It doesn’t always have to be social media stuff, or email, or a website. Those are nice things to have. But really think about how do you want to build your business this year and create your plan to do that.
Be willing to try new things. Like we said earlier, you’re always going to have things to do on your to-do list, right? Always. So think of your short-term plan. What’s the thing that you want to do for the next three months to really go all in on? Or it could just be like just this week. What is the one thing I want to focus on this week that is going to help me next month? So this week, you just want to focus on, “I want to learn more about sales funnels for my emails.” Cool. Take a course. I don’t know. Ask somebody who maybe has done this very successfully to see what course they took, or can they share their templates or whatever with you.
Don’t wait around. Being in waiting energy is almost my biggest annoyance in business, where I’m like, “Wait. Why are you waiting to message that person?” Oh, it’s going to wait. It’s like, no, send them a message right now. Don’t wait on this sort of things. Because you can build a really successful business in six months. But sometimes it takes you six years because you’re constantly just waiting for the perfect timing, or waiting to feel a certain way — when really, you just need to really get intentional with the day-to-day stuff and to just get to work, get disciplined.
I always compare my business with losing weight. If you want to lose 10 pounds, it’s not like, “Okay, I’m going to lose 10 pounds,” and then not go to the gym or not eat well. No, you have to take action in order to achieve that goal. You might have to hire a personal trainer. You might have to actually have somebody to hold you accountable to what it is that you’re doing every single day to hit that number goal for yourself. So it’s the same thing in business. I think so many times we’re just waiting and waiting for the savior to come or something, where it’s like, no, it’s just you bed. It is just you versus you.
No one is chasing you. But also, nobody is going to make you do the work. You have to really, honestly—I said this earlier—be semi-obsessed with the day-to-day stuff, and being able to wake up every day and going, “Yeah, this is when I’m going to work.” Because if you have kids, maybe in the morning, you might have to do all the things to get them all set up. These are the times I’m going to work. This is what I’m going to be doing during that time. Because I know I have a lot of anxiety when I’m like, I know when I’m going to work. What am I going to do during that time frame?
Or it’s maybe the opposite. Like, I know I have all these things to do, but when am I going to work? So it’s just like, really getting intentional and organized with the day-to-day stuff, having some of those hard conversations—maybe with your spouse, of, “This is what I need from you to help me achieve this goal.” You can’t do it alone, unfortunately. And having your community, I think, is so helpful, where they can kind of tap into that.
Also, ask questions. If you do see somebody is really successful, instead of getting triggered by it sitting there, going maybe I should buy him a coffee, a virtual coffee date. Here, I’m going to send them a Starbucks gift card to just be able to pick their brain for 20 minutes, to say, “Tell me. How did you do that email funnel? How are you setting up your blog? Why are you getting so many website visits? What are you doing that I’m not doing?” I know I’m very much a pro girls. Like, let’s do this girl boss life. Like, I want women to be so flipping successful. Because I know when women have money, we do really good things with it. We really do.
When moms have money, it definitely bleeds into our family, into our children. And so, yeah, I just think it’s really important that you are kind of being a cheerleader for other people and just doing your best to go, “I need to be friends with that person. I see that they’re being successful. I want to know what they’re up to.” Just being in their energy, I think, is really helpful. What’s their mindset? How are they viewing money? How are they viewing social media? How are they viewing podcasting, or whatever it is? So don’t sit there and wait to get the answers. Reach out to people. Get on calls. Use your network as much as possible to get the answers that you need.
Jayne Havens: I fully agree with all of that, and I think there’s also the caveat of: take what resonates with you and leave the rest. Right?
Allison Henderson: Yeah.
Jayne Havens: Because the way that someone else is growing their business might not be the way that you want to grow yours. It’s really important that we all figure out what works for us long term, what is sustainable for us beyond, you know. When you’re talking about comparing your business to weight loss, it was so interesting when you said that. Because I was like, oh my gosh. I was just thinking about how January 1st, everybody makes that New Year’s resolution to lose 10 pounds, right?
We get all excited to work on it for, what, a week and a half. And then we don’t, right? And so I think we have to look at our businesses the same way. That if you’re going to set these goals or intentions for the coming year, that this is not something that we just think about for half an hour and journal about it and then have a good week or two and then never look at it again. Everything that you put into place in order to grow your business has to be sustainable. Because otherwise, you’re not going to do it.
Allison Henderson: I think people get really burnt out because they’re constantly doing things that aren’t aligned with them. Or they’re stealing somebody else’s strategy, in a sense of, like, “Well, I see that they’re doing this, so I’m going to do it too.” I’m like, okay. That’s okay. I think sometimes I’m like, go do the thing.
Go do the blog if that’s what you want. Or if you want to, I don’t know, whatever, you want to go on TikTok and do all the TikTok things, cool. Try it. You might actually say, “This is fun. I love this.” Or, “This is where I’m getting a ton of leads. This is amazing. I’m doing so well with these strategies.” Or you might sit there and go, “I hate that, and I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Sometimes when I’ve let go of a piece of my strategy, there’s a part of me that my body just goes, “Ah, wow. I’m so happy I let that go.” Opportunities then kind of could start coming into my space. Maybe I couldn’t see because I was so focused on, “My strategy has to be this way. No, it has to look just like this.” It doesn’t. It’s something that you get to create. You probably have seen this if you’ve been in Jayne’s group, or maybe you have listened to a lot of business podcasts.
You’re kind of seeing, “Oh, this is other people’s strategy, and this is how they’re getting clients and how they’re getting leads every day.” You can sit there, like I said, and kind of go, do I like that? Would that be something I’d want to try and go, “Yeah, sure,” or, “No, I would never do that. That doesn’t feel good in my system.”
That’s why I always say, come back to your truth. You know when something is in alignment or when something is not in alignment, right? You know I’m not being consistent with this for a reason. Why? Why am I not being consistent? I dissect that a little bit. For me, I don’t DM a lot of people anymore on Instagram like I did when I first started. Because there was that one part of me that’s like, well, I don’t really need to do that anymore. But when I first started, I didn’t have an audience, so I needed to have those conversations.
But yeah, now it’s like, “Oh, that doesn’t feel so great for me to message 50 people a day because I just don’t need to do that in order to make the money I want to make.” So you can kind of sit there and, just like I said, ask yourself the questions: why don’t I enjoy that anymore? Why don’t I like that? Or, do I want to try this maybe for the next six months, and see how I like it? You might love it.
Some people go on TikTok and they’re like, “Oh my god. I love TikTok.” I’m like, great. I love that for you. Or, “Hey, I’m going to try Pinterest. I get a ton of leads from Pinterest.” Awesome. Because I know when I actually enjoy something and I like it, I want to keep doing that every day, and I’m consistent, I get clients. There’s just something about it. It’s the joy factor. You attract right? If you guys like manifestation, the vibrational piece of all of this is true. When you are in a high vibration and you enjoy what you do, you’re naturally going to make more money. You’re naturally going to get the leads that you want to get. That’s how I view everything.
Jayne Havens: And as somebody who’s not at all woo at all, I also totally agree with you. I have seen that in my own life. Where when you’re truly doing work that you love and that brings you joy and empowers you and breeds this level of satisfaction that you haven’t felt in other areas of your life, especially professionally, I’ve seen it.
Other people are drawn to that energy. The way that you show up and the way that you feel has a really big impact on the way that your business looks and grows. So I fully agree. Some people I know, at the end of every year, beginning of the new year, they like to set an intention with a single word. Do you have one? I don’t mean to put you on the spot.
Allison Henderson: I don’t do that. I feel like I did that maybe a few years ago. I don’t remember my word per se. If that feels good for you, I don’t know. I just feel like it’s not like every month, people are bringing it up. My word this year was love. I don’t know. If that feels good for you, great. But I haven’t done that in a few years of picking a word. If anything, I think my word this year would be ‘alive’ if I’m going to pick a word. Because I want every day to feel just as alive as I can be.
Jayne Havens: I haven’t done it either. Then whenever I hear other people’s words, I’m like, “Oh, that’s a good one.”
Allison Henderson: That’s a good one. Yeah.
Jayne Havens: I like that word. That’s a good word. I’ve never really landed on something that I’ve chosen to really anchor and live by and focus on. But if I’m reflecting and thinking, like, where do I really want my business to look or what do I want my life to look like, I just want to be, I think, a little bit more zoned in on me. I want to do what’s best for me just lifestyle wise. I want to be able to say yes to things that maybe a few years ago I would have said, “I can’t. I have to work.”
But this year, “Sure. I can do that. Let me move some things around.” Or, “Let me block off my calendar.” Or, “Sure, that totally makes it hard to get anything done today for my business, but I’m going to do it anyway because I want to.” I don’t know. I don’t know what the word is that goes along with that, but that’s my frame of mind. That’s where I want to be next year. I just want to do the things that I want to do because they make me happy.
Allison Henderson: Yeah, I would say joy. Just doing things that bring you joy every day. I wrote in my journal this morning, “Hey, try something new this week, something that you’ve never done before.” I want to have a more fun life. That’s why alive for me is like, how can I feel more alive every day?
We’re attracted to people on the internet that have really exciting lives, right? I’m not trying to be like, “Look at me. Look at me and my exciting life.” I want to have an exciting life, whether social media exists or not, right? And so I want to be an interesting person. And so, yeah, doing things that bring you joy. Maybe it’s a self-discovery year of, what does bring me joy? That’s okay too. Because I had times in my life where I didn’t really know that answer. I’ve been so focused on having babies and just building the business. It’s like I forgot that I had a life outside of the business too.
Go do something fun. I don’t know. It can be so small. Get out of the cage a little bit. Get out of the cage. Get out of the zoo and see what life really has to offer you. There’s so much potential for you to make a lot of money. We all know that. Entrepreneurship is all you can make so much money. It is limitless if you decide to go down this route. You can also have so much more joy in your life because you have the flexibility. You have the freedom. I think a lot of people are stuck in these jobs or whatever. I get that.
Right now, you’re in a job where you’re like, “Oh, how do I get—?” Just keep doing what brings you joy. Keep following the things that light you up. It might be your business right now. Cool. Every day, just try to do something a little bit different. Over time, these habits and these actions are going to compile. And when they compile, that’s when it’s like, “Oh, I’m successful.” That felt like it happened overnight, but it’s like it didn’t even trying for a year, two years, three years, whatever.
And so you will be successful. It’s inevitable. I already know it. If you’re listening to this podcast and you really want something, you will have it. I truly believe that what you desire desires you. Just have a plan. Take the actions every day. Make some moves. That’s one of my big things. Make some moves. Create your own opportunities, and you get to create the reality you want to create.
Jayne Havens: I’m going to let it end there, because that was fantastic. Thank you, as always, for coming and bringing joy to my podcast. Even just your energy and your vibe, I think, will help people to have a great day and feel inspired and motivated. I appreciate you. Cheers to 2026 very, very soon.
Allison Henderson: Good luck, everyone.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, it would mean so much to me if you would rate, review, and subscribe. When you rate, review, and subscribe, this helps the podcast reach a greater audience. I am so grateful for your support.
If you would like to learn more about how you can become a certified sleep consultant, head over to my Facebook Group, Becoming a Sleep Consultant or to my website thecpsm.com. Thanks so much, and I hope you will tune in for the next episode