It’s already the beginning of the second quarter in 2021. Maybe you thought that this was going to be your year to step it up, set the world on fire, or bring back your mojo. Instead you could be feeling behind, or just not where you want to be. We tell ourselves things like there’s not enough time. Or getting back to the real world has made us even more busy than we thought we already were. Where do we go from here?
I usually see three things that are keeping women from what they think they should be doing:
- You think you don’t know what to do or you don’t know what the next step is.
- You think that you’re just not good at following through.
- You think that you just need to do it but you let other things get in the way.
-You want to go to the gym three times a week.
-You want to ask for the raise.
-You want to spend more time with your kids.
-You want to be committed to following through on the things you want in your life.
In order to accomplish these things, you’ve done the following:
- Bought a new planner or calendar.
- Set new realistic expectations.
- Taken a course or watched a video to help.
- Maybe you’ve even asked your husband to help you.
- You’ve really engaged your willpower.
All of these are what I call passive actions. And why these actions haven’t worked and why things haven’t happened, is because these things that you want to make happen are not simple, doable, or fun in your brain. They’re complicated, they’re hard, they’re uncomfortable and they’re not very fun.
Your brain just wants things to be simple, doable, and fun. So here’s a 3-step process that works:
1. The Creation Phase
The creation phase is where you make things simple. This is where you create the clarity. You move from preparing your brain to accept what you want and and create a vision of it. It doesn’t have to be a full-blown vision, but a vision of some sort. In this stage where you’re making things simple, you have to get to a place of feeling in alignment with the goal, like you’re ready to put in the work. And this is where you do the actions to make it happen for the first time.
For example, when I launched my first group in November of 2020, I went through the creation stage of a launch. I moved from just thinking about it to accepting that I was going to make it happen and I moved into being aligned with doing the work it took and I did the actions to make it happen. In the end, I created it!
2. The Acclimation Phase
This is where you make things doable. When I was in this phase, I launched a second group. So in this phase, I had to study the success and failures of the first launch. I really had to look like what worked and what didn’t work. The other piece of this is it’s at this point where I had to identify that I am someone that does groups and I get to put my name tag on that. I’m a coach that does group coaching with confidence. I needed to be confident in the fact that once I identified that I was a coach that did group programs, I had to be willing to keep doing it. I had to kind of see, feel and taste the success of it, like it was not only possible, but it was inevitable that I was going to continue to be someone who creates and launches group coaching programs. So, I became acclimated with this idea and I kept going. I launched another in January and one in March.
3. The Acceleration phase.
This is where the fun happens. When you’re in this acceleration phase, this is where you make sure that you have time for everything, including work, including family, including celebrating, and including fun. This is where you start to change from not thinking about everything is an obstacle, but as an opportunity. So, all those little bumps in the road, you have fun with them. You see what you can do with it. This is also where you must be willing to really do whatever it takes to continue to live out your identity. I have to do everything it takes to continue to launch groups so that I can help more and more women. And I have had to learn to trust in the process and trust myself. I just surrendered to the fact that this is who I’ve become.
So, in the Creation Stage, you’re making things seem simple. In the Acclimation Phase, you make things doable. And then in the Acceleration Phase, you start to have more and more fun. So why does all of this work?
These three steps work because together they make you an expert at trying things and failing. Do you know how many times I tried something in these launches that failed? A bunch! I tried different types of marketing, I tried different messaging, I tried offering different classes, I tried to reach women in different ways. Some of them I tried and were great. Some of them were fails.
Next, this process works because it gets you to a place where you are aligned with the motivational triad of your brain, where things are as your brain wants them to be: simple, doable and fun. You stop resisting because if you keep resisting, it’s never going to happen.
And the third reason these three steps work is because as you’re going through this process, it addresses both your mindset and the tactical piece of things. It addresses both strategy and systems with getting yourself the support you need.
But as you work through the three steps, here is what you’re going to experience:
It’s going to be both uncomfortable and rewarding.
It’s going to be hard and get easier.
Everybody always says things get easier as you try them, it’s true. And you will have experience in answering the questions that have been keeping you in the just thinking about things stage that has been keeping you from getting what you want.
As you work through these three steps, you’re going to learn how to manage your mind. You’re going to learn how to manage your time. And you’re going to learn how to go from thinking small to thinking big.It will happen! It’s hard to do this work alone. I encourage you to work with a coach. Because if we’re not having fun along the way, it’s just not worth doing!
If you’d like to learn more about what coaching looks like, let’s schedule a call.
