Get Started Already!
I want to get a little vulnerable here. I don’t know what it is, but the past 30 days I have not been able to get started on my work! Typically, I am all in at the beginning of a month, sharing resources, writing posts for socials and connecting with clients to secure more business. This month? Not so much! This behavior, although prevalent at the start of the year, isn’t just reserved for that timeframe. I have found it can happen at any time.
“When we get into a tight place and it seems can’t go on, hold on, for that’s just the place and the time that the tide will turn.”
What did I do?
I had to sit down and be truthful with myself – why was this happening and why now of all times when there are potentially big, exciting things on the horizon?
This maybe familiar to you too! If it is and you’d like some insight on what to do next to BREAK the slump, stay with me.
For this exercise, I took pen to paper…It helped to write this down. This process of putting pen to paper may help you as well.
Two Critical Questions
Question 1: What external things are getting in my way of moving forward?
From this I surfaced the familiar: my kids’ schedules, family life, meal prep, activities and the like. I also came up with an unclear picture of what I actually hoped to accomplish this month. Sure, I did my visioning, I had my global goals, but what did I actually need to do on the daily to get there? {I should note for context, that one of my global goals is to increase my social media presence as a leadership expert through expanding my You Tube channel.}
See, looking at the WHOLE BIG thing was scary to me. I wanted to turn and run at the idea of accomplishing all that!
Another thing that surfaced was did I really know HOW to take the steps I needed to take? Did I need to get help that I may have been avoiding before?
These are only a few tactical examples that surfaced for me, but I found it so helpful to use them as a springboard to dig a little deeper to answer the SECOND question.
Question 2: What is going on inside my head that is preventing me from moving forward?
Get ready because I surfaced a lot of STUFF! And you may too!
The first things that came to mind were self-doubt and inadequacy (commonly coined imposter syndrome)– who wants to hear from me? Sure I have a lot of experience, but there are a million people out there now doing the same thing. No one will be interested in my thoughts and experience, no one. (So I may as well not EVEN start!)
So right out of the chute, these limiting beliefs stopped me in my tracks.
The next emotion that came up was disgust. I had lazed around and avoided getting started for so long, I deemed myself lazy and unworthy.
You can see the negative spiral I was on.
“The best medicine to combat feelings of doom is to take action”
My ‘Top 5’ Fix It Strategy
After answering those two critical questions I just reviewed, I had an idea of where I stood on my goals and what might be getting in my way of achieving them.
#1 Get Help
Your version of help may look different and that’s okay. Some may seek a counsellor, mentor, coach, trusted friend or a loved one. I reached out to a couple people – a good close colleague and also my mentor. I booked time on their calendars to get their insight and inspiration. Just having this support and people to stand by me was so powerful.
As encouraging and insightful as they were, at the end of the day it was up to me to actually DO something about this situation.
If you’ve heard me speak before, you’ve heard me say, the best medicine for a feeling of doom around the lack of accomplishment is to take action. However small it may be, it is vital to just take action.
My mentor had to remind me of all I knew about goal setting and staying accountable to my goals.
#2 Break it Down
I worked a bit on distilling down my big global goals into smaller goals that I could achieve in say 30 days. From there I worked hard to identify a set of tasks I needed to do in order to achieve those monthly goals.
This picture left me feeling much more excited and motivated to start DOING!
Don’t get me wrong, even though I was all set on WHAT I needed to do, I still had to actually DO it.
#3 Get an Accountability Partner
The next action I took was asking a good friend who I knew also had some goals of her own to achieve, if she’d like to be accountability buddies. What we agreed to is sharing our task list for the week via text or a quick video call and then at the end of the week checking in via text to get an update. Just knowing you have to report back to someone can improve the likelihood you will act on those tasks by at least 75%. I mean I didn’t want to let her down!
#4 Ask for Help
Next, it was time to determine if some of the items on my task list were beyond my expertise. This put me in a good spot to know where to focus my own efforts and where I needed to hire out or ask a trusted colleague for support. Remember, help doesn’t always have to cost money.
#5 Accomplish a Daily Short List
I’m a visual learner, so this tactic worked for me and still does to this day.
In the beginning (ahem, two weeks ago!), I was so far gone down the path of “I can’t” and “I’ll never” that I knew I needed to take even the smallest of steps to reach my goals. So, each morning I took out a sharpie and a post-it note and wrote down only THREE actions I needed to take that day.
Some of them were not even related to my goal, but I had to start somewhere. Movement of any kind helps create momentum in other areas.
My initial Post-its looked like:
Number 1: Brainstorm list of social media post topics.
Number 2: Meal prep for dinner.
Number 3: Drive boys to their basketball practice.
Just by virtue of writing these down and crossing them off, helped boost my energy. In the beginning seeing daily that I was getting “something” done and being able to look at the end of the week at how much I did do whether it be for home or work, helped immensely.
It took a couple weeks, but my Post-its eventually turned more into goal-related tasks.
Later on down the road, I maybe posting my whole goal plan or task list, but for now, I’m not going to get ahead of myself. And I suggest you don’t either.
What are your daily strides to the finish line?
I am confident that if you do these things you can get out of your slump and move forward too.
And as always, if I can be of any support, please reach out! I’m here to help you craft that plan & remind you of your greatness along the way!
The definition of Excellence:
You care more than others think is wise.
You risk more than others think is safe.
You dream more than others think is practical.
You expect more than others think is possible.
How will you be Excellent this year?
Carrie Reed is a personal development and leadership coach who facilitates workshops, retreats and strategic sessions designed to help individuals and teams discover, design and achieve their best in life (personally and professionally). She owns McHale Group, LLC an international consulting firm and is the founder of the Women’s Wizdom site – a one-stop-shop for women to develop and explore their life’s possibilities in connection with other women. She is also founder of the Williamson County chapter of 100 Women Who Care – a philanthropy dedicated to providing service and funds to support local 501c3 organizations. She is the proud mama to two boys and enjoys spending time exploring all the fun adventures this world has to offer.
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www.mchalegroup.us | carie@mchalegroup.us