*Resources mentioned during the episode*
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One step at a time
Transcript:
You’re listening to reimagining success, the podcast where we help you reimagine your future, designing a life and career beyond the nine to five that allows you the freedom, flexibility, and fulfilment that you’ve been dreaming of. I’m your host, Anna Lundberg. Now let’s get started on those dreams.
Okay. So we’ve been talking about setting goals and looking at that big picture, sticking with it over the long haul. And so on something I wanna talk about today is breaking down those big goals. And in particular, I wanna talk about the one step. Yes. The one step trademark. No, not quite trademark, but it does come from my brand one step outside, which if you didn’t know, comes from the quote, everything you’ve ever wanted is one step outside. Your comfort zone is one step. So I really love this concept and it’s such a powerful tool to use. So have a look at why it can be so powerful, how it can work for you. If you have set the traditional new year’s resolutions, which of course I recommend against, but if you’ve done so nonetheless, if you have rather set the kind of goals that I talk about, if you’ve got your vision board, if you’ve got your core desired feelings and values and, and your picture vision and so on, that’s all well and good, but it can still seem incredibly overwhelming, right?
How am I ever going to get there? How do I get started?
And so this one idea, uh, that I’ve come across relatively recently is of micro resolutions. And, uh, there, there was an article in the media recently, of course, many articles on years, resolutions around January time. And the idea is that you break down the resolution. So rather than the classic, obviously get fit, lose weight, blah, blah, blah. You break it down into mini resolutions, not just mini, but micro <laugh>. So for example, and speaking of the, the fitness focus, I’ve literally broken down my fitness goal into steps with my, my personal trainer and coach Hannah. So when we started, it was some months ago and my average number of steps a day was about 4,000. I think that was even a good day. Um, when I was doing a run that was making up, you know, quite a short run, maybe three 4k that was making up a certain number of steps.
And then on Sundays, especially actually it was summer. So there’s no excuse what I was going to say, especially when the weather was bad, you know, it’s hard made with kids. That’s my excuse, my average steps. Weren’t very high. And interestingly, I think it’s interesting. I never really loved this idea of steps. My mom has long been obsessed with pedometers and of course there are a hugely, widely used tool in fitness, right. But it felt like another to do for me. And it’s just a bit tedious just to go for a walk and does it anyway, make a difference just walking, is that really going to burn fat, blah, blah, blah. So my average was around 4,000 now, recently, and it has been some months I’ve been checking in consistently. My average is around 12,000 and that’s, you know, not feeling great. It’s with kids, without kids with runs without runs.
And so over just a period of weeks, arguably but months, you know, I’ve really tripled the number, I guess, and gone over that kind of very far off target of 10,000. We were trying to get up to 8,000, initially 10,000, an average of 12,000, which means sometimes I do more and what’s really powerful for me, especially, is that I feel like I’ve totally reframed how I look at that extra activity. So again, before it used to be tedious, Ugh, you know, the post office’s closed for lunch, I’ve gotta come back later or Ugh, I have to do this extra errand. Now I look forward to that extra and I’m yes, I forgot something can go again or, oh, you know, Zach needs an extra walk or going. And luckily, Zach, who’s just, um, a little over one is at the moment, at least very tolerant of going for long walks can, I’ve got a couple of route there about an hour, which obviously gets in a decent amount of steps.
I do my runs three times a week. I’m trying to increase the length of that’s even Sophia. And I like to scooter around the block and that’s a few steps there going down to the shop, post office, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So it’s, it’s just interesting. I think how I’ve been able to reframe, having just made some minor tweaks over the last few weeks and months, once you’ve done that once you’ve focused on a specific thing. And of course that’s not the only thing I’ve done with Hannah with my, a coach, we’ve also looked at the food I’m meeting and I’ve done workouts and I’ve been running in. So, but I have also been walking even on the days I haven’t now to run a workout. So when I’ve not been very well when I’ve not, uh, for whatever reason, been able to fit a workout in, I’ve really tried to still hit those steps.
And then as I said, then I can layer on other things. And that’s, what’s interesting and powerful about the micro resolutions. I seem to be saying interesting and powerful quite a lot, but, but the one step is very interesting and very powerful. <laugh> uh, so micro resolutions really making it Dey tiny. So it’s easy to track. It’s manageable, it feels achievable. And ultimately that’s going to, you know, equipment and the next month you can layer on and another micro resolution and stick to that. Right? So that’s fitness and that’s the cliche kind of resolution. Let’s think of another goal, like start business, write book, do website. These are massive humongous goals. And if you have any of these, I have, you know, create course on my to-do list. That’s not a to-do, that’s a project. That’s not a, a step. It’s not a plan. It’s really just kind of a, an idea I suppose.
And so we need to be breaking that down, thinking about how can we get started if you’ve never written a book and you’re not even writing at the moment. That was me some years ago. And still sometimes now what about writing for 30 minutes every day? In fact, 30 minutes every day sounds like a lot to me, 10 minutes every day, one page every day, five minutes, whatever that is. Right. Really get it down so small that there’s no way Jose, that you’ll ever not do those X number of minutes or pages or whatever it is once you do that, then you’ll see. Okay, wow, that’s manageable. I can do a little bit more. I can do a little bit more. And before you know it, you will have written your mag Opus. Maybe it’s rather an action, like, okay, I’m going to speak to one person a day, connect with one new person a day, speak to this certain person who’s done this before.
Who knows what to do, uh, sit down and look at your finer answers, research, coaches, whatever it is, right? The research programmes. So it’s not going straight from zero to a hundred. It’s really thinking what’s one thing I can do today. And I used to do a weekly post in our Facebook group. You know, one step Wednesday. I love a good alliteration. What’s one step you can take today to move you closer to your goals. And of course the goal would be to take that step every day. But even if you don’t take it every day, you know, arguably you will still have done it most days more than nothing. And again, over time, that’s, what’s going to get you to where you want to be, not quite on the one step, but in the same kind of vein I’ve long. And I may even have talked about it before, wanted to play more piano.
And I learned the ukulele in Hawaii during my digital nomad days and so on. And I’m sure I’ve talked about this idea of unicorn space, uh, by Eve Rodsky, which is finding that outlet for creative expression. What makes you uniquely you and piano? I’m not good at piano. I, I never loved practising . I love singing and I love musicals and I used to love Disney and so on. And I have the aspiration to be good as I do on many things. I want to be good at everything. Um, as, as that, uh, eternal good girl, but for me, it always seems overwhelming. Oh my goodness, I have the goal. If I’m gonna practise every day. And then of course I know I’m not going to, that just doesn’t fit with my identity. So then I don’t play at all. Whereas interestingly, there’s that word again recently?
I have actually just tried to sit down five, 10 minutes, play a couple of my songs. My songs of choice at the moment are I know him so well from chess and for good from wicked and memory, which is always my go to piece, which I always have the ambition to learn by heart and play perfectly in public. Let’s see how that goes, but I love it because to be honest, I don’t have a goal to be certainly not a concert pianist. Yes. Okay. I’d love to sit down spontaneously at the piano. And when a someone goes, Hey, play a song. I could play a perfect song, but whether or not that happens, I’m really just enjoying, sitting down for those few minutes and however busy we are. And I say this, you know, with many ambitions and projects in my business with two little kids with, you know, a big house project we’re doing, et cetera, et cetera, I can’t tell you how many things.
And, and we all have these, you know, very busy, um, lives and, and schedules and long to do less and so on. Even I can sit down five, 10 minutes even. I am not so important that I can’t possibly carve out a few moments. And it might be, you know, when, uh, when everyone else is out or luckily I have headphones, so it’s an electric piano. So I can play when the kids are sleeping. I don’t want anyone to hear me. You know? So just a few minutes, more or less every day, not every day I haven’t played yet today. Um, but I could do. And, and that makes such a difference. Again, it’s enjoying the journey as we talked about a couple of months ago and, and not thinking in black and white all or nothing. So coming back then to that one step, I want you to really think about what is one step I could take today.
So by all means break your big goals into micro resolutions and come up with one for every month this year, for example, if you want to.
But definitely if you’re finding that you’re procrastinating, if you’re finding that you’re overwhelmed, you think my goodness, this is never going to happen. Oh, I, I meant to write, you know, for two hours and I haven’t written at all, then please scale it back a little bit and think about just that one thing you could do. I always think that we get it backwards because we think, oh, we’ve gotta wait for that motivation to hit, and then we’ll do it. But that doesn’t happen as you may well have experience. So we have to take action in order to create motivation. It comes from doing, we create momentum. We take action. That then gives us confidence. It sparks new ideas.
It, it kick things off and, and off we go, right? So we have to take that step if I’m lying on the safer. And I’ve given this example before, if I’m lying on the safer thinking, oh, I need to get motivated to clean. I’m not gonna do it. Or I need to get motivated to do my workout. If I go look, I’m just gonna work out for five minutes. I’m just gonna wipe down that table top. Once I’m doing it. Oh, it’s not that bad, actually, I’m it. And Hey, I’m gonna do the full workout. I’m gonna clean the whole kitchen or whatever it is. So again, starting with a little step taking action then gets you. Clarity gives you confidence, creates momentum. And before you know it, you are much further along than if you had kept trying kind of scale the mountain in one big leap, right?
So that’s what I wanted to talk about today. The one step, so a bit of a theoretical concept, but also incredibly tangible. So whatever you’re working on, whatever stage of the career transition, you’re at business growth, uh, book writing, process podcast, launching website development update, try to break it down into one step. If it’s something that requires consistent effort. In my case, you know, fitness, that kind of thing, obviously, or writing a book, let’s say, it’s great to break it down into a specific goal. Let’s say five days out of se seven or whatever that could look like for you. We’ve got the kids in nursery three days a week now. So it could be for me three times a week, right? Rather than the full five, a or seven. So if it’s something that requires you to consistently show up, interact with people on Instagram or sending connection requests on LinkedIn, writing, uh, reading, doing your course, working on a programme, developing something, then break it into something that you’re going to show up and, and commit to doing it every day could still be three days out of seven, five of day, seven, whatever, if it’s more just that you have to get going, you haven’t even worked out what that regular consistent action is.
Then still try to break it down into one thing I can do today. And then once you’ve done that, what’s the next thing. What’s the next thing. And once you then got a bit of momentum and bit of confidence, again, then you can look ahead. Then you can, you know, get support to try to take bigger leaps, but at least for now just focus on doing something, send the email, pick up the phone, write the thing, do the thing. And that’s gonna really help you take that leap ultimately. So I wanna leave it there. And I’m going to wish you the best of luck with your one step. You wanna share it with me, do tag me on Instagram, ping me on LinkedIn, whatever your favourite social platform, but I’d love to hear what your project is, of course, but what your one step is that you are gonna commit to the second that you stop listening to this episode. And I look forward to seeing you back here next week. Bye for now.
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