Introduction
Welcome back to a new episode of the Coaching Hive podcast. I am so excited. You’re here with me today. We are starting a brand-new month, November, and we are heading into the end of 2021. And I, for one, want to make sure that I’m ending the year on a strong note. Last month in October, the podcast really focused on getting on stock.
This is something that we focused on inside the Coaching Hive with the members. And it’s something that I talked with you briefly over the month with last month. So when you get unstuck, that’s a great thing. It means that you are starting to move and movement means progress. So how do you measure that progress? That is where the coaching had members are focusing their month of November.
And today, what I’d like to do is kind of bring you into the loop with our Coaching Hive members just a little bit, and give you a taste of what things you might think about as you start to explore your next steps. So if you are getting unstuck, that means you’re ready to take some action, right? And one of the places that can move you right back into feeling stuck is this overwhelm chances are you have some sticky notes somewhere, maybe it’s on your phone. Maybe it’s an actual sticky note and it has 8,000 things listed. You have a nice long to-do list. You’re excited you have all of these things to do. And I know this to be true because I have talked with many of you over the months, over the years. And one of the biggest things that I hear time and again, in fact, it happened just today as I was talking with another coach and she said, I have all of these ideas. I don’t know where to get started. So if this month is all about measuring progress, that means we have to actually get started, take a step, choose an action, and then follow through.
If you are feeling like, yeah, ready to get started, I’m ready to get unstuck. I want to make that progress. So I have something to measure. You are in the right place today. We are going to talk about choosing that right first step for you so that you can then start looking at how far you’ve come and what those next possible steps might be. If you are ready, let’s go ahead and jump in.
Taking Action
So today we’re thinking first steps, because we want to be able to measure the progress we’ve made on those first steps. If you have a tip, a to-do list, if you have a sticky note nearby, here’s what I want you to do, pull it out. So you can pause the podcast pulled out that to-do list or that sticky note.
And I want you to put a star or highlight the, that you feel like would give you the most joy to tackle right now. What would give you the most joy? The most sense of fulfillment and the most sense of progress right now, choose just one or two items. Ideally, just one. But if you can’t choose, choose one or two items that would give you that great sense of fulfillment and then take a step back.
I want you to reflect on why you chose those specific items. Is it because they’re easy? Is it because they can be accomplished quickly? Is it because you know that it will lay the foundation for everything that follows in your business? Why did you choose that item or two off of your to-do list? Now, what happens if you don’t actually have a, to do list? I know that some of you are creatives. You have all of these ideas in your head, but you don’t necessarily get into the planning all that much. So you don’t have 8,000 sticky notes like I have on my desk. And that’s okay. When you are thinking about what one or two items would give you the most joy, the most fulfillment and that most sense of progress, search your memory stores, search those lists in your brain. And I want you to get one or two down on paper. The reason that I’m asking you to put something down on paper, is it the physical act of writing will help you to connect with that task more? It will help you to decide, is this something I’m really invested in or is it something that I want to go find the big eraser and erase what I have just written?
Okay. So are you with me? Do you have one or two items now? Whether they came from an existing to-do list or sticky note, or they came from inside that list of things in your brain, are you ready? Okay. You have that. Let’s let’s talk just as though you have one item. When you look at that item, can you break it down into pieces?
If the answer is yes. I want you to go ahead and break that item down into a few small manageable chunks. Maybe that’s five chunks, one little chunk per day. This week, maybe it’s seven chunks. Maybe you realize that one item is really 10 days worth of work. So you break it down into 10 chunks, whatever works for you.
If that item is so simple already, that’s amazing. I want you to just kind of wait and let everyone catch up. And then we’re going to talk about what comes next. So if you need to pause and break that down, go ahead and do that right now. If you have kind of wandered off in your brain and you’re thinking, oh,
I know what this is talking about. I know where Dr. Morris going. I don’t need to really listen, come back to me, focus for a moment. I want to make sure that as you accomplishing this task, whether it’s breaking it down or realizing that your task is already so simple, that you can tackle it right in one step. I want you to think about when you’re going to start that task.
When are you going to get started on the breakdown of the tasks? So that very first task that you’ve broken out or the simple task that you’ve already identified. When are you going to start? Is it today? Is it tomorrow? I need you to pinpoint that moment. When is it happening? Because when you pinpoint it now it’s not, I’ll do it later.
I’ll do it tomorrow. Oh, it’s next week. It’s next month. It’s 2022. And I have not yet started that list that I started during Dr. Maura’s episode of the coaching I podcast at the beginning of November. That’s not what I want for you. I want you to be able to say yes, I have accomplished that task. And I have made progress because after all,
November is all about making progress, setting us up to move strongly into the new year and to achieve that vision that you are working toward. Okay? So far we have taken that to-do list, that sticky note or that mental list, and we pulled out one or two items that would give you great fulfillment, great joy. That sense of progress. You’ve identified that now you have broken it down into manageable tasks, steps, chunks, whatever word works for you is fine with me. Or you have noticed that that task is already simplified and it can be implemented in one single step. All right, what’s the next thing to do? The next thing is to actually go put it on your calendar, pull out your calendar, whether it’s a paper calendar like mine, or it is an electronic calendar, it’s a scheduling tool. I don’t care. Make sure that you are putting those tasks in because when it’s written down, when it is assigned to a day at a time, it is much more likely to get done. In essence, yes, you are creating a smart goal for yourself in order to make progress. Now, here we are at the measuring progress point of the conversation.
How are you going to know when you’ve made progress on these tasks? So is it simple, is it going to be a checkoff in your journal? Is it going to be highlighting it in your calendar? Is it going to be when you have a certain number of responses or you’ve sent a certain number of emails, let’s go ahead and figure out what does it look like to measure progress?
And this is where it gets sticky progress. Isn’t just about those quantifiable numbers. It’s also about the more subjective components of progress. What I mean here is how does it feel when you have accomplished that task? Even if it was teeny tiny, if it brings you a great sense of satisfaction, have you made progress? And the answer is yes. If you are moving in the direction of your vision, no matter how small it is, it’s progress. Even if the number that more objective measure would indicate that you have not done a whole lot. I want you to take into account the subjective progress measures. How does it feel? What’s your mood? Like how do, how do others react when you take that step? Because sometimes it’s not enough to measure the objective components of progress.
If you are simply measuring the object of components, you may miss out on a step that was incredibly important to your journey, simply because it didn’t look on paper. Like it was a big step, but it is if subjectively it gets you, your mindset more focused on that movement, that process, that progress, then it is important. And that is a big step that you’ve taken.
So we have to make sure not to discount the more subjective nature of measuring progress. And that is where I really want to have you focus this week is to think about what it looks like to measure progress in a more holistic manner. So we started in a very cut and dry way in this discussion today, and you identified one or two tasks from that to-do list, sticky note or mental list that felt important would bring you joy would bring you fulfillment, satisfaction or movement toward your vision. And then you broke it down into those manageable chunks so that you can implement that item or two items effectively and efficiently. Then you blocked it into your calendar so that it actually happens. And we don’t look two months from now saying, oh gosh, I had that really great idea and I didn’t implement it. Nope. You have it in your calendar. And now we have to measure the progress toward those tasks, those items that you identified at the beginning of the conversation, but we have to do it in a holistic way. And let me give you a quick comparison here. When you’re working with clients and you pull out a wellness wheel that has those different dimensions beyond a nutrition and exercise, you are taking a more holistic approach. Is it fair to look at someone’s health or ask them to examine their own health and wellbeing by only looking at nutrition and exercise? No, that’s not the whole picture. Likewise. Is it accurate, fair, right? To look at your own progress in your business and only look at one piece of it and the answer’s no, your business is just as multi-dimensional as your client’s health and wellbeing is multi-dimensional. We must take that. Multi-dimensional look that holistic look at everything that we do now that may seem tiring. It may seem exhausting. It may seem overwhelming. However, I promise you that if you make that commitment, you will notice the little things you will notice. Those moments where it’s different.
You will notice those little tasks that were seemingly little brought you the most shift, whether it’s mindset momentum, or what have you. Now you get to be on the lookout for those opportunities and those ideas and that movement, but it only happens when you take a more holistic approach to measuring progress. So what do you think, how are you feeling? I want you to stop for a moment and think about everything that we just talked about in the last 15 minutes or so maybe a little bit less and examine how that might be different than the approach you have previously taken toward implementing those next steps.
Think about what it might mean to have those more subjective measures of progress. Will it increase your motivation? Will it allow you to get excited and celebrate earlier and more often? Probably to both. It will probably increase your motivation. It will probably help you to gain that momentum and get excited about all of the next steps that you have along the way.
Conclusions
I would love to know, send me a DM and let me know what item you are focusing on so that we can then throughout the month, measure progress toward that item and measure progress more effectively toward your vision. It starts with one thing twos, one thing, and that looks different for everyone. Everyone’s business is different. Everyone’s needs are different. Choose the one thing that works for you for some people that is building their social media presence for other people, it’s going out and meeting people in the community, building those community relationships for others, it’s returning phone calls for others. It might be sending a meaningful email to their past and future and current clients. What does it look like for you? Maybe it’s learning about a new tool with the understanding that you’re not going to get yourself sucked into eight new trainings, just because you wanted to learn about one new tool. So what is your item? Let me know in a DM, what’s your item and what’s your timeline and how are you going to measure your progress? I want to know that subjective, that more objective approach. And I’d love to hear what you think until next week. I wish you all the best good health and of course, great progress toward your coaching goals for the week. Enjoy. And I’ll see you back here next week for another episode of the Coaching Hive podcast.
~ Dr. Moira
