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INSPIRING LIFE SCHOOL PODCAST

EPISODE  53 – BABY STEPS

 

 

dream big my friend podcast

 

 

 

INSPIRING LIFE SCHOOL PODCAST

EPISODE 53 TRANSCRIPT:

BABY STEPS

 

 

 

WELCOME TO THIS EPISODE WHICH IS ALL ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF TAKING BABY STEPS IN LIFE

 

 

So, I am really excited to speak about this topic because I feel like this strategy is the secret to all my success so far in life.

It is how I managed to write over 20 books, it’s how I started my four websites, it’s even how I started this podcast in 10 days…. all by taking the tiniest baby steps, so at no point did it feel like I was doing anything too overwhelming in one go.

So, I don’t know if you are anything like me but when I imagine accomplishing a massive goal, from the outset it always feels so scary and impossible.

 

Like there’s no way I will ever be able to write a novel with 100,000 words in it.

 

Or there’s no way I will ever be able to start my own business.

You yourself might think the same about a variety of different goals – like there’s no way I will be able to lose that much weight or save that much money or finish that degree or insert whatever impossible-sounding goal might have you stumped right now.

 

Now the philosophy behind this baby steps strategy is summarized beautifully by the quote:

 

How do you eat an elephant?

You do it one bite at a time.

Almost every goal you can think of (bar the most basic ones) can be broken down into a series of steps.

And when you focus instead on these tiny mini steps you need to achieve along the way, it suddenly feels doable, rather than overwhelming.

 

Remember if I tried to eat that elephant all in one go, I would choke, in fact it really is an impossible goal if I have this expectation that it needs to be done right now in the next few minutes.

 

But I choose instead to embrace patience and focused instead on one bite at a time.

Maybe even ten small bites each day, I would eventually get there in the end.

It only feels impossible if you think you need to achieve the goal immediately or you have an unrealistic timeline, even though it could be done if you were more realistic with your expectations.

 

So let’s use the goal of writing a book which is the perfect example for baby steps.

 

I have now written more than 20 books and I think I once counted that I had written more than one million words as a writer.

In fact, I’m guessing the total word count is closer to 2 million words now.

Anyway, I should note that I didn’t always find writing books easy. When I was 18, I started my first novel and I didn’t finish it until I was 27.

Yep, it took me forever – close to 10 years – because I hadn’t yet discovered my baby steps strategy so every time I thought of my goal which was to finish my novel I felt like a massive mountain I would never ever conquer.

 

I knew I needed a completely different strategy with my second book so I came up with a fantastic plan.

 

My goal was to complete a chick-lit fiction book of 100,000 words so I worked out that if I wrote 1,000 words a day every weekday (with view to having the weekends off) I could complete 5,000 words a week and 20,000 words every month.

The grand plan was to complete a final draft of 100,000 words within five months and then revise the book by the end of the sixth month.

 

So I set to work and stuck to my plan.

 

Because I made a solemn vow to absolutely NEVER, EVER go to bed without first completing my 1000 words, no matter how crazy my work day was (back then I was still working at an advertising agency and also running a life coaching business before and after my work hours).

I would do whatever I could to make this happen, whether it meant staying up late, waking up early or scribbling down notes during the day.

During this writing phase, I discovered that by writing every day like clockwork, I could tap into some weird inner reservoir of material.

After a while, the words started to flow out of me with little effort or pain.

I would often start the day having no idea what I was going to write next but the moment I sat down by the computer the ideas would just pour out of me.

I worked like a machine for five straight months, rain, hail or shine and I relished every weekend and especially the months that had 31 days in it because I knew it meant I could have a little break before I went on to complete the next 20,000 words the following month.

After five months I would finally wrap each book up at around 100,000 words (sometimes more and sometimes less, depending on my own good judgement) and during the sixth month I would go back and revise everything.

I ended up doing this three times in 18 months and completed PRETTY MANSNATCHERS, JUST A LITTLE BREAK and BEFORE I DIE during this time. Three novels approximately 100,000 words long each completed in six months using this baby steps strategy.

Now I should point out there were many years after those novel writing years that I used this strategy in a much more basic way.

So for example each time we bought a new house – and we have moved twice since the kids were born – rather than getting totally stressed by this goal I would break it down into the smallest steps possible.

 

For example:

 

  • Research mortgage and interest rates
  • Apply for a bank loan
  • Shortlist a few houses we loved
  • Book a property inspection
  • Ask for a contract
  • Organise a conveyancer to go over the contract
  • Make an offer
  • Book removalists
  • Find packing boxes

 

As you can probably tell, when you hear the goal BUY A NEW HOUSE that sounds so big and scary.

But when you look at each individual step – like find a conveyancer to go over the control or book removalists, it sounds doable.

Sure, it doesn’t mean that each baby step is necessarily easy…sometimes the baby steps are hard and time-consuming…but on this own, it’s achievable.

I like to think of it this way.

Let’s imagine each goal has 15 steps from start to finish.

 

If you aren’t thinking in terms of baby steps then it’s like you are getting in the boxing ring with all 15 opponents, staring at you in the face, gloves up, bouncing around, all wanting your attention now.

 

There’s no way you can face them all at once, there’s no way you will defeat them that way.

It’s no wonder that people just put their hands up in surrender or run away when they have broken down their goal in advance.

Baby steps on the other hand is when you get in the ring with one opponent at a time.

 

Except this time, you have researched your opponent, you know what to expect and what needs to be done, your focus is on ticking that box so you can move onto the next step.

 

One by one, that’s the goal – to stay focused on only one step at a time, never really looking too much to see what is coming next or just around the corner because you are focused on the here and now.

I now break down every big and small goal I have in life so that it feels like a no-brainer task, it feels doable and it a lot of the time it doesn’t take long to do.

If I have a goal that still feels scary or way too big, I consciously ask myself:

HOW CAN I BREAK IT DOWN?

And if one of the steps still feels big, I ask myself: CAN I BREAK IT DOWN EVEN FURTHER?

 

 

So, ask yourself: is this a strategy you can apply to your own goals in life?

How can you break down your goals into tiny baby steps?

 

Tonight, just before bed I want you to grab a notebook and pen and write this stuff down.

Take your biggest goal and look at it like a detective would study a case they are trying to solve.

What little steps make up the bigger goal?

 

Let’s just say you have a long-term goal to become an actor that might require a lot of little steps that can be broken down even further.

 

 

For example, let’s just say you have FIND AN AGENT and ATTEND AN ACTING WORKSHOP as one of your baby steps.  If that baby steps feels like it’s too much, break it down even further.

For that one baby step “find an agent”, you might break it down even further to smaller steps that might include:

 

  • Write a list of 20 agents in your city
  • Research their websites for how to apply
  • Shortlist agents to your Top 5 or maybe even order them in terms of preference – top pick down to least favorite.
  • Draft an email you can send it each agent
  • Or call them for an appointment

 

Suddenly this bigger baby step doesn’t feel so scary.

In fact, what you will soon discover is that plenty of baby steps can be completed in 15-minute spurts.

You don’t need much time to do that short task of finding 20 agents in your city.

Even though I have no desire of ever acting, it took me less than three minutes to google ACTING AGENTS SYDNEY and have a list of about 20 agents.

Next step is to click on their website.

All of them have an email address or query form so it would take about a minute to ask what the process is of applying to be part of their agency and so on.

 

So, break it down my friend.

 

And please do not discount the power of baby steps.

I promise you; it is way better than you sitting on the couch tonight binge-watching Netflix, which is of course is fine to do unless you have a goal that is niggling at the back of your mind and refusing to let you forget about it.

By all means watch Netflix if you want to but you can always delay it for half an hour while you go for a run around the block if your goal is to be fitter or write a page of your new book if your goal is to be an author or write that important email you have been avoiding if that email will take you one step closer to your goals.

 

As Martin Luther King Jr so wisely said “you don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

 

Honestly when I was writing my novels, I had no idea how the story what going to end and what I would be doing next week.

But I didn’t fuss about that stuff, I focused on today only and doing what needed to be done right now.

Little by little you will get there in the end, as long as you are moving in the right direction, as long as you are moving period.

 

Another quote I love is by Marci Shimoff who said:

 

“To make the quickest progress, you don’t have to take huge leaps.

You just have to take baby steps-and keep on taking them.

In Japan, they call this approach kaizen, which literally translates as ‘continual improvement.’

Using kaizen, great and lasting success is achieved through small, consistent steps.

It turns out that slow and steady is the best way to overcome your resistance to change.”

 

Remember the hare and tortoise fable.

 

Don’t be afraid to be that tortoise, even if he looks slow and cumbersome, he kept moving, didn’t stop and finished first in the end.

If you have a weight loss goal, did you know that if you focused on losing just one kilo per month – nothing more, nothing less – you will lose 12 kilos in the course of a year?

Or if you wrote just one page of your book each day – just one page – you will have written 365 pages by the end of the year?

Or if you exercised only 15 minutes every day – no more, no less – you would have spent 91 hours or almost a full four days that year engaged in exercise?

 

The easiest way to reach your goal is slowly and steadily, by taking baby steps.

 

Because those little steps will still move your forward and eventually add up to become something amazing.

 It really is such a simple recipe for recipe.

 

BABY STEPS + FOCUS +

NEVER GIVE UP ATTITUDE =

ACHIEVEMENT OF SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE GOALS

 

Just keep moving my friend.

As always thanks for much for being here with me.

I love and appreciate you all and can’t wait to catch you in the next episode.

 

 

 

Before You Go…

 

  • Grab your free gift: How To Stop Self-Sabotaging Yourself Guide (4 steps to finally get out of your own way) CLICK HERE
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  • Listen to my Inspiring Mom Life podcast on Spotify or via Apple Podcasts.