I HAVE A MESSAGE BUT I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START
This is my all new AmplifyHER series where I’m just digging in and answering questions that I get quite often from women. Hopefully women like you, who are visionaries, powerhouses and they’re ready to turn their message into a movement.
So the question that I am answering today on this video is “Where do I start?” I get so many people reaching out to me just asking “How do I get started? I have this idea for an organization, a non-profit, a book and I want to speak more. All of these things. So what I’m talking about today is three things that you can do to get started.
That is one of the most frustrating places to be and let me tell you if you are someone who has a big vision it’s easy to just have so many ideas that you really can get stuck. So that’s what we’re talking about today and the first thing that I would encourage you to do, the first thing that
you want to do when you’re thinking about where do I start?
Number ONE
Write it out, write it out! That seems so basic but when you take pen to paper or
I guess fingertips to keyboard so much can happen just by having a clear vision
and writing that plan out. So if you’re wondering:
Where do I start?
How do I get started?
Brain Dump…You probably have a gazillion ideas if you are a visionary but you want to start with the end in mind. So write out what the full vision would look like for you. It may not go as planned it may not be exactly what you’re expecting but write out the entire vision. Write what you see. One of the exercises that I do so often as well as some of the women that I work with is telling them to imagine their 100 year old self in a rocking chair reflecting back on their life and how everything has been amazing.
What would that look like?
If you want more details on that you can definitely get plugged in to the AmplifyHER membership that I have and we go every single week there’s a new training to help you pull some of this vision. It will help pull the ideas out.
This is one simple place that you can start and that’s literally just writing it out. So if you found yourself in a place where you’re feeling kind of uncertain on the first step once you’ve had the entire vision I promise you something is going to stand out as to what you can do today. There’s this really good book that I always recommend to so many people The One Thing I’m telling you all! Available Here. That book has changed my productivity like nothing else and I read it years ago and what’s so amazing about it is that it helps you get down to the one thing that you should be doing today.
Too often we can get so overwhelmed by what we’re trying to get done years from now months from now stuff that has literally nothing to do with today. When you get overwhelmed by those things, the natural response is that you get basically paralyzed by today you don’t even know what to do today because you’re so busy thinking about how things will unfold months and years from now. So taking a principle from the one thing as I said number one You’re writing out the big vision and from that big vision you can basically reverse engineer down to today. You will know what exactly it is that you could be doing right now because if you’re not waking up every single day with a clear plan of action you’re not going to see results.
I won’t ever forget there was someone that I spoke with but this was years ago. I spoke with her years ago and she was telling me about this vision that she had basically to start her own nonprofit and this vision, this idea it was great. It was a really good idea but I just knew that when I left that meeting nothing was going to happen because it was as if she had this thought that years from now her nonprofit was just gonna magically just take place and ‘I’m like it doesn’t work like that. The seeds that you’re planting right now, the things that you do today that’s what opens the doors for the things down the line. There are some exceptions to the rule.
People go viral you know really cool opportunities come but if you want consistency, if you want longevity it is so important that you start identifying the actions that you need to take today before you get to tomorrow.
The second thing that I would encourage you to do if you’re trying to figure out where to start, not only are you beginning with the end in mind you must identify obstacles that will come up. I share this because I don’t know if any of you are fans of Zig Ziglar. I love Zig Ziglar but he talked and he talked about how people will spend an entire year just going on with excuses.
“ I’m going to get started once the kids are back in school.”
“You know the holidays are coming up… I’m going to get started once the I’m going to wait until after the holidays.”
“ oh you know right after the holidays here comes…”
Something else and we keep making all of these excuses. We keep putting it off and off and off until nothing’s happened. Years have passed and when you’re thinking about what action you should take is so important that you identify your most common obstacles. If your common obstacle is that you procrastinate or that if you get overwhelmed you tend to quit. If someone gives you negative feedback then you get disheartened. You just throw in the towel. Identify those things that typically trip you up because if you can get clear on what it is that keeps you stuck if you can identify those things that have you hesitating. Those things that have you afraid to step out or that usually end up being the biggest obstacle for you now.
You can create a plan of action so when that comes up you do not quit and I do this I think about this too with working out. I have been working out for years. I remember I actually went
through this period where I quit. I had to identify these obstacles because I already knew that certain things were gonna make me want to quit. Certain things like fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. Certain things like waking up and not feeling like it. Things like other opportunities coming along and wanting to hang out with my friends all kinds of stuff. So once I started identifying those obstacles I knew what I needed to do and I’ll never forget being on the phone with my best friend.
I was complaining borderline near tears “Oh my gosh every time I get focused I just eat chocolate chip cookies and I’m eating like six and seven at a time sometimes a dozen”
She said something so basic but I just I hadn’t thought of it. She said “Why do you keep buying
chocolate chip cookies? Don’t bring them in the house…You will not have the temptation if you stop bringing the chocolate chip cookies in your house”.
That sounds so basic like “Duh!”
But it was not basic for me. I didn’t think of it that way. I actually stopped buying the chocolate
chip cookies because I was going through the whole process of baking them, taking them out of the oven, and eating them. By just not bringing them in the house I eliminated that temptation.
I know that’s kind of like the lightweight version of what I’m driving home for you today but it’s in the small back to the basics consistent steps that you’re going to start seeing results so if you have a vision:
NUMBER ONE you’ve already taken time or I hope you have paused to write out the big picture of this vision and understand what the end will look like. Then secondly NUMBER TWO identify the obstacles. Understand what’s going to trip you up.
Have a plan of action. I did when it came to working out I realized if I finished my workout before 10 a.m. then I was more likely to stay consistent check it off and just be done with it and so that is how I was able to maintain and still have years of exercise instead of like falling off the
wagon after two weeks of working out and so that’s the first two things that I would tell you today if you have the question “I’m stuck where do I start ?”
NUMBER THREE is developing your daily routine. Now I feel like these things sound simple but I know I can speak for myself and I know so many people that have these big visions and they wonder why they can’t stay consistent. Well they don’t have a consistent daily routine and by consistent I mean what is it that you uniquely to you can you commit to. Some people get all hype like 5:00 a.m. club but I have a client that actually gets up at 5:00 a.m. but instead stays up all night because of the way that their life is set up. It’s more convenient because they have small children.
Don’t get stuck in what other people say you need to do in terms of what that routine needs to be. You do however want to develop a routine. For that reason I actually created the focus fast. It’s something that I do every day and the focus fast is basically a book that I wrote because I was so stuck I was in a place where I could not for the life of me get anything done. I could get
hyped for a day but consistency, forget about it/ You can go through my youtube right now and see how often I’ve fallen off with the consistency and then when I developed the focus fast.
It was basically a 21-day fast I created based off of people that I found to be successful people that were hitting their results and I wanted those results. So I realized that there were five things
that when I was doing these five things on a consistent basis my life catapulted. My vision grew and my life shifted. So you can go to www.TheFocusFast.com . I dare you to take the challenge. You can take the actual challenge with me talking to you every single day.
Develop a daily routine, develop a consistent routine. If you don’t have a consistent routine I can guarantee you’re going to keep finding yourself back in this place of being stuck or you will get to a place where things aren’t happening but you’re so overwhelmed you can’t enjoy it. There is something so powerful about habits because when you create these habits that is what will make it feel like autopilot. It will not even feel like work and that’s what you want to get to. There are certain things and I’ll just break down really quick the focus fast part of it is, I’m Feeding
your mind every day. Outlining your day. Conditioning your body. Being Urgent with the tasks that actually matter and taking time to visualize and See yourself successful.Those are things that I now do on autopilot and this isn’t about me, honey this is about you making that vision and allowing it to take place!
Understand that the vision that you have is beyond you. The days that I get up when I don’t want to the days that I step out when I don’t want to, the days that the women that I work with when they come to these events and they step on stage and they share their message a lot of times we think we’re just fighting for ourselves. I can guarantee you as cliche as it sounds there are literally people waiting for you to step out so you cannot afford to delay. You can’t afford to keep putting your goals and your dreams on the back burner because I for one believe it is not a coincidence that you have the vision that you have. It’s not a coincidence and so the more that
you ignore some of the basic steps, the longer it’s going to take for you to start seeing the fruit of that vision.
To recap recap for you guys number one, write the vision make it plain. Everything that you can think of that’s going to happen with the vision that you have write it out because if you’re stuck or if you’re not quite sure where to start you have to have a full picture of what it is that you’re actually even trying to accomplish.
Secondly, identify those obstacles understand the things that are going to try to trip you up because when you can eliminate those obstacles right at the beginning you just become unstoppable. Nothing’s going to stop you.
Finally the next thing that you want to do is develop a daily routine. If you don’t have a
daily routine if you don’t know where to start, I would encourage you to go to www.TheFocusFast.com Get the book and get the training. Whatever you need to do so that
you can start developing these habits. I would challenge you with the focus fast to decide on one thing that you’re going to accomplish in the next 21 days. One big shift that you’re going
to accomplish and it’s going to be so powerful for you!