Transcripts for Episode 122

These transcripts were generated by robots, not writers.

Stacy: Hello. Hello. I’m really happy to be here with you this week. I’m recording this episode almost in real time.

Normally I record at least one, two, sometimes three plus weeks in advance for episodes, but I am actually recording this one the day it drops. And I’ve been just in full on all the calls with all the aspiring authors welcoming new students into my program, new coaching clients. It’s been so fun and such a whirlwind. And every time we go through these stages of opening a program and closing it, there’s so much great momentum. And at the end of it, I’m like, all right, I need a break. I need to relax a little bit. So that’s been going on. I’m also looking forward to a friend coming into town this weekend, living abroad. When you have a friend come into town and stay with you, it’s amazing because we obviously have amazing friends here. I mean, I guess it’s not obvious, but we do.

We have amazing friends here. But it’s also really nice to have close friends come in and just stay with us. It’s so lovely. So I’m looking forward to that. And today I had actually planned this whole other topic that I had actually done a bunch of prep on. I already had all the notes done. I printed out something I was going to read and highlight in advance to share with you, and I will still do that eventually. But today I got inspired by a conversation that I had with one of my team members and were talking about apparently, and I did not prep this, I did not fact check this, but apparently the Monday of this week, so which would have been the 15 January is apparently like the hardest Monday of the year. And I think she referred to it as Blue Monday.

If you’re listening to this and you’re like, this is all out of whack, just let me know. Send me a note at hello@staceyanis.com and educate me. I’m happy to learn. Certainly I’ll be looking this up after as well. But even without looking that up, I know that there has to be truth to that because I imagine that if you have a goal that you have set for the new year, you might be feeling a little bit of waning motivation. If you’re watching on YouTube, my cat may be prancing across the screen every now and then, you may be having a little bit of waning motivation, and I’m even feeling it a little bit. I set these goals this year, among other things.

Among other goals, I have a goal to learn Portuguese and to learn the piano, and I’ve been really gung ho on Portuguese, and I am finding it a little harder to enthusiastically show up for my goal every day. And so that got me thinking about how do you stay in it for the long haul? How do you write that book that you want to write? Or how do you achieve your goal of location independence or learn a language or I don’t know anything, learn anything or do anything or achieve anything. And I will say that while there are many things that I could improve at, one of the things I amazing at is goal achievement.

When I set my mind to something, I am really good at setting the vision, creating a strategy, and probably most important, actually showing up for that strategy and completing it. And that’s a lot of why people hire me to support them on their books, because I know that magic, I know how to do that. But they also hire me because of accountability, which is a piece that I’ve learned that I really need as part of my journey. When I was, I think, younger and didn’t have so many responsibilities and different things, I don’t think accountability felt as important. But even as I say that when you’re younger, you have mentors and you have college, and you have all these things that are kind of holding you accountable. So maybe that’s not true.

Maybe it’s that those wear off and then you have to create your own. And so I was on a walk today, and I was listening to a podcast that had to do with a goal that I’m working toward. And it got me thinking, how does one set a goal and maintain that goal and actually show up and do the slog, finish it, get it done, make it happen, and arrive at the other side having accomplished something big? And so I made some notes and I wanted to share some ideas with you on how I do it and what I have seen now contributing to more than 100 books. Some of those I wrote, many of them I coached or early in my career edited. How do you do that? How do you maintain focus? How do you keep it a hard goal?

Along with my books that I’ve written or coached or contributed to, we’ve moved abroad. That’s a huge goal. I did learn one language, Spanish. It’s rusty. Don’t test me, please. Other smaller things. I learned to drive a stick shift. I learned to ride clipless in a bicycle, which means clipped in, which makes no sense to me. These are little things. Those are little, but they’re things that you have to take a risk and be brave and be willing to do the work to figure it out. Bicycle, maybe work is not so much, but I will say the first time I fell over and I got all bloody, I had to get back on that bike.

That did require not only the courage, I guess, to get back on, but also the discipline to do it again, rather than just being scared and not trying again. So here are some things that I do that I thought might be helpful for you and things that I would tell you if you’re my client, that I would advise you to do if you’re working toward a big goal. So number one is to immerse yourself in the thing and as an example, subscribe to a podcast that keeps you inspired. This podcast may be part of that for you, simply touching in on books, location, independence, whatever the thing is that you came here to get from our time together in this podcast, whatever that is, this is part of goal achievement. You can also listen to audiobooks.

I love to read a physical book, but I find that I can’t really absorb as much as I need to or want to learn and do some of the things I want to do. So an audiobook is such a great resource for that you can get a coach. And this, depending on your budget, could be really a wide range. It could be a community that you join at a lower fee. It could be a group coaching program, it could be one one coaching. As an example, last year I joined a group mentorship coaching. So it was a small group, I think there were seven of us and that was really wonderful.

I got a lot out of it and I wanted more, so I asked, well, I followed up with the woman leading it and I’m set to continue with her for one one coaching mentorship for the first four months of the year. And so for me, that’s an important way that I’m keeping connected to my goals. I’m also tapping into the resource of this person as my coach mentor. Another thing that I do in business is I am a member of entrepreneurs organization in the accelerator program, I should say just to clarify, because there’s two stages of it. There’s the accelerator program and then there’s the, I call it like grown up eo. These are broken up by revenue. So the grown up EO is once you hit a million in revenue.

So I’m in the accelerator program and not only did I join the program, but I’m very active. So I’m now on the board of our London chapter. I am currently helping co organize a joint learning day for all of Europe, which I will be mcg with a close friend of mine for about 200 entrepreneurs from all over Europe. That’s going to be such an amazing experience. But also I am tapping into the learning and resources of EO. I am also engaged in it. I am supporting the organization through my time and my energy and my personal investment. And that’s really important because you can hire somebody and that’s all well and good, or you can join a program and that’s great. But you can’t just show up for the once a month call.

You can’t just watch the videos or whatever it is that you do with this thing. You actually have to put in the energy and the time and that’s an important piece of it. You can also find an accountability. Budy. So in my case, I mentioned that it’s really important to me to learn Portuguese this year. And so what I did is I joined a class, which goes to my earlier point of getting a coach. I think class coach, those kind of go hand in hand. And so I joined a weekly class and I’m doing it with a friend. And so we’re texting each other. Do you do your homework. We’re in it together. I know that if I show up and I haven’t progressed, my friend’s not going to judge me. But we’re also there to support each other and cheer each other on.

What’s cool is that as I’ve worked toward this goal, I’ve had people around me saying, oh, let’s talk in Portuguese a little bit. So the farmer that we get our order from, Rita on my team, who’s Portuguese, she’s offered to speak Portuguese with me at the beginning of our one one calls each week. Those are ways that you kind of attract that accountability. Know, showing up for these, getting accountability, but also talking about your goals, which I hadn’t had on my list. I didn’t have it written down, but that’s super important. People probably get so tired of me talking about my goals. I bet my husband is like, oh, yeah, you want to learn Portuguese this year and finish your book? Okay, cool. Because you haven’t mentioned that a hundred times. He’s nicer than that.

But I’m sure that there are times when he’s like, I know you want to learn Portuguese, Stacey. Yes, I know. I’m sure if you follow me on Instagram, which you should, by the way. Instagram’s like my happy place now. On social at Stacey Ennis, I’m always talking about the book I’m working on. Well, now I’m working on a novel, kids novel, as well as my nonfiction book. I’m always talking about Portuguese that I’m learning that haven’t talked so much about the piano because to be honest, I’m really self conscious about that. But now I’m flagging for myself. Why am I self conscious? Because you have to fumble and be messy and be okay looking silly. So, okay, I’m, like, coaching myself now. That’s silly.

As soon as I get out and start talking about it more and maybe share some of my really bad piano playing, it’ll take the pressure off of me, and I will feel better about it. So go follow me on Instagram, and I am going to commit to posting something about the piano, even if I feel really silly about it. And talking about it to your friends online, to your email community, to your mom, whoever it is. It’s so helpful and so important. And then there’s measure. It’s so important. I had this personal perspective as an identity, as being bad at numbers. I had this for most of my life. And it turns out I actually have, after doing some testing, an aptitude for numbers. Can you believe that somebody who said I’m bad at numbers. I have a natural aptitude for numbers.

It’s just that I’m really good with mental math and not so good with math that I need to write down and figure out on paper. And once I tapped into that and started setting measurable goals, it made everything clear. So as an example, I have every year I set revenue goals and then I set specific ways that I’m going to accomplish it. So if my revenue goal is x for this type of work that I do, I will define that it’s x number of clients at x dollar amount. And now to keep accountable to that, I am tracking that. And so I am going to be keeping close track all year to see where I’m measuring against the goals that I’ve set for the year.

A good way to do that in books, if you’re writing a book, is to track your word count or even your project as a whole. You can set measurable goals for yourself. So if you go back to the bonus episode, I did a couple, well, I guess it was last week on a timeline to finish your book. Start with that 18 month timeline that I gave you in that episode. Listen to that episode, get all the things that you need to do to plan those 18 months and then set clear goals for yourself. Use something that can help you track it. I use Asana. You can use paper and pen, it doesn’t really matter, but use that tool to help you keep track along the way. Not in a post mortem, in a retrospective, but actually as you go.

And you will be amazed at what you can achieve with regular check ins. I do this across my business. I haven’t done as much across my life, so that’s got me thinking about what I could do in my own life. Another thing, again, not in my notes, but it just had me thinking about it. My word for the year is thrive, but my mantra for the day is just do it. Which is not Nike related. It’s just that I find myself putting off things a lot that are not fun or that there’s a little bit more slogginess needed to get going. So just as an example, I’ve had some legal forms that I needed to finalize. We had some updates and get out to clients that sat on my list for a long time.

And today I finally went through and finished what I needed to finish. So that’s an example. Some of it is. Sometimes it’s little tiny things around the house, or it’s a text that I need to send my sister about something, or want to, I should say, most of the time. So it’s that idea of just do it. And a lot of productivity gurus will say the two minute rule. They’ll give you the two minute rule, which I think is helpful. It’s a good measure. Like, if this will take two minutes, just do it now. And that’s often what I’ll use, but not always. It’s like two to five minutes.

And I should probably just take care of it, because with my brain, it’s just going to float around in the back of my head all day or for like a month until I finally do it. And I’m tired of that feeling. So that’s something I am using on a daily basis to just do the thing. Just do it. I heard on a podcast recently, something to the effect of, you would be amazed at how far you can go in a year or two years just by making small daily steps. And it’s so true right now. I am so bad at Portuguese. I can understand a lot. I can speak a little, but I’m really bad at it. I am not good at Portuguese. I’m just going to own that in one year by the end of 2024.

I know based on previous goals I’ve accomplished that I can be conversationally fluent, which is my goal. It’s hard to picture myself right now actually having a full conversation in Portuguese because I’m so bad at it. Like, really bad, y’all, really bad. But I know that all the other things I’ve done, writing a book, growing a business, moving abroad, all the things, I was really bad at them in the beginning. I was bad. I had to show up regularly. And I know that in a year, I can be in such a different place, and you can, too. So on this January 17, when you’re listening to this, or this could be a year from now, maybe you’ve gone back on some episodes, or maybe it’s mid year and you’re catching up on some binge, listening to some old episodes.

Whenever it is, please just know that you have the ability and the capacity to accomplish any goal that you set for yourself. And yes, you need the vision. Yes, you need the strategy. But a lot of it really comes down to that daily touch base, touch in, check in, do the thing, just do it. And another piece that you can pull just from the Stacy tool bag is five minutes. If you are having a hard time sitting down and writing for 45 minutes or working on your business for an hour, start with five minutes. Set your part five minutes. You may stop at five minutes and that’s fine. And you can feel good that you at least touched it that day. But you might be amazed at how many times you will go past that five minutes.

Because a lot of times it’s just about getting started. And then after you get started, you have to actually get started every day. It’s not like you just start one day and boy howdy, you’re on the floating goal train. Whatever it is, you have to restart it every day. You have to start every day to maintain that momentum. So wherever you are in your life or your goals in your day, I really hope that this encourages you to know that you have got this. You have got this. You can do it. Show up, do the work, and you will accomplish things that are beyond your wildest imagination right now. Thank you so much for joining me this week.

I want to thank, as always, our producer Rita Dominguez, who makes this fine show possible, pings me on Whatsapp to remind me to record and do other things. Edit, get it published. I deeply appreciate her work. And also to Catherine Fishman for project support. I’m so grateful for her project management and helping keep all the things running. If you love this show and you want to support my work, could you take 1 minute right now to leave a five star review and write something nice? It could be one sentence or one word or two words. Whatever you’re feeling today, it truly makes a huge difference and I would really appreciate it. And that’s it for today’s show. I hope you like this short and sweet episode, and I hope it encourages you today. I will be back with you before you know it.