Small Steps for Big Dreams

In this episode, my focus is on planning your next steps once you’ve decided on a goal to strive for. Learning how to invest your energy wisely can truly change everything.

Here are three key takeaways for you:

• Focus on One Priority: Identify what truly matters right now and direct your energy there for 3-week “sprints”. 
• Plan Small, Aligned Actions: Break your priority into small steps. Schedule these steps like important appointments, matching your time and energy. 
• Reflect and Pivot: After each sprint, look back: What worked? What didn’t? Use what you learn to make a small pivot and plan your next steps with confidence and clarity 

Links 

• Join Kelly's Group Coaching Program
• Join Kelly’s Free community on Skool

 Let's connect.

I am cheering for you!

Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Tibbitts and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self-awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self-awareness changes everything. Let's get started. This week we're going to be talking about how to invest it in what's important to us. We're going to start with a power thought. This is from Gabby Bernstein, and it says, I am patient knowing that whatever is of the highest good is coming to me. If you were to close your eyes and take a breath as I say this to you, I am patient knowing that whatever is of the highest good is coming to me. How does that feel in your body? Does that feel true? Does it feel possible? And if it doesn't quite feel possible yet, then let's put that on at the beginning of the sentence. It's possible that I'm patient. It's possible I'm patient because I know that whatever is of the highest good is coming to me. If we can believe that, then we don't have to rush. Over the course of the year in my coaching program, I say that there are five seasons. You can have as many seasons as fit your life. For me, it's winter, spring, summer, fall, and then also the holiday season. But if I was doing this and my children were still young, there was dance season that took up all of May, and it was the focus of what we did If they were in a play that would've gotten its own season. I'm thinking about spring. From where we are now until when summer begins. I'd love for you to think about spring. We can walk slowly. My weeks start on a Sunday. If want your sprints to begin today, Tuesday to Monday, could be week one, and then week two and week three. For the next few weeks I'm going to have three sprints. Three weeks. Three weeks. Three weeks. That's going to get me pretty close to the beginning of summer. I'm patient knowing that whatever is of the highest good is coming to me. That's a power thought to guide me through the spring. I'm patient. I can go as slow as I need to with small action steps, moving me in the right direction because whatever is of the highest good is coming to me. Sprint one, sprint two, sprint three. So we talked about the Wheel of life, taking a circle and dividing it into slices. There's you, and your relationships and your home and your work for pay, and the volunteer work you bring into the world and your friendships and your fun. Each of those areas are important, but we can only focus on one priority at a time because that's what the word priority means. It means one. We start by taking one slice of this pie of life we've been given and we focus on it for three weeks. I was listening to my podcast about this and I said I was going to focus on my closet because spring was coming. And then it has been miserable in New Hampshire. It has been bitterly cold and snowing. This was my first day needing my spring closed, and I was so glad I had worked on that project, because the weather as it does, it went from freezing cold to really hot from like snowing last Tuesday to 80 degrees today. So I'm glad that I worked on my project. I went in with a big idea that my friend Ellen gave me, which is I want my closet to be my friend. It's very helpful for each of these sprints if you have a big idea. I want my closet to be my friend. I want my business to get my best energy because I need to move this dream forward. It's time to bring this goodness into the world, whatever it is. At the start of your sprint, there's three weeks. You have a big idea. What is moving you forward? I loved that my big idea for the first sprint was I want my closet to be my friend. Then every decision I made was moving me in that direction of a closet that wasn't full with clothes that don't fit or wear the wrong season, or made me feel bad about myself. And now for this next season, it is about my company and the dream that is important to me Becoming a life coach that helps overwhelmed, exhausted women live with a vibrant life. For the next three weeks, we want to start with something small. Our brain loves the idea that everything is possible, and we try then to fit too many things in too small periods of time. As humans, we tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term, but we also underestimate what we can do in the long term. So we have three, three week sprints that we're focusing on before we get to summer. What can we do between now and summer? So in the life circle, you chose one pie slice, and in that pie slice, you're choosing one priority to focus on for just three weeks. How can you move from where you are closer to where you want to be in the next three weeks? What small steps can you take? You pick the number that feels aligned to you in your gut. If you choose five five places that you will do this work over the next three weeks, you want to hold it with the same energy as you would a doctor or a dentist appointment. Now of course, even if you had a doctor or dentist appointment, if something really important happen, you'd have to move that appointment. But nine times out of 10. You would show up on time for that appointment. That's what we want to do for these next five steps. If your goal was to become more consistent this spring with daily exercise, because it's important to you, you'd pick five times over the next three weeks. And maybe your human brain is saying that's not enough. The good news is you can do more. But these are the five we're going to hold ourselves accountable for. What we're looking for is a match of our time and our energy. When I first began coaching, my coach helped me understand that energy goes up and down like an ocean wave. Throughout your day, you have mental, emotional, physical energy. If your goal was to physically work out and you chose the time of day when you had that slump of energy and all you want to do is take a nap, that wouldn't be very kind and loving. So pick five days in the next three weeks, and pick a block of time, morning after the kids leave for school, after lunch, before dinner, after you do your evening routine, whatever it is, five days. Five times, and put them in your calendar system, whatever that is. Some of us use a physical calendar, some of us put it on our phones, into a Trello. We might use the calendar that hangs on the wall. Pick five different time blocks that move whatever this important goal is forward in the smallest step that feel like ease. So if you were saying that you wanted to grow your substack, it might be on Monday, you're going to research on Tuesday, you're going to write. The following Friday, you're going to edit, then you're going to post, and then you're going to follow up with whoever connects with you through your substack. Five small steps with a time and a date and a place. The goal is to match your time and your energy. It would be unkind to choose a time of day that is not best. So to summarize, first, you're noticing what's important to you, and the reason it's important is because it's important to you. Once you've decided on your priority, then you're going to choose your small action steps. Five of them. You're going to choose the time and the place, write it into your calendar. And then hold that energy just like you would for a doctor's appointment. Make sure that it is something that you're truly going to show up for. And then once we get through our first sprint, we'll come back and reflect what worked, what didn't work, what would we do differently. And the decision that we make to do something differently is our pivot. We're going to notice what that pivot will be. We'll be back with our next step. Thank you for joining the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encourage you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose-filled life. And if you'd like to learn more. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly tibbits life coach, or visit my website kelly tibbits.com. I look forward to connecting again soon.