Pause, Assess, Adjust

Intro Music:
Welcome to An Owner’s Guide for Your Life, the podcast that combines psychology, coaching, common sense and fun. I’m Tracey Browning, an entrepreneur, life coach, and lover of people. Now let’s talk about how to live love, make money and change the world.

Tracey:
Hey, I’m glad you’re here. This is episode 25, and I just want to stop a minute and say, ‘Way to go, Tracey!” 25 episodes. That’s something to celebrate. When I started this podcast a few months ago, it was really hard for me to envision getting to episode 25. This is, oh, man, every week stepping up to the plate and taking a big swing to release a podcast episode. And last week, releasing five podcast episodes. Oh, my goodness. So celebrate with me. And I’m saying this not to brag, but to celebrate. I’m doing hard things. I am a doer of hard things.

And you know what happens when you hear somebody or see somebody or you’re just kind of in the same general area of somebody who’s doing hard things? It encourages you- for you to do your own hard things. So that’s why I share it. Yay, me. 25 episodes.

All right. Which leads me right into what I want to talk about. Okay, if you’re just joining me, it’s not typical for me to do a daily episode. And I did five episodes last week because I’m participating in the National Podcast Post Month Challenge, which is to do 30 podcast episodes in 30 days.

I knew going into this that, yeah, buddy, this was going to be a challenge for sure. But again, I am a doer of hard things, so I don’t shy away from a challenge. I went into the challenge thinking that that meant I would release a podcast episode every day in the month of November. 30 straight days of a new episode, daily editions a little bit shorter than my normal ones, but still one podcast episode a day.

So last week I did five straight. I released one every weekday, and then I stopped to assess because here’s what I know about challenges. I did the 75 hard challenge, which I won’t go into a lot of details but if you know anything about 75 hard, that is a heck of a challenge. You’re exercising and dieting and drinking water and doing all these things to make yourself a better person. And if you miss one day, you have to start your 75 day count over.

I can do hard things. I really can. I’ve done hard things all my life, and what I’ve learned from doing the hard things is that when you start doing it, it’s good to do it for a little bit and then stop and assess.

So I ask, all right, am I getting what I want to get from this challenge? And am I honoring the spirit of the challenge? So I dove back in really quick to see what the requirements were. Two sentences I’ll read.

They say “There are no hard and fast rules as to how you do this. If on November 30, you have recorded 30 shows, then you win.” And by win, they just mean you successfully complete the challenge. I’m not beating anybody else out. This is a challenge against myself, and I compete best when I’m competing against myself.

So what is it I want to get from this challenge? I want to continue refining my voice and expanding my content and kind of playing around with forms and music and topics and just all kinds of things. This is a way for me to reach people, for people to get to know m- to know me, like me, trust me, because this is really about my life coaching business.

I’m a life and mindset coach. My ultimate goal is to be exposed to as many people as I can because I’ve got a lot of ways that I can help you get what you want in life, and this is one way that I can connect with you. So that’s my ultimate goal.

Now, when I’m looking at this daily podcasting, well, what can I adjust to get to my maximum benefit of being in this challenge and what I decided to do? I thought, well, instead of releasing a daily episode- there’s a difference in recording and releasing, right?

So instead of releasing an episode every day, I’ll let my weekends breathe. It’s so good to stop and take a breath. So I’m recording on the weekends. But I’m not releasing on the weekends. And what that’s going to mean is by the end of November, I will have 30, I might even have more than 30 episodes recorded. I will release an episode every weekday, but by the end of November, I’ll have episodes a little bit stockpiled to help me roll into December, and I’ll have more breathing room. It will be so good. Of all the months, not just that December is a holiday month, but I’ve got a lot going on business and work and family wise, too. So I’m really excited about that.

So when I went back and looked at all right, no hard and fast rules. Good. All right. So my intent and their intent of the challenge is to enjoy the process. I want to see who I become when I step up to the plate and take part in this challenge. What do I develop? Who do I reach? Who do I become? I’m a one woman show. So this gives me a lot of opportunity to develop new skills and try new things.

Now I’m sharing this with you, not because I think you’re going to be fascinated by my 30 in 30 day challenge. I’m sharing this with you because– how often do we start a project or step into a challenge or realize, hey, something’s going on in my life, and it dawns on us. We’re just bobbing along in the current and we’re not really looking to see if we’re getting the most out of it. Somebody said, do this. So I’m doing it.

I really encourage you to stop and think about where in your life, whether it’s your personal life, if it’s in a relationship, maybe it’s in your work life, maybe it’s somewhere in your life, maybe it’s in your spiritual life.

Where in your life can you benefit from stopping to take a pause?

Take a breath, take a good, deep breath.

Think on it and see where can you make something work better for you? Where can you make a change? Where can you do like what I did instead of just blindly assuming oh, 30 in 30 means I’ve got to release a podcast episode every day. No, really. Guess what it means. I’m going to record 30 episodes and I’ll have 30 episodes done by the end of the month, and I can release them on my schedule, and I can make this baby work for me and I can grow and I can have so much fun. I can bring joy to my own life and I can bring joy to your life.

So stop and think where in your life do you need to take a breath, reassess and make an adjustment?

Now let’s go with live, love, make some money and change the world.

For a transcript of this episode or for more information about life and mindset coaching, visit my website https://www.tbrowning.com/.