So Glad You Asked

Goals Update Part 2: Taking Action and Tracking Progress for Real Results

• Jean Madison • Episode 13

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Have you ever felt like you're constantly working toward your goals but never quite seeing results? In this candid exploration of productivity and goal achievement, I dive deep into the systems that have transformed my relationship with progress tracking.

At the heart of this episode is a simple but powerful realization: most of us focus exclusively on outcomes we can't directly control, then beat ourselves up when those outcomes don't materialize as quickly as we'd like. This leads to a perpetual cycle of stress, disappointment, and the nagging feeling that we're never doing enough.

Drawing from my personal experience as both a coach and entrepreneur, I share the two practices that have helped me break this cycle. The first is writing down my goals every single day—not as a rigid to-do list, but as an evolving document that naturally generates aligned action items. What began as intentionally high level "follow what feels good" intentions gradually refined themselves into clearer targets through this daily practice.

The second is a simple but revolutionary tracking system that documents both the seeds you plant (actions) and the fruits they eventually bear (wins). This dual tracking approach trains your brain to trust the process rather than demand instant gratification, while providing concrete evidence that you're actually making progress even when it doesn't feel like it.

Perfect for entrepreneurs, perfectionists, and anyone who struggles with all-or-nothing thinking, these practical systems create a more honest, compassionate relationship with productivity. I've included a link to my personal tracking spreadsheet in the show notes, along with information on how to work with me if you'd like support developing systems tailored to your specific strengths.

Ready to transform how you pursue your goals? Listen now to discover a more sustainable, satisfying approach to achievement that honors both your ambitions and your well-being.

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Mentioned in this Episode:

Actionable Takeaways:

  • Try writing down your goals daily, even if they feel broad initially.
  • Track actions daily, no matter how small 
  • Track wins daily, no matter how small
  • Focus on the inputs and actions you have control over.
  • Celebrate progress to build momentum 

Jean Madison Offers Complimentary Discovery calls - If you're curious to learn more about 1:1 coaching, Strengths, Team Work, Leadership Development or Hiring and Onboarding Consulting, click here to schedule your conversation and get started on the road to Whole Human Change.

Find me on Instagram: @JeanMadison_

Explore intentional career, life, & relationship coaching or organizational & team development Here

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to so Glad. You Asked a podcast where we have conversations on career leadership and living an intentional life, and conversations with me, jean Madison, certified Gallup Global Strengths Coach and founder of Whole Human Co, where I'm focused on intentional career life and relationship coaching, as well as organizational and team development and well-being. Join me as I answer questions I'm asked by my clients and audience, as well as personal experiences and growth opportunities that I feel we could all learn from. If you have a question or topic suggestion you'd love to hear discussed here on the podcast, visit my Instagram at JeanMadison underscore, comment your questions here on the podcast or tap the link in the show notes that says send questions here to email me directly. Now let's dive into today's episode. All right, everyone.

Speaker 1:

This week we are diving into the goals update, part two. Last week I talked a lot about just my general reflections from the first quarter of 2025, the different types of goals that I set this year and kind of where I am with those and how they're working for me. So if you want to go back and check out that episode, I highly recommend that Today is going to be a little bit more focused, because I want to really talk about the actual taking of action and tracking progress. So that might seem or sound a little boring, but it's something that I see come up over and over and over again with myself, with my clients in workshops. You know, there's always this conversation about like, how do I get more done, how do I do more, how am I more productive? And while that's not exactly what we're going to talk about today, I'm actually thinking about doing a mini series on that coming up, you know, in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for that. But I think part of building out our ability to be productive is, a to be able to define that productivity and understand what it really is, and, b being able to recognize it when it does happen, because I think we spend way too much time focusing on the small moments in life where we're not feeling it, where we're not feeling energized, we're not feeling motivated, you know whatever it is. And so today I just want to talk about a couple of practices that I've been implementing over the last couple of months mostly in March and April that I feel have been really helpful in my relationship with productivity.

Speaker 1:

I will say, you know, when I started my business back in 2021,. I had a lot of trouble being like what do I do with my time? I'm my own boss. Now. I don't really know what to do to build my business, so I was just kind of doing things willy nilly. I was, you know, I just needed to be busy. I was so used to that nine to five structure that anytime that I wasn't quote unquote working was very unnerving to me, and so I've done a lot of work over the last several years to kind of manage that for myself and also to recognize that, like I am an entrepreneur, that means that, like, sometimes they're going to be really busy, sometimes not so much. I think it is also helpful that I am now a mom, so, like, even when I'm not working, there's always something that I'm doing. So I do just want to asterisk that. You know, when I started my business, I was not a parent, and so when I didn't have things to do for my work, I didn't have a lot of things to do, so that's not necessarily the case anymore. That does probably breed a little bit more productivity for me, because I know I have limited hours in a day to focus on my business. But I'm going to be honest with you guys. I find a lot of time to do my paint by numbers, okay, but part of that finding time is appreciating that time and recognizing that that's okay to not always be busy and that, you know, maybe we'll talk a little bit today, if we have time, about this idea of, like, seasonality and cycles, because that's a really big part of this too, and I think, learning how to trust the seasonality of my business, learning how to trust my own cycles of work, which we talk a lot about at Human Work and our groundwork program. I'll link that below if you guys want to check that out, but you know that's a big part of this as well, so I will talk a little bit about that later on.

Speaker 1:

This is one of those episodes that may be a short and you know, straight to the point episode, and maybe really long I don't really know. I have three or four things I want to talk about and we will just see what happens. So let's go ahead and dive in. So, as I mentioned today, I'm going to take you on a little journey of some of the like actionable things that I've been doing for the last three or four months, specifically the last two months. I talked a little bit about this in the last episode, but the big thing that I started implementing every day was writing down my goals and then pairing that with a mindfulness practice called emotional freedom technique, which I'm not going to go into so much in this episode, but look that up. Brad Yates is a great, uh great resource for that on YouTube.

Speaker 1:

Um, but writing down my goals every day, as you know, if you listened to the last episode, if you listened to my beginning of the year goals episode, I was really struggling with the idea of having concrete goals this year, and so I kind of started in January with this high level like this is how I want to feel follow what feels good. And I'm still doing that. I'm still following that and using that guideline and using that as kind of the light, lighthouse or the guidepost that I'm going for. But I started doing a lot of my money mindset work, which is what all of the episodes in March were about a lot of my money mindset work, which is what all of the episodes in March were about. And part of that money mindset work was really around this idea of writing down your goals daily, and so I felt a lot of resistance to that.

Speaker 1:

I was like I don't want to do this, I don't have concrete goals, and so it was one of those things where I agreed to do it right. I was like, okay, fine, I'm going to give it a try, but I'm going to do it my own way. Instead of writing out the smart, concrete, really numbers-oriented goals, I'm just going to focus on rewriting the goals that I've written in January that are really just focused on follow what feels good. So they're very high level. They're very they're kind of vague because they don't they most of them don't include numbers and things like that, and so I just started with that.

Speaker 1:

Every day, I would write down those goals. Um, what was interesting is that, as I started doing this every single day, the goals started kind of refining themselves. So I would go to write down what I'd written down the day before and I was like, oh, I'm going to add this little piece in there because let's make it a little bit more clear of what I'm looking for. Or I actually do have a number in mind. Now that I'm, you know, a quarter through the year, I have a better idea of how I want to spend my time and how I want to use my time. So I am going to add some numbers into this one, or, you know, I'm just going to add a little bit more detail here and so I think that was the most interesting thing I got out of this practice of writing my goals down every day is that it really helped me to clarify the goals and also to recognize that they are going to continue evolving throughout the year.

Speaker 1:

They're all still based on the same thing, right? They're all still based on those ideas that follow what feel good that I wrote down in January, but they're getting a little bit more clear, a little bit more concrete, a little bit more detailed, and that's okay. Like, just because I didn't want that in the beginning of the year doesn't mean that I'm never going to want that ever again. I'm starting to feel into a space where having more of that type of SMART goal even though I will never write a SMART goal that's not true, I never say never, but I don't like SMART goals but having a little bit more of that feel to it right, a little bit more of the explicit, the numbers, even the money, right. Putting the money numbers down was something I really was avoiding at the beginning of the year, because I really just didn't know what this year was going to look like, and that's what we talk a lot about in the last episode. So go back and listen to that if you're curious about more of that kind of mental shift.

Speaker 1:

But writing goals out, this is something that does take me about 30 minutes every day because I have a lot of words within my you know 10 goals or so, um. But it's this idea of like remembering what you're working toward, remembering what you're doing, and like getting excited about it. And within that excitement, then for me at least and this is my personal experience, it might not be the same for you, especially depending on your strengths but writing out my goals every day actually fires up my ideation, it fires up my strategic thinking, um, and it just makes me think, like, as I'm writing out the goal, I'll go, oh, I should reach out to that person about that, and I'll like make a note of it, and then I'll continue writing my goals. And then I'll be like, oh, I forgot that I did reach out to that person, maybe I should follow up with them. Or, oh, I remember seeing that like conference that's happening. I need to see if they have a call for speakers, like it was a good way of, especially if you're in a place maybe you are a new entrepreneur if you're listening to this and you're like what do I do with my time, it could be helpful to write out those goals every day, because it might spark some of the like oh, that's what I could do to meet this goal, that's what I could do right, instead of sitting down and thinking like okay, what do other entrepreneurs do, or what do other people in this role do that I should do, because that's where I see a lot of people falling into busy work and like checking things off, because maybe that's the easy thing or because that's the only thing I can think of, which sometimes does have its place right, sometimes we do just need to do busy work. But what I have found is that in writing out my goals, not only does it spark these ideas of like oh, I should do that, oh, I should do that, oh, I should do that I don't like the word should but oh, that's something I can do toward that goal or that made me think of this is that I'm actually creating to-do lists that are so much more aligned with the goals that I've set, because I'm starting with the goals, just writing them out, not even sitting down to brainstorm, like that's not the purpose of what I'm doing, but that's ultimately what's kind of happening. So that's been a really cool thing to observe is I feel like the work that I'm doing is very purposeful.

Speaker 1:

The tasks that I'm putting on my to-do list and that I'm checking off are actually moving the needle. They're actually moving me toward the goals that I have. They're tasks that have bigger impact and I'm also doing less Like I'm doing less things because I'm able to sit down and be like is making that Instagram post like going to actually move me toward my goals if I'm feeling like stressed out about doing it, and if not, then I'm like I'm not going to do that. But I also know and this is part of that like seasonality and cycles thing that there's going to be a morning where I wake up and I just have an idea for an Instagram post and I'm energized to do it, and it doesn't really matter if it leads me toward my goals or not, because it's just something I feel like people need to hear. So that's kind of how I've been. My practice has been shifting my work has been shifting is does this lead me to the goal? And if not, maybe now is not the time to do it, knowing that at some point I will find the motivation, excitement, et cetera to do that thing. And if I don't, then it didn't need to be done because it's not moving. It's not really moving me toward the goal that I want to be achieving. So I'd love to encourage you, even if it's just a couple of goals, right, like you don't have to have this whole long thing.

Speaker 1:

I'm just very wordy and I like to put things in writing. So I have a lot of things I'm writing down. Each of my goals is very, like, detailed, but it doesn't have to be that. It could just be like run a marathon, right. But I have a feeling, as you start writing that out every single day, you're going to start getting more specific with it. There's more things that are going to come up, but if nothing else, if you write down every day like complete a marathon, it's likely that that's going to be something that's like okay, in order to complete the marathon, I'm probably going to have to go do my training run today. So I'm going to schedule it in because I know that I don't want to. Maybe that's an example of yours.

Speaker 1:

Right, for me, one of my goals is around speaking and presenting, and so I want to do a minimum of 10 speaking engagements in 2025, specifically focused on my play to your strengths workshop, but could be any of my other workshops that I do like intentional goal setting, building an ideal life, like all that kind of stuff, and so every time I write that down, a a couple of new things pop up of like, oh, I want it to be toward these types of groups, or I want, you know, to get paid for this much, or whatever. But it also just like spurs me into being like okay, how many speaking gigs do I have mapped out so far? Like, where are some groups that I could reach out to? What? Who in my network might know someone or might be interested, and so it just it gets kind of those juices flowing. So give that a shot, let me know how it goes flowing. So give that a shot, let me know how it goes. Questions, comments, all of it. Please put it in the comments to this episode or feel free to email me and I will dig deeper into this if that's something that you want, but give it a try.

Speaker 1:

Just pick a couple goals, write them out every day. Does not have to be at the same time, does not have to be in a perfect notebook, doesn't have to be anything of the sort. You can do it on a sticky note and throw it away. You can do it on a scrap piece of paper, it does not matter. It's just about writing, though. So I would encourage I don't know the science behind this, but I would encourage you to handwrite rather than type. I know a lot of us like to type, and you can do that, but there's something about the slowness of the process of handwriting, for me at least, that makes me think about the goal rather than just like typing it out. I feel like I would just go really fast and probably be thinking about something else. So you do you, but that's just my personal recommendation.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so that's the first thing I wanted to talk about today is just this idea of writing down your goals every day and seeing what happens. The second thing I want to talk about is really kind of playing off of that practice of writing out your goals every day. Well, I'll kind of back up a little bit. One of the things I've been doing since January, before I started writing on my goals every day, which I started in March. Since January, at the end of each month, I've been sitting down, and I have a reflection document that I created for myself, where I look at all of the big follow what feels good goals that I wrote out in January, and I just like brain dump journal under each of them, like what did I do this month Toward that goal? Like, what accomplishments did I, you know, see, like, for example, with the speaking gigs, like did I do any speaking gigs? That sort of thing. So, you know, I think that I really liked this practice of what actions did I take toward those follow what feels good goals? What things did I accomplish? And the biggest thing that came out of this for me, though, was the what do I want to adjust?

Speaker 1:

As I was saying, you know, once I started writing out my goals in March, I really started refining them and adding to them and subtracting from them, and all of that and part of that came from this practice of doing the monthly review, because I realized that I had written a lot of the same goals, just with different words. So it was like you know, I want to work with this type of person and then I want to work with this type of person, I want to work with this type of person, but all the work was the same. So it really got me into this place of like, okay, let's, let's consolidate, let's use all the things that I talked about in January and, as we go, start to like eliminate, start to consolidate, start to combine, um, things where other things are redundant, so that I can add in other things. Right, if necessary, you don't have to add in other things, but I do think that it's important to give yourself permission to have that flexibility to go in and look at your goals and be like, okay, that's not it anymore, that's not really what I want anymore. Do I need to release it? Do I need to redefine it? Like, where are we at here?

Speaker 1:

I think sometimes we get so rigid about our goals, we get so like I wrote this in January and if I don't do it and I don't achieve it, then I'm a failure. And, like you know by now, if you've listened to my podcast at all or know me at all, that I do not subscribe to that belief. I am here for being quote unquote flaky because we don't know what's coming, especially right now. My God, could it be more unstable in the world? We don't know what's coming. We don't know who we're going to be in three, six, 12 months.

Speaker 1:

It's silly to me to set goals that are so rigid that you like kill yourself in order to make them happen and you don't end up happy on the other end of that. So I just encourage you to go back through whether it's monthly or whatever it is and just like, do a gut check with your goals and be like do I still want this? Like is this something I still want to like put effort toward? Do I need to rewrite it so that I am more energized towards it, or is it just like done, I don't want to do this anymore, and be okay with that. It doesn't mean you're not going to accomplish anything. It doesn't mean you're flaky. It doesn't mean you can't complete things. It just means that you are, like an open and aware human being and you can recognize that, like that January me was really out of her depth. Like January me was a different person. I don't know who that person was, but I'm not going to do that anymore, and that's okay, because as long as you're looking, continuing to look forward, and you're continuing to think forward and dream forward, you're going to make progress and you're going to get things done and you're going to accomplish goals.

Speaker 1:

But part of goal setting and accomplishing goals is knowing yourself well enough to set goals that are accomplishable for you. And so if you are like a nine to five employee, this is more so, I would say, in like your personal life or just in like your career aspirations, than it is in your specific job, because it's likely that in your job, you have goals that are kind of set out for you. If you're an entrepreneur, this whole thing is for you because you decide all of your goals, right, you decide how your life is designed, all of those sorts of things. Um, and just having this constant practice of checking in really allows you to ask the question of like is this my goal, or is this something that someone else said that I should do? Is this something that I heard someone else was doing and I thought that was the thing that I needed to do, because that is where I see a lot of problems is setting goals based on society expectations. You know a coach, that you have a teacher, that you have a boss that you have because they did it, I should do it and that's the only way I can get to where they are. And that's just not really the truth.

Speaker 1:

And for some people that does work right. Especially if you have something like competition really high in your strengths, being able to compare yourself to others is going to move you further, faster, with less resistance. Someone who does not have competition high it's not going to do that for you. It's not going to feel fun, it's not going to feel energizing to compare yourself to someone else and take actions in that way. So while, even if you have competition high, it's probably not going to work 100% of the time to just follow someone else's path, that comparison is not going to be detrimental for you necessarily. It's actually going to be likely going to be energizing. So, not getting too deep into strengths today, it's a habit. You know that.

Speaker 1:

So, leading from this, like reflecting on my bigger goals each month, something that I realized when I was doing this once a month and kind of sitting down and being like what were the actions that I took, what were the wins that I had, is that I was forgetting a lot of things. I was really only able to focus on like the big things, like I got this speaking engagement, I had this meeting with someone, which are very important and they are wins right, but it wasn't giving me credit for the small actions that I took and the tiny things that I was doing and the tiny wins that I was getting, which, again, this episode is not just for entrepreneurs, but this applies a lot to entrepreneurs. If you're not counting the tiny, tiny, little wins, it's likely you're going to get to the end of a week or a month and be like I have no wins because it's slow, sometimes right, and it's cyclical, and sometimes you're planting the seeds and sometimes you're harvesting, and so being able to recognize the actions that you're taking can be really, really beneficial for your productivity, for your mental health, for just like the way that you see yourself in your work, and this goes for, you know, anyone, not just the entrepreneurs. So I started thinking about like, okay, once a month feels like it's not often enough, I'm missing too many things, I'm not celebrating enough, and I'm still feeling that anxiety of like I didn't do enough, I didn't take enough action, and so that's where this idea of creating a spreadsheet I know who am I creating a spreadsheet to track wins and actions came into play.

Speaker 1:

So, yes, I the hater of spreadsheets created a spreadsheet, and the reason for that is because, even though I tried really hard to build something in my remarkable notebook that I could handwrite because I am, at my core, a handwriter, I love writing I wanted to make something that other people could use as well and that I could use with my clients and that could be a place for tracking small things. And, as someone who also has a million tabs open on their computer, being able to keep it open at all times so that I'm always thinking about it and always reflecting on it was something that I really wanted. So what I did is I created a spreadsheet for myself, and the link to access this will be in the show notes. You can get it, make a copy of it, use it yourself, make it your own. But and I'm sure this is not a new idea this is not like something I've created, you know, out of, out of thin air. I'm sure I got this from someone. But basically what I did is I just kind of put my biggest goals across the top and then I put, you know, the dates down the left side of the of the spreadsheet. And I have two tabs I have an actions tab and I have a wins tab and I put some examples in there so that you could see.

Speaker 1:

I did this because so many of my goals are like end of the year or 10 speaking engagements and so many of my goals and I think this goes for a lot of different kinds of goals but so many of them require so much planting of seeds and so much cultivation of those seeds and like caring for them in order to see them grow and sprout, that I get lost in it and I get bored and I get like, oh my gosh, I did all these things and I haven't signed that client yet. And so this year I talked about my speaking goals. I have another big goal which is signing four team retainer clients for my Strengths, for Leaders and Teams retainer option. And you might hear four and be like, wow, that's such a small number, but it's a big number for me and it's a big goal. That is going to take a lot of work and outreach and cultivation and sales and like all that kind of stuff. And I might get one quote unquote win per quarter if everything goes to plan.

Speaker 1:

But for me, being the instant gratification person that I am, I got one right and I was very excited about that. And then the fact that I didn't have all four booked and ready to go by the end of the first quarter. I found myself starting to beat myself up about it and as you're listening to this, you're probably like that's so silly. You said four by the end of the year. I found myself starting to beat myself up about it and, as you're listening to this, you're probably like that's so silly. You said four by the end of the year. I'm aware of that, I know that I said that, but my brain is like if you don't have them now, then it's a failure. And so this is a big thing for me this year that I'm working on.

Speaker 1:

I'm working on the instant gratification piece and in combination with this tendency, I have to be all or nothing. The way those two play together is that I have this desire for instant gratification, which I think we all do. I don't think I'm like unique in that, but as an entrepreneur and as someone who has like really big goals that may not come back to back to back. Um, you know, this desire for instant gratification was, and then not achieving that instant gratification was really leading me to like, get bored and want to just abandon the goal. Be like, well, if I didn't get all four in the first quarter, so like it's not going to work, I better try something else. That's that's the storyline I have in my head on all of my goals, and so a by starting to write out my goals, that's been really helpful too. Of like reminding myself four in a year, maybe one per quarter, maybe all of them in November, I don't know, we'll see.

Speaker 1:

I also don't have control over that. So the whole challenge with the instant gratification and just like gratification at all and goals in general, is that I don't have any control over whether someone decides to work with me or not. All I have control over are the like tasks that I do, the actions that I take, the outreach that I make to people. You know my website, my marketing, my communications, my follow-up. Like I have control over those things. I don't have control over whether someone says yes or not, and that is so hard and so frustrating. It's so frustrating. So if you get frustrated by that, you're not alone. It's so, so frustrating because we set these goals for ourselves and oftentimes our goals are things that, at the end of the day, we don't actually have control over. All we have control over are the inputs. Which is part of what I encourage people to do when I work with them on intentional goal setting is focus on the inputs, focus on the things that you have control over, with the intention of that leading to that big goal that you don't actually have control over. So my intention is to get four team contracts right, like that's what I'm working toward. I cannot actually make that happen. All I can do is put myself in the best situation possible to have someone say yes to my offer, and so, again, this is not like new information, but hopefully it's landing with you in a different way If you are someone that struggles with this as well.

Speaker 1:

I have strategic thinking in my top strengths. I have futuristic. I'm very good at that. I'm very good at the thinking and the planning and the ideating and getting excited about things. I don't have a lot of the in the moment strengths, which means that when I am in the moment and those things I've dreamed about in the future are not happening. I'm flipping out Like what is wrong with me? Why can't I make this happen? And so part of this wins and actions tracker.

Speaker 1:

What it's been helpful, how it's been helpful for me is in forcing me to recognize the actions that I'm taking, the seeds that I'm planting, so that at the end of each month, when I do like the bigger review of my goals, I can say look, you did all of these things and you likely won't see a result from those for a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months, whatever it is. But good for you for planting the seed and know that you can come back and revisit that and check on it and see how it's growing from time to time, moving forward. But, like you've checked that off, you don't need to worry about it anymore. The seed has been planted, and so that has been so, so helpful to me because I can sit down each day and I can say, okay, when it comes to the speaking gigs that I want to get, what did I do today? Did I reach out to some people? Did I post on social media? Did I look up some different conferences? Great, I'm going to write that down. If I didn't do anything, then I don't write anything down and I don't make it mean anything about myself, unless it's been like two weeks and I haven't done a single thing toward that goal, in which case I'm probably gonna ask do I still really want this Like? Is this something I still really want, or do I need to rephrase this, or do I just need to refocus? Those are three options right, delete, rephrase, refocus. So that's been super, super helpful for me to be able to recognize the things that I've done.

Speaker 1:

I also am someone who is terrible at celebrating. I am terrible at celebrating my accomplishments. I'm terrible at celebrating milestones. You know, I got that first like team retainer client and I was like great, okay, but it's not all four of them, so not worth celebrating. And I just realized that this just keeps me in this perpetual state of stress. This just keeps me in this perpetual state of stress. It keeps me in this perpetual state of like, not enoughness, and I'm really focused on knowing what is enough and recognizing it when I have it. And so by having this wins and actions document yes, every day I can sit down and track my actions, but I can also sit down and track my wins.

Speaker 1:

For example, yesterday, someone that I had reached out to back in early March to share about my teams and my leaders and teams retainer and just said like hey, if you think of anyone, if you come across anyone that would be interested, would you mind like connecting us? I sent that to them six weeks ago. I got an email yesterday that was like hey wanted to connect you to um, jean, does CliftonStrengths work? Like that's a huge win. Right, it's not a win that I have control over, but it's a huge win. And old me would have been like, okay, great, I got that connection. But like that person hasn't signed up for my retainer yet, so it doesn't count.

Speaker 1:

Um, and so I'm really trying to be intentional about celebrating like, look that seed I planted, sprouted, look that action I took months ago came to fruition. To start to train my brain to recognize that it doesn't have to be instant gratification and that there can be a lot of actions I take that do turn into something. But I only realize they turn into something if I'm paying attention and if I'm tracking them. So it's been really fun to kind of experiment with this throughout April. It's been fun to sit down and be like oh yeah, I did take that action today, oh, I did do that thing. Or oh, that person did follow up or respond or whatever it is. It's been really. It's been really good for me. It's been good for me feeling like I've been productive, it's been good for me being like, yes, I've done enough, I'm doing enough, I am enough.

Speaker 1:

And then I think the other piece of it is, if you tend to be someone who gravitates towards certain tasks and procrastinates or avoids other tasks, it's a really easy way to like, as every day when you're writing down the actions you took, to be like, okay, the last five days, I've researched and compiled a list of potential conferences that I could speak at. I have not applied to, prepped to apply to, et cetera any of them. So while this is great that I have this list of conferences, I'm not allowed to research any more conferences until I actually apply for the ones that I've pulled together, and so that can be really helpful too. I am a huge procrastinator and definitely someone who can tend to avoid doing the things that I don't want to do and doing things that aren't actually going to move the needle instead, and so being able to see things like that in front of you. It's not emotional, it's not judgmental, it's just like okay, I spent the entire week researching, great, now I have to take action with that research. Now's the time to do something. And so it's not. It doesn't say anything about me and what I'm good at or bad at. It's not demeaning in any way. It's not like see, look at you, you suck at doing this. It's just like okay, I've committed that time to that and now I'm going to move on. I'm going to commit to moving on to something else that's been really, really helpful to me. And and then, from like a data standpoint if that's the type of person you are being able to look back from, like the wins that you have and be like okay, well, where did I plant the seed for that win?

Speaker 1:

And this is something I've been talking about with one one particular client a lot lately is there are seasons of action. There are seasons of like go, go, go, do, do, do, reach out, reach out, you know, plan all of that. And then there are these seasons where we're like man, I cannot motivate myself to do anything, but like that's oftentimes when the winds come right, that's oftentimes when the seeds you planted actually sprout and so being able to like see that on paper and be like, oh, like I just said, so-and-so followed up with me on that thing I sent out six weeks ago, interesting. So now the next time I send out a communication like that, I can have automatically in my head like I don't expect a response from anyone or a connection from anyone before six weeks and like even that might be too fast, you know, but it's just that training of patience in my brain, it's training trust that something will come of that action that I took and being able to really see it on paper has been extremely helpful to me. So I'm gonna leave it there for today.

Speaker 1:

I hope that this has sparked some curiosity for you around how you set goals, how you take action, how you track your wins and how that plays into kind of this overall vision you have for your life, how it plays into this overarching, you know, theme of like, how you feel about yourself and how you show up in work and life and relationships. If it has brought up more questions than it has answers, this would be a great time to send me an email with some questions, to put your questions in the comment section for the podcast or schedule a discovery call If you're feeling like, okay, all of this stuff conceptually makes sense to me, but I don't know how to implement it in my life. I don't know how to create a system that works for me. Not just take the system that Jean has mentioned and like, try to make it work. That's what I do, that's where I come in.

Speaker 1:

So schedule that free discovery call. It's 45 minutes of you know, one-on-one coaching, getting to know each other, getting to know where your opportunities and your barriers are, what your goals are, and then talking about how I could be supportive to you in developing a system that works for you, in developing a vision for your life that's energizing to you. Whatever it is, just schedule a discovery call. It's free, there's no commitment necessary. So if at the end of the call you're like I don't think this is for me, that's great.

Speaker 1:

At least you know right, at least you're not sitting here wondering over and over like, would coaching help? Maybe it would help working with Jean like, get yourself out of the wonder and get yourself into the action. Right? This is an opportunity to take a small action. Click the button in the show notes and schedule a discovery call. I would love to talk to you. I have three more spots open for the remainder of quarter two of 2025. If you're listening to this at another time, just know that I typically take on about four clients a quarter and you can schedule a discovery call anytime and I will let you know if I have that availability. So that's all for today. I will see you all back here next time for another episode of so Glad you Asked.

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Jean Madison

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