As I mentioned in my last post, I committed to working on my Right-Brain Business Plan.
Last week I had my first Microstep appointment (for the RBBP, at least).
In the sense that I fulfilled the commitment, it’s a big win. I spent my hour working on the RBBP.
But it didn’t feel the way I expected.
Since there’s a lot of emphasis about gathering images from magazines, I was at a bit of a disadvantage because we don’t do the magazine thing.
I thought I could get images online, and I did get a few, but it’s not the same as thumbing through a magazine and cutting out the stuff that grabs you.
The trick, it seems, is finding the right search terms so you’re not sifting through thousands of images that are useless. (Hint: Searching for “Freedom” will get you a lot of American flags and silhouettes of people jumping in the air.)
So yeah, it was a little overwhelming. And as is true of so many things I do in my life, my expectations led to some disappointment. Frankly, I thought I’d accomplish a lot more in my hour.
It got me thinking…
It didn’t go the way I wanted it to go. The question, then, becomes, What do I do about it?
For one thing, I see that I should add a step to my How to Make Progress Steps (say hello to Step 3a):
1. Figure out a reasonable amount of time per week you can commit to working on your Thing.
2. Schedule the time on your calendar. Treat it like an appointment with a hard-to-see specialist (i.e., don’t reschedule unless it’s an emergency).
3. When it’s time for your appointment, work on your Thing. Do a microstep (or several).
3a. After your appointments, review what worked and what didn’t, and how you can make it easier on yourself next time.
4. Keep making (and keeping) those appointments.
But sometimes it still doesn’t work.
Committing to stuff can be hard.
And so can finding the steps that you need to take.
And even if you do both of those things, sometimes the follow-through is elusive.
That’s what I noticed after my first appointment…I really wasn’t looking forward to the next one.
There are lots and lots of reasons committing to something isn’t enough to get you to make progress on it.
A little extra help
To help with this process of committing and making progress, I created a mini-workbook.
It’s got lots of questions and tips for finding your capacity, choosing the right microsteps, setting yourself up for success, and reviewing how it all went so you can tweak the process to work for you.
I also included lots of info about what might be causing you to bail on your commitments, with some ideas for how to address the obstacles.
(In case you’re wondering, my obstacles around committing to working on the RBBP are that I’ve got something more pressing that’s weighing on me, and I’ve got some physical stuff going on. So, I used the hour I committed to to address the other, more urgent matter. And I’m committing to focusing on taking care of my body. Then we’ll see.)
I sent the workbook out to the Shmorian Society members a couple of days ago, but you can still get it.
Let me know you’d like to get it by entering your information below. You’ll get a link to the workbook right away, and in the next couple of days you’ll also start receiving my Shmorian Project Prescription ecourse.
Note: You’ll get a lot more out of the workbook if you read my Making Progress post first.
Want even more support?
If you decide you’d benefit from even more help, I’m doing a little something special in the one-on-one arena.
For a limited time, I’m offering 30-minute sessions geared specifically toward finding the best Microsteps for you to take – ones you can commit to comfortably – so that you can make progress sustainably.
Progress doesn’t have to be painful.
You can get the details about that over here.
Of course, I really hope the workbook and the sessions help you make progress on something that’s important to you.
But more importantly, I hope it lets you know that there are legitimate reasons you’re not making as much progress as you’d like, and none of those reasons is that there’s something wrong with you.
If you’ve already been joining in on the Making Progress fun, how has it been going?
What kinds of things would help you continue to make progress?