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SUMMARY
Today is day number 7 of my launching an online business.
Yesterday I uploaded my website and while I am excited, I want to share with you that what excites me more is having had the experience of taking something you know is not perfect and done, and ship it, nonetheless. That is of course when you are starting something utterly new. You can not perfect something unless it is out there and visible. Then you can start to measure things, look at it from a different angle, engage with it, and with time get it to perfection.
Once you reach a goal, things changed. You have changed. You have now manifested something you thought prior you could not. There is something very peculiar in this process, because the reality seldomly turn out the way you mapped it out in your head, isn’t that true? I believe this is cause for great rejoicing, because what it means is that the world has always more to offer than what you can possibly conceive. If you try. If you trust. How often did you imagine a worst-case scenario that never came? Same goes with its opposite, how many times did you imagine something as good and it became great?
That said, many of the things I set out to prior to my launch have not moved, others have: People have commented, engaged, signed up, much faster than I thought. So now is time to re-adjust and set out a new goal. Do you know the feeling that comes from knowing there is a lot to do, but you are not clear as to what to do?
One of the great paradoxes in life, is that we tend to set goals we believe we can achieve, that is in other words, we set goals for which the steps to achieve them are more or less known. Interestingly though, it is exactly when you have no clue how to reach something, that identifying the desired outcome becomes crucial. A clearly defined desired outcome creates cognitive dissonance. The clearer the image of where you want to go, the more the brain goes: “Dude, I am not there, I need to find a way to go there”. Directing your thoughts consciously in that way is the first step, when you feel there is something to be done, but have no clue what or how.
The next thing to do, is to ask yourself what the first physical and visible action is, you could undertake to reach that desired outcome.
My personal desired outcome is formulated like this: “I have a clear roadmap for the coming three weeks and have identified the correlating steps I need to take and populate my life management system with it”
My very first next action is : “Review the previously identified action steps I have in my life management system. Set one major goal to work on per week in your calendar and brainstorm all the possible steps I could take to move forward.
With that said, lift your spirit up and live up to your potential !
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Hi, everyone, it’s Adrian with the spirit show. And today is day number seven of my launching a new online business, I shut my website yesterday, it’s live, and was a really thrilling experience to put something out there that is not perfect, there’s obviously not perfect, but just get the ball rolling, you know, get in the game, then you can start perfecting it is what I learned. And finally, what I actually applied. Now, the interesting thing for me, and what I want to share here with you today is that, prior to my launch, I had identified clear steps as what I would do next. Interesting, though, is that things change the moment you put something out there. Now I receive comments, I received emails, I didn’t believe I would receive emails that fast. And now I need to engage with people that actually engaged with the website. And so I sense that there is a lot of work to be done that is not yet clearly defined, you know, I’m not clear as to what are the next steps? So what do you do when you have this feeling of there is lots lots to do, but you’re not very clear as to what exactly needs to be done? you know that is typically what would trigger the feeling of overwhelming like: Too much! And the way we deal with this, with the GTD methodology is to start being clear as to what is here my desired outcome. You know, today is Saturday, it’s 1135. I’m leaving tomorrow to Paris to join my family, for holidays. And so I’m here right now I have a certain amount of time, I have certain context, I’m in my office, I’ve got my computer, my phone, I’ve got everything here. For two days, I’ve got all my setup, I’ll take a little bit of my setup with me during the vacation. But here I have everything. So now the question is okay, during that time, what can I do? How can I be the most effective and the most efficient? With my time? To know that I need to know what is my desired outcome? Where do I want to go? That is where do I want to be before I leave on Sunday? Interestingly enough, I experienced and I feel regularly form of friction, to identify a desired outcome. As long as I don’t know how to get there. You know, it’s kind of a paradox. My brain needs a clearly defined outcome, in order for my brain to deliver the ideas that will get me to that desired outcome. We call this cognitive dissonance right at the moment, you have an idea or you have a goal set out, then you have a cognitive dissonance because your brain goes, dude, I’m here, we want to go there. I don’t like this, I need to fill that gap. So if you don’t know exactly what is the very first step you need to take, the thing you can do is ask yourself, Well, where do I want to go? What’s the desired outcome and be as precise as you can. So for me, I think right now, the best possible desired outcome I can formulate is I want to have a roadmap. Before I leave here, I want to have a roadmap as to what exactly will be my focus during my holidays, you know, knowing that I need to spend time with my children as well, quality time with my wife, it’s a particular time to rest as well. So I need to take that into consideration with everything else. So to set out my priorities, but the moment I decide, okay, it’s a roadmap, I actually want to have, I know that the action steps that we’ll follow are probably more of a planning of planning steps. So my desired outcome is have a roadmap before you leave on holiday. And the very first action now, the very first action What I mean is not a type have to do i mean an actual physical visible action I will take to go to that direction. that very first action I will take is to review all the actions I have priorly identified that’s step number one, I will do and probably identify the next deadlines for me because it was kind of easy to work this week or easy to overcome my fear because I had a clearly defined outcome that was shoot the website on Friday. Now I think I need other concrete desired outcomes to be identified for the coming two to three to four weeks. So this is what I will be working on this morning and reviewing all the comments I received as to the little typos The little mix ups that are on my website. So that’s it from me today. I wish you a wonderful Saturday. Have a great weekend with your loved ones. And as always live up to your potential and I can’t wait to deliver more value for you have a blessed day.
Bye