Working Towards Our Purpose

Welcome to working towards our purpose, a podcast that

offers a different perspective on what a job can be for everyone

out there that's heard that voice in the back of their head asking for something

more, it's time to listen to it. I'm your host, Gino,

and join me as I interview people who have decided to work in their

own purpose. Together we will learn, become inspired,

and hopefully find our own path towards working in our purpose.

Welcome back to working towards our purpose. And today I have a

solo episode for you, and I have a

topic in mind that I want to get to. And I think hopefully it could

be relatable for a lot of people who are

trying to do something new. And the idea is

basically something that I notice within myself that I

get really frustrated when I see lack of progress

with something new that I'm doing. So anything new that I start

and, you know, if it takes like longer than a little

bit to see progress or to see results, I tend to get

really frustrated and then become hard on myself. So I kind of just

want to talk about this idea and like, how it's

kind of a little bit nonsensical

or not fair maybe is a better way to say it. Not really

being fair to myself, not giving myself a little bit of grace. So I think

if I can change my attitude on this, then it'll help me not give up

so easily when I'm trying something new. So I noticed this

pattern within myself because the past

20 days or so, I've been, at the time of this recording, I've been building

my podcast website out. I've been building, working towards a

purpose. And I, I've built a website before,

but I've never like, built a website from WordPress before. And to,

to make a long story short, I've been very frustrated with my

Godaddy website that I have for my business buzz and podcast, and

they just, they charge me way too much money per year. And

the limitations of the website builder has just been frustrating.

So if you know nothing about websites, there's certain website builders out there like

Wix or Squarespace, where they're very simple, just drag and drop.

And, you know, with a little bit of learning, you can build a

pretty nice looking website for not really knowing that much about websites. I remember when

I first built my website for a pleasant podcast, I was like, wow, this is

easy. I can put this template in here. I just put my pictures in, put

my words in, and I got a whole website and it makes it super

easy. The problem being that when you build websites

with Godaddy or with squarespace or with wix, you basically

are stuck within that company. Like, I can't

move my Godaddy website to Squarespace now because Godaddy's charging me too

much. So basically you get stuck and you have to pay them

whatever they want you to pay because you built it on their website

builder, you can't transfer it anywhere else, which is why

WordPress exists. And WordPress has been a place where people have built

websites for a long time. And it's a lot more complex than just a drag

and drop kind of thing. It's set up very like old school

and it takes a little bit more to learn the back end of it and

to learn, like, how it works, because it's not just drag and drop. So

anyway, I found out that if I build my website on WordPress,

then I, I can basically download it and move it anywhere that

I want, so I'm not stuck with any service. So I looked into some

of my options and I found Bluehost is a hosting website where I can

use WordPress. And they were basically charging me

the same amount of money that I was paying in one year for

GoDaddy for three years of having three websites,

which is a considerable savings. And because I wanted my second website,

I wanted to not have to pay an additional

fee, whereas on GoDaddy they basically wanted me to pay twice

for both websites. So now I'm looking at like

$600 a year to have two websites, whereas

using WordPress on Bluehost, it was basically

$300 for three years of three websites.

So getting back to my story, I had to learn WordPress and

I've kind of used it a little bit for certain clients before I've like,

gone in and like made changes and stuff. So I was kind of familiar with

the layout and how things worked, but I've never built a

website on WordPress, like from scratch. So I was like, well, how hard

could it be, right? So I, I go on, I start looking at some videos,

I start playing around with it. And within the first day, I remember

getting to the end of the first day and just being so frustrated and being

like, what am I doing? I should have just stayed on Godaddy. Who cares if

it's a little bit more money now? You're wasting all your time doing this and

there's no point. So I remember having that

thought and then I remember about a week later when I had my website

80% done and then having another thought being like,

hmm, remember when you were frustrated that you thought this

was a waste of time and you were never going to get it done. And

now here you are a week later, 80% of the site's done,

and you feel good about it and you feel, like, happy that you learned this

new skill. And then it just got me to question, like, why do I

so quickly think, like, oh, this isn't working, this is a waste of

time. Why did I do this? I don't want to do this anymore. And it

was just kind of an interesting thought. And I realized that, like, I kind of

do that a lot with a lot of different things. Like, I get frustrated

right off the bat if something's not working. And same thing

happened when I was trying to book guests for this podcast. I

remember during the, the break that I took, I was trying to book a bunch

of people and I wanted to have, like, you know, 20 episodes in the bank.

So I was ready to go. And then, like, three weeks went by and I

haven't booked anybody. And I was, like, getting really frustrated. And

then I randomly got an email from somebody

that I've never met before and they were like, hey, we should have a podcast

swap. Cause we have similar podcasts. And then again, it made me think about, like,

why am I so hard on myself for not, like,

getting these things done or not getting results right away?

And, you know, I think it's good sometimes to be hard on yourself. But I

also think that if you're doing it in a way that's, like,

hindering you from accomplishing the task, then it almost seems,

like, pointless. It's like you're trying to do this new thing, but then you're so

mad at yourself for not being able to do it right away, immediately, then you

give up. And for me, I'm thinking about, like, if I could just change my

mindset a little bit and be like, oh, yeah, this is the

first week of me doing this. Maybe I should just let it go, not be

so frustrated right now. See what happens in a week. And

it seems so simple as I'm talking about it and saying it, but when you're

doing, when I'm doing it, it just, I don't remember that in

the moment. And I had a conversation with one of my friends recently, and

she was kind of saying the same thing as I was talking about this

idea of, like, being so frustrated at not learning something

quickly. And she was like, yeah, I usually just give up. Like, I

give up on the thing that I'm doing. And I wonder how many things there

are that I could have done if I didn't give up. And, like, her reflecting

on that. And it's just interesting. I don't know, it's

like almost, I'm confused at the fact that, like, I don't even

allow myself to have some understanding that, like, because it's new, it's going to take

a little bit longer than it would if you didn't know how to do it.

And that's like such a simple topic or a simple concept,

but for whatever reason, like, it's hard to, it's hard to act in

that way and it's hard to not like, beat yourself up for not getting it

right away. And it just, I don't know, it makes me wonder, like, where that

comes from. I mean, I guess school, maybe schooling as a kid was like

that. Like, if you didn't get it right away, you were the dumb kid in

the class and you were laughed at and, you know, maybe

it's a sort of that sort of like, training of your

head and then you treating yourself in that way of like, oh,

you're not getting it right away. You must be stupid. You must not understand how

to do things. You must not be good at this. Maybe you shouldn't be doing

this. And, yeah, maybe even a little bit of like, the imposter

syndrome comes in, too. I think. I think at one point, if I'm really, like,

put myself back in that position when I was mad at myself, I think part

of it was like, oh, you shouldn't even be building websites. Why are you building

a website? That's not something that you do. And

then a week later when I did my website, my next

thought was like, oh, maybe I can help other podcasters build their websites now because

now I know how to do it. And it's just, I don't know, it's funny,

the limitations we put on ourselves. And I think that's

kind of like maybe what I'm getting at, hopefully not being too

rambly, but, like, I think that's what it is, is the limitations that we put

on ourselves of, like, not being able to do certain

things or thinking that we can't do something because it's

challenging at the beginning, but it's totally normal for something to be challenging

at the beginning and to not know how to do at the beginning because you

don't know how to do it. And it's the whole point of doing something new.

So I guess now, as I'm thinking about it too, it makes me want to

almost do new things. More often to get used to trying things and

then be gentle with myself and give myself grace that,

like, you're not going to get it right away and, you know, to

stick with it until it does make sense or until it does click. So I

guess a big part of it is probably just patience and being kind to

yourself, which is something that I definitely struggle with, is being kind to

myself. And I think a lot of people also struggle with that.

So, yeah, I don't know. I guess this episode is kind of a reminder of

that. I'm also starting a new job this week, and

I had my first few days already, and they were kind of just meetings because

it's a part time job, and part of it is going to

some weekly meetings that the organization has. And I found

myself in the first meeting being kind of excited and, like,

learning. And then our second meeting was virtual. And so

I kind of just did it for my apartment, logged on to the zoom, and

was kind of just listening. And I was also kind of

finding myself in a position where I'm like, man, I don't have anything to offer

to these meetings. I don't really know

what's going on yet, and I'm kind of just absorbing it.

But I also found myself in the position, like, what am I doing here? I

don't know if I'm adding any value here. I don't know

that this was the right decision. Right. Going

back and forth with those thoughts. And again, it's kind of the same concept

of, it's something that I started very recently, and

I haven't learned the job yet, and I'm already kind of

in the position of, like, thinking of myself as, like, why am I here? Should

I be here? Should they have even hired me? I don't think I have anything

to contribute at this point. But then remembering, like, okay, well, it's your

second, like, meeting with them. Like, you've worked for this company

for, like, 4 hours. Like, so

it kind of makes sense when you reflect on it that you have nothing to

contribute yet because it's like you don't even understand a lot

of how things operate. And even to back up even

more and be like, well, they're probably not even expecting anything of you yet because

you're still learning. And again, the harsh self

judgment on, like, you should be doing this by now.

It's such a weird thing to think about and then to reflect upon because it's

like, logically I know that, yeah, I'm starting

new, and I shouldn't really have to contribute anything right this second.

Just kind of sit, learn and absorb. But then the other part of my brain

is like, hey, you should be doing this. You should feel bad because you're not

contributing anything. You should, you know, maybe you should be learning faster. Maybe you

should be doing this. And just, again, the self

criticism and how, like, if you let it, it

could make it, it could stop you in your tracks, you know, it could make

me quit. It can make me not go back. But to keep in mind

that, like, it's normal, I guess, to have that at the beginning.

And it just makes me think about how, like, there's people that I

talk to and a lot of people feel

so frustrated at, like, what they're doing currently in their job,

but their idea that they have it just seems like such an

insurmountable task. And there's, like, so many things to go,

you don't know, so many things, like, how am I going to do this thing

when I've never done this thing before? And then you start beating yourself

up for it. And I guess what I'm trying to say is, like, if there's

people out there that are wanting to do something

but are being critical on themselves, like, I think the best thing you

can try to do is to observe yourself being critical on yourself, and

then you can take it a step further and be like, okay, that

makes sense, but I'm doing something new and I don't know how to do it

yet. So let me not put any energy into the self

criticism and let me just put energy into the figuring it out. Give.

Give yourself an hour a week. Give yourself however much time you have

to trying to put time to it, because I think

it always goes back to the Nike slogan, just do it. But, like, if you

have an hour, you can either sit and think about the hour

and think about how you're not prepared for this or you don't understand this

or you're too dumb to understand this, or you're not the right person to be

doing this. You could do that for a whole hour, or

you could just, like, do something and Google search something.

And even if you only read a couple articles, you still made a little bit

of progress and you still figured something out. And if

you keep doing that, eventually it's going to culminate into something

where now you do know how to figure it out. And I don't know, maybe

it's an adult thing, too. Like, maybe once you get a certain age, you think,

like, you can do this or you can't do this. And you kind of just

set more limitations on yourself, and it's

just, like, not true. You can learn anything at

any time and, like, you can learn how to

build websites at 60 or you can,

you know, learn anything at any age if you just try

and put yourself to it. There's no limitations other than the ones that you put

on yourself. And I think a lot of times we tell ourselves that we can't

do this. This isn't our field of expertise. It's like, well,

it can be if you start now. And,

yeah, I don't know, kind of. Kind of going on a rant here, but

I'm. I'm mostly talking to myself in these

conversations. And because I do this a lot, I

give myself limitations at times. And it can be

frustrating, and it can be hard when you're hard on yourself,

but to keep remembering that it's

okay to not figure it all out in one take, you can try

again tomorrow, and you can try again the next week, and you can try again.

And the more you keep trying, you'll eventually figure it out. You

know, a lot of times I've had feedback of people being like, oh, I could

never, like, do what you did. I don't know where to start on my

idea. I think sometimes it's helpful to just remember

to not criticize yourself so much and to put that energy

into just doing it. And, you know, it's definitely

hard, and I definitely understand it, and I definitely have currently just gone through

it and I'm still going through it. But I think the more that we talk

about this and the more that we have conversations about the way that we

treat ourselves, the better we can recognize that we're doing

it and then we can let it go. And you can recognize, like, oh, I'm

beating myself up on something because it's something new and it's hard and it's

challenging, and that's okay. But I don't need this negative

self talk. So just something that I've been thinking about a

lot because I'm going through a lot of changes right now, and I'm starting a

lot of new things, and it's something that's coming up, and I'm noticing that it's

something that's hindering me and it's something that's slowing me down. But again, I'm

reminding myself, like, that's okay. You can take your time at it. You don't

have to figure it out right now. If it takes you two more weeks, if

it takes you three more weeks, uh, you know, that's fine. That

at least you'll get it done. You know, at the end of the day, if

my website's launched and it took me three weeks of building instead of one

week, nobody's gonna know. Like, the only

person that knows that is me. Like, at the end of the day, my podcast

website is there, it's built, and it's the way that I want it to be.

And because it took a couple weeks longer, it doesn't make any

difference. And I shouldn't beat myself up because it took me three weeks instead

of the one week unrealistic goal that I had going

into it. Um, so, yeah, just a

reminder to everyone that, like, to be easy on yourself, and

it's okay to be, like, critical and hyper critical, but to not let

that stop you or to slow you down. And I think

more than ever now, I need to hear, like, it's okay,

you can be easy on yourself. You can give yourself grace. It's okay to not

make the deadline. It's okay to go a little bit past the deadline, because either

way, it's going to get done at the end of the day. And that's what's

important, is accomplishing the thing and doing the thing that you set out to

do. So, um, the timeline is. Is less important

than getting the task done. And, yeah, just

a reminder to me that it's okay if it

takes a little bit longer than you imagine or you expect, because you're usually putting

pretty strict goals on yourself. So I hope this episode made

sense. I hope this resonated with someone and, you know,

again, getting used to these solo episodes and

trying to pontificate on these ideas that are going

around in my head. So hopefully bring them to light and

hopefully it helps somebody somewhere. I appreciate you all for listening. Thank you

so much, and I will see you on the next episode.

Thank you for listening to working towards our purpose. If you

enjoyed today's episode, please share with a friend or leave a

review at Apple Podcast or Spotify. And if

you'd like to support the show, you can go to my website,

workingtowardsourpurpose.com, where you could purchase working

towards our purpose official merchandise dice. Thanks for listening.