Working Towards Our Purpose

Welcome Back to episode 40 of Working Towards Our

Purpose. And today I have a

topic that I want to talk about. I want to talk about how

to actually make a change

and start to work towards something that maybe seems, like, really

overwhelming or, you know, you don't know how

to even think about starting this big task.

So. But before I get into that, I want to talk about a little story,

perhaps that might be helpful. Not sure if it is or not, but we'll see.

So I was going on a walk the other day, and I was looking

at this bush that had, like, a bunch of beautiful flowers on it, and I

kind of, like, just walked up to it to, like, look at it and,

like, smell one of the. The. The flowers, you know, because you got

to stop and smell the roses. And I noticed, like, a bee

working really hard at pollinating one of the flowers.

And for a second, I thought that it was, like,

covered in pollen because it looked, like, kind of fuzzy, but I think I just

didn't have my glasses on or something. But it made me, like, think

about how the bee is working really hard

to pollinate, which benefits

that plant and all the other plants around and, you

know, benefits us because it can pollinate our food sources and create,

you know, tons of vegetables that wouldn't really be able to be

grown otherwise without the bee pollinating. And I'm not,

like, I don't really know that much about bees, but I know that they do

pollination. And

so, anyways, thinking about how this bee is working

hard to do work that is essential for us humans,

but it's just kind of existing and doing,

like, going about its day normally. Like, it's not really thinking about

how it has to work hard, so that way it can pollinate plants and,

you know, benefit all kinds of other species. It's kind of just like living its

life and being in the present moment. And

that kind of got me thinking about, like, how I

envision humans working in the future. Like,

I think, like I alluded to in previous episodes, I think we all have these

special innate talents that are kind of natural to us,

that come easier to us, but a lot of times we don't really end up

getting to use them because we're forced into jobs that

maybe don't align with those values or have been told that maybe

that's not a valuable skill. So I don't know, kind of just the

analogy of that be kind of made me think about, like, how I

want to be working and, like, how I want to be using the

things that I'm good at to make it as if I wasn't really

working, but I'm really helping something

greater, you know, than myself. Um, so I don't know if

that analogy makes too much sense. Um, I'm sure you could kind of,

like, pick it apart, but I. It gave me kind of a nice

visual as far as, like, what I'm trying to do and

kind of changed, like, what this episode was going to be. I was trying to

start, you know, thinking future of, like, what do I want this

podcast to be? What do I want my sort of purpose

to be? And thinking. Overthinking it, really. And

I think, like, I alluded to last episode, I was just thinking, like,

okay, maybe I could be some sort of, like, dream coach or something like

that. But I think I ended up putting a lot of pressure on that, and

I think I picked coach because it's kind of the only thing that I can

see as I've seen other people do it.

So I think perhaps I'm projecting

that into making decisions on

what I want to do now so that I can get to that coaching

goal, when in reality, I don't even know if that's what the goal is,

and kind of making me

go astray and doing things that maybe I

shouldn't be doing anyway. So instead of, like, thinking

about this future thing that, like, I may or may not want to be or

want to do or even could do, thinking about,

like, what I can do now and who I can serve

now, and I think that helps clarify

a lot of things for me. So,

you know, thinking. Thinking about the be as. As this

visualization of, like, how can I be just that be right now? How can I

just exist and do the things that I feel called to now? And how can

that, like, try to help somebody who maybe is an older version

of myself? Um, so I was gonna have a different episode

today, but instead I'd like to talk about, like, how do

you make a change? Cause I feel like that's, like, one thing that

always comes up. Like, maybe maybe you know what it is that

you want to do. You just don't know how to get there. And maybe you

don't know what. What it is, and that could be a whole different episode. But.

But for this episode, I want to talk about three things that, like, you

can do to get yourself to do the thing that seems scary

or the thing that you want, but you think maybe you don't know how to

do it or you don't know how to get there. So the first

thing I think is something that's been coming up a lot for me recently

is to just do the easiest step towards that thing.

I think a lot of times we could be sort of overwhelmed by

seeing other people do things and seeing them, like, do everything

perfectly. And it can kind of overwhelm us and

freeze us into, like, not starting that thing.

You know, just like, a simple example that I've done

recently is, you know, thinking about sharing the music that

I create seems like an overwhelming task for me. I can

publish it, but, like, I never tell anybody about it. And it seems

hard to, you know, go make reels that people make and,

like, try to use your music and market it. And, like, all

of that seems really overwhelming for me. But I

thought of, like, what is the simplest thing that I can do?

Like, what if I just had, you know, a video that didn't have me in

it and I just used, like, a little piece of my song was this little,

tiny, quick thing. I didn't have to edit it. It was just like, a little,

tiny, simple type of video. And

then that seemed easy to me, and I was like, okay, I could do that.

The hard part is going to be posting it, but I can make that video

pretty easily. I don't have to think about, like, what other people are doing or

try to play into trends or anything like that. I could just make this one

thing seemed really scary, but

then once I did it and posted

it, now it seems a lot less scary. So I think part of

the, like, getting started is it's so hard because you've never done it before,

and it can be overwhelming and challenging.

But I think if you can, like, find whatever the easiest

task is, even if it seems, like, totally unrelated,

I think it's, like, just so helpful, even, like, you know, if I couldn't make

that one simple video without me in it, even just posting about, like,

some other sort of music thing, like, maybe that isn't me,

maybe that's helpful, or maybe posting, like, a picture

of a guitar that I'm using or something like that. Um, so just

thinking about, like, what is the one simplest thing you can do to get started?

Because I really think that momentum is a

helpful thing. I mean, it's a law of physics.

So I think once you start moving towards something,

it just becomes that much easier to take the next step. And it

could just, you know, you think it's so easy to, like, look at

other people doing things and being like, oh, I'm so far away from that. I'm

never Gonna be able to make, like, a video of myself or,

you know, whatever it is if it seems impossible. But

you can take one step forward and just,

you know, try to figure out what that step is for you. And

to get to step number two of this three steps, I think the

next thing you can do to try to figure out what that easy step is,

is to just be in the present tense. Because I

think a lot of times we look at what other people are doing

and look at somebody who's been doing something for years, or,

you know, they're an expert at it, or somebody you look up to,

and it can be overwhelming because you're very far away from

that. And maybe eventually you see yourself doing that,

but it's far away from, like, the present tense right now.

And a lot of times I found myself just, like, out thinking and

being like, okay, I want to be. Take the coach, for example. Like,

maybe I want to be a coach in the future. I don't know the first

thing about, like, how to get clients or how to position myself

to even be a coach. I don't know how to do any of that stuff.

So I could easily talk myself out of, like, okay, well, there's no

sense in even doing it because I don't know where to start.

But if you bring yourself back to the present moment, which is kind of what

I was talking about earlier, like, what can I do now to

sort of build something that works towards that that isn't

necessarily that right now? You know, I don't need to build out, like,

a coaching program and a plan and everything. But what I can do

right now is just create podcast episodes, create content

on things that have helped me or things that I'm thinking

about or things that are inspirational. And,

you know, if I keep doing that, then maybe it might

lead to something in the future that is a coach or coach, like,

or something that's community based, which. Which is something else that's important to me.

But what can I do right now to make sure that

I can move forward? And,

yeah, I think bringing yourself to the present tense, there's always something that you can

do and trying to

almost ignore the voice of

the future version of yourself and thinking, even

if it's something like playing an instrument, you know, if I'm not great

at playing an instrument, but I want to be a musician, well, what can I

do today? I could go try to practice this song that I like,

or I could go, you know, learn a couple chords or something.

There's always something that you can do like right now. And I think trying to

bring yourself to the present moment and the present tense, like, what

can I do today? Can help you get to what that next easiest

step is. So those two things along with the third

step, my third step here would be to get a buddy.

Like, get a friend, get an accountability buddy, a

partner, somebody who can help encourage you to do those

first two things that we're talking about. And I think

doing these three steps can help you to actually make a change

for the better. And I've had a bunch or not

change for the better, but a change towards what it is that you want. And.

And so, yeah, getting a buddy, I think that's

kind of been something that I've done for a while.

A while ago, before I quit my corporate job,

I was going to these classes. This was before the pandemic.

I was going to these classes to try to learn about business. And

I noticed a lot of them were kind of just really theoretical and

I don't know, they were okay, but I wasn't really, like, getting that much from

them, you know, And I met somebody at one of them who was

feeling the same, and we were both like, we gotta, like, go do stuff.

Like, thinking about this stuff in theory isn't, like, gonna help us

get there. And the two of us met. We. We

were strangers before that, and we met like every

week for like, three years after the day that we met.

And it was really helpful in

trying to keep motivated and trying to keep going forward.

Um, because by yourself, you, you know, you go in and out

of moods, you. You get excited to

do something, you. You get bummed out about it, you talk yourself out of it.

But if you have a buddy who can kind of like keep you in check,

it's really helpful to. To show up

for the days that maybe you don't feel like showing up. And then. Then you

also have that pressure of, like, you know, maybe I don't wanna show up for

myself today, but I gotta show up for my buddy. Because, you

know, we've made this kind of agreement and it just

works really well. Like I said, I did it for three years

with one friend and we kind of had a bit of a falling out and

don't anymore. But I have another person now

that I talk to weekly and

we talk about what we're working on and what we're trying to

accomplish, and we're actually working on a project together too.

And I've just found it so helpful to be able to

talk about the things that you're dreaming about and you're

thinking about in a nonjudgmental way

and just kind of allow yourself to think big and to dream and

to. To get feedback and to spend

time just thinking about the things that you want to be doing. And.

And yeah, I think it's just. It's just so helpful to be able to,

you know, tell somebody like, hey, I made. I made this real. You know, it

was easy to make, but I'm really scared of posting it. And then they can

encourage you and be like, yeah, just post it. What's the worst that can happen?

You know? You know, I think it's great. You should post it. And

that can be like, the nudge to get you over the edge to make that

step is having. Having somebody there that you can trust.

And like I said, it could. It could be anybody. It could be a friend,

a partner, somebody who you just met, but

somebody that you can trust. And.

Yeah, so. So I think that those three things can be,

like, a key thing to actually get you to make a change

again. The first one is just trying to figure out what the easiest step is

so you can do it and not feel overwhelmed by,

like, having to be perfect. And the second thing would be to be in

the present tense and to think about what you can do right now to figure

out what that step is. And then the third thing, to get a buddy to

inspire you. And yeah, I think

those three things have helped me make changes in my past. They've

helped me kind of quit my job.

You know, that's another example. Like, I was thinking

about, you know, quitting my job the other day or the other

week. And the easiest step for me was to send an

IM to. To ask for a meeting to then say that I'm gonna quit

in the meeting. Like, sending that IM was the

easiest thing I could think of to be able to start the quitting process.

And then I was even getting nervous to do that, and then my

friend texted me, and that pushed me over the edge to make that change.

So this isn't the only way to make a change, but

I'm kind of just thinking about what I've been going through recently and

things I've been working on. And I think that these three things kind of come

to mind, and hopefully they can be helpful for you.

And, yeah, I mean, that's. That's all I got

for the topic today. But to conclude, I think that

I do want to be able to help people and

help previous versions of me. Help. Help somebody

to create something to Encourage them to be

creative, to make music, to, you know, follow a business idea.

And I want to try to be helpful in any way that I can.

So I'm going to put a link in the show notes for a

form that you can fill out if you would like to suggest

something. Maybe you have a question or

a tactic that's helpful or something that you want me to

talk about. I want to open it up and make this

podcast more community based and not just like me talking to a wall.

So yeah, I'm going to put that in the show notes, just be like a

little quick Google form. And I'm also thinking about

setting up a link for a call

to talk with other people. So if you find yourself,

you know, maybe stuck in, in a position and maybe

you need some encouragement, maybe you don't have a buddy, you

can sign up to have a call with me and

kind of just something I thought about this morning about doing and

I really like the idea. I think I like talking to people about these

ideas and these topics that we touch on on this podcast.

And yeah, if you want to, if you want to set up a call,

I'll also leave a link for that. So there'll be two ways to connect.

You could type me a form if you don't want to talk and you can

set up a call to discuss some of these ideas.

And um, I'd love to hear from you and hear your feedback

and yeah, so I will do my poor

ending because I don't never know how to end these things. So

if this was helpful, please share it with somebody who you think would

benefit and I'll talk to you on an

episode real soon. Thanks for listening,

Sam.