Working Towards Our Purpose

Welcome back to working towards our purpose. This is episode

79, and in today's episode, I want to talk about

not having it figured all out. Not having it all figured out.

Didn't even have that title figured out. Welcome

back and Happy New Year. It's a new year. It's 2020.

And yeah, before we get into the episode, we are going to do our check

in and just check in with ourselves for a moment or so

to see how we're feeling.

All right, well, it's a new year and

for me, I've been feeling pretty

overwhelmed with trying to have everything figured out.

And that's the idea of this

episode. And we're going to get talking into this. But yeah,

so I had a conversation last night that kind of eased

my worry about having to have everything figured out.

And so, yeah, I'm feeling better now. Feeling good today,

feeling positive today, feeling authentic

and yeah, feeling good. So, yeah, I want to want to talk

about the idea of like, not having it all figured out. And I think,

you know, at the top of the new year, I don't

know, maybe you have different types of feelings, maybe

inspired, encouraged, maybe feeling bad,

I don't know. But for me, I think the

past six months, specifically with this podcast, the

past six months have been this sort of exploratory period and

making episodes, creating this thing to

try to figure out where I want to go with it and what it is.

And for me, I had this six month deadline and at the end of

2025, I wanted to have everything figured out and I wanted to

know who my target audience was, I wanted to know what

I was doing to go full force into it in

2026 and to have it figured out.

So yesterday I basically

had a whole day of thinking and I was trying to make

some stuff and I was just really caught in my head about

things and I realized that I was putting an

immense amount of pressure on me figuring out what this podcast is,

who this podcast for. And the reality was

I didn't have the answer for that. And I wanted to have the answer at

the end of last year, but it just, it

wasn't here and I didn't have it figured out yet. So then I started making

myself feel bad for that and, you know, negative

thought cycles and, you know, imposter syndrome. Like, why am I even

doing this podcast? Like, is it even helpful to anybody and

sort of, you know, going through that familiar pattern and

yeah, I think a lot of times for me it's tough to balance

the entrepreneurial side of My mind and the creative

side of my mind. And I think yesterday my entrepreneurial side

of my mind was like, okay, well, we have to plan this podcast out now.

You have to do it a certain way. You have to

do it like other people are doing. You have to

just have things figured out. You have to know who your target audience is. How

can you speak to the right person in the right way if you don't even

know who they are? So there's a lot of that going on. And

then I was reminded of,

like, why. Why I was doing it to begin with, the thinking about the

creative aspect of it. And that was

really, really helpful. And I think for somebody who

struggles with imposter syndrome and

thinking that you're not good enough to do certain things, I think sometimes

knowing when to push something is good.

Knowing when to put on the entrepreneur mindset and say, okay, let's double

down on this now and let's go after. It

can be helpful. So let me try to explain that more.

I guess I felt as if I didn't have

all the answers for this thing. So my

entrepreneurial mind sort of backed off yesterday, and my creative mind was

like, okay, well, why are we doing this to begin with? And let's think about

that instead. And maybe now is not the time to

go all in with it and to

try to figure it out.

Yeah, I'm rambling, but anyways, what I mean is

not having to force yourself to go all in on something

and knowing when that time is right and when it's not right.

I think there's three things I have written down here in my notes

for how I came. The decision to not be

overwhelmed by it anymore and to be actually excited about it

again. And so, yeah, we'll run through

these three things now. And the first thing

was letting go. And I think this has been sort

of a big part of my

transition into 2026. And I think

a lot of times I myself just

take too many things on or I want to do too many things or I

want to help too many areas. And, you

know, I was thinking about, like, growing my YouTube channel and thinking like, well,

hey, you know, I've gotten this whole system down for my podcast, and,

you know, maybe this way that I create my

podcast efficiently can be helpful to somebody else. Maybe I should start

making videos to help podcasters again. And just thinking

about, like, all these things that, like, I possibly could do.

And then I just, I don't know, I start to think about,

like, how we have a finite amount of Time. And,

you know, I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with, like, the feeling that,

like, the older that you get, there's your. The

pending idea of limited time just kind of creeps

up on you. You know, like, you realize that you only have a certain amount

of time. And, like, could I go help other podcasters

with the systems of how to

backend record a podcast? Sure. But is that how I want to spend my time?

And I was just really asking myself these questions

of how do I actually want to spend my time? And for that specific

reason or for that specific example of helping other podcasters

create a podcast more efficiently, it's like, no, that's not where I want to help.

That's not it. So letting go of that, it's like, it's a

thing I could do, but it doesn't mean I should do it, because

if I don't want to do it, deep down, it's not going to be a

sustainable thing. And that's kind of how I've

been, like, positioning myself into 2026 and really just,

like, letting go of things. Like, there's some. There's some

clients that I work with that, like, you know, I really. I

do want to help them out and work

on their stuff, but it's just like, there's a lot of this stuff that I

don't do it anymore. So it's cumbersome and it takes me a long time to

do it. And just letting go of all these things that I think I

have to do, but I don't really want to do and just really honing in

on what is it that I want to do.

And yeah, just thinking about growing the YouTube channel and

being a quote, unquote YouTuber and having to make

proper YouTube videos, all of that was just sort of

overwhelming. And it's not really what I want to do right now,

and it's not really what I have time to do. So just kind of letting

that go. And getting back to the

reason why I did this podcast, I started this podcast to

begin with, and that brings me to the second thing that really helps me make

these decisions is why am I doing this thing? Why are you doing the

thing? And for me,

starting this podcast was a different reason. I was interviewing other

people, and I want to show people different ways of

living other than a traditional corporate lifestyle. But then

when I started doing it solo, I wanted to discuss

these topics that I'm thinking about and to talk

about purpose and to talk about mental health and to,

yeah, be encouraging and Inspiring, hopefully. And

I kind of got into this routine of where it was really helpful for me

to intentionally think about these things

whenever I go to record a podcast and to put

my thoughts on paper and to organize them and to articulate them. In a way,

it was beneficial for me, and that was

the reason why I was doing it and the reason I could keep it going

at a ridiculous rate of two episodes a week.

So. So getting back to that of, like, okay, well, let's. Let's not

plan out these episodes. Like, you don't have to think of it like a business

anymore. Like, we can let go of that idea and we can get back to

the reason why I enjoyed doing this podcast. And it's just to,

you know, kind of be off the cuff and raw and

not totally planned out. And, like, I don't want to, like, come

across as, like, the expert in this field or whatever field I'm in.

Um, it's just expressing how I'm feeling and,

like, you know, maybe trying to make a connection with someone else. And

yeah, like, like, knowing that gave me way more confidence to be like,

okay, you can continue this podcast in a similar way that you did

it last year, where you go for a run in the morning, you have an

idea, you. You write it down on paper and you just

articulate your thoughts. And. And that way it's just

so much more sustainable for me because I don't have to think about all

of the other stuff of how to run a YouTube channel and how to make

these extra videos and make all the right clips and really

hyper fixate on getting my subscriber count up. I can just

make it and let it marinate and

see what happens when it's ready to move on to something else.

And just, yeah, knowing that, like, it's. Maybe it's not at that point

yet. It's not fully. It's not fully marinated yet. And then that's okay. Like,

to let it keep

thinking, like, you know, I can put a timeline on something, but if something's

not ready, then something's not ready. And

I did want to make this analogy. I don't know, maybe it's a little too

far off, but I wanted to make the analogy of, like, writing

a song. Like, for me, when I'm writing a song, like, I'll have an idea,

and it'll usually just be like a little small idea, like a little

guitar part, maybe chord progression or something with, like, a little

melody and, like, some words come out. And

sometimes I will try to, like,

force it and to try to force, to finish it, and

it's just like, not coming. It's not working. And like, I'll leave it

alone and then I'll come back to it and then I'll see, like, if there's

anything left. And for me, when the

songs that actually do work, it's like I'm not thinking about them too much.

I'm not thinking about having to force myself to finish it. It's kind of just

coming naturally and I'm allowing it

to just come out. And I

know I'm doing a really bad job of articulating this, but I guess it is

kind of a hard thing to describe. But what I'm saying is that

some song I know pretty quickly off the bat which

ones I'm going to be able to finish and which ones I'm not. And even

if I like ideas, if I have this feeling that like, it's.

It's not ready yet, then it kind of just doesn't

work. And, and I'll. I'll record it and I'll save it and I'll put it

somewhere to have it for later and, you know, maybe it'll turn into

something later. But I think I can

tell when again, it's done marinating. Like, I can tell when

the, the song is, is ready to be finished and,

and just sort of that intuition that you have

for that specific thing, that's what I'm trying to apply elsewhere now. I'm trying

to apply that to this podcast. And it's like I have this feeling that it's

not done marinating yet, and I don't know all the answers yet, and that's okay.

And we can continue to do it like I'm doing now, but I don't have

to push it and I don't have to go to the next level. And

then that brings me to the third thing that really helped me solidify

these decisions. And it's taking a look at

other areas of your life. And maybe this is hyper

specific to me, I don't know. But for me, I'm always doing a bunch of

different things. And I have a habit of starting

a bunch of things and making some progress but

not really going all in on something. And

recently just had some conversations about the new year and

where I want to put my energies and

the idea or the conversation of like, starting

to do music for other

people, like recording other people, helping other

musicians, recording, whether it's like mixing,

recording, songwriting, I don't know, whatever it is,

that idea kind of Came back into my head. And I've always wanted to be

like an engineer, you know, audio engineer

or a producer to help somebody like create

music. I've always kind of wanted to do that, but haven't felt like

I could or didn't feel like I had enough skills or.

Yeah, just didn't feel like it was right. But you know, after last year

and after releasing a single each

month and releasing 12 singles and feeling like I've really gotten

better, it just that sort of really gave me

confidence to feel like maybe now's the right time

to be able to go and push that. So when I say, like, look at

different areas of your life, like, I was kind of feeling sad that I

didn't have the podcast figured out yet, so I

couldn't really feel like I can push that. But now when I'm

like, you know, looking at these other areas, it's like, oh, well, what about

music? Like, maybe right now is the perfect time to push

music and to really go in on that. And I have

friends and community around me who can

fully support that right now. And it's like, yeah, that's a no

brainer. Why would I not fully commit to that right now

and to push that as much as I can? So then that made me

assured of my decision and it's like, yes, okay, podcast isn't ready yet, and

that's okay. We can keep making episodes and I can keep exploring it and keep

trying to figure it out, but I don't need to go

100% in on my business

mind and have to figure everything out. I can still figure

that out while having

this other part of my life

ready to be pushed. And that just

made so much sense to me and it, it helped me let go.

It helped me remember the reasons why I'm doing things.

And yeah, it just really helped. So I tried to break down

the conversation that I had into these

steps to figure out how I got there. And that was kind of the three

steps. It was first just letting go, and then the second

was and thinking about why I'm actually

doing the thing that I'm doing and to, you know, to figure

out, like, why am I doing the thing? And then the third was to look

at the other areas of my life. And between those three

things, it was like really helpful for me to be like, okay, now

I feel confident that, like, I don't have to push

working towards our purpose as much as, like, I thought that

I needed to. And in talking about

all this and like in feeling this and sort of working

through this thought process in my head,

it just, like, there was a sort of,

like, through line of authenticity. And, like, I just

wanted to say this lastly, because I think it's important that, like,

when I was pushing the podcast and, like, you know, I was ending 2025

and planning for 2026 and stuff, I had

this, like, slight feeling of not being authentic.

I was trying to use AI too much to create my

show titles and to really go in on

SEO and making sure my titles are words that people are searching,

and then going into topics that people are searching and being like,

okay, I have to go and talk about this topic,

because this is what people want. And there was just that feeling of not really

being authentic anymore, and I was kind of ignoring it. And

I think that's what, like, led to

me just, like, having this moment of, like, okay, what's going on? Like, this. This

isn't working. And, yeah, and ultimately led

me to, like, this little mini redirection, which I think is great. And.

And, yeah, also just. Yeah, the idea of, like, mini

redirections, I think is so helpful. Like, you don't have to have it all figured

out. You know, if you're coming into this year and maybe you thought you wanted

to do something and it's not working out, you can always

redirect and take a little, Change

the degree a little bit and move in a different direction, and that's

okay. I think it's really important to reevaluate your life

and what you want and where you want to go.

Now, today, sitting here, I feel really confident in the

direction that I'm moving forward. And in contrast to

how I felt yesterday, it's like night and day. So

hopefully this wasn't too confusing, and

hopefully you could follow me through it and maybe you can resonate with some of

it. But, yeah, I just wanted to try to articulate that thought process of

me stopping and being like, hold on, this isn't

working right now. Let's reposition myself

and figure out what is going to work. And

lastly, I just also want to say that, like, I have some really good people

in my life that I can really, like, have these honest

and open conversations with that I really do appreciate.

And I think they know who they are, but

I am really grateful for that and I wouldn't be able to,

like, get to these conclusions without them, so.

So, yeah, also lastly, leaving off on this note.

Yeah, just feeling appreciation for people around me, so maybe you can feel some

appreciation for someone like that you have in your life. And

yeah, thanks for listening to me ramble. Thanks for listening to me talk about

not having it all figured out. Yeah. I'll see you

on the next episode, which will be episode 80. And

take care. And going forward, only going to be

doing one episode a week. So I'll see you next week on another episode.

Take care.