Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast, the podcast for leaders, change makers and everyday superheroes navigating transformation in this crazy, fast-moving AI-fueled world. My name is Angela Sharina. I'm your host, your partner in change, in transformationformation, your guide and your buddy, who is here to bring to you personal explorations, worldly science-backed tools and practices from the best companies, leaders and just people who are out there doing stuff to change their lives, to change their world, inspire and motivate, impact in a positive way, a world people and do something because they have this chance to live this life and make something happen. Today, guys, we are talking about how to navigate this place of transition where you feel like you want to be growing and moving and I don't know innovating, reinventing your life, your business, your leadership but you don't exactly know where it is. You are aiming, what is the goal? Where are you going? You're like I know I want to move and I have all the energy and motivation to grow, to change, but I just don't know where it is. I want to grow and change and the things are shifting so fast and we are trying one thing and then another and then something else changes, like how to navigate this space of not knowing where it is you're going, and even though I'm a huge fan and practitioner of goal setting, of clarifying your vision, of figuring out what it is exactly you want to commit to, to then prioritize your life and make plans and filter out the distractions I'm a huge proponent of that.
Speaker 1That's what I help people to do. But then I also work with people who come to me and they tell me you know, angela, I don't really know where it is I'm going and I need you to help me figure this out, and that's what I also help people to do. And how do I do that? So today I'm going to share with you one of the tools that I've used in my life and in my work and personally, and with clients and businesses in transition, and also, and recently, just now, I realized that I'm also in this space right now where I don't know exactly where I'm going. I just know I'm moving and I'm going and I'm in the process of reinvention. So today, guys, you're going to learn how to use one tool that is very powerful, and I was reminded about the tool that kind of came to the front of my mind when I read the book. I just finished the book by Annelore LeCunf Tiny Experiments how to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World.
But, to be honest, for me this book is how to navigate this place of transition where you know again that you are on the move. You are not where you were, but you also have no idea what is your destination. So how to navigate this pretty often uncomfortable place? Because, no matter what you do, it doesn't feel like progress, because progress assumes that you know where it is you're progressing towards. So how do you move? So how do you move somewhere where, when you don't really know where it is, you're going?
Speaker 1So that's what this podcast episode is all about, and I want to start it with a story. So we wrapped up a couple of days ago, we wrapped up a session with a client. Well, we were in the process of wrapping it up and he shared with me something. These days I don't feel like I own my days. It feels like they are decided for me and guys. To give you a little bit of context, it's coming from someone who is quite successful in life, built an amazing business that is growing, and maybe not as fast, but has grown quite a lot, and the client achieved a lot and recently got in the best shape of his life, and so that's what he shared.
Speaker 1These days, I don't feel like I want my days. It feels like they're decided for me. Things just happen and I'd like to steer my ship more, not just respond to one emergency after another, one need after another. So, yes, he told me let's focus on getting better at planning. I want to feel like I'm more in control of my day and I'm steering my ship, not the sea or the demands of the world. And he added you know, I feel like in my fitness, in my health. Now I have the system of planning, of being more in control, versus having excuses is why I don't have time for working out or eating healthy or sleeping better. So I want to apply the same system and planning into my work life so I feel more like I'm steering the ship, not the ship is just taking me whatever.
Speaker 1And then the client was happy to just end the session with this commitment to get better at planning that he hasn't really done all that much outside of now his area of mastery health and fitness. So he wanted to apply this to his work life as well to again create more momentum towards the vision that he has and just feel like again he's more in control of his work and business and life, not that it's just been done to him and he doesn't really have a say in how it's going to go and when. So, anyhow, to which I replied, well, that's not specific enough to just want to get better at planning. What will we actually do this week? Because we have sessions every week to get better at planning and, guys, this happens a lot. We often just want to get better at I don't know business, or at relationships, or at health, or I don't know. Let's say, public speaking or a cold outreach and talking to your potential customers or negotiating, whatever that might be. We just want to get better in some area of our life.
Speaker 1But how do you know you do get better? How do you know that you are better at planning? What does winning look like if there is no scorecard? That's where defining it is necessary, because otherwise, like you're just going to have your intention. I want to get better at planning. Well, how will you know that you did get better at planning? And at first you want to define, like, the goal right, how will I know when I arrive? But what if you don't know where it is exactly you're going and where that finish line is, because you simply haven't tried anything before and you don't know what good looks like or what to aim for. You just don't know where the destination and where you would like to go. You just know that you want to get better. That's where pacts, not goals, might work better and a better question might be not. How will I know I've arrived or that I'm winning, but how will I know I'm moving somewhere closer to where I want to go? So in this book, tiny Experiments how to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World that I mentioned, unlore which, by the way, we're going to have on our podcast quite soon.
So Unllor defines a pact as a short-term, focused commitment to an action framed, as I will, an action for duration of time. So I will do something for some duration of time. It's a way to turn curiosity into action and learn from small, repeatable experiments, rather than getting bogged down by big goals and trying to define that five-year plan when you don't really know what's going to happen in the next months. Right. So PACT it's commitment to yourself, agreement with yourself to do certain thing for a period of time, like with my client, we created a mini pact For the next week. We're going to take five minutes to plan our day. A pact it's got to be purposeful. I'm taking some guidelines and checklist from the book Tiny Experiments, so it's got to be purposeful. A pact will feel meaningful and provide a sense of learning or exploration Not a rigid task, but it gotta have some meaning for you. Like a client wants to feel like he's more in control of his work life and that's why he wants to get better at planning. And that's why we are doing this mini pact or mini practice for the next week of planning each day in the morning, taking those five minutes right.
Speaker 1A pact has to be actionable. The action should be something you can reliably do with your current resources and time. It's not something that you can do when the life gets better and everything aligns and you have all the resources and time in the world. No, it's something actionable that you can do right now, like taking five minutes to plan your day Very doable. When I ask the client, I'm sure you can do that he said 100%. So that's what you want to hear from yourself You're 100% sure you can do that. Continuous. It should involve a simple, repeatable action that can be tracked over a specific period of time, like with my client, we chose one week for now to start to figure out where to move from there. So for one week he's going to do five minutes of planning his day at the beginning of the day, and then it's got to be trackable. So it has to be binary Did you do it or did you not?
Speaker 1If I ask my client, did you do your planning or did you not? There is no gray area. He either did it or he did not. And that's what you also want your pact to be, your agreement with yourself to do certain practice. Did you do it or not? It's like me committing to writing every day. Did you do it or not? There is no gray area. And also notice that there is nothing that I cannot control. Well, yes, if, for whichever reason, if there is no electricity, I can't use my computer to type, one might say, well, you still have pen and paper right. Or if I wake up and for some reason, my hands don't work, I also don't have control, entire control, but it's pretty close to that. One might say, like, why wouldn't you write every morning? And you can always, always folks, have some control of your morning routine. Maybe wake up earlier, I don't know. Go to bed earlier, have some nap. There is always a way to commit to practice. It doesn't have to be morning, I don't know. Go to bed earlier, have some nap. There is always a way to commit to practice. Doesn't have to be morning, can be afternoon, can be evening, whatever that might be. Essentially, a pact is a playful way to test out ideas, to learn about yourself and build habits through consistent action rather than aiming for specific outcomes.
Speaker 1Again, when a client decided that he felt like he wanted to get better at planning in order to decide what he's going to do with his day before the world tells him what he's going to do with his day and what he should prioritize. That's also why morning, not once you open your email and you talk to some people and people will tell you their emergencies but to have more control for the day, the planning, for example, has to be done at the beginning of the day. It's in my client's total control. There is always five minutes, even if it's five minutes on the toilet while everyone else is sleeping. Then, with your phone doing the planning right, there is always five minutes, even if it's five minutes on the toilet while everyone else is sleeping. Then, with your phone doing the planning right, there is always that space where you can have almost total control. And then for the client with the planning, I also give him some guidelines.
So if you want to have more control over your day, some useful questions are what matters today, what do I want to accomplish, why does it matter and why does it matter and then plan the day. So that's a really, again good practice to explore how you get better at planning. Like where my client will go from there. We are yet to find out, but very often again, especially at the beginning, or you've never tried something before you really know what's the best way to go about having more control over your days, over your life. You don't really know what it is the end destination of getting better at planning and having more control over your work life or where your business go. Maybe you don't know how to get better at doing your business or your practice or working in your relationship, but you have an idea. If I do this, I at least might learn a lot. So if my client commits every day to planning, he might not necessarily arrive exactly where he wants to go, but he will learn something that will help him to then navigate his journey moving forward better. And that's what you're kind of looking for when you are designing your pact. You are looking for an idea that you know will help you, if not to get closer to some destination, it will help you to learn what you need to learn or to do or what your destination might be moving forward. So that's the ideal practice.
Speaker 1Life is complex and so there is some figuring out, like with my client, for example another client of mine. She's senior in her career and navigating career transition and she's not really sure where she wants to end up and she also is not sure how to exactly figure that out. But every week we come together and we decide on some experiment to run for the next weeks, two or the whole months to get better, to get closer to figuring out where it is she might want to go. Like, for example, for the next couple of weeks we're going to explore different job opportunities in the area she's interested in AI, for example, and ethics and responsible AI. So we're going to explore what the market needs and what are some core responsibilities of different jobs that pick her interest, what are some knowledge or skills that she might want to pursue through maybe some courses or some books or some articles, or reaching out to certain people, right? So that's an experiment that we are going to be doing and that's the practice. So every day, she's going to spend 30 minutes on figuring out, on reading those different job ads, specifically through LinkedIn, and then seeing where she might explore next.
Speaker 1So, packed not goals, might be the way for you to figure out your way forward when you don't really know where it is you're going, even though, again, I'm a huge fan of knowing your destination and optimizing your life for it. But sometimes and I have a feeling a lot of us are going to be going through a lot of these transitions when we don't really know where we're going ourselves or with our family or with our company, like we're going somewhere but everything is shifting so much at the moment that we haven't yet figured out how to even aim in this new environment. So pacts and practices, not goals, might be the way forward and might be the way of life moving forward, don't know. Start a pact, not a goal. That's an aspiration for you and here's something to think about.
Well, first of all, start a pact, not a goal. How to do that? Choose what you want to get better at or what you want to learn. Choose your practice from maybe ask LGBT, ask other people who might be more knowledgeable in the area. Do some Googling, which still works, empowered by AI, right? So choose your practice any practice like it doesn't have to be for entire year or even a month. Choose something for a week to experiment with. So choose your practice, something again in your control, that you can act upon now, not in some ideal future. And then choose the time, place and your tools. So, like my client, every morning, before I start everything, I'm going to spend five minutes on planning my day and then show up, and that's the pact, the agreement. So for this duration of time, I'm going to do X at that time in this place. Some of the things that people tried and I've tried 100 days of writing, or which ended up being my daily block, which leads me to a lot of interesting places.
Speaker 1Actually, 100 days of morning walks, or 100 days of exercise, or 100 days of gratitude, or 100 days of cold outreach or talking to one customer of your potential existing business, or 100 days of talking to people from different professions that you could be exploring, and 100 days. There is no magic, but just a big chunk of time where you really get to learn a lot about stuff. But again, it doesn't have to be 100 days, it can be 10 days, because you're really not sure what it is you're doing there. You're just juggling or throwing balls in the air, not sure which ones you're going to juggle with. So then shorter duration might work better, just to explore, maybe weekly again, maybe 10 days, maybe a month, whatever that might be.
Speaker 1But choose that duration, choose the action and lean into practice. Decide, make a pact and agreement with yourself to show up and again decide what it is you want to learn about or get better at. Choose your practice, choose your time, your place, your tools and show up. So what could your 100 days of practice look like? And again, this is especially useful when you don't really know where it is you want to end up. Where are you going, where your destination is. It's kind of like buying a ticket on a train and deciding on. You know, I'm going to figure out the end destination while on the way, passing some stations and deciding where it is I'm going to end my journey or maybe I'm going to take detours. So pacts, not goals. And if you're curious to explore this idea more well, first of all, you might stay tuned for our upcoming episode in the next couple of weeks not a couple of weeks, probably closer to two, four weeks. And besides that you can pick up on Laura's book Tiny Experiments how to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World. You can also follow my blog, for example, of my daily writing. The blog is linked in the show notes. So Pacts, not Goals.
Again, let's actually recap. But before we recap, guys, don't forget to share this podcast episode with people who might be stuck, not knowing where they're going, and it's highly unsettling and even might be stressful, and they just want to figure out and start doing things. Maybe a business owner, maybe a leader, so maybe committing to again pacts and practices and sharing this podcast with this person. So please do that Share review to help this podcast reach more ears. And let's recap some guidelines around pacts. So pact has to be purposeful. And let's recap some guidelines around pacts. So pact has to be purposeful. So you gotta know what it is you're trying to learn or where you wanna be moving towards, like, not specific and destination, but what it is you wanna learn, what it is you wanna explore. Like, what's the purpose? Right, it's gotta be actionable. So it's not actionable in some ideal future, but actionable right now, where you are, with what you have.
Speaker 1Continuous. It should involve a simple, repeatable action, a practice that can be tracked. Over a specific period, you got to reflect, like what did I learn? Should I improve this or that or try this or that? So continuous, allowing you again to explore, to lean into that, not a one event kind of thing. And then trackable. It should be binary Did you do it or not? It's got to be that simple.
Speaker 1So these are some guidance about PACTS. And again, again choose what you want to explore, get better at choose your practice, choose your time, place your tools and just show a bonus point if you reach out to Angela the email is in the show notes and share with me your practice, and I'm going to keep you posted on what it is I'm going to decide to do next as my pact for the 38th year of my life. So thank you so much, guys, for listening, for tuning in, for focusing on growth, on improvement, on moving forward. So thank you so much for your attention and your time. Until next time, keep changing and keep growing, even when you don't know where it is you going.