Hello and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shorina. I'm your partner in transformation and change, health, high performance executive and leadership coach, and just someone who is really passionate about helping each other, helping ourselves, helping the world to unlock more human potential in each of us. So together we create an amazing world and do things that inspire. Today, guys, we are talking about making progress and being stuck and working on complex goals or client cases. The world is complex. You know, as an adult, you've probably solved all the easy problems, especially if you've been working on different goals and achievements. So all you have are complex problems. So no space, no time, no reason to complain. It just means that you've been quite successful with figuring out simple problems. So now everything that is left is complex. And the problem with complex goals is well, they are complex, and very often you don't really know how to approach them. Like, what do I do? There are so many things I might be doing. There are so many things I can ask ChatGPT and get all the answers that I'll ever need in my entire life. There are so many people saying, you know, this works and this works, or try my method, try my tool, try this system, buy this course. Yeah, you know, there are so many things like what I do, whether that's how relationships, business, uh self-esteem, developing something in yourself, certain skills. Like right now, for me, business is top of mind, and making progress and growing it, I've been kind of stuck for quite a while, and it's frustrating. Like this morning, I woke up and I felt flat, like nothing is moving. Life feels flat, and it's not a nice feeling if you ever experience that. Then you know what I'm talking about. The first thing I did that's sort of troubleshooting one-on-one. Go and move, like go for a run, go for a walk, go for a go into nature, go for a hike, go to the gym. I went to the gym, I like to lift when I feel that way, and things start feeling better right away. You get your dopamine flowing, cortisol, and adrenaline, which are actually acutely great things for energy and motivation, and to get your idea, muscle, working as well in your brain. So I went to the gym, and there are all these different ideas and things and analysis of what I've done, what worked, what didn't work, and I realized that I'm having been doing one thing that I always do for my client's goals and cases, which are uh in almost all of the cases are quite complex. Whenever I have a complex goal to work with my client, and there are again all of the things that we can do and try, I ask myself this one question: what is one simplest, easiest thing I can start with? So when we do it with my client, we can't help but make progress. I'm not asking myself what's the most feature-rich, complex, custom-made, fancy, advanced strategy out there. I'm not asking this, because most of my clients, just like all of us, already have a lot, a lot of things in their life, in their business, uh, in things to think about in general. Our plates, our cups are full more often than not. And so, because of that, I know that my clients, nor I myself, have the capacity to take on this whole other project that's gonna require me to change approach to my life, to my work, to my business. Plus, none of those things are guaranteed to work in your specific case. And what happens when we overcomplicate things or try to figure out a really complex solution? What happens is we are stuck in not knowing where to start, or we start doing and things are not clicking because they're so complex and so many things have to come together to click and to work, that we just stuck in the snowman land where we are doing a lot of stuff and trying to figure it out, and it feels complex and it feels difficult, but we are not moving anywhere. And so the solution, what I learned in my coaching practice, and I often need to remind myself in my own problems or when I'm trying to work on goals and challenges, the answer is not more complexity or another a book or several books with the system that you need to implement step by step that will require again overhaul of your whole life or business. No, the answer is something simple, something that when done consistently, something that you can start right away, something that when done consistently will move things forward. What am I talking about here? Let's talk examples, let's talk practice. Let's say you're trying to lose weight, which is also a complex call. It's yeah, eat less, exercise more, but how do you actually do that? Even eat less, how do you actually do that? Like many people would start thinking about what are the some macronutrient split or complex diet or nutrition plan, how do you make it balanced, but also so I am not hungry and I'm not missing out, etc. etc. But actually, what would work for most people is asking questions like, well, what if I just make from now on all my drinks, all my liquids calorie-free until I reach my goal? For most people, that means minus 200-300 calories per day. And that is often all that is needed to start making progress. So instead of thinking I need to go on the stand, no, just like don't drink your calories, how about that rule? It works. Then if you're a leader, a manager, uh, or an entrepreneur, a founder, and you have a team to manage, or a whole organization, and you need to change culture. Instead of asking, what are all the things that we can change, need to change, have to change, ask like what's one thing that when we change it and do consistently will improve the this culture state that we are in. Let's say you don't have a lot of engagement and motivation. So, how about creating a practice of recognizing each person's work every single day? Whether through some technology and setting up certain reminders and triggers, automating that, or more often than not, we do have the capacity actually, like team manager, or if you manage a small team to just give one recognition for one's work, which will take probably a couple of minutes, yeah, maybe five minutes stops, but uh it will change the course of someone's day, the engagement, the motivation, the productivity, and when done consistently, we'll move things forward. Let's say sales, you know, you're not sure what clients to approach, what offers to make. Nothing seems to be working. What if for the next what if for the next 30 days, what you do is you just try different things with 30, 40, 50 people, whatever that number is, and you approach different clients with different offers and see what clicks. I'm guilty of that too. I just don't stick with the practice long enough for it to actually work. So, what I'm doing right now is until things start moving consistently forward, I will just do that every day. Trying new offers with new clients, asking about problems, asking about challenges until something clicks. One thing, just reaching out to for me, it's 30 people every day and offering different things, asking about challenges and problems that I might have to solve, just one practice instead of just like this system for lead generation and marketing and uh some sort of automated sales system, just one thing. Relationships. If you are in a tense relationship with anyone, how about noticing one good thing about them, telling that to them every single day? Try it for a month, see how your relationship develops. Or let's say you're battling with self-esteem, that for most of us at some point will come up when we fall short, when we fail, when we don't do as well as we think we should be doing, right? Like, how do you bring your self-esteem up? Well, what if for the next months or maybe your whole life that's a great practice? You start finding one thing that you do well, or you're just proud of for showing up, one hard thing every day. You find that, and like you know, you could just be slicking off, but you did that, or you do this, or you do something well, but you don't notice. So maybe think through your day and think about all the things you did for other people. People thank you for. You probably do quite a few things, and you just don't notice them because you are overfocused on this one thing that is not working well yet. But even then, congratulate yourself on that. You're not trying to stay the same, you're trying to grow, to improve, to challenge yourself. You are going after that next thing, which is just something you haven't mastered, you haven't gotten good at yet. So, all of these small things done repeatedly will improve the state, the situation. And very often, we what I learned in my practice with clients and myself, we just don't give it a fair chance. And we somehow start believing that we need this complex thing to get where we need to be, where in reality, it's those few things, again, for each goal, just one thing. Pick one thing, pick one thing that when done consistently will improve things, and just stick with that and see how much less stress and pressure you have, A, how much more consistent your motivation is gonna get. Plus, don't forget to celebrate and acknowledge you doing that thing, and instead of being stuck, you will start making progress. So the rule of one thing, because if you're working on a complex goal, on a complex client's case, something internally or externally for you. Just ask yourself today what's one thing that when I do it, and I know I will be able to do it 100%. So when I do it, things will start moving forward. Oversimplification works a lot better than overcomplication when it comes to making progress. One keeps you one gets you moving, oversimplification that is, and the other keeps you stuck. More often than not, anyhow. So, what's your one thing? And that's it for today, guys. A very short, sweet podcast episode sharing my own pains and gains and solutions, but also what worked for my clients. I've been coaching for 18 years, guys, and I've seen a lot of things working, not working, but still, still, a lot of things I need to repeat to myself that this works. So use it. There is no shame in getting back to the basics and doing the one thing that actually works. Thank you guys for tuning in. Thank you for listening. Please do rate review and share this podcast episode with other people who might be struggling, who might be stuck, and you might not know the advice to give to them. But share with them this podcast that will get them thinking about their life and what they're working on in a better, more progressive, more actionable kind of way. Thank you guys for tuning in. Keep changing, keep learning, keep evolving, keep growing.