Stop Spinning Your Wheels

In today's episode I share four personal stories (featuring an untied shoelace, a misguided makeup attempt, a very stuck truck, and a near-miss in the Himalayas) that all point to a simple truth: sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is stop.

If you’ve been pushing, striving, switching strategies, spinning your wheels and not getting traction, this is your invitation to pause.

I hope this episode feels like a deep breath and a gentle call to a better way.

You’ll also hear a little about The Orchard, my 12-month mentoring program for women and nonbinary business owners who are ready to move beyond overwhelm, into clarity, focus and flow.

The doors to The Orchard are now open. We start on 14 August.
If you feel drawn to be part of it, or you're curious to learn more, I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch through my website or DM me on Instagram

Links from this episode:

• For more on NAIDOC head to: https://www.naidoc.org.au/
• Learn more about The Orchard: anniecarter.com.au/the-orchard

Let's Connect!
I'd love to hear from you.
Please get in touch with any questions, suggestions for future episode topics, and to let me know how you're going applying what I share in the podcast in your own life.

Come say hi on instagram: @_anniecarter

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Transcript

Hello, lovely you. Welcome to Yes You. I'm Annie, and I'm going to wish you a happy NAIDOC Week.  NAIDOC Weeks has its origins in Aboriginal resistance. And it has gone on to become a week of celebration of Aboriginal culture and achievement and history. And I think for those of us who are not indigenous, really our part to play in this week is listening and learning, acknowledging the history and making reparations.

And so that's what I am seeking to do this week, but also for it to not just be, one week out of the year thing, something that I do ongoing. So I want to pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land that I am on right now, the land where I live and work, the land of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be focusing this podcast on some topics that I care deeply about. Things like rhythms, alignment, going without burnout, and other real life stuff that you face as you run a business. And particularly as you seek to run a business that is not just good financially, but that's good for you, good for the people who are connected with your business and good for the world, ultimately.

And the reason that I am focusing in on these topics over the next little while is that I have just opened the doors for the Orchard, the 12 month business mentoring program that I offer, which will be starting in mid August. And so as I share these themes, you might find that it really resonates with you and perhaps the orchard is of interest to you.

But regardless, I am sure that you will be able to get something from each of these episodes as a share going forward. I hope they really serve you today. I want to start by telling you four stories. They may seem random, they may seem unrelated, but see if you can pick up a theme that runs through all four of these stories.

The first one is, well, not much of a story, but a little situation that I was in. Just on the weekend, Abdo, my husband and I were out for a run together and his shoelace was undone and he just kept on running with this loose shoelace and I had said, hey, do you want to do a shoelace? And he's like, no, no, no, I'm okay.

And as we were running along, he was running kind of weird. To compensate for this shoelace. And obviously he was at more risk of falling over and we were going slower than we were before. His shoelace was undone, and eventually I just said, hey, let's stop, tie your shoelace and let's continue. Let's come to the next story. This is taking us back quite a few years to my best friend's wedding.

So I reckon I was in my late 20s. Bit of context here. I had never been really into makeup. It's just never really interested me. And I always kind of took the approach that I prefer people just to get used to my normal face. And then when I put on makeup, it's like extra special. So there we were on the day of her wedding, getting ourselves ready, and there I was, putting on my makeup.

Now, the downside of only doing your makeup on special occasions is that if you have no practice in the day to day, it doesn't mean you suddenly get skills when it comes to putting makeup on on those special occasions. Anyway, my friend's mom had worked as a makeup artist, and so she had all the makeup and so I was just sitting in front of the mirror and just putting on different makeup, having a play going, oh, that doesn't look quite right, but I'll just keep on going and after a little while, my friend's mum came up behind me, put her hands on my shoulder and said, put the makeup brush down.

And she essentially told me, go and wipe it all off. Let's start again. So I always put in my place. But she did. Then help me to put makeup on, and it did admittedly look a lot better than the direction that I was heading in all on my own. All right, let's come to another story here. I used to lead youth festivals.

I lead an organisation that ran youth festivals. And when you run festivals, especially when it's pretty grassroots and it's all hands on deck, you get pretty used to driving a truck. Or at least I did. I used to drive a truck quite often, and I quite enjoyed driving things, and so I had a bit of fun driving trucks at these times, just lugging things around, preparing for the festivals.

And one day we had, as a team, packed up everything that we needed to take to the festival. And I was going to drive the truck, and I went to drive out of the driveway, which was quite a narrow driveway, and right at the point of the gate there was like a fence post on either side. It was really narrow, and I managed to get myself and the truck into a position where we were so close to one of these fence posts, these metal posts that basically it was almost like I was wedged in there, wasn't actually touching the fence post, but it was right there.

And if I tried to go forward, I could see it was going to scrape along the side of the car, the truck, and if I went backwards, the same thing. And so I was just inching forward and then inching back, but it was actually getting worse and worse. A friend was there, and he kept popping his head in the window and saying, do you want me to have a try?

And I was, let's say stubborn. When I think about it, that's probably the best word for it. Stubborn, maybe a bit proud, I don't know, but I said, no, thank you. I'll keep trying. I know what I'm doing. I've driven a lot of trucks. I can do this. And so I kept on trying and just kept getting closer and closer to this pole.

And all of the team were watching. And so every time I got closer, everyone was like, oh. And so after doing this over and over, I was like, I don't know what to do. And I stepped out. I got out of the truck. I had to get out on the other side because I was so close to the pole on the side of my door.

And then my friend, he got in and immediately maneuvered the truck out of that position and out of the driveway without scraping the post. He made it look so easy and I just watched on in awe and also really humbled and thinking, turns out he has some skills that I didn't have. All right, one more story. Let's go to Nepal for this one.

This was years ago. I was there with my ex partner, my ex husband, and we were trekking through the Himalayas. And on this particular day we were walking along a very narrow path, along the side of a mountain. And so on one side of the path, there was a steep hill going upwards, and it was, had a lot of bamboo.

And then on the other side of the path was a sheer drop down. And so we were walking along this narrow path there, and then we heard this rumbling sound up the hill. And we had been told before we started that landslides were a possibility, and particularly at this time, that it was kind of on the, edge of landslide season.

And we had on our way to this point, we had crossed an area where there had been a landslide, and it literally was like the whole mountain had just dropped away. So it was very much on our minds. And at this point, when we heard this rumbling up the hill, both of us just thought immediately, it's a landslide.

I was walking behind him, and in that moment I just turned around and ran the other way and he, without us talking about this, just ran forward. And so basically we ran away from each other sprinting. And as I was sprinting, I could just hear this rumbling getting louder and louder. And then I could hear Mar, my ex.

And he was sort of trying to say something, but he couldn't get the words out. I learned later that he had decided to stop and to look up the hill, and he realised then that it wasn't a landslide, and he could see that something was coming down the hill and knocking trees down on its way, and realised it was coming down on a diagonal angle.

And when he looked and saw the direction I was running, he saw that whatever was coming down the hill was going to cross paths with me any moment. And then eventually, as I was still just running, running, running, he got the words out, stop! And I stopped immediately. As soon as I heard him say stop, and literally a foot in front of my legs to massive wild pigs just crossed the path.

They came down this hill, which was almost vertical and over the path in front of me and down the sheer drop, to on the other side of the path. And they missed me, honestly, by 30cm or so. And they were both. I mean, they were moving so fast, but I'm going to say a good couple of meters long.

They were massive. Definitely enough to have knocked me off this cliff. So at that point, I turned around and ran back to my car and we collapsed in, a heap of adrenaline, basically both just kind of laughing uncontrollably and shaking. So did you pick up a theme in my little stories? All of these stories involved a keeping on a doing something, a putting in effort, but not getting the desired result.

And they included somebody external saying, stop. So today, with love in my heart, if you are someone who is spinning your wheels and not getting where you want to go, lots of trying. Lots of effort, lots of just keeping on, but you know you're actually stuck. And can I say to you, stop, stop where you are. Stop running with the untied shoelace.

Put the make up brush down, my friend. Stop letting pride prevent you from recognising when you're not being effective. Stop running so hard when you don't have full perspective. You might be going the wrong way. I want to keep it really simple in this episode, and if you need to hear this, I hope that you can hear me when I say stop.

Pause, take a breath, get some perspective.

Now, I don't mean that if something isn't working that you should just ditch it immediately and try something else sometime. Things require some persistence and some commitment, and they take time to grow. But that's a different thing than if you are just spinning your wheels and loads of effort, loads of trying, lots of activity. And maybe part of that activity is just trying one thing that's not working quick.

Try something else that's not working quick try something else. Perhaps it's about ending up exhausted, but you're not getting anywhere, and in reality, you might be getting yourself more and more stuck. You know, when you're actually spinning your wheels in if you're driving a car. So if you're stuck, bogged, you can try, try again. And the more that ties spin, the deeper that you end up in the bog.

Really stuck. And I know for me, when I have been in that literal experience, I have tried and tried and tried and realise that, oh, it's getting worse and worse and worse, and then stopped for a moment and then just try it again and like, oh no, that actually made it worse again. So when I'm saying stop, I don't mean just stop for a second and then just get right back into the same activity that you've been doing all along.

If you know that you're spinning your wheels and you're stuck and possibly getting more stock and stop and consider another way. In the case of being literally bogged with a car, it requires a different approach than just keeping on putting down your foot on the accelerator and trying to drive your way out. It could be that you need a tow, or you go and put something in front of the wheel so that you can start to get traction, but a different approach is required.

So as you stop, the invitation is for you to consider a different way of doing things. So the stopping might involve for you giving yourself a half day to stop doing what you're currently doing. Disengage from that and ask some questions. Explore possibilities. Look at your situation from another angle. And you may have noticed that in all of the stories that I shared, there's an external person who was the one who could say stop and perhaps offer some guidance.

So sometimes there's somebody that's not you who can see what it is that you're doing. Maybe more clearly than you can. Who knows exactly what you're doing wrong. Who has skills that you might not have, or they might be further down the path than you are with some more experience.

Could be that someone outside of you has a bigger perspective than you do at this time, and can see things in a way that so far you can't.

And so as you stop, maybe the way forward for you is to consider some external input, that perspective from somebody else. And that might look like chatting to a friend. It could be about connecting with a mentor or somebody in your industry who's a bit further down the track. It may be about reading some books. It could be about researching how this kind of challenge that you're facing is approached in industries outside of your industry, so it's a fresh perspective on things.

But if you, right in the thick of spinning your tires, the first step is to stop. And then you might consider who else might be able to have some helpful input for you and how you might do things differently. If you needed to hear this, I really hope that it connects with you.

And if as you stop, you feel that you could use an outside perspective of someone who may see something that you can't see yet, you might like to consider joining the orchard. My background has always involved working with people. It's been centered around people, and that has run through different organisations that I have led, different roles that I have been in and in my business.

And I'm also trained in psychotherapy, which really informs the way that I do everything and means that I'm pretty good at asking questions and asking questions that can help people to get perspective and find their way forward. So I would love to play that role for you within The Orchard. If that sounds good to you. And in The Orchard being a group mentoring program, there's one on one aspect with me, but you also get the benefit of connection with other like minded business owners across different industries.

And so there are plenty of times where somebody else will say something in a way that you weren't able to see just yet, and can provide some insight that might just be like that key that unlocks something for you. So if that sounds good to you, you can get in touch. Head to my website, which is Annie carter.com dot at you.

Or you can DM me on Instagram or just in the show notes. You'll find some information and links to more details about the Orchard. I would love to connect with you and answer any questions that you might have about it. If you're curious about whether it could be a good fit for you. For now, I want to say thank you for listening and send you all my love.

Have a beautiful week and I will talk to you soon. Bye.