#92: The Only Two Things You Need To Make Progress On Your Dreams

We're more than halfway through the year, and if I'm honest, I'm not as far along on my dreams as I thought I'd be by now. Maybe you're right there with me.

So today, we're going back to the basics I talked about almost two years ago.

• What consistency really is.
• How getting impatient with results sets you back, and what to do instead.
• How mindset isn't a feeling, it's a decision.
• Why waiting to feel like it isn't a strategy.
• The true value of fifteen minutes every day.
• And how to finally trust yourself to follow through.

3 Key Takeaways From This Episode:

1️⃣ You'll realize there's never a perfect time to start.
2️⃣ You'll know you can show up imperfectly and still make progress.
3️⃣ You'll recognize the moment where most people quit, right before it would've paid off

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Transcript

Speaker 3 0:01

You're never too busy, too tired, too old, or too anything to pursue your dreams. Welcome to the Distracted Dreamer Podcast, where you'll learn how to move all those never ending distractions aside and chase your dreams with confidence.

Speaker 0:23

Well, hey there. I'm your friend and host, Carlene, and I am so glad that you are here with me today. You know, we are actually more than halfway through the year. Uh, somehow I missed that six-month mark, and my gosh, it's already August. And if I'm honest, I am not as far along on my dreams as I thought I would be by now. And maybe you're feeling that too, because, you know, life gets busy, and it's so easy to tell ourselves a story about why we're not further along yet. You know, work got crazy, and the kids need us, and we'll really dig in next month or next season, you know, once things calm down. So I caught myself doing that again a few weeks ago, And it made me wanna go back to something that I talked to you about way back in episode three of this podcast. That was almost, two years ago already. But I don't think that I ever finished the thought. So back in episode three, I gave you the 15-minute rule, and today I wanna bring that whole idea back, but I wanna take it one layer deeper than I did the first time. So let's just back up for a second, because if you weren't with me in those first few episodes, you need this piece. Because I want you to be able to get going on your dream right now, even though we're in the middle of the year. It's okay. You can start any time. And I gave you a lot of tools in that episode, and I just wanna revisit them, and then we're gonna go even deeper on these, The first thing that I talked about was a time audit, and that is basically just doing an honest look at where your hours actually go. And I had told you about a college student that I coached who swore she didn't have enough hours in her day, until we actually tracked her time, and we found five or six hours a night disappearing, yes, on her phone. And you know what? That's not really a time problem. That's an awareness problem. So step one is always the same. Get honest about where your time is actually going. And then step two is the 15-minute rule itself. So it says you don't need a free afternoon to make progress on your dream. You need 15 minutes and a decision to spend them before you pick up your phone or turn on the TV. So you chip away at your dream for 15 minutes first, and I promise you, more often than not, you'll find yourself still going well past the 15-minute mark because it was never really Netflix or your phone that you wanted. It was momentum and something that actually matters to you And then the third step was about habit stacking, about attaching that small action on your dream to something that you already do on autopilot, like to your morning coffee or your evening walk, so you're not trying to build a new routine from nothing, right? You're just kind of tucking your dream habit into a habit that's already runs itself. And then I also told you about James Clear's idea from Atomic Habits, that improving just 1% a day doesn't add up to 365% better by the end of the year. Because of how compounding works, it adds up to 37 times better. 37 times. So every day, you're building on the day before. You're not just adding to it. And that's the math behind the 15-minute rule. It was never really about just 15 minutes. It's about proving the compounding could actually start. Okay, so why don't we just do all of this if we know all of this? You know, we tell ourselves we're waiting for time, or we're waiting for the kids to be more settled, or for work to slow down, or for the house to be in order, and then we wait some more. But you know what? Life is never gonna slow down and hand you a clear calendar. That's just not gonna happen. There is never gonna be a perfect time. And when we keep waiting for the conditions to be just right, what we're actually doing is avoiding a decision, and that decision is to start. So here's what I want you to consider instead of waiting. I want you to commit to one year. Yeah, just one, where you do something towards your dream every single day using that same 15-minute rule from episode three. Now, that might sound big and small, like the year, like you want me to commit for a year? Yeah, commit for a year, and then commit to the 15 minutes Now, here's where most of us get this wrong, myself included. We commit to something and we don't see results fast enough, and we assume it isn't working. So what do we do? We change it up. We start doing something else. We try the next thing, and then we might get bored with that because we're not getting that dopamine hit by seeing the results we wanna see, and we move on to something else. But in my own experience, like with my business, results usually take at least six months to show up. Six months. So, like, the work that I'm doing right now, this week, it might not pay off until February, and most people don't know that. They think that something's broken if the payoff isn't immediate. And here's the part that really matters, though. Every time you change what you're doing, you don't just lose momentum. You reset the clock. So if you switch your approach in November, you've just pushed your results out to May. And you're not doing anything wrong, it's just you haven't been doing it long enough. So pick one thing, give it real time, at least six months, ideally a year, and stop jumping from thing to thing Okay, so we have to talk about consistency, and here's the really important thing about consistency, is consistency is a mindset that you choose. It's not something that shows up on its own. And that mindset of consistency is something I decided for myself when I started this podcast. I consistently show up every week, even when it's hard. Or my newsletter that I send out every Tuesday, I show up even when the ideas aren't flowing. Because I know that showing up consistently for you is what matters. And I know it's working because you've been sending me more texts, and you've been hitting reply to my newsletter, and you're telling me what's going on for you. We're having actual conversations, and I love that. But you know what? It took time, and I'm so glad that I didn't quit. And, uh, by the way, if you wanna get in on all the happenings in mid-life for me and for you, make sure you go sign up for my newsletter. You can catch it at coachcarlene.com/newsletter, or the link is in the show notes. Just click there and sign up, and then I'll show up in your inbox every Tuesday. But anyways, my point is that you get to choose who you want to be. Decide where you want to be in five years or in 10 years, and then every single morning, you make the same decision again as to who you need to be for those things to happen you have to put one foot in front of the other and tell yourself that you're going to keep going because that's the only way any of this works. So that decision made daily, that's called a promise. And every time you keep a promise to yourself, even a small one, you build self-trust. And you know what? The motivation to keep showing up on your dream, it doesn't come from feeling inspired. It comes from being in motion daily because you decide to be And I'm gonna circle back to that word consistency, because consistency is exactly w- where I want you to go back to something I told you very early on in this podcast, because I don't think I ever fully finished this thought either, is consistency isn't about showing up perfectly every single day without fail. Consistency is showing up the day after you didn't. It's actually one of the things that I say that my clients quote most from me. So I want you to say that with me one more time because I want it to stick. Consistency is showing up the day after you didn't. And here's why that matters so much more than it sounds like it should. Almost nobody keeps a streak forever because, like we have been talking about, life happens, or you get sick, or the kids need you, or work blows up, or you know what? You just don't feel like it. And one missed day is never the problem. The problem is what happens the next day. Does one missed day turn into a missed week? And does a missed week quietly become the thing that you used to do? See, that's the moment that decides everything. Not the day that you show up easily. It's the day after you didn't. So if your one-year commitment is going to survive real life, and it will get tested, this is the rule that carries it. Not perfection, just getting back to your 15 minutes the very next day, no matter how many days you missed so I have to share with you. When I notice that I'm not making progress on something, I know it. It's like I hit a wall, and it looks the same every time. It's just kind of that dull, gray stretch where the work feels heavier than it should. And I usually find myself sitting at my desk, and I'm shuffling my to-do list around, and I'm waiting for a spark that, it never comes. And I keep telling myself, "Okay, tomorrow I'll feel it." And you know what? Tomorrow keeps moving. And when this happens, I have to make myself a smaller promise, like open the document, set a timer for 20 minutes, show up whether I feel ready or not. And you know what? Day one is usually clunky, and day two I'm usually still pretty stiff, and somewhere around day seven something starts to loosen. But by day 14, I'm not negotiating with myself anymore. I found my rhythm. But it takes time. And you know what? The win isn't what I get done. The win is that I trusted myself again So remember, you are not gonna get back into it because you feel ready, because motivation doesn't show up first and then get you moving. It shows up after you're already in motion. You know, Newton had it right long before any of us were trying to build a dream. An object in motion stays in motion, and an object at rest stays at rest. Most of us, we don't fall short because we lack potential. We stall out because we're waiting for a feeling that only arrives once we've already started. So every time that you show up when you said you would, even in the smallest way, even the day after you didn't, you strengthen your relationship with yourself. You prove that you can count on you, and that's where real self-trust gets built. It's not in the big, visible wins. It's in those 15 minutes that nobody else sees. So I was listening, uh, to an interview on the Mel Robbins podcast recently with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. If you don't know her, she's one of the most decorated sprinters in history, and she became the oldest woman ever to win a 100-meter world title. And what struck me wasn't the medals, it was what she credited them to. Not talent, not getting a lucky break. She talked about deciding one season that she was done losing to her own excuses and showing up to 5:00 a.m. practice at 5:00 a.m., not 5:30, because she refused to let herself off the hook anymore. And she talked about tuning out every voice that told her it couldn't be done and choosing to listen to her own voice instead. That's what a year of showing up does. It's not glamorous. It's just you deciding who you're becoming one ordinary morning at a time. 37 times better, one 15-minute rep at a time, one day after you didn't at a time So here's what you can do today. Pick one thing, one dream, one project, one piece of the vision that maybe you've been circling for years. Give it a full year before you decide it isn't working. Do your time audit. Use the 15-minute rule. Stack it onto a habit you already have, and on the days you don't show up, remember, consistency is showing up the day after you didn't. That's the whole rule. That's what changes everything. All right, my friend, I love spending this time here with you, and if something came up for you today, I'd love to hear about it. Send me a text using the link in the show notes. Or if you thought of somebody who seems to be stuck on their dream, forward them this episode. They'll thank you for it And remember, I will be here next week to welcome you in the minute that you hit play. Have a great week, and I'll see you then. Bye for now

Carlene 14:25

oh, and one more thing. This is the legal language. You know, the stuff that the lawyers put together, and they say that I need to read this to you. So here we go. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I'm not a licensed therapist. This podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professionals. Got it? Good. I will see you in the next episode.