I love to learn. I love to read all about the amazing leaders in our world and how they are influencing people and making stuff happen. Every time I pick up a good read or heard. a mentor speak, I immediately feel inspired….but then I used to stop there. I wouldn’t take that next step towards actually implementing what I had learned. I would wait so long to implement that I would forget about it or learn something else and want to do that thing. It became an endless swirl of learning, being inspired, but then never making anything happen. It wasn’t until I learned how to prioritize and chunk my learning, instead of shoving every book or pd I could into my brain that I could to try and keep that inspiration going, that I realized the power of actually implementing what I learned while I learned it. But hear me out, I don’t mean to learn and do it all. I mean to figure out what matters the most to you, research it, figure out an action and then implement while learning. The key is find the pattern of chunking small amounts of learning, prioritizing an action, implementing, and then learn again. The secret to success, is leaning in, it’s trying, it’s taking action, it’s not knowing and believing that even if you try and fail, you’re going to learn something, and it’s going to inch closer to where you’re meant to go. It is realizing that implementation before it is perfect is where we will learn and things will happen.
Let’s break apart what I just said so that you have a clear idea of some successes I found for implementing. I have learned that you can’t do it all and if you try, you will burn out. So for me, I had to figure out what I needed to prioritize to learn about first. Once I had my priority, I put my head down and found the best source of info to learn. But I didn’t read the whole book or do endless lessons all at once. I learned how to chunk. Chunk your learning into smaller pieces and keep the majority of your time for implementing. I got into the pattern of learn a little, implement for a period of time, and then go back to learning.
The second thing I learned about successful implementation is to learn how to have your own back. You need to learn effective ways to motivate, empower and support yourself through the obstacles that will pop up along the way. Don’t let those obstacles keep you from implementing and taking action. Know that there will be resistance because it is change and change feels hard. Acknowledge your effort and praise yourself for it. The resistance happens for one of two reasons. If you stand there and you stare at your own reflection and you’re like, “This is weird. This is stupid. This isn’t going to work,” or you feel sad or you feel like you can’t do it, you’re resisting giving yourself the support, celebration, and the love that you deserve, because you believe either that you are unworthy of it. Or maybe you believe that only when you achieve something that is worthy of celebration or support, then you will be supporting yourself (Porterfield, 2022). You are withholding from implementing because you might be scared of this resistance, however, taking action is the very thing that you need to be able to change, think different, take actions that scare you, and stay motivated. It is you who needs to be there for you. The only way to do that is to take a chance on yourself and take action to implement change.
The third thing is to focus on what is going right instead of what is going wrong. If you hyper focus on what isn’t working you rob yourself of momentum and the confidence and pride that you feel for doing something hard. Don’t let you or others hijack your mind. Think about the finish line and what is waiting there for you and remind yourself that anything worth fighting for requires action and doing something you never thought would make a difference. The only way to do that is to implement even though it might not feel perfect or that you know what you are doing. Send yourself into the intention of each day and each time you implement something difficult that no matter what happens you have your own back. (Porterfield, 2023) Remind yourself that you are going to support yourself through things and that you are going to get through it. And tomorrow morning… you are going to get right back up and do it again. Small change is still change but nothing will change if you don’t commit to taking action. Focus on improving the relationship with yourself. Think about how you talk to yourself. Recognize and acknowledge what you have going on whether it’s challenging, exhilarating, frustrating, fantastic and then allow yourself to believe in the fact that you’ve got this.
Another really important action that will help you to have the courage to commit to implementing while you learn is to fuel your brain along the way. (Porterfield, 2023) This will instantly boost your momentum. These small doses of learning will act as jet fuel to give you bursts of confidence and clarity. It helps you to become the go to in your industry because you never stop learning and are always pulling ideas and making them your own. Devour as much as you can in small chunks while you implement and think out loud to your community along the way. Be transparent about what you are trying, the criteria you are expecting, the fact that you may not know what you are doing or how it will turn out. That will go a really long way. People need to see you work through things, think out loud, and they appreciate your honesty. Do everything you can to become an expert in an area and set some time aside each week to fuel your brain and continue to learn. Now, be careful here. This comes with a double–edged sword because I don’t want you just learning and not doing. So what I like to do is I like to commit to one or two hours a week where I learn; the rest of the week, I’m doing.
The fifth thing to do to build momentum through implementation is to set boundaries. If you don’t set boundaries and you say yes to everything, well….nothing gets done and the overwhelm builds. This will never serve you or get you ahead. It will only make things harder because you have so much to do, you never know where to start. Say yes to stuff that reaches that big priority of yours and say not to what doesn’t. And….also….be ok that you are never going to please everyone. Talk yourself off that ledge of rising self doubt when you make a decision that someone doesn’t like. Do what is best for the priority or goal you set, be transparent about your decision and how you came to it, set that boundary and then put the learning and ideas into motion. Boundaries will help you to do that because they give you the clarity of what is important. Most people aren’t doing as much as they are learning, and learning can keep you stuck if you don’t have boundaries. Set boundaries about what you want to learn as well and why. Identify things you want to learn about and make a list of resources that will help you master those topics. Then get intentional, set boundaries, put it in your calendar, and set exactly what you want to happen if you take action from what you learned.
The last action to help you start taking action on the things you really want to implement is to find some tiger time to put your head down and get the work done. In other words, schedule it in. Find uninterrupted times in your week or day to focus on that top priority with no interruptions and see what happens. I also batch my time where I choose a top priority and set time aside where that is the only thing I focus on for that two hours to get as much done as possible in that area. It might be that you want to be more visible in classrooms so you set aside an hour where your only priority is to be in a specific classroom or group of classrooms. Set one to two hours aside with a priority of being in classrooms and visible and see how many classrooms you can visit or how much you can learn inside of one or two classrooms. Whatever it is that you want to implement, find that Tiger Time in your week to really hone in on that skill or priority. Find a mentor to also be a part of your implementation process as well. Meet your mentor on a regular basis to remain accountable. This person will also help to support you in the tough times and when things are working. You will want to celebrate with somebody and having that person will definitely help with momentum. So I’m a firm believer in learning from mentors who have gone before you and have succeeded in creating a life and a business similar to the one you dream of creating.
So there you have it! A plan to help you get started on implementing and gaining momentum on a top priority for you. Once I learned the power of these tips, things finally started to happen for me and my stress and work load lightened.
Porterfield, A. (n.d.). Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast.
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