Eps 12: How to show up fully yourself

Well, hey there beautiful. Today I have an inspiring topic to delve into. We’ll be exploring the powerful concept of how to show up for yourself.

This has come through very strongly in so many of the now 17 one to one holistic life coaching sessions that I have held over the last two weeks, which has been a journey in itself and quite transformative.

However, this was just a thing that kept really coming through for so many of my amazing clients.

So today I’m going to share five ways to show up for yourself when you think you can’t and three science backed ways to motivate yourself when you’re procrastinating or you just don’t feel like doing the important work.

Before we dive in, you are listening to the life pilot podcast. Life pilot is a all of life strategic planning tool and goal setting methodology. It helps you turn your dreams into reality one day at a time. It works. It’s been around for about six and a half years. My husband and I created it that long ago.

We use it every single week and it has inspired hundreds of other people who’ve used it to essentially go after what they really want in life. So if you’re curious to find out more about this simple yet powerful tool and methodology. Head to lifepilot.co for more info.

Alright, so here we go. Showing up for yourself.

Why is this so important? Because so many people struggle with self motivation and finding the courage to take the necessary steps towards our dream and goals and we really truly want to live a life that we love.

It’s the exact thing that we actually need to do show up for ourself back ourself, when we feel like nobody else will because ultimately if you can’t show up for yourself, then who else can you show up for and you’re the most important person here?

So you might as well put all your energy into you first. You’re the priority.

Now Mel Robbins is one of my favorite people on the earth. She’s a renowned motivational speaker and author And she has a fantastic podcast called the Mel Robbins podcast. And I really love this quote that she has said several times.

You are one decision away from a completely different life.

Like it really hits because it’s true. In fact, your life is made up of a whole lot of micro decisions that you make in the moment. That can dramatically shift the course of where you’re going, how you’re feeling, and what you want to achieve.

And I think people seem to think it always has to be this big, grand gesture of like, I’m going to do this massive thing and that’s going to be the big thing that gets my life moving in a different direction.

In reality, while that could happen and it could transform the trajectory of your life, the reality is you showing up every day for yourself with these small little consistent daily actions, micro habits, atomic habits, as my friend, James Clear, author of hugely bestselling book, Atomic Habits, talks about.

It’s these tiny little habits that you keep stacking on top of each other consistently is the key here that can actually transform your life.

And sometimes it can take weeks or even months, which is incredibly quick in the scheme of things.

What I wanted to talk about today was how you are just one decision away from a completely different life and some steps for you to really stay focused on what it is that you truly want out of life.

Now, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you’ll know that I have talked about the power of life canvas, which is a big, bold three year vision for your life in the present tense that really moves you towards what you truly want across all areas of life.

And it’s powerful and in my episode 10, I talked all about just how doing this has transformed my life since 2013 when I first did this exercise and I’ve done it for so many of my clients and they’ve done it for themselves. And it’s still working for them. Like, it’s incredible when you hold a bigger, more powerful vision for yourself of where you want to be.

It’s like everything in your being, and especially in your mind, starts working towards that. If you get super clear on it, and you define it, and you really feel it, and you really hone into it, it works. And it happens a lot more quickly than you think. Because you’ve given yourself permission. to show up for your big dreams.

You’ve given the universe clarity on what it is that you want. So, if you’re really keen to know more how to do that, please listen to episode 10. You can find it at lifepilot. co forward slash 1 0, that’s 10. Okay, but for today, showing up for yourself is gonna be the key way that you get to that big picture vision, right?

So, the first step, which I have been talking about with all these incredible life coaching clients over the past two weeks is recognizing your worth. That’s step one. Showing up for yourself is all about recognizing your worth and understanding that you deserve the best in life, whatever that may be for you, and that your dreams are worth pursuing.

It’s so easy to doubt ourselves or compare our progress to others, but remember that your journey is unique and your potential is untapped and limitless. So in these conversations, which remain private and confidential, there has been this definite thing coming through with these coaching clients about not feeling worthy enough.

It is a Very common, sadly enough, belief that so many of us have. I am not worthy. There’s many others, by the way, but I am not worthy is one that comes up so much and it is so destructive if we don’t address it and we don’t show ourselves self love and compassion. And so one of the things that I give people as an exercise for this is to create what I call the love folder.

You can call it what you want. You can call it the Natalie rocks folder, replace it with your name. You can call it the I am awesome folder. And here’s proof. And why I love this is, this is a folder, or a repository, or a book, or a, what, a digital file that reminds you why you are worth it, and why you are awesome.

And, here’s how simple it is. First of all, you put in a bunch of things that you’re really proud of. Accolades, certificates, rewards, volunteerism acts that you got things for. Anything that you are proud of, that you have done, that you have achieved, that you have accomplished goes in the Love folder or the I am worth it folder.

Maybe that’s a better name  for it. And then what you get to put in there also is compliments, testimonials, notes, cards. Emails, anything that anybody has ever written to you about why you rock, how you helped them, what you inspired them to do. It can be the smallest thing to the biggest thing. And you collect this, and you look back at this folder whenever you need it.

Whenever you are having doubts about your self worth. Whenever you are like, oh, I just, you know, I don’t think I can do this, or I’m not good enough, or who am I? You go and read. that folder. You pour through it and you show yourself and prove to yourself that you already have what it takes, that you are worthy enough, that you are more than capable enough, that you are more than skilled enough and that people have already loved what you have done to help them.

And then you get back on that horse and you do the work that you need to do and you show up for yourself. So, the love folder or the I am worthy folder, whatever you call it, start one today. And this is a living, breathing document. I have had, I have had a folder in my email since 2009, when I first started my business, where I have kept lovely emails and feedback from people about my books, about my podcast, about my work as a coach, about my courses.

About blog posts that I wrote about anything and in those first few years It was invaluable for me because I would have so many moments of doubt Like so many moments because I was always on the precipice of change or growth and that’s a scary place to hang out And when you’re always there It is very easy To doubt yourself because you’re doing big things and you’re pushing yourself and you’re challenging yourself And it’s not a place that People love to hang out.

And if I’m really honest, it takes courage and it takes guts, especially when you’re starting a business. So I would come back to my, I called it the feedback and love folder and I would just read over some of those things and I would instantly feel better. And it’s not about, let me just be really clear here.

This is not about external validation from others as in you can’t even see your own worth. It’s just about like a little motivator and It’s like the boost that you need. Right. It’s not a replacement for your own self worth and your own self love, but man, it helps. So do whatever it takes, right? Read those compliments, those testimonials, that feedback, and then go out and get back on the horse. So that’s step one, recognize your worth and a little exercise for you that I have been doing with my clients.

And. It’s actually pretty transformative. I feel like I’m in using that word, but it is! Like, these, these seem so simple as concepts, but they really work. Like, that gives your mind, your conscious and subconscious mind, proof that you are so worth it.

Step two is to embrace failure as feedback. Showing up for yourself means being open to failure. And failure is not a sign of inadequacy. It is a stepping stone toward growth and improvement. Every failure is simply feedback. I think that’s another great Mel Robbins statement. Every failure is simply feedback.

And it’s helping you understand what works. And what doesn’t, and it may seem so foreign to you to embrace failure as a natural part of the process and learn from it, but the sooner you do and you don’t take it personally and you just see it as feedback, okay, that worked, that didn’t. What can I do about it?

What can I learn from it? And what can I take into this next thing that I’m going to try? I have failed so many times and. Wasn’t fun initially when I was young. I used to take it very, very personally. And then I just developed this curiosity about, well hang on a minute. I really didn’t show up to this one very well, or I had the wrong energy, or I didn’t really put in my full effort, or this was actually a pretty half hearted result, and I put in a half hearted effort, so what was I thinking?

And I would just get really curious about what was really happening, particularly when it came to online course launches. I would break down the successes and the failures, and I would always take a learning out of it. If you fail, and you can’t learn from it, then it actually really is… It’s a failure.

But if you just take it as a really great learning lesson and you use that feedback and you do something even better with it, then it’s a total win for you. So just remember that it is simply feedback telling you what works and what doesn’t. And it is definitely not a sign for you to give up. It is a sign for you to go, cool, what can I learn from this?

What can I take away and what can I do better? Step three is practice the five second rule. Now this is Mel’s famous five second rule. She’s written a book about it, an audio book. I was like, how do you create a whole book out of a five second rule? But actually within it, there’s all these really great examples of how to use it.

And this is the most simple rule ever. And again, it does work. So whenever you’re feeling hesitant about doing something, you count backwards from five and make your move. As you’re reaching one, it’s a really simple technique, but. It is interrupting the hesitation and activating your prefrontal cortex to push through anxiety and fear.

So it seems super simple, but as Mel explains is that prefrontal cortex, it can’t figure anything out in five seconds. So you override it by going five, four, three, two, right. I’m getting out of bed and I’m going to put on my gym gear and I’m going to get up and I’m going to win the day. Or, oh my god, there’s a really hot guy over there, or girl, I really want to go and talk to them. Before I talk myself out of it. 5, 4, 3, 2, I’m going. Cool? So, it seems just so simple. And it works. Because it overrides the part of your brain which is going to talk you out of anything. Or cause you to procrastinate. Or let fear win the day.

So, whenever you’re thinking about… Just doing anything, maybe that scares you, or feels a little bit hard, just 1 it, and just make a start. The thing is, getting to start. And once you’ve started, you get in the flow. Oh, you soon recognize, awesome, this actually wasn’t so hard, or this wasn’t very scary, or, oh my god, I’ve been wanting to do this for so long.

You can even do that for like, 1, I can’t be bothered to cook, I’m gonna get the onion out of the fridge. Or I’m gonna pull out the cheese and I’m gonna start making this risotto, whatever it is. So it’s a 5 second rule.

Because this is episode 12, showing up for yourself.

Alright, step 4 is to cultivate positive habits. So showing up for yourself consistently requires building positive habits. And these are simply small steps every day towards your goals. So if you are a LifePilot customer and you’ve used our tool, We actually used to have along with your weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual goals and intentions.

We used to have your top three for the day. And the only reason we took it out is that so many people use their own kind of system for this. They might use a notepad, a journal, a bullet journal, a calendar exercise, a to do list app, whatever it may be. And so we were just like, cool, people make their own lists, but they don’t often make the top three and the thing that worked really well with it.

And we still use it ourselves in some format or the other is that. You break down your weekly goal. So you’ve got three things for the week across your six areas of life. And then you break that down into what do I need to do every day to make this happen? So if your aim for this week was to do five workouts, then every day a workout would be on your I get to do it list.

And you would simply, probably use the 1 rule to get out of bed first thing in the morning and just go do that workout. For me, it’s like a no brainer. So, I make time for it whenever I wake up. I just don’t question it. Unless I’m like really enjoying my bed and I genuinely want to doze for a little bit more, which is pretty rare with me.

But if I am, then I just luxuriate in that. And I’ll do my workout later, but I know for a fact that if I do it first thing, I get it done, I feel amazing, and I start the day off exactly how I want. And I come into our lounge room, which is where I’m recording this podcast from, I pull out the piano stool, my iPad is already set up there, it’s already being charged.

And I turn it on and it’s on the exact workout that I wanted to do for this morning. Because I pre selected it after the last workout. And it’s either a hip workout, a Pilates workout, or a strength workout. And more recently I’ve been adding in fun dance because manna is a good workout. And it just makes me smile and gets me moving and makes me feel sexy.

So I did a whole episode around that and I will link to it again in the show notes. About some of my favorite YouTubers and the channels. And it’s free, right? So I have a yoga mat out. We have some weights in here, nothing too huge, really freaking simple. They hide under the fireplace, I pull them out, I do my workout, put it away, and I’m done.

And it is a positive little habit that I show up for almost every day, because I’m not a seven day a week exercise girl. I go and do dog walks almost every single day, but weights workouts, strength workouts, I aim for three to four each week. And that is perfect for me. And it’s the cumulative effect of this small action that I do for myself on those workout days that leads to significant results.

So again, episode 11 was the 6 surprising results of the 10 day detox that my husband and I did. And here we are almost 2 months later. Yeah, almost two months later. We’ve both lost six kilos. We’ve kept it off. We’re feeling amazing. We’re continuing to lean up We’ve continued with a lot of the healthy habits from that and it’s just been miraculous And that’s because over those ten days we turned up we did the work We formed those habits and we’ve carried many of them on And it has led to a significant change in our lives and our health.

But it started from little tiny actions and accumulation of those. And then step five is probably the most important. I should have probably put it first. But you know, you might not have listened to it if I put it first, which is practicing self compassion. What is self compassion? It’s being kind to yourself during this journey.

But where do we beat ourselves up? The inner critic is real, and it is loud, only if you let it. And, oh my, I actually just watched a video short yesterday, which kind of made me think about this. Uh, I don’t even know who the guy was, uh, but it was on the Andrew Huberman podcast. I’m going to link to this in the show notes, because… It was all about how to stop being angry and I’ve had a few bouts recently where I’ve just been like angry, because it was a perfect storm of things happening in our environment finances, life, death in the family, all the stuff that led to me just being like frustrated and angry at certain moments With my husband Josh.

But I was like, what is causing this anger? And then I watched this podcast and I was like, oh, yeah, no, I don’t have an anger problem. I have a feisty Aries comes out in the moment problem when, when it’s a perfect storm of things happening and I need to work on it, but this guy talked about how ever since he was five, he just had such an inbuilt anger that he would berate himself and just talk smack to himself so harshly That he was the angriest, most bitter person.

For 47 years, and he worked with a therapist to overcome this and rewire how he was talking to himself in a couple of months, like four months. Imagine 47 years of being one of the angriest people on earth. He admits that, like, he even gives examples of how harsh he was on himself when he wasn’t being perfect, which was pretty much all the time.

So he was just constantly beating himself up. And, and then he talks about how in four months. He was able to change a lifetime of anger and it was simply by being kind to himself and talking to himself as If he would talk to a friend. That was the simple tool that the therapist gave him said next time when you go to beat yourself up try and stop yourself in that moment And consider you’re talking to your best friend.

How would you refer to them in this moment? How would you talk to them? How would you show up for them? And he was like, well, of course I wouldn’t talk to them the way I’m talking. I’d be way kinder. I’d be way more supportive. I’d like, you know, empathize with them, all this stuff. And he said it was just miraculous.

And why wasn’t he talking to himself in that way? So yeah, it was a pretty incredible. Episode. So just, to share that’s Andrew Huberman. He’s an American podcaster and neuroscientist. And I, his podcasts are long, man. If you, if you really want to get into them, which is why I like the shorts, because they’re, they’re just so fascinating . I have no idea who this guy was that he was talking to, but I really, I just really, really enjoyed it.

I’ll link to that in show notes, find a little short for you, but it was just amazing to me how showing up and being kind to yourself. Make a world of difference. So practice self compassion. It’s crucial in maintaining resilience and perseverance.

It’s crucial. Instead of being overly critical of your mistakes or your setbacks, treat yourself with the same empathy and understanding that you would offer a friend. And I hope that example was just a really huge highlight of why this works.

So those were the five steps for showing up for yourself even on the days when you don’t want it.

Recognize your self worth and remember that little exercise of your love folder or your I am worth it folder. Step two, embrace failure, step two, embrace failure as feedback. It’s just feedback. Step three, practice Mel Robbins five second rule. Step four, cultivate positive habits and then stack them. And step five, practice self compassion.

Okay, I’m a big fan of like, okay what other practical tools can we use here? And one thing that I’ve been loving as I’ve been implementing, practicing, and learning as a holistic life coach towards my certification is I have a plethora of tools that I pull on that I have probably been learning since my late teens.

And it’s not until I’ve been doing these sessions that I have really realized how many I use and pull on all the time that people are finding incredibly helpful. Most of the time tools and exercises are really simple, but if you are willing to put in the work to do them, they can have really incredible impacts on you and actually help you make lasting change.

And we’re not after present moment change. We’re not after, oh, this will work for a day and then I’ll be unmotivated again. We’re after lasting change, right? And that has to happen at the root level in your subconscious, in rewiring your brain, at a biological level, like in your cells. And that really, that comes from you.

It can be guided by me, and I can help, and I can support, and I can help you uncover those beliefs, and those behaviors, and those habits that aren’t helping you. But the lasting change will really come from you doing the work and recognizing that and being self aware. So a couple of things that I have talked about over the course of my life coaching session are the following.

So the first one that I was literally just giving a client yesterday is practicing the Pomodoro Technique. This is a time management Cirillo.

And it’s not to do with Pomodoro Tomato. It involves breaking your work into focused intervals. Traditionally, that’s been 25 minutes. And then you separate it with short minutes. And then you separate it with a short break. So, here’s how it works. Set a timer for 25 minutes and work on one task with full concentration until the timer goes off.

Then, take a 5 minute break before starting the next session. A break can be getting up, going getting a glass of water, going to the bathroom, shaking your booty, patting your dog, going for a hug with your lover, embracing your child, whatever it may be. It could just actually be, you know, just breathing for five minutes, grabbing a coffee, whatever.

And you have to take the break because the break is the thing that allows your brain to pause and to refresh and to have a break from that full on concentration. And then you go straight back into it. And you do one more and then you actually need to take a more extended break of 15 to 30 minutes So no more than two pomodoros in a row and then you get to take a bit more of a break.

Why does it work? Well, it’s essentially leveraging the concept of time boxing and the brain’s ability to maintain focus for short periods I don’t know about you, but if you’ve ever sat down to just work for two hours It’s very rare that you can actually work for a full two hours without needing To have a break or without losing track or losing focus or drifting off or daydreaming or whatever it is, and we’re just not designed to do that.

So if you leverage this thing of I only have 25 minutes to work on this thing, boom, I’m going to go for it. You are actually far more effective working in this short period and maintaining focus and research has shown that working in short structured intervals can actually improve. Productivity, enhance concentration and reduce the likelihood of feeling overwhelmed by the task at hand.

So, for the example that I was giving with a client last night, it was like, if you turn up and you’re like, I have all these things to do to start my business. I have 150 things that I could be doing. First off, you have to determine and prioritize. Okay, I could be doing all those 150 things, but what’s the one thing that’s going to move the needle most today?

All right, it’s probably, for example, Get a sales page up or you know have a thing to sell in this particular case an example And so for the next 25 minutes, that’s what I’m gonna work on I’m gonna work on that offer or getting that page launched And of course, you’re not gonna launch a page in 25 minutes unless you’re an absolute frickin whiz Yes, you could with some of the sites that there are now like Shopify you could literally get a page set up and something launched with a placeholder image and a description and a price in 25 minutes actually, maybe we could do that challenge.

But the point is you would have achieved a lot more than you thought and now you’ll have the motivation and impetus to carry it on. So then you do the next Pomodoro and you work on it more and probably within an hour you’ve got a heap of stuff done that has actually been significant to you starting your business, which is the example in this case.

So It just reduces the overwhelm. It cuts out all the other things that you think you’re doing and you’re just working on one focused thing. I used to do it a lot for blogging. I would open up a Google doc where I had a bunch of ideas that I’d gathered throughout the months and I’d be pick an idea because I had to be in the mood for that idea.

Right? So I’d go, okay, this one. And then I would just open a new document and I would literally start writing. I didn’t care if it was the crappiest writing ever, but what I was writing, I was writing my blog. I had all these other things that I always could have been doing. Marketing, sales, business development, accounting, content creation.

I know blogging is content creation, but I could have been doing videos. I could have been posting on social. I could have been working with clients. I just, you know, there were, there’s a ton of things that you always feel like you need to be doing in your business. But in this particular space, I wanted to write the blog post because I knew it would generate leads and it would generate good value and it would be me showing up for other people.

And that ultimately built my community. And 25 minutes later, I would often have half a blog post written and I was like, wow, that was easy. And then I’d use the next Pomodoro and I’d finish it off. Maybe not perfectly finished. Maybe it wasn’t edited. Maybe it wasn’t on the WordPress site yet. But guess what?

I’d go have a longer break and then I’d come back and I’d go, cool. The next Pomodoro is editing the blog posts and the next one is publishing it. And voila, it was done. So good. So easy. Now, if I’d had my whole day ahead of me, you can. Bet your bottom dollar I wouldn’t have written a blog post, because when you have ample time, you expand the work to fit the time.

So I would have faffed around, I would have read some things, I would have grabbed a coffee, I would have probably watched a couple of YouTube videos, I would have maybe half heartedly done some things, and then I would have been like, oh my god, it’s four o’clock and I haven’t done anything, and then I wouldn’t have been in content writing mode because I would have been tired, and then I would have just been like, miffed that I’d wasted that whole day.

That’s a, like a, that’s the extreme example of Natalie not having a good day and The reality is that just didn’t happen that often, it for sure happened. Usually I recognized it early on, I was like, I’m calling it. I’m going off to watch a movie, or read a book, or go out on a long walk, because I’ve like, I’m just not in the space today, and so I’m going to use it for something even more powerful, which is my health and wellness.

So, I called it early. I’m pretty good at knowing myself when I’m just really like, I don’t want to be doing this today. So use it for something else recognize that early anyway pomodoro technique awesome You can use the app on your phone like the alarm on your phone and you can actually just set it for 25 minutes And then you set it for another five for that break.

There is a really cool app that I love called toggle It’s free and it is a timer that I use every single day to track how long it’s taking me to do anything across both my businesses But, it also has a Pomodoro timer built in, so I use it for that, and I literally hit play on it, and then it will beep at me after 25 minutes, gently, but nicely, and I’ll be like, oh, wow, that 25 minutes flew by, I’m going to go have my little break, come back and carry on, because I’m feeling so motivated, cool?

So that’s technique number one.

Technique number two, probably one of my favorites, is visualizing the why. Like this is why with my clients I go through what is your why? What like what’s your North Star? What’s guiding you here on every decision you make in your life?

And if you keep coming back to that why it’s a motivating force in itself It’s powerful and you set specific goals off this because procrastination can sometimes be a result of just really feeling disconnected from your purpose or the importance of a task so by visualizing the end result and understanding the why behind what you need to accomplish You create a really strong emotional connection to the task.

And additionally, then going that step further and using life pilot to set specific achievable goals. and breaking those large tasks into smaller, more manageable steps. It can make the whole process feel less daunting.

Edwin Locke, who was a psychologist who popularized goal setting, suggests that setting clear and challenging goals can actually lead to higher motivation and task performance.

And that’s because when you have a really clear vision of what you want to achieve and why it matters, your brain is more likely to engage in the task and stay focused. I mean, think back for yourself on a time when you just moved mountains and it was likely that you had probably one or two things, a very clear goal that was really exciting or motivating to you.

Hopefully it was a goal that had a positive outcome rather than a fear based outcome if you don’t get this done and you were lit up by it. So you put your all into it. Alternatively, there might’ve also been an external factor, which was this looming deadline for you to ship this thing. Uh, which was going to make a significant difference to your life or to somebody else’s life, right?

Those are times when you really get motivated and you perform like a rock star. And you can do this for yourself even if you don’t have an external environment that’s setting a timeline for you. You can set your own timelines and then put them out there publicly. So this is what I suggested to several of my clients over the course of our sessions.

If you’re somebody who really meets external expectations versus your own internal ones, then put out there a date where you’re gonna launch your website, write your book, that you’re gonna run your half marathon by, put it out there publicly to your friends, to your family, on social, and then call on a couple of dear friends to hold you accountable to it.

If you can’t meet your own inner expectations, And nobody’s holding you to a deadline that’s actually getting you to be motivated and do the work, even if you’re doing it last minute. Get external help. Set a, what I call, sort of a fake external date. to move mountains. Because if you never have a date for anything, by when it needs to be done by, you can just imagine how long you can faff about on that.

Faff is such a great English word. It just means to waste time. And do everything else but the most important thing that you know you want to be doing. Cool? So, setting a really clear goal that’s linked to your why and your purpose, and hopefully to your Life Canvas 3 year vision, is just gonna make everything that much easier for you to turn up and do.

And beating procrastination is an ongoing process and it’s going to require practice and patience. So, again, being kind to yourself and showing yourself self compassion is a really great thing to do here. Because it takes time and it takes work. But, these strategies that I’ve just been sharing with you, visualizing the wine, setting specific goals, doing the Pomodoro Technique, these actually help you increase your productivity, overcome procrastination and get more things done effectively.

So the third exercise or tool that I’m going to share with you today is using the two minute rule. I know we’ve had the five second rule that is perfect for just like overriding anything in your brain that’s going to derail you. But the two minute rule is really cool. I actually was Using the one minute rule.

Let’s go with the two minute rule. Either way, as you can see, it’s incredibly short. It’s a simple but powerful strategy that tackles procrastination. This one was popularized by productivity expert David Allen. If you haven’t read the book Getting Things Done, that’s David Allen. Pretty sure it’s Getting Things Done.

And the idea is this. If a task takes less than two minutes to complete, do it. And the reason behind this is that starting a task and getting over the initial resistance is usually the hardest part. But by taking care of quick tasks immediately, you build momentum. And that creates a sense of accomplishment and that can motivate you to tackle more significant tasks.

This is why every morning, when it’s my morning to get up and I haven’t… I’m the one making the bed. And on the alternate morning, it’s Josh. And he has fought me on this for so long. He now makes the bed, people. I know, it’s a win. But, I guess it wasn’t clear enough to him until I explained this two minute rule.

That if you can just accomplish one little thing, it’s like you’ve already won the day. And making the bed is the easiest thing. Honestly, it’s the easiest thing to do and it always makes me feel really good. I feel like I’ve already done something and now I get to go and do more things. So simple, right?

Putting the washing in the machine, emptying the dishwasher. I know these are all like household duties, but fricking putting your exercise gear on. That is actually a win. Doing 60 sec, honestly, when I want to do yoga and 2 minutes of yoga. 2 minutes of yoga. That is an accomplishment. You may feel like that’s not even worth it.

That is 2 minutes that you have given to your body as a gift of stretching it out and feeling good. And likely, likely, the likelihood is that you are going to carry on and do more yoga. You’ll stretch it to 5 minutes or 10 minutes. But this two minute rule of just accomplishing something, it could be a phone call to book in with the dentist.

It could be paying a bill online. It could be setting up a massage for the week ahead. Two minutes, that’s all it takes. And then you feel like you’ve done something, you’ve accomplished something, and now you’re going to go on to do more significant things. And this approach aligns with something called the Zygarnik effect.

Again, I first heard about this on Mel Robbins podcast, which states that people remember uncompleted tasks more than completed ones. Surprising, hey? So if you’re completing short tasks quickly, you reduce the mental burden of unfinished business, and you make it easier to focus on just more substantial tasks in general without that nagging feeling of unresolved to do.

I hope that makes sense. Basically, the more little tasks that you complete, the more you’re reducing that overwhelm in your mind and the burden of all the unfinished things that you haven’t done. It’s like, take those little micro wins and celebrate them. Woohoo! Always celebrating the micro wins.

Sometimes way more important than the big wins. Anywho, I hope that those three tools or methods have helped you to think about, Okay, I can grab one of those now and I’m going to try it this week. And then I’m going to share with you by tagging you on Instagram at Natalie Sisson and just saying, Hey, here’s what I did and here’s how I found it.

And oh my gosh, I feel like I won the day. So remember, biggest thing here I think is just be kind to yourself and practice self compassion and set up those little micro habits, embrace the failures as feedback. It’s all about learning and recognize your worth and you’ll be well on your way. to living an awesome life and doing the things that actually matter most.

And most importantly, showing up for you, showing up for yourself. Thank you so much for listening. If you are curious about showing up for yourself more often and having an awesome day where you win the day from the moment you make the bed through to when your head hits that pillow, and you’re really interested in going, how can I have the most perfect day for me?

Then please download my free perfect day exercise. It is actually a really beautiful exercise to gift yourself about imagining what your perfect day would look like and how you can work towards having more of those in your life right now, tomorrow. You can find it at lifepilot. co forward slash perfect.

It’s my gift to you. It’s powerful. Enjoy. Thanks so much for listening.

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