I love learning and growing! It is a big part of the conversations I have here on the show. One of the biggest things I think we all struggle with is taking action on what we learn and actually following through on it. There is power in taking action on the things we are reading, learning, and hearing. If you find yourself learning things but struggling to take action on what you are learning, I got you friend! This episode is for you and I am going to help you figure out how to take action!
In This Episode Allie Discusses:
The power behind taking action to the things you are learning.
Why online courses aren’t just a trend, but more effective than reading a book.
Steps you can take to follow through on making a change.
The importance of accountability when taking action.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Mom life. We are surrounded with the message that it’s the tired life. The no-time-for-myself life. The hard life. And while it is hard and full of lots of servitude, the idea that motherhood means a joyless life is something I am passionate about putting a stop to. I’m on a mission to help you stop counting down the minutes till bedtime, at least most days. I want you to stop cleaning up after your kid’s childhood and start being present for it. Start enjoying it. I believe in John 10:10 “that we are called to abundant life” and I know mothers are not excluded from that promise. Join me in conversations about simplicity, minimalism and lots of other good stuff that leads to a life of less for the sake of enjoying more in your motherhood. I’m Allie Casazza and this is The Purpose Show.
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Hey, sweet friend! Okay, we’re going to jump right in to today’s episode because I have a goal for you today. I want you to walk away from this episode really, really amped up about taking action on something.
I’ve been thinking about this episode a lot and I’ve had a lot of different thoughts and a lot of different post-it notes around my house about this episode. When I come up with a new episode idea or I feel something on my heart to share, I let it sit there for a while. I don’t just jump on the mic and start talking cause then my episodes would be terrible. I give it some space. I let it shift around in my brain, in my heart a little bit. I pray about it. I think about it. I leave it alone a little bit and things just kind of pop up in me about it. And I know when it’s time to hit record on this issue.
I’ve had a lot of really great post-it notes about this episode. Maybe not everybody’s going to feel that way about it because I don’t think any episode accomplishes that, that every single person is like, “This is amazing!” But I know that there is a good solid chunk of you out there that are struggling with taking action and feeling really defeated and feeling stuck.
And you know, when I say “you are an action-taking, problem-solving woman” which is one of my catch phrases that I love to say because it’s the truth and you can be that at any point that you decide, I think sometimes when I say that some of you are like, “I want to be, but I’m not,” and you can change that.
We’re going to talk about that today because this is something that I have gone through in my own personal life that I used to not be an action-taker. I used to really stay stuck. I used to struggle with that. It’s something that I’ve worked through in my own process and I’ll talk about that more in a few minutes.
I think the things we can teach best and the things that we can make the most impact with are the things that we’ve learned in our personal lives. And this is one of those things for me.
First, I want to say that I’m all about learning and growing and that’s where this episode is coming from. We talk about that a lot here on the show in different ways. That’s why we have Allie Reads October, where every October (now it’s on the podcast because that’s the main form of content) we focus on different authors and books that have shaped me this year. That is coming from a place of how did I learn and grow? What affected and impacted me as a person this year? That’s learning and growing.
If you go back and scroll through the past episodes, pretty much all of them have a theme of how can we learn and grow in this area? And I think that’s the key to living a purposeful life. Not only just showing up where you are and showing up well, but creating a life that you can show up well in where you’re not constantly distracted by your phone, clutter, an overstuffed schedule, and all these other things that get in the way of your purpose. But also like Maya Angelou said, “know better, do better.” That you’re living like that. That you learn something new and you go and take action on it.
You’re growing. You’re not just taking in information. You’re not just getting inspired by a quote, a podcast episode, a book, or a lesson that you learned somewhere and then just letting that sit there. That you’re taking action on it. That you do something with it.
I think this is one of the biggest things that we all struggle with because I get tons of messages about this issue. Taking action on what you learn. And another step further – following through on that.
So, we’re going to dive into being an action-taker and being someone who follows through on your goals and the things that you learn.
I think it’s something that I have personally gotten really good at and I’m excited to share that process with you all.
We’re going to get really specific into what exactly do I do and how can you actually take action? How do you actually implement something that you’ve learned? What does that look like? What’s the step? What’s the process? Not just like, “Hey, you need to take what you learn and run with it.” I don’t want to give you an empty, motivational speaker talk, but actually how do you do that? What does the process look like for me? What have I found that works and how can you do that?
Before we do all of that, I think it’s important to talk about a couple of other things first. And one of those things is that I want to say any format of learning can work for most people. There’s always different circumstances. There’s always exceptions. If you have a learning disability and you know one way of learning doesn’t work for you, even then we shouldn’t use those things as an excuse to not learn. To not grow. To not partake in self-improvement, in bettering yourself. In “knowing better, doing better.”
But in most circumstances, any format of learning will work for most people. Whether that’s listening to a speaker, listening to a podcast, reading a book, reading a magazine article or watching a video on YouTube of how to do something. Usually any formative learning can work for most people. I think that books can be life changing if we let them, but a lot of you might notice that you’re constantly buying and reading books and then not taking action on what you learned from them.
This is a multifaceted issue, but I think that if you were to decide to take action, you could.
This is what I love about online learning and this new trend of online courses. This is why I’ve gone down this path in my business and I want to just dive into this for a second because I think that online learning is powerful.
I think that it is the new way. I think that it’s the new way for a reason. The Internet has been around for a really long time and online courses are just now really coming about. And I think that that has nothing to do with, “oh well, everything’s online now.” Everything’s been online for a really long time.
Why are online courses kind of the new trend now? I think that the reason is because of the power and the science behind that type of learning and how effective it is. I think that online courses are something that a lot of people think are new and weird, unnecessary, overpriced. This kind of thought process just kills me because you’re missing the power of online learning in general. I just want to shine a light on it for a second because this is why I do what I do.
This is why I haven’t…until just now I’m starting to work on my book proposal and getting a book deal and all that. But this is why I’ve gone this route because this is powerful and life changing. The Internet is incredible. It’s such a gift if you’ll use it that way. There’s so much power and science behind online courses and their effectiveness.
I think firstly it’s because you get to do this on your own terms when you have a course. And how amazing is that for us Moms? We’re constantly getting interrupted. You can press pause. You’re taking in information in a way that works. You can press pause, then jump right back into it anytime that you need, which is different than books. Sometimes you forget what you read. Have you ever read a page of something and then not even realize what happened on that page?
But with courses it’s really interactive and it’s really amazing. If you’re buying from a reputable person in the industry of interest and you’re not buying a course from a random weirdo (because now that it’s more popular there are definitely people who are very unqualified creating and selling online courses, but that’s the same for books and magazines and anything else) but the courses are basically like going to college online for the topic that you need help with.
Studies show that we retain things better in 10 to 25-minute chunks. And that’s how the lessons in my courses are (at least as often as possible) in that amount, so that you’re retaining this and you can actually go and do something with what you just learned and you can run with it.
If you are one of the people that has felt like you’re reading books and then you kind of do nothing about it, maybe you need a different format. Maybe you just need to ‘suck it up buttercup’ and be an action taker and outline a plan to follow through on something, which we’ll cover in a second.
Maybe a different format would work for you. Maybe you need to take it a step further. Studies are showing that more action is taken when you enroll in an online course than when you read a book, and that’s, like what I was mentioning, the whole reason that I have this business model.
I’ve had multiple book deal offers for years. I think a lot of people think that, oh, I don’t have that. I’m not big enough for that yet, so I’m just making courses. No. I’ve had multiple books deal offers, but once I discovered courses, I didn’t want to go that route until I had set up the messages that I felt needed to get out into the world in course form. Because I’m in charge of that content. I’m in charge of saying, “This is what this girl needs to learn next in order for her to have a lighter motherhood, a more simplified home that is set up for memories and not constant maintenance.”
And now in my career I’m ready to reach the masses with my messaging and books do that better than courses in terms of reaching people because people read books more than anything else and it’s probably going to be that way for a really long time. But I’m still hoping that that leads to people getting into the courses and making real change happen.
I think a book is more like a guide that you can read to understand why you need to change something or know something. But a course, being more interactive, is more like having a coach in your ear guiding you through the actual change process and showing you the way. You’re having the teacher be right there with you audibly. You’re hearing their voice and they are explaining the core things they know, on whatever topic, to you directly.
And that sensory experience of listening to a voice, seeing on a video what needs to be shown to you, a visual example, that’s invaluable. That’s huge. I know that courses run higher on the price scale, like most courses are $800 -1,000+. Mine are in the $100 range because I purposely price them as low as humanly possible for your guys’ sake. But the investment is bigger. It’s bigger than a book and there’s more at stake. And what happens is people show the heck up when they invest in a course. They’ve got skin in the game. And I think there’s something really big to be said for that.
So maybe you need to revisit the format of learning. Maybe you need to show up better. Maybe you need to put your money where your mouth is. Maybe you need to put some skin in the game and find a way to show up better to actually have something at stake. More than a $10 book or whatever is. To show up and own what you need to work on.
Show up, buy the thing that’s going to give you the keys to make those changes and then have enough at stake to where you’ve got to take action. You made room in your budget for this investment. You’ve got to show up and take action. It’s not a book you order on Amazon Prime for $8.97. It’s something that you really had to talk to your husband about. You had to create space in your budget. You had to invest in and show up in that way and that increases your actionability so much more.
The only people who invest in courses (that I see) and then don’t really take action are the ones that when we do the survey they make over $250,000 a year. Their money is not an issue for them, so it wasn’t really enough of a stake for them.
But typically, you’re showing up in a different way. You’re showing up with your money, which makes the world go round, which feeds your family, which is everything. You can take action on anything if you really wanted to, but I do think there’s something to be said for setting ourselves up for success from the very beginning, in terms of changing up the format, changing up the investment we’re making, changing up what we’ve been doing in terms of what we’re actually buying and where our time and money and investment is going.
If you’ve bought a billion books, get a course, do something different, go on different path. Your action is different from the get-go. You’re doing something new and that is going to increase your likelihood of success.
That was just a note that I wanted to say. I think that it’s really important to shine a light on the purpose that goes into what I’m doing for you guys. It’s not just a random choice that there’s online courses and that the book is just now happening. It’s been very deliberate. Very thought and prayed through. Very intentional. I will always believe in the power of an online course over a book.
Hey, sweet friend! In case you haven’t already heard I’ve been talking about Unburdened a lot in my world lately because the doors are open and it’s going away and I want you to hear about it before it does.
Unburdened is one of my online course programs. It’s the second one that I created. Basically, the first one is minimalism, simplicity and intentional living for your home and your physical space. This one, Unburdened, is that for your life, your calendar, your schedule, your day’s structure.
How do you structure your days and make sure you get the important things done, but not be tied down to a rigid schedule because not everyone wants that. And that freaks some of us out. Me included.
Unburdened is everything for the overwhelmed mom who knows that she needs a life overhaul but is too overwhelmed to start and doesn’t know how to do that. Unburdened lightens your load by taking you through a four-step framework that I have refined over the last three years.
Step 1: Set boundaries for your phone and tech, for yourself and for others, to make space in your life for what really matters.
Step 2: Take ownership of your time. Clear the calendar clutter. Create your ideal day. Set up daily and weekly rhythms, so the important stuff gets done on autopilot and you’re not having to constantly make sure you’re thinking of it and remembering everything.
Step 3: Implement a plan for doable self-care because you cannot give your family water if your well is dry.
And finally, Step 4: Get purposeful in your day-to-day life. Because how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.
If you’re into this and you’re like, “Oh my gosh! I need that,” guys, the door’s open!
Unburdened is normally $160 but it’s cut down to $99 and it’s going away for a good long while.
The doors are open. They close really soon.
Go to alliecasazza.com/unburdenedlife. Alliecasazza.com/unburdenedlife. Get all the details to get all the info and enroll. I want to see you in there before the doors close.
Let’s discuss how to follow through on making a change, no matter what format. Let’s talk about how to follow through in making that change.
First, I think we need to just say a little bit of a disclaimer here. You need to know when to change your mind about something versus when you’re giving up or losing motivation.
There’s an episode that I did (I don’t remember what number it is, but I’ll link to it in the show notes for you guys) that is literally called “It’s Okay To Change Your Mind” and it’s one of the most popular episodes of The Purpose Show, because I think people need that freedom from performing for the sake of others. Maybe not every personality type will relate to this, but I know that I do, and a lot of you guys do because that episode is so popular.
I think we say we’re going to do something…say we’re gonna pursue something or make a change or do something in our lives…and then it doesn’t fit. Maybe you realize, “This is not something that I want to do. This is not something that’s good for me. This is not something that I have space for right now and I want to change my mind.” But you feel bad. You feel guilty. You feel like a failure. You feel embarrassed to tell people, “Actually, we’re not homeschooling anymore.” It feels like this sheepish, bow-out from success. Like “yeah, I failed at that.” Why? You can change your mind.
Maybe you thought you were going to go somewhere and you just didn’t. It just wasn’t where you were supposed to land. And you figured that out by walking forward, praying and just looking for what the next best thing was for you and you realized on the way there that that wasn’t it and you turned around and made a different choice. Who cares?
I think there’s a difference between not following through, giving up and losing motivation where you need to push through and reach your goals versus this wasn’t right for you after all and you need to just change your mind. And that’s okay.
Having said that, I think the next thing to do is to look at the thing you’re trying to do. The thing you’re trying to change. The thing you’re trying to get better at. Whether it’s creating more structured days and figuring out your life as a whole. Whether it’s making a shift in something you’re doing, like the way you school your kids, the way you discipline, the way you’re going to grow your family, whatever it is. If you’re going to move or not. If you’re going to lose weight and get healthy. Whatever it is. Why do you want to make the change you’re setting out to make?
If it’s coming from a place of performing for someone else in any way, not only will it probably not stick, but it’s not how you want to be living your life and it’s not worth your time and effort at all. Growth and change should be coming from your own inner desire to know better, do better. To show up for yourself and your family. To leave a better legacy behind. To follow a pull that God has put on your heart. Not to finally prove something to your parents. Not to finally get approval from someone else. Not to impress a friend that you feel ‘less than’ around. Not to make someone else happier with you.
So why do you want to make the change that you’re setting out to make? Write it down. Get a tangible feel of why you want to do this and why you want to change this thing in your life.
The next step is visualize what your life will look like with this new change in place. This is huge. Don’t skip this. It requires sitting down and getting quiet, which is hard sometimes, but you need to make this happen. This is why I have you guys do this so often and I even have had livestreams dedicated to walking you through the process of pausing and visualizing you having something that you want to get to because visualization is huge.
God created us as living energetic, flowing beings with minds that are super powerful because we’re made in His image. Your brain is incredible and it can work for you or against you, and whether you realize it or not, that’s your choice. There is so much power in picturing your future self benefiting from making an important change that you’ve been thinking about.
Visualizing it makes you grasp onto it temporarily. You want it enough to put in the effort despite how busy your life already is because you imagined what it would feel like to have that change happen. And you’ve lived out a day or two mentally visualizing you being finished with this change and it makes you want it so much more.
Or you might realize it made you detach from it a little bit and you don’t think that that’s right for you
Either way you’re getting on the right track from visualizing and using your brain power for you, not against you. And if you visualize the change, you can feel reasons for it rather than just think about them.
Let’s use getting healthy as an example. Let’s say that you’re not feeling well. You’re having hormonal issues. Maybe you’re overweight. You’re just not feeling good. You know that a health change needs to happen. And remember, it shouldn’t be about your body and how you look, (go back and listen to Episode 2, I believe it is. I’ll link to that in show notes as well about losing weight by loving your body) but you know that healthwise something needs to shift, and you visualize how it would feel to walk into a room confident, knowing you are your curvy, beautiful, healthy self. Your hormones are balanced, which means that your skin is cleared up, your moods are even, you’re feeling better. Your cycle is normal. Your sex drive is healthy and higher and you feel better in your relationship. You are treating people differently because you feel differently.
How would it feel to live a day in the life of yourself having already accomplished this change that you want to make? What does it feel like? What does it look like to actually live a day after you’re done? That’s what you visualize and it’ll help you feel those reasons for change rather than just think about them and think, “I just want that because I want to be in a smaller size jean and I want to feel better.” So much more powerful to visualize.
Next, how are you going to make this change happen? And you’re going to use the power of reverse engineering. You’re going to reverse engineer. How are you going to make this happen? Reverse engineering starts with the end goal being met and then you work backwards. So you say, “This is the goal that I want to meet. This is the thing I want to make happen.” What are the steps that would need to happen for that to be met, for you to get to that place. You will reverse engineer it.
Reverse engineering is so much better than starting from ground one and being like, “Okay, this is where I’m at right now. How do I get over there? But rather backwards – I’m already here. I accomplished this goal. How did I get there? What are the steps that needed to happen for me to get to this place?” This gets your brain in gear and helps you more effectively figure it out. So, figuring out how are you going to make this change happen and reverse engineering that process. I can’t get too much more detailed into this because I don’t know what your goal is or what your thing is, but that’s what I do.
The next step for me after visualizing and getting really tangible and excited about where I want to go and what I want to change is to think about how am I going to make this happen? What are the steps that need to be taken, the things that need to happen for me to get to that finish line? I start with the finish line and I work backwards, reverse engineering my steps in my process so I know exactly what needs to happen.
Then I can take those things and put them on deadlines and goals. And I can think like, “Okay, I want to have Step 2 done by April 19th or whatever it is.
Next, when are you going to make this happen? Now that you’ve reverse engineered and you know the steps it’s going to take for you to get somewhere new, when are you going to make that happen? And I think it’s important to say – Calendar This! Put it on your calendar! This matters! We decide we’re going to have coffee with a friend and we put that on our calendar, but we decide we want to change who we are and make a big goal happen and we don’t put it on our calendar? That doesn’t make any sense.
Break it down. Put it on your calendar. Put deadlines on your calendar. Put reminders in your calendar. We allow our phones to beep and go off for so many stupid things that are really distracting us from our actual life, but then we don’t make this technology work for us by setting it up to beep when we need it to beep. You need this to beep to remind you to change your life and do something purposeful. Use it for your advantage. When are you going to make this happen? Put it on your calendar.
The next thing about this is accountability. Guys, accountability is king! You are changing the way you’re living. You’re going down a different path. You’ve been living a certain way, being a certain way, looking, feeling, acting, living – whatever it is – a certain way for however long. It could be a few months and you want to break this habit.
It could be you’ve never done anything different. You’ve always lived this way. And now you want to change it? If you’re listening to this, you’re likely a mother. You have a lot going on. You need accountability for that.
I think there’s something really powerful in having a very close relationship, like a friendship-based relationship with your husband. Brian and I have talked about that a lot and that’s how we operate. But I do think there’s something to be said for it not being your spouse being the only person that you tell. As much as I do that with Brian and Brian knows basically every thought that I have and everything that I’m working on, but I think it’s important to tell somebody else.
Tell a friend and ask her to check in with you. Let her know how serious you are about making this change and make sure she knows the importance of checking in on you. Get serious about it. Maybe you guys have a thing where every Friday morning you jump on a Facetime call, or you text each other and you have an alert in your calendar about that too and she has one in her phone.
Get serious about accountability. There is something so powerful about accountability. It doesn’t matter if this is one of the things that’s a big deal for you to show up for something. If you’ll do things without accountability, that’s great. But it’s still helpful. When somebody else knows you’re more likely to do the thing.
Those are the core pillars of me being an action-taking, problem-solving woman. I ask myself, “Why do I want to make this change that I’m setting out to make? Where is this coming from? Is it coming from my desire to be the best version of myself? To know better and do better? To leave a stronger legacy? Or is this coming from a place of performing for somebody else? To impress somebody else? To get approval that I’ve always needed? Because that can’t come from there. It’s not going to stick and it’s not how I want to live my life.”
Next, visualizing what a day in my life will look like after I’m done implementing this change.
Next, how am I going to make this change happen? Reverse engineering the steps that it’ll take.
Next, when am I going to make this happen? How often am I going to work on going to the next step? Putting it on my calendar like it matters.
Next, accountability. Setting up accountability. Talking to my husband. Talking to a friend. Asking her to check in. Setting a time. Every Thursday evening we’re going to text each other and check in. Putting that on my calendar and acting like it matters.
These are the steps, the pillars, the core things that get me to take action. Try it. Write it down. See how you do with these steps and actually doing them.
And guys, I just want to say, you know, every single thing that I do for you is on purpose. If I make a mistake, I come out about it and I apologize and I say, “You know what? I said this, but actually I thought about it a lot and I don’t think it was right. I’m going to redact that and here’s what I actually think. Or here’s what I meant if I miscommunicated something.”
Every single thing that I do for you guys, I’m doing for a purpose. I’ve thought about it. I have let it sit for a while. I know that it’s the best possible thing I could do for you guys – not for me, for you guys – because my business is built on this idea of serving and showing up for people in a helpful way. I believe that money follows that. That is why I’ve got courses. That’s why I have online trainings. That’s why I have an online academy full of digital downloads, video courses, audible courses, different types of digital training because it is a place where I have a say. There is not an editor telling me, “No, this isn’t really what we want. We want you to change this.” It is what I know in the depths of my heart will change your life for the better. It’s the best of the best.
Free will only get you so far. At some point you have to decide that you’re worth investing in and you’ve got to show up for yourself. That’s what my online academy is for. That’s why I create courses because it is the best, the very best way that I can serve you and encourage you to make a change and that you can show up for yourself and get the most out of it. The most likely for you to succeed is in these online courses.
I just you to know this is not just like a business where it’s like, “Oh, I made this. I want to project this money. I want to make sure that we make this money for this.” No. Everything is built on serving you the best way possible. That is why I have emailed back for three and a half years, “No thank you. I am not doing a book right now. Thank you for your book deal offer.” That is why.
And you need to understand that there’s a lot of teachers out there that will claim that they care about you, and you know a lot of them do, but I want you to know, I want you to hear it straight from my lips on this podcast that that is why I’m here doing what I do.
I truly believe ‘show up and serve.’ Give the best that you can. Encouraging you guys to put some skin in the game and invest in yourselves because that’s where true change can happen. When you’ve got something at stake. When you’ve put your money where your mouth is.
And then I show up for you and make sure that I give you what I know can change your life. And then by showing up and serving in that way, the money that I need for my business, to run things, to pay people will follow that. And I’ve had that model for years and it’s worked and I’m not veering from that – ever.
So, I just want you guys to know there’s a reason behind everything. When you show up for yourself and you invest and you say, “Yes! I want Allie to coach me in this course. I want her in my head. I want her walking me through these changes that I need to make in my motherhood to help me show up better.” Then it happens.
I want to encourage you, if you want to make a change, if you want to be a person that follows through, if you want to be an action-taking, problem-solving woman, you can be.
You just have to decide and show up and do the work.
This was an episode of The Purpose Show. Did you know there is an exclusive community created solely for the purpose of continuing discussions surrounding The Purpose Show episodes? And to get you to actually take action and make positive changes on the things that you learn here? Go be a part of it. To join go to facebook.com/groups/purposefulmamas.
Thank you so much for tuning in. If you are ready to uplevel and really take action on the things I talk about on my show, and get step-by-step help from me, head to alliecasazza.com. There are free downloads, courses, classes, and ways to learn more about what the next step might look like for you and to focus on whatever you might need help with in whatever season you are in right now.
I am always rooting for you, friend!
See ya next time!
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