The Ultimate Creative

You're A Dreamer, But Your Dreams'r On Hold!

• Emily Milling • Season 2 • Episode 65

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Do you suffer from procrastination? This episode is for you. I covered this in part on an IG live last week which you can join every Thursday at 11am EST. But today I want to go a little deeper into the big goals side of things. On the live we talked about, Why do you procrastinate? How do you stop yourself from procrastinating? What are the benefits of procrastinating and how can you make it work for you?

So today I thought we’d talk more about what happens when you set ginormous goals for yourself and then totally bail on them, whether you want to or not. 

What happens when you set big goals?

Sometimes when we set very big goals for ourselves it can conjure up feelings of fear - what if I fail? What will people think if I don’t do what I say I’m going to do? 

And then there’s feelings of overwhelm - How will I get from where I am now, to this massive huge goal, I don’t even know the first step? 

And finally, it can feel like you’re trapped. You’ve committed to this goal, you’ve told everyone you know what you’re doing - and now you have a sense of responsibility to deliver on something that is causing way more panic than joy in your life.

Like launching a podcast. That’s a big dream! And if you’ve never done it before, it’s overwhelming! At least that’s what my clients and students say when we start talking about why they haven’t done it yet. 

So what I do as always is break everything down into tiny little steps. Obnoxiously tiny. 

No matter what your goals are, or your reason for procrastinating on your big dreams, this process can help you. Give it a try and write down a bunch of little steps that you need to take so that you can accomplish your dreams!

And if your dreams happen to be to start your own podcast, you can just enrol in Podcast Rocket which is now available on-demand at https://theultimatecreative.com/podcast-rocket 

Head on over there now to take action on your BIG GOALS to start a podcast and grab your spot in Podcast Rocket!

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Learn how my team can help you launch and grow a podcast:

Welcome to another episode of the ultimate creative podcast. I'm your host, Emily milling. Today, we are talking about your dreams, but why are they on hold friend? Why are you dragging your heels today? I want to help you with your procrastination. Do you suffer from it? Then this episode is for you. So I covered this in part in IAG live last week, which you can join actually every Thursday at 11:00 AM Eastern standard time.

But today I want to go a little bit deeper into the big goals side of things. So on the live show, we talked about why do you procrastinate? How do you stop yourself from procrastinating? What are the possible benefits of procrastinating and how can you make it work for you? And yes, there are some benefits.

Benefits. That's a new word. I just made up. There are some benefits. So I thought today we would talk about more like what happens when you said ginormous goals for yourself, and then you totally bail on them, whether you want to, or not. The big P comes at you hard. Okay. Well wrong imagery there. I'm going to, I'm going to take that back anyway.

So setting big goals. Sometimes we do this cause we're like, okay, I see someone like kind of off in the distance, who's got a really established career. That's where I want to be. Like, I want to be Jennifer Anniston. I may have just watched the friends reunion last night. So now I've got just the friends, people in my head.

I want to be like Jennifer Aniston. I want to have bajillions of dollars. I want to have the Rachel haircut still in my life. And I want to be super famous and super popular. This is a massive goal. Okay, this is a massive goal. I'm not saying you can't get there, but here's what happens when you set massive goals for yourself, you start to feel afraid.

You start to feel overwhelmed. You start to feel trapped. And then you have maybe a sense of responsibility to deliver on this big goal. And if you are telling people about it all the time, you're like, I'm going to be famous. I'm going to go do the thing I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be so successful.

I'm gonna make millions and millions of dollars and if you don't do it instantly. It's like the shackles of life, just holding you back. And then you end up stopping altogether because you're like, well, there's no point it's pointless. I can't get there. It's not going to happen for me. Hey, even a year into doing this podcast, I'm like, I feel like it should be more successful.

I feel like I should have more people listening. I feel like I should have more and more and more and more. I talked to Justin about this all the time and I'm like, why isn't, why isn't it taking off? Why am I not the best podcast or on planet earth yet? And there is no real answer to that. I mean, you can follow all of the tips and tricks of all of these famous people that you look up to, but if it doesn't work for you, it's like sticking a round peg into a square hole, as they say, because something just feels off, it feels wrong. And when it feels off and wrong, it's like, well, why should I be doing this in the first place? And then you go back to that big, huge ginormous image in your head of like this goal, this person that you want to attain, this thing you want to become. And you're like, forget it. I'm done. I'm out of here.

There's no way. And so if you had a gun, like launching a podcast, like that's a big dream and if you've never done it before, it's overwhelming. It is overwhelming. It's even for me now, there's so much to do before you on to podcasts. Like literally any time, because it's just, it's a new project and it's like, what are, what are all the pieces?

I forget all the pieces. I have to go do my own course podcast rocket again, so that I remember what the heck I'm supposed to be doing. And at least that's what my clients and students say when we start talking about why they haven't done it yet, when we get on calls together and it's generally that they just feel like it's too overwhelming.

There are too many moving pieces and they need help with that. So what I like to do is break everything down into tiny little steps, like a noxious obnoxiously, tiny. So for example, in podcast rocket, the first week is focused on podcast planning and purpose. And we go through modules one by one, like, what is your mission? What is your vision? What are your goals? Who are the people you're trying to reach? And then we create a production schedule. And obviously I have a template for this, if you need that.

But you know, if that's something else that you can consider as well, like having a big, massive. Work back plan in event management school, they call it a critical path. These are the critical steps you must take. And one must follow the other in order to be able to achieve the overall outcome that you are looking for.

I break everything down now into massive Excel spreadsheets, because it just makes it so much easier to manage it, but it could look really overwhelming at first when you're like. I don't even know where to begin. I have no clue where to begin. So I always recommend just doing a brain dump of like all the things you think you need to do.

And then kind of working backwards from the goal that you have, like reverse engineering becoming Jennifer Aniston. What do you have to do? You have to, first of all, Do the friends reunion show, and then you have to be on friends and then you have to get onto a pilot for another show about truckers and then have to compete with friends for that.

And then you have to do 8,000 million auditions and a pilot a year, and I'm literally just rhyming everything off of that documentary. It was really good. It was, I wasn't a huge fan of friends, but anyway, reverse engineering becoming Jennifer Aniston. You have to look at like all the tiny little steps she did.

It's the same thing for podcasts. It's the same thing for anything that you want to do. And of course, one it's like when it's big, it's going to feel like it's way too much. So then the next thing I take people through in podcast rocket is just preparing to record. So understanding what kind of microphone you need, what to buy, how to use it properly, how to actually set up the microphone.

So you're speaking into the right part of it, how to set up your room so that it doesn't sound like it's echo-y and bouncing everywhere. And then we start recording. So, you know what the foundations are. So that when you actually start recording the content, it's not overwhelming anymore. And then I also have my students create like outlines for every single episode.

Like the things that they're going to say, what are the segments going to be? How do you break down your topics into little chunks so that you know what you're talking about at any given point of the episode? And then we talk about editing or hiring an editor or a podcast production agency, how to add your intro and outro.

So that's not unbalanced, that kind of thing. And, and of course, you know, a lot of the people that I work with and the lot of people I teach they are not mega fans of technology and gear like me.

Like the thing that I really nerd out about, which is just, I mean, I love, I love microphones. If I could have 5,000 of them and a bunch of sense, I would be so happy, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about getting rid of the overwhelm of like, not actually taking on your goals and making them.

A possibility. so we look at like, what are the tiny little steps you need to take to edit your podcast? And then finally, when we have content ready to go, we do the podcast launch and there are little elements to all of that as well. There is the artwork, there's the description there is choosing a podcast host.

I really like Buzzsprout there's. Tons and tons of little things that need to be factored in so that when you're launching the podcast and promoting it, people know that it's out there and they're ready to listen to it. They're excited to listen to it. But so often. We don't even get that far. We don't even get to the part where we're launching. The thing that we know is going to make us Jennifer Aniston famous. We don't get there because sometimes we get stuck in analysis paralysis, like doing all the research and getting all your ducks in a row before you can actually hit record.

And yeah, there is a sense of safety in doing that, but that is also just you protecting yourself from any sort of failure, like fear of failure, fear of failure holds us back a lot. And that part of your brain, I don't explain this very well. You can listen to a Chris swales podcast a little bit better to learn more about like how, how fear can hold you back from things.

But like basically what's happening is your anxiety and fear this like primitive brain that you have is saying no, because it's trying to protect you and how lovely and generous of this primitive brain of yours.

However, there are no tigers coming to eat you right now. I hope I really hope. Depends on if you're on the show tiger king, I guess, but there are no tigers coming to eat you so you don't have to be afraid with this physiological response. And It's really about tricking yourself into knowing that success is inevitable.

That is something that has worked really, really well. For me. It's just, success is inevitable. I have no option, but to succeed and I know I'm going to, and I feel really grounded and rooted in that. Most of the time. There are definitely times that I don't, but it just takes that repetition over and over to be like, okay, I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. It's done. It's over. And once you have like a minimum viable product for yourself, like you've proven to yourself that you can do a thing, you can start repeating it and doing it again. It'll be way easier as well, because you already have the steps completed to doing that.

Right.

So for those of you listening today, who are sitting on a big dream and you're like, gosh, I wish I could just make it happen. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to get out an Excel spreadsheet and across the top, you're gonna write due date. Category task, sub task. If you want to do it even further down into that, even just, you're going to end up with like due date and tasks, but like start with the big, final element, which is being Jennifer Anniston.

And then. Put dates backwards. So like by January 1st of 20, 22, I want to be Jennifer Anniston. And then What do I need to do now between June of 2021 and January 1st of 2022, in order to become Jennifer Anniston, please don't try to become another human that's kind of creepy, but if we're looking at like your big goal, big picture idea, what are the simple steps that you need to take?

Break them down into tiny chunks and just work slowly through it. Get out of the analysis paralysis, make tasks for yourself that have due dates for research like research podcast, host. Okay, this is going to be done by July 1st. And I will have chosen one because that is going to get me to step two, which is research microphone and blah, blah, blah, and so on and so forth.

Or of course you can check out my course podcast, rocket of podcasting is your jam, 

at the end of the day. I just want to encourage you no matter what your dreams are to take the next step. Today, once you finish listening to this episode, you take out your earbuds, take out your AirPods, take off your very heavy overhead over ear headphones on this hot day. Once you're done that, then write down the next step and writing to hear I'll give you the next step.

You can write it down right now. Make. Plan make work back plan to become Jennifer Aniston, the book replaced Jennifer Anniston with whatever your dream is. All right, that's it for me. I am Emily milling as per use. I'm going to drop all of the links to everything I mentioned in the show notes. And I'll talk to you next week.