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Interested in a Clarity Coaching Day? Contact Jamie directly on Instagram @JamieMSwanson Sign up for podcast  email reminders here  >>> http://brightentrepreneurpodcast.com/email Transcript: I have a confession to make back in September, I ran a 52 mile trail race, which is crazy. I know it's, it's like a double marathon in an entire day on super remote rugged trails. And I talked a lot about it back in October during my launch series, which was a five-part bonus series that I use basically to launch my bright future method workshop. but here's what I want to confess to you today. I have hardly run it all since my race. And I am super out of shape and I was feeling really, really awful about it. I was feeling like, man, I am never going to be able to get out on the trails again. And I know that sometimes we get that way in our business as well. We feel like we're just not making any progress that we are just stuck. We've lost our desire to do anything. And we're approaching that burnout point pretty dang quickly. So today I want to talk about how we can get unstuck and start making momentum in our business. So I didn't mean to get out of momentum with my training and take such a long break, but back in August at the very height of my training where I was literally running a half marathon one day and a full marathon. The next out on the trails to train for this insanely long 52 mile race. I tripped. I fell. I fell in the woods and the sad part is it wasn't even on a super technical part, but I clipped my toe on a root or a rock or something. And I felt now I didn't fall particularly hard, but my left knee hit a rock and it must have hit in such a way that. It heard it kind of bad. Now it didn't like injure it where I couldn't run on it. In fact, I didn't think anything had really happened, but as I continued finishing my run and I think I still had another, I don't know, six to 10 miles left after that point. So it was on a long run. It wasn't a short run. Um, I got back to my car and my knee was really starting to hurt and it was starting to flare up. And so I took kind of an easy week and I didn't do a lot on it. I gave it some time to heal and I knew it wasn't like a massive deep injury, but I also knew that it needed a little bit of rest. And so I gave it some rest. And the next weekend I went out and I had had my longest week, or it was like 18 and 32. I did my 18 miler and I did it really gently if that's possible. I know this is insane. Just bear with me and. When I did that, I'm like, okay, it's, it's a little sore, but it's not bad. And so the next day I went out to do my 32, which was my longest, just one. And I got a mile and a half in and I'm like, Nope, turning around, going back because it was already starting to hurt and starting to hurt. More than it had the day before. Like I could tell that if I continued running on it and did a full 32 miles, it was not going to be happy. And it might actually keep me from being able to do the full race, which was September 12th. I took three and a half weeks and I barely ran it all. I did a couple of very short runs, but I was really wanting my knee to heal so I could go out and do my 50 mile race. And I talked about tapering. And a past episode during that bonus series. So you may want to go listen to that because it was really interesting experience where my brain also felt like, Oh my gosh, I'm losing all of this running, you know, this athletic base that I've built up. And it just, it was really hard for me to step away and be wise and wait. But then I got to the day of the race and it was amazing. I, my knees didn't hurt hardly at all. At the beginning, it was a touch sore, but not bad. And I was able to run the entire thing. And the last section was actually really hard on both of my knees at that point, just because it's a lot of miles. And, um, I knew I wasn't injuring it. I knew it was just sore, but it was still hurting. And so anyways, I took quite a bit of time off after the race, because I really did not want to have long-term injuries in my knees. And I wanted to let them heal. I just run literally six, 700 miles over a summer, and I love being out in the woods, but I had some work stuff that had to happen. I was going to be launching. And so it was a pretty busy time. It was actually kind of nice to have a lot of my time back to work in my business instead of being out in the woods, even though I love the woods, I was training for a good 15 to 20 hours per week, which is a pretty insane commitment.   So I intentionally decided to take a few weeks off and see how my knee was doing well near the end of October, I started hiking and running on it again, and it was still a tiny bit sore, but it wasn't too bad. And so I was getting out there. I wasn't training long miles like I had been, but I kept finding excuses for staying in the weather was changing. It was icy. Now it was. Not fun. Um, there was a couple of weeks, like two separate weeks where the weather was gorgeous and I spent pretty much the entire week outside as much as I possibly could. And those were wonderful, but I still knew I had lost some of my base having not done a ton of running since the mid middle of August. And then hunting season hit and hunting season in Minnesota means I need to stay out of the woods. Because people are shooting guns and hunting season is very prevalent here because a lot of people actually rely on the meat that they get from deer to get through the year. And it helps their family in a massive way. So I have no problems with the deer hunting season itself, but you're not going to find me in the woods. With people hunting. I do not want the chance of a stray bullet hitting me, even if I'm in blaze orange, just because I want to go out and run. And many of the trails around here, I actually closed for a solid two weeks. So that came as well. And here I find myself this past week and it had been a couple of weeks, three weeks, almost, not quite since I had ran at all or hiked or anything. And I was just feeling so unmotivated And I know that I lost a ton of the athletic base that I had worked so hard to build, and I was really feeling discouraged and I knew that I just needed to get out there and start doing it again. And that it would come back eventually. But just the thought of going out one in the cold, because now it's full on winter here too on the ice, which is slippery, which means you can't really run it all and you have to be a lot more careful and it's just more miserable. And just three being out there knowing that my body couldn't do nearly as much as it could in this past summer, it was really just disheartening. Like it felt depressing. And I'm sure the fact that I haven't been exercising also made it feel worse because that really releases a lot of endorphins. And man, I come alive in the woods. I just forget. And part of me just wanted to hibernate. All winter long, eat all the delicious foods and just give up for a little bit, you know, like we all have those moments when we're just like, ah, screw it. Let's just eat all the things and sit around and whatever it is, right. We have our, we all have our things. And so here's what I did because I'm like, you know what? My ski season is coming. It's not here yet. I was hoping it would be here by now, but we don't have snow enough to ski, unfortunately. So until then I knew that if I just waited, I might just get super lazy and lackadaisical all winter long because maybe it's going to be a winter without a lot of snow. Maybe I won't be able to ski hardly at all. And I didn't want. To lose out, not just on the athletic base, but the energy that I get from exercise. I didn't want to lose out on the habit that I have when I exercise of just getting outside and more than anything, I didn't want to lose out on the stillness and that peace, joy, and love that comes from being in the woods and being quiet. I mean, I love to find places of solitude to just sit. And meditate or contemplate or whatever, or pray, whatever word you want to use. And just soak up the silence. There are so few places where you can get true silence and winter, especially as beautiful as for silence because the snow just dampens all the sound around you. And so I knew I needed to get it back out on the trails, and I knew that the first few times they're going to be. Pretty uncomfortable, but that it was worth it. And that if I wanted to get back up to where I was, or even part of the way back up, that I just needed to get out there. And I also knew that I probably hadn't lost as much as I thought it just feels that way, our brains just tell us these stupid things. And so. If you're in your business right now, and maybe you've just been exhausted, maybe getting kids figured out what their schooling options has been really frustrating and exhausting to you, or going back into lockdowns or the holidays. I mean, there's all sorts of stressors. All sorts of stressors around us that might be dragging you down that might be cutting into your energy level. That might make you feel kind of stuck. And maybe it's been harder than normal. Maybe the conditions haven't been, what you've needed them to be. Maybe you're having limitations placed on you because of COVID or whatever it is. This year has been especially difficult for many people, not everybody, but for a lot. And the ones who get through it are the ones who finally say, you know what, despite all of this stuff, I'm going to make a commitment to moving forward anyways. And that's what I did as well. I'm like, you know what? Yes. It's cold. Yes. It's IC. Yes. It's kind of miserable. And the sun rarely shines this time a year here. So it's going to feel really dark and dreary and yes, I've lost a lot of my base. And so it's going to be really a lot of extra work. And when you're hiking through snow, it's especially just all this stuff, right? Oh, this stuff, all the stuff. I had a hundred excuses. And what if my knee isn't good enough? Cause it's still feeling pain and whatever else. And I just said, Nope. I'm going to commit to going outside at least 10 minutes a day. And I'm going to say specifically outside at first I was thinking, Oh, I'll just do any exercise, but I know for me and my spirit, I need to go outside. I need to have that solitude, that quiet that I get from nature that I can't get anywhere else. And so. I did that. I decided, okay, I'm not going to commit to 10 mile runs. I'm just going to say 10 minutes now. I will absolutely stay out far longer than 10 minutes, but it's just committing to something tiny that starts me moving forward and gives me momentum that is going to help me get back into the pattern of getting up every single day. Doesn't matter if it's raining and it's disgusting or it's sleeting or whatever else. 10 minutes is all I have to put up with it. Right? And by the way, the rain can be really fun, right? If you embrace it and you come at it with an attitude of, Oh, this is different, what's lovely about this. And if you don't worry so much about getting dirty and you let yourself jump in the puddles and play and be a kid, it's actually one of my favorite things to do. It's very fun. So don't let the things that you're like, Oh, that sucks. Stop you from doing what you need to do. So the first thing I would say, if you're feeling stuck is one, make a commitment to doing one small thing. Every single day, that's going to start you moving again. And if you only do the 10 minutes or whatever it is, that's okay. That's okay. That is a win because you are taking action and getting back into momentum. Number two. Tell people about it. I don't know about you, but I am a woman of my word. And so if I tell somebody I'm going to do something, I do it. So I went to the people in my mastermind and I said, Hey friends. I need you to hold me accountable to getting outside at least 10 minutes per day, because I know that if I tell them I need to do it, then I'm going to do it. And I'm going to show up and say, okay, here's my pictures. I was out there, proved it today. And I know that it's going to help me continue building this habit of getting outside. That's going to help me reestablish this base that I've lost. That really is going to make my momentum grow because. This is the same in business, not just exercise. We will get far more from taking small, consistent action over time. Then we will, by doing one big, massive, crazy push and then crashing for a month or two and feeling burned out and then coming back and doing this crazy push where it all consumes everything we do. And maybe we get really great results from that, but it can really cause you to burn out fast when you do it that way. And if you can find a more sustainable habit, practice, whatever you want to call it, that you can do small amounts of every single day and move in the right direction. That's going to be far more valuable to you and sustainable to you than these massive pushes that then. Leave you burned out where you just want to abandon ship for a while because when you have momentum moving forward, just a little bit of an extra push every little day, or every Workday is going to be far more effective than, you know, think of pushing a rock. If you, once it's moving, it's easy to keep going, but if you let it stop, then you've got to put a lot of effort into getting it going again. So it's really important that we keep our momentum going. And even if it's just 10 minutes of something that you know is going to move your business forward every single day, put those 10 minutes into practice, there's probably something that if you did it every single day, you know that that's going to keep you moving forward and growing faster, maybe it's reaching out to somebody every single day and asking them personally, if they'd like to be a part of what you're offering, maybe it's reaching out to network with other people who have your same audience to see if you can be on their podcast, or if they want to connect or be a JV partner or whatever it is. I'm sure. Reaching out once a day to see if somebody wants to collaborate over a year is going to open up some incredible opportunities for you that you've never even dreamed of, or maybe it's doing Facebook lives or emails or blog posts or whatever it is. But if you take a moment right now and think about it, My guests, if you're truly a bright entrepreneur, is that, you know, that there's something you could be doing every single day that would move you forward. That really isn't a lot of time that you could commit to right now. And then you could find somebody to tell who can keep you accountable, which is the second part The third thing. Is to remember that there will always be something that could hold us back that we could use as an excuse. And when we do that, we're actually being a victim. We're actually playing that victim card and saying, Oh, these external things outside of my control are keeping me from doing it. Sure. I'm not going to be out in the woods during hunting season, but I absolutely could go to some of the parks around here that don't allow hunting and have done some sort of workout there or been out in nature there. I didn't, they're not my favorite. They require me to drive a little further, but I used it as an excuse to not get out and exercise because it wasn't as convenient. And there's always going to be things in our business that hold us back. Maybe our market has shifted after COVID or maybe you feel like everyone else is doing something a certain way. And so you can't do it differently or whatever it is, there are always going to be things that could keep you. From reaching your dreams and growing the business that you really want to have the difference between entrepreneurs who never really make it. And the bright entrepreneurs who create successful simple businesses that seem to grow on their own is that bright entrepreneurs know that they can get past everything instead of seeing something and saying, Oh, guess it's not going to work. And I throw in the towel, they're going to say, what does this make possible? And that's a question. I hear Stu McLaren asking all the time. I've definitely grabbed that from him. And I think he grabbed it from one of his mentors or business partners, but what does this make possible? Okay. So my photography business totally collapsed because of COVID. Well, what does this make possible? Well, what this made possible was me being able to shift into something that I've been wanting to do for three and a half years, but didn't have the space or capacity to start. I've been wanting to run masterminds for ages. They make me come alive. So maybe the obstacle that's in your way. Is really allowing you to do something else or make something else possible that you never would have dreamed of if that obstacle wasn't facing you or perhaps that obstacle isn't even real. It's just the limiting belief that you have to move past. Maybe you think nobody will pay for what you have to offer, but you haven't actually put yourself out there and ask them. And when you finally go out and ask them, you find, Oh, Fuck. There's all these people who actually want what I have and are thanking me for telling them about it. So sometimes the obstacles are just our own fears that we have to work through, but whatever it is facing, the things that are in front of you that have been keeping you stuck and refusing to be the victim. And instead saying, what does this make possible? What could I do to get around this? How can I make my dreams happen anyways, when you ask those questions and you really open yourself up to doing something in an alternative way or facing the fears that are holding you back, that's how you make progress and get unstuck for me. Yeah. There's all these things that could have held me back. Yes. Sometimes, you know, if my knee is truly injured, it was wise to take a little time off, but I didn't need to take this much time off and I could have absolutely been doing other workouts or I could have just went and sat in the woods without having to go very far in if I had really wanted to do that and not used my excuses to keep me out of momentum, frankly. So I have committed to 10 minutes a day of getting into the woods or at the very least exercising. But my ideal is to be outside at least 10 minutes a day, no matter what the weather is. So I am dreaming and hoping that we get dumped on that. We get a ton of snow soon, so I can actually be out skiing, which is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. It's so much fun, but until then, even if we don't have enough snow, which I could use as an excuse not to get outside. I'm going to go out and I'm going to walk or hike or maybe run. If the conditions would allow it for at least 10 minutes today, I was going to go out for 10 minutes and I did almost four and a half miles and was out there for like almost two hours. Had a great conversation. Just because I committed to 10 minutes. I know there will be days when I get out there and I'm like, Oh, I'm not feeling it because when we, especially when you're first getting back that momentum, isn't there, there's a lot of resistance to doing it. And I might quit after 10 minutes, but that's okay. Still a win 10 minutes is all it takes. I'm telling you here. Now I've told a bunch of my friends and I'm not going to let my excuses hold me back. So I'm going to move forward just like that. So my question to you today is okay. Where are you stuck in your business? Because if you're listening to this podcast, I'm guessing that there's somewhere that you're stuck. What can you commit to doing daily? That's small that you can keep doing and moving forward, that's going to start building momentum. Who can you tell publicly so that you are accountable to it? And then three. What are the limitations and things that you personally need to overcome so that you can keep moving forward in your business. Think about those and ask yourself, what does this make possible? How can I do it despite these obstacles and whatever else you need in order to move forward with this. You've got this, my friend, I know you can do this. I know I can do this. And I know we're going to be better people because of it, because I know once you get back into momentum and once you are doing things from a place of, energy and excitement and focus, you will grow so much faster than if you're just sporadic in what you're doing. And that's what I want for you. That's the difference between the bright entrepreneurs and the ones who just do not make it long-term. And I know that if you're listening to this, that you are a bright entrepreneur who can do this. all right. My friends just remember we are brighter together and the world needs us. So let's go out and make it brighter.