Cara Harvey 00:00:03  Welcome to the Purpose Driven Moms show here at A Purpose Driven Mom, we believe that it’s possible to manage your home, work on your personal goals, and grow and scale an online business. Most productivity tips out there tell you to hustle more and make you feel shame about not being motivated enough. And we’re here to dispel this myth. I’m Kara Harvey, and I am on a mission to help work at home. Moms realize that they have the power to go after their dreams, take care of themselves, and manage their home without perfectionism, guilt, or having to sacrifice their sleep. If you’re ready to shift your thinking around productivity and get some practical tips to help you manage your mom life. Toss your earbuds in while you fold the laundry. And let’s do this! Welcome to the Super Mom Show, episode 456. Today, we’re talking about how to take your big idea, whether it’s around your house or in your business, and finally start that project you’ve been putting off. We’re going to be talking about how to go from idea to action.

Cara Harvey 00:00:56  Show notes are going to be at a Purpose Driven mom.com/podcast for five six. So go and check that out now. How long have you been saying I’m going to do the thing right? I’m going to write the book. I’m going to start the podcast. I’m going to start the blog. It’s time to start my business, I swear. And I don’t know if it’s because I’m an entrepreneur, but I feel like weekly in conversations with friends, in real life and my business friends, there’s so many ideas, so many things that we want to do, but soon never actually comes, right? You wait for the perfect time, but newsflash, you know it doesn’t actually exist. I think about this a lot when it comes to actually starting my business now. When I left teaching a decade ago, it took me about three years to start the business that I currently have. I’ve been in business for eight years now. What I’m doing now is such an extension to what I was doing as a teacher.

Cara Harvey 00:01:42  I was a special education teacher writing IEPs, progress monitoring, essentially what I do now for moms. I had this idea when I left teaching to go into network marketing. I always help people with their time. Management was definitely my bread and butter, my secret sauce. But I kept putting it off because I had this belief. And we’ll talk about why you get stuck in the thinking phase in a second. But I had this belief that I couldn’t do it. Not me. Who was I to have my own business? Who was I to do? Get started? Why would I do something? Who would listen to me? I’m so thankful that I didn’t listen to those voices. And again, almost eight years later, here I am sitting in front of this mic or this camera. If you’re watching on YouTube. And if not, come check out our YouTube channel. Having this business that not only funds my life but employs people, impacts moms, and is just such a joy that I get to do every single day.

Cara Harvey 00:02:34  I know that you have something out there and and for my moms who’ve been thinking about starting a business, I’m talking to you right now. I know you have a business idea that is just like sitting on your brain and you’re thinking, I want to do this. My friends and I, we talk a lot about opening a bookstore, right? Opening a little romance bookstore where we could do fun, trivia and games at night. I have a friend. She told me she has a business idea where she wants to open up a mobile bookstore. That kind of goes to those events. And if you have them in your town, we have tons of them. We’re in the spring food truck festivals, etc. and have become a mobile bookstore. I’m like, this is a great idea, why don’t you do it well, right? It’s always, well, I could, but here’s the thing. Getting started on your idea. It’s not about being motivated. It’s not about waiting for the perfect time. It’s about identifying the roadblocks they’re going to exist, pushing aside and taking small, messy action.

Cara Harvey 00:03:25  And I want to encourage you today that that thing that you’re thinking of, there’s not a coincidence. You’re listening to me today, right? I know that you have something on your heart. And I’m going to talk again to my business moms or the moms that are thinking about starting a business. I know you have something that you want to do, and you’re thinking, I’m not sure if I want to do it and you don’t get started on it. I’m going to give you guys a business idea I have that I’ve been sitting on considering doing in real life. Now. I love what I do here at a Purpose Driven Mom, but I have been thinking of other ways I can make a difference in impact, and I absolutely love working with kids. I was a high school teacher. I’m a Girl Scout leader, I volunteer and I have a nine year old. And so we’ve of course had the period conversation. And if you’re listening, you’re like nine. That’s so early. I was in fourth grade friends and my daughter’s about to be in fourth grade.

Cara Harvey 00:04:08  So if you have a teeny bopper out there, I’m gonna suggest you also have the conversation. And if you’re cringing, I feel you, because that’s my business idea. I’ve had the conversation with her, I think I killed it, and I thought so many of my friends don’t want to have this conversation. We’ve this is again been a topic. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to talk about the period. I’m not ready. I don’t feel comfortable. Well, I do, I’ll talk about anything. And not to toot my own horn, but toot toot, I’m a pretty good teacher. And so I’ve been thinking about starting a small business or, you know, doing business as purpose driven. Mom, I’m not gonna start a new business, but through the purpose driven mom lens of doing things in real life where I go to people’s houses and I teach a period class, I get them ready. We talk about puberty, we talk about body hair, we talk about the period, all those things, how to put on a pad like those things your kid needs to know.

Cara Harvey 00:04:55  And if you’re again feeling shy and embarrassed as I’m talking about it, then you would hire me, right? Because I think about the towns near me where people got the money to. I’m like, oh my gosh. My friends literally were like, I would totally pay you to come teach this to my kids. But I keep thinking, I can’t do it. Why? Oh, I don’t have the time. I don’t really know what I’m talking about. I’m not really an expert. Right? But I always tell my moms that I coach an expert is just a few steps ahead. So the fact that I’ve had the period conversation with my daughter means I am a, quote, more of an expert than my friend who hasn’t. Okay. Now, this is a project I’ve been putting off, and as we talk about it, I’m kind of getting more and more inspired to get started. But I understand where you’re at and I want to share that with you. I’ve been there so many times before I started my podcast again.

Cara Harvey 00:05:40  It took me a year from starting my business to start my podcast. Before I wrote my book, I never wanted to actually write a book. And then when the idea came to me, I had a lot of imposter syndrome. I kept thinking, I don’t want to do it. I can’t do it. I’m not qualified right now. Let’s talk. Why? We get stuck in what we call the thinking phase. And we like to call that dreaming. Over here at Purpose Driven Mom and we’re good dreamers. We come up with big ideas. We think of businesses we want to do, we think about projects we want to have. Another one that we’ve been talking about as a family is getting a trailer so we can travel more, maybe homeschooling the kids, like we have all these ideas, but we get stuck in the dream phase because the dream phase feels safe. Dreaming about things that you want to do is safe because you’re not taking action. Why not? Well, one there is 100% the fear of failure.

Cara Harvey 00:06:27  Let’s talk about it right. Psychologists call this the spotlight effect. We think that people are watching our mistakes more than they actually are. We just need to let them. Theory and the Purpose Driven Mom Club by Mel Robbins highly recommended if you’ve not read it. And here’s what I tell you. Some people probably are watching and waiting for you to fail. Let them. But most people, according to this spotlight effect, right? They are not focused on you. And that was a really big thing I kind of came to terms with when reading this book and some work in therapy, like, do people even know what I do? Not really. I talk to people all the time. We were away for a cheer weekend and I was explaining it and they’re like, what do you do? Right. Like, people don’t know because we are the main characters in our own lives, okay? We are just side characters in other people’s lives or even in computer terms, NPCs, non-playing characters. We are the people you, you know, in The Sims.

Cara Harvey 00:07:16  They wave at the at the mailbox, but they’re not actually paying attention. And I think one thing that happens is because of social media, we think everybody sees everything we post as well. I do not, I go on Facebook, I check in my work things and I leave. I do on TikTok, I do my work things and I leave. I’m not TikTok, Instagram, come on TikTok. I’m scrolling right? But I don’t really have a lot of my friends on TikTok, so I don’t see what they’re doing. I think we assume that everyone sees everything we do, and I’m going to tell you, if I ask you how you are, people will always be like, oh, did you see I posted this on Facebook or I shared this status, I didn’t the I have thousands of friends on my Facebook page, so and I see literally the same like four people if I see anybody. Right. The algorithm doesn’t show everybody everything. So one people aren’t actually seeing all the stuff you’re posting.

Cara Harvey 00:08:01  And two, people aren’t thinking about you. I know it’s hard to hear, but they’re not. We get so caught in anxiety about what other people are thinking, what other people are feeling. But the reality is people are not watching and waiting for us to fail like we think they are. Again, there are people who are. There are people out there who I am the villain in their story. They cannot wait to see things go bad for me. And that’s a them problem, right? I’m team cheerleader. I’m team like women empowerment. Like there is enough space at the table for all of us, right? But that fear of failure is so big. I keep thinking, oh my gosh, what if I post on my page about this period party? I want period party. I think I like that one period party I want to start doing, and I get no comments on my post. Everyone’s gonna see that. Nobody commented. They’re going to think I’m a failure. Right? So this social media effect, I post something I don’t get likes.

Cara Harvey 00:08:50  Who actually cares, right? We put so much weight into other people’s opinions. But I want a tough love, you hear? Like they’re not living your life. So who cares? One what they think of what you’re doing. And who cares if they have a feeling about you failing? That’s a them problem. Because here’s what I’m going to tell you. You’re going to start this project. You want to start a podcast, you’ll listen to me, you’re like, oh, I could totally do this. So start it right. If you want to do it, start it. Will you fail? Maybe if you look at failure as make a mistake because you will, more often than not, you’re going to make micro mistakes instead of big epic failures, right? My podcast, we do pretty well sometimes. We did 715 hundred downloads a week, depending on the topic. It’s not as good as some of my friends. Okay, so does that mean I just don’t do it? Does that mean I just stop because I’m not doing as good as someone else? This is another reason we get stuck in thinking, well, I can never write a book because nobody will buy it.

Cara Harvey 00:09:47  One of our club members, Kelly, just wrote a romance book, playing for keeps. Go check it out. Shout out Kelly Kelly, you can go check her book out on Kindle Unlimited. Well, she went out there and wrote that book if nobody downloads it. She’s still an author. She still wrote a book. Now, listen, I just got it on my Kindle, so we know somebody got it, but she’s still there. We worry so much about the big epic fails when really what we’re scared of is the micro mistakes. You’re going to make them, though. That’s part of life. That’s part of waking up every day. That’s part of showing up. Every day is making mistakes, and it’s how you learn from it. So if you start looking at failure of, well, what if I say, I’m going to write a book and I don’t. Okay, so you don’t. Did you learn something along the way? Right. Did you grow in your character? Did you show up for, you know, for things? If yes, then you just keep going and listen.

Cara Harvey 00:10:37  I’ve started so many projects where I was like, oh, I couldn’t do this. And then I stopped because I’m like, I don’t want to do this anymore, okay? Last year, I told everybody I was going to write a second book. Our in-person event was actually supposed to be my book launch for my second book. I never wrote the book, so I failed, right? I didn’t write a book. I said I was going to does it make me a bad person? Right? Failure is not something that determines my character. It’s just a thing that happens. Let’s take a quick pause so I can encourage you to go grab my book, the 15 Minute Formula. I cannot believe it has been two years now since this book was originally published, and it has sold thousands of copies. If you are looking to amplify your productivity, learn how to manage your time and finally conquer your goals in 2024, I want you to go to the 15 minute formula over there. I’ve got an absolutely free workbook that you can use to go with the book, and it’ll link you over to Amazon or Barnes and Noble, where you can purchase it on audio, e-book, paperback or hardcover.

Cara Harvey 00:11:34  Go and get the book that thousands of moms have downloaded and said has transformed the way they look at their time. Go to the 15 minute formula free today. Another reason we get stuck in this thinking is that perfectionism, right? Perfectionism leads to procrastination, not productivity. Now we talk about this in the club. I was saying that you’re using your perfectionism as a procrastination tool. You get stuck in dream mode around this business you want to start or this thing inside your business you want to do you want to start your TikTok account or get it going? Or again, anything you want to do in your personal life, think about it and you say, I can’t do it unless it’s perfect. I can’t do it unless it looks a certain way and therefore you never take action. You never take any steps. You’re stuck in perfectionism. Well, until I have every episode edited perfectly, until I’ve outlined everything. Until I get ahead by six episodes, like all that stuff we do. Just get started.

Cara Harvey 00:12:28  The other thing that’s probably happening to you is analysis paralysis. The more we overthink, the harder it feels to start. We make things so big in our head now. I’ve shared my bread making journey, which actually my bread would be considered a failure. It is sitting. Actually, I just made some and I don’t know what’s going on, but maybe I’m not adding I’m following the recipe, but I feel like now I’m not adding enough yeast so it’s not rising as much. So my bread, these little tiny pieces of bread I’ve got right now, they taste delicious. They’re tiny pieces of bread. I could look at it and say I failed because they’re not standard size, but I made bread. It is what it is. Okay, but I took so long to start making things from scratch because I thought it was going to be too hard. I’m not the type I used. I’m not the type of person who does this. I can’t cook. I had these limiting beliefs, so I just kept overthinking it and it felt so hard to take that first step.

Cara Harvey 00:13:18  If you’re thinking about starting a business or working on a project, I want you to just take the first step. I want you to do the first thing, because as you start to move into action, then you will start to see more success. So I’m going to give you a couple strategies to take that idea and pull it into actual action. Now you’ve been in the thinking mode. You’re in the dream mode okay. One of the things we do after the dream mode is we go into the learn mode, because we feel sometimes I can’t do this thing because I don’t know enough. Okay, let’s go to my period. Period. Party project. P p p p p cubed. Is that cubed squared? I don’t know which name pending my period party project. Right. I actually don’t know much about completely teaching the subject except for what I told my daughter, which I think was correct. I say in quotes in my eyes, like I’m not a scientist and I don’t know that much about things, but I know my personal experience, right? So I could be stuck in like, well, I don’t know enough.

Cara Harvey 00:14:12  This is another trap, right? I don’t know enough. So I can’t do it. I can’t move forward. So what I suggest is you say, okay, I’m done my dreaming. I know what I want, I’m out of my thinking phase. I’m going to move into my learning phase. Give yourself a time. This is going to be important, a time limit. I’m going to move into learning phase for the next month. For the next month, I’m going to watch some videos. I’m going to see if other people are doing it. I’m going to go to Pinterest. I’m going to get some tips. I’ll get some books for myself. Maybe I’ll take a course and I’ll figure out, you know, how could I do this? How could I market it? I’ll start to learn the things I don’t know. There’s this thing I teach. It’s called the Confident Competency loop. And it’s essentially the concept as as you move into action and as you do things, you get more skills.

Cara Harvey 00:14:51  And as your skill is developed, you become more confident. Right? And we cannot get more confident in something if we don’t feel competent as a person. So you move into learn mode and you go into your competencies, you start to do more. But here’s the key because I know if I know anything, right, there’s three phases of my process dream, learn, plan and do dream. We get stuck there, learn. We get stuck there and plan. We get stuck there. We struggle with the do right. So you have to give yourself a deadline. You have to say, I’m going to do this for one month, okay? While you’re in the learn mode, I want you to then go into a little bit of planning or have a parallel planning phase where you’re going and planning what it’s going to look like. I want you to create a plan for yourself that’s going to be in small chunks. That’s going to help you get started. Okay? This way you don’t go back into that mindset of this feels overwhelming.

Cara Harvey 00:15:40  This feels too big. I can’t do it, really go through. I have tons of episodes on how to create action plans and create an action plan for yourself around this topic, okay, around whatever it is you want to do. But again, put a timeline on it and then we move into the do. So how do we do the do? I’m going to give you some some good suggestions on how to actually get started. Once you’ve thought about it, you’ve learned a little bit more and you’ve planned. All right. First things first. Create pockets in your day to get to work on it and keep them with fidelity. But they don’t have to be huge. We were just on a coaching call today with one of our members, Abby, and she was like getting back into work after spring break. She’s a photographer, and I was saying that sometimes, and I feel this for me too. It can feel really hard to get back into work or into action if I’ve taken too much time off, if I’m coming off a vacation, if I’m coming off of an illness spring break, right, all those things.

Cara Harvey 00:16:27  So I start small, so I recommend it to her. Why don’t you pick one? Pick one thing that you’re going to do every single day for your business. Make it small. Make it actionable. Just one next week. Add a second the week after, add a third. So say she chooses to work three days out of the week. By the end of the month, she’ll be having four things she’s doing every single time she shows up to work. Now, what’s going to happen is she’s going to complete the one task, small task, 15 to 20 minutes. One task. Right? It could be longer if you have more time. And then she might have more time. Kid might nap a little longer. She might feel motivated, so she might do an extra task. But it’s okay if she doesn’t. If she doesn’t, she can say, I’m really proud of myself. I showed up for this one task and I got started in moving forward and getting started. What you’re doing is you’re cutting off that part of your brain that says it’s too big, I can’t do it.

Cara Harvey 00:17:12  And you’re saying, what is the best next step? Now, I also recommend you have your thing small so that you can take action. Now, I love Mel Robbins, and I was just talking about the Mel Robbins let them theory. She also has another book called the five Second Rule. So if you’re sitting there and you’re like, I have my plan, I have my schedule, this is what I’m going to work. I’m not sure where to go. I want you to use this five second rule, okay? So if you have an instinct to like act on your goal and you don’t move within the first five seconds, your brain’s going to kill the thought. That’s all she talks about in the book. Okay, so the concept of using this is to count backwards five, 432, one. Go. And you say the word go and you take a small step, okay. You send an email, you write a sentence of this book, you open up your laptop. It is the act of the first small step that’s going to move you towards it.

Cara Harvey 00:17:56  Now, I do love this strategy, but you have to incorporate it with the plan because if you don’t have a plan of what you’re going to do, what I found, I find happens a lot to the moms I work with, is they just don’t know what to even do. They sit down to work and they’re like, I’m not sure. So create the plan first. Again, I’m going to give myself a week to plan out how to record a podcast or whatever it is. And then when it’s time to get started, I’m going to assign a block and I’m going to say, this is what I’m going to work on it. I’m very intentional about when I’m going to work on it. Then during that time I’m going to say five, four, three, two, one go and I’m going to open up my laptop. I use audacity to record, I’m going to open up audacity, plug in my mic. And that’s my first step for me sometimes I love recording the podcast. It’s super fun for me, but sometimes I’m just like, oh, I don’t feel like doing it.

Cara Harvey 00:18:40  We all have those things, right? I talked in the last episode about how I consider myself a driven person, but I’m not always motivated. We all have these things that we just, like drag our feet on a little bit. Well, now I’m talking. I’m almost 20 minutes into the episode. It’s flowing very naturally for me. It doesn’t feel like another task. That’s what we have to get past. We have to get past that feeling that starting this big project is going to be so big that I don’t feel like doing it, because you’re not always going to feel like doing something. So by making one small action, then you can move forward and get that project into action. Now, I know that you might say, hey, Kara, I have a plan, I have ideas, but I’m struggling with that fear of failure part. So I want to talk about that now. I want to talk about what do we do when that fear of failure is or or the procrastination or the perfectionism? Like those two thoughts are holding you back.

Cara Harvey 00:19:24  Okay, let’s start with the fear of failure first. Okay, I want you to write down all the things you’re afraid of. Like what is what is it? I’m afraid someone’s going to think my idea is stupid. I’m afraid I’m not going to make any money for my business. I’m afraid I’m not going to have any customers. I’m going to waste time and take time away from my family. And it’s not actually going to work. Write it all down. Okay? I’m going to put that on one side of your paper and then what you’re going to do on the the middle side in the middle column is I want you to write where you think that thought is coming from. Where is that fear of failure living right now? What does it feel like inside your body? Is it something you heard from a teacher? Or is it something you heard from a coach, a parent, a friend? What is it? Okay. What’s the the root of this thought? Because this fear of failure is coming from a thought.

Cara Harvey 00:20:09  And once we can identify what the thought is, we can work to transition that thought into a more positive thought. Okay, so now what you’re going to do is you’re going to say to yourself, I’m going to take this thought and I’m going to rewrite it. Okay. So now we’re going to rewrite our thought. I’m afraid that people are going to think my business idea is stupid. Okay. That’s my fear of failure thought. Where does this come from? It comes from a time that. Oh, I’ve got one. I’m gonna give you a real example. Okay. Fear. My fear of failure. That I am not smart enough to do this. That is my thought. This comes from a teacher I had in high school. Now I am 40. I’ll be 41 in 2 days. I’m a 40 year, one year old woman. This happened. Whatever that math is. Okay? A long time ago, I remember where it happened, what it was like, and the teacher’s name.

Cara Harvey 00:20:54  Okay, so this is how impactful our words are just for those of us in education or work. Children. I was in honors US two history. I loved history. I still love history. I wanted to become a history teacher. I was a junior in high school, and I wanted to go into AP history the next year in my high school in order to become an AP history student. You had to get your teacher to sign off that you have what it takes in quotes. Right. I remember sitting with that teacher. I went to him and I had good grades. I made BS right, good grades in honors. And I went to him and I said, I want to take this AP class, right. I wanted to be a history teacher. It was important for me, you know, whatever. And he said, you know what? I just don’t think you have what it takes to be an AP student. I remember that to this day. And that conversation actually changed the trajectory of my life because instead of I chose at that moment to listen to that voice, and I said, I don’t have what it takes to be an AP, then I clearly can’t be a history teacher.

Cara Harvey 00:21:51  And I chose not to become a history teacher because of that. And I decided I would still be a teacher and I would teach special education, because then I could teach every subject, you know, or whatever. I’m so thankful for that moment because I love loved being a special education teacher. I loved everything I’ve done, and I do not think I’d be sitting in this seat if I hadn’t learned what I had learned. Getting my master’s in special education teaching for nine years, being in the classroom with students who just needed a different plan. Like I always do, like, what I do now feels like writing IEPs for adults, right? I think I would be a completely different person. So while that turned out positively in the moment, that sentence from that man, Mr. Cusack, I remember you, okay, I remember you and I will remember you forever. And honestly, because of that, I am so mindful when I’m at Girl Scouts, when I coach, cheer, when I’m with kids.

Cara Harvey 00:22:39  So mindful of my words. I want to have them let them all have a growth mindset that they can believe. They can do anything with hard work like, oh, I feel so I see I’m getting frustrated not thinking about this guy. I as a grown up now, I can’t imagine. And as a teacher, former teacher looking at one of my high school students and be like, no, I just I don’t think you have what it takes. Like, oh gosh, it makes me sick to my stomach, right? There was no feedback. There was no, there was no, you should work on this. There was no hey, let me let me go over with you like what AP is. And we can see if it might be a good fit. It was just straight up. No, I don’t think you can do it right. So anyway, now before I’m like, let me write this down for my therapist this weekend, right. To talk about. But I joke and and again now I can look at it and be like, wow, this really made me the person I am today, and I’m really thankful for that.

Cara Harvey 00:23:27  But I say that with. But that thought is still in the back of my head sometimes, right? That I don’t have what it takes. You are not the type of person who could you’re not smart enough to. Okay, so that’s that’s it. Those are the thoughts. That’s where it comes from. I know that they exist in my body and in my brain. So what do I do? I counter them, I create a new thought pattern. And this is what I want you to do as well. Want to take a quick pause and invite you to get my brand new reading tracker and planner. One of the cool things we’re doing here at APM is monthly. I’ll be coming up with a new printable to help you with your goals, and I’m a huge reader, so I made this for myself and thought, let’s put it together for our audience. If you go to a purpose driven tracker, you can grab this using the code ten and get it for only $10. This printable reading tracker has challenges, trackers, goal setting, and some fun gamification to make your goals a little bit more achievable and a lot more fun.

Cara Harvey 00:24:27  Again, go to a purpose driven tracker and use the code ten to get it for only $10. Only for podcast listeners of the Purpose Driven Mom show. One of the things and strategies I teach you call the three legged stool. Okay, so if you have a stool, right, and you knock down a couple of the legs, it’s going to fall. What I want you to do is I want you to think of that pattern, that thought, and then say to yourself, have there been times where I have actually done the opposite. So even though I wasn’t smart enough and I’m saying all this in quotes, or if you’re on YouTube, see, I didn’t have what it took in quotes. I wasn’t qualified in quotes. Have I ever showed up for something and actually seen success 100%? I coached competitive cheer. Never done that a day in my life. I don’t know what I was doing. Could we have been better? Yeah. Yeah okay. Yup yup yup. But I did it.

Cara Harvey 00:25:16  I showed up, the girls had fun, I learned how to do it, and I moved forward right there. I have then combated that thought that I’m not smart enough, good enough, qualified enough to do something. Because what I did instead was I wrote a new story, and the new story I wrote is that I and this is like true in my body and my soul, my growth mindset, because I just have a really big fixed one. Right? Growth mindset says I’m capable of learning and change. Fixed mindset says I am the way I am. Fixed mindset would have said you could never start a business because you could have never wrote a book because you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough. You don’t have what it takes. You could never have just coached you. You don’t have what it takes. My growth mindset says I can learn it and figure it out. So what did I do? I went into learn mode. I got a course on how to coach cheerleading, I watched videos.

Cara Harvey 00:25:59  I think that when you have this growth mindset, you will unlock and open doors because you will really, in your soul, believe you can do something like, I truly believe. Like when I said I was going to write a book, I was like, okay, I’m gonna write a book. I am that type, the type of person that really when I say I’m going to do something, I believe I can do it now. Do I always succeed? I’ve had a couple business ideas that we’ve started and I haven’t succeeded on, but it doesn’t mean I feel like I’m failing. And hey, maybe people see it and they’re like, oh, you’re a failure. Okay, maybe. But I showed up and I learned something. So my new thought that I’m crafting now, right, is that I am capable of learning how to do anything. So what is it for you? What is the fear saying in your head? Where is it coming from? It’s important to identify that. What is the times that you’ve knocked those, you know, legs off the stool, times that you’ve showed up and what is your new thought? And then I want you to take your new thought, put it on a little post-it or a note card, put it on your desk wherever you work, and I want you to read it right before you go record that podcast episode, or start writing that sentence of your book, and you’re going to go read it and then go five, four, three, two, one go and you’re going to get started.

Cara Harvey 00:27:05  I want you to do something similar with the creating an anti perfectionism rule, because we talked about how that is also holding us back. Right. Done is better than perfect. It’s been said multiple times, I want you to set a good enough deadline for the first draft of this project. Again, get your website up, podcast book, whatever. All right. So get started and realize that especially for you who want to start a business, there is somebody out there waiting for your business. And I say this like on the other side of it, almost eight years in, I know for a fact saying this, I’m saying I’m saying this confidently, not arrogantly. My business has changed people’s lives. I 100% know this for a fact. I’ve worked with thousands of students. I’ve connected with them. I’ve met them in real life. I know that it’s impacted them. When I’m struggling, I think about them. I think about the fact that if I never got started, that impact wouldn’t have happened.

Cara Harvey 00:27:53  Now there is somebody out there waiting for you there, waiting for your business idea. There is a little nine year old girl, a ten year old girl somewhere who is like, my mom is never going to talk to me about my period because she doesn’t know what to say. And if I don’t start this idea, she might have all these, you know, thoughts in her head about it and be scared when she gets hers. Like, that’s for my, you know, my period party project. Like, this is real. So stepping forward one step at a time, one tiny action at a time is going to help you. So stop waiting for the perfect time and get started. Couple your mindset, work with your action plan. Okay, and let’s add in a third support system some commitment devices. We’ll call them keep yourself accountable. Okay, there are studies done right? I found said people who set deadlines and have accountability partners increase their success rate by 95%. That was an Ace study.

Cara Harvey 00:28:42  All right, here’s the thing you need to set deadlines. We as moms do not have a lot of external deadlines besides what our kids need, right? Like, mom, I need this. I need that right. When you’re working on projects for you, if you do not set a deadline for yourself, it’s very rare that you’re going to do it because we put everybody else’s things first and we don’t have that urgency. Give yourself a deadline, but make it small. Not. You could say, I want to launch my podcast by this day. Or you could say, I’m going to finish my first episode by this day, right? I’m going to outline it by this day. Small, tiny deadlines. And the other commitment device is always going to be accountability. I want you to make that scary post. I want you to tell a friend. I want you to schedule a networking meeting or something to learn about your project. It will help force you to fall through. It’s why one of the reasons we’re getting ready for the Purpose Driven Mom Summit next week.

Cara Harvey 00:29:30  And we do teams, and I was talking to some of the members today and they’re like, I love teams because it keeps you accountable. It’s not just you doing it for you. It’s you showing up and connecting with somebody else. And because as moms, we tend to be better for showing up for other people, this really works. So I’m going to give you an action plan. Are you ready 24 hour action plan right now to get you going, I want you to write down the simplest version of your goal. Right. Start a podcast. Cool. One sentence. What is it? I want you to then pick the first step that you can take towards that, and pick a learning that you might need to do. One of the reasons you feel like you can’t move forward. I don’t know how to record a podcast. Okay, so your first step is going to be to go to YouTube and search how to record a podcast. YouTubes and podcasts are great search engines, so go in there.

Cara Harvey 00:30:15  Now we have, you know, the advent of our beautiful friend ChatGPT. Go in there and say, I want to start a podcast. Please give me the steps to get one started in the next 12 weeks. It’s going to give you the plan. You don’t even have to make it. Give yourself a deadline and then I want you to post it. Post it publicly on your page. Share it with a friend. Tell somebody. Do not keep the knowledge in your head the project you want to work on. And I know we talked a lot about business today because I know I have so many moms who come to me, who have all these great ideas or who’ve started their business and then paused it. It’s it’s needed. You have a gift to give to the world. And I know it’s scary, but I want you to take action on it now. Okay. We’re about to head into May. Summer’s coming. It’s getting super busy. It’s going to be easy to put things off, so start it now.

Cara Harvey 00:31:00  Show notes are going to be at Purpose driven mom.com/podcast 456. Go and check them out today. And if you are starting one of your projects today send me a DM. I would love to know I’m at a purpose driven mom on all the social media. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Purpose Driven Mom show. If this episode served you in any way, we would really appreciate it if you headed over to wherever you listen to podcast, hit that five star and leave a review and a rating. That’s how more moms can find us and we can grow our community. If you had a tip or an Make sure you come over and tag me at a Purpose Driven Mom on Instagram and share it with your friends. The best way for us to get this message out there of less hustle and less shame and more intentionality, is for you to share it with people you know need to hear it. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you and I can’t wait to connect with you more outside of the podcast.