STP 125
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[00:00:03] planning is a placebo and action is the real thing. Planning often looks productive, but it rarely produces transformation. It makes you feel better. It makes you feel like you're doing things, but you're not, you're not actually moving. One of the things that action does is it brings clarity.
[00:00:28] Hi, friend. Welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice. I'm James Marland, your course creation coach. I am here to help therapists who want to scale their reach with effective online courses. I'll share with you all the tools, tips, and technology I've learned along the way that will help you put your mission in motion.
[00:00:50] The world is waiting for somebody like you to take action. Let me help you take your first steps.
[00:00:59] [00:01:00] Hello and welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is episode 1 25. Today we are going to talk about why planning feels productive, but progress requires a step. Now, I know there's somebody out there right now listening to this show this week who will have a brilliant idea. We'll write out a checklist.
[00:01:27] We'll start outlining their thoughts. They might even start making a slide deck. They're all excited, and then they're going to swat, they're going to quietly slide that idea into a desk drawer and never, never see it again. Or, or, if you're like me, you're gonna create a Google Doc and, and forget where it is, and then never come back to it again.
[00:01:54] That's not because you don't care and it's not because it's a bad idea, and it's not because it wouldn't help anybody, [00:02:00] but it's because the planning part of creating courses feels safe. You are good at ideas, you're good at putting content down on paper. Launching, launching that feels like standing, uh, out in those, uh, naked and afraid shows.
[00:02:20] Like, why would you even do that? And, and that's what it feels like for, for most course, creators and content creators. It's great to plan, but when you put it out there, you, you feel exposed. And I get that, you know, just, you know, I do this all the time. I plan webinars. I have these ideas for webinars or mini courses, and I outline them and I map them, and sometimes I even, ugh, I even record them.
[00:02:52] And then I, then I drop the ball. Like I, I say to myself, well, I gotta have the email, the emails drafted just correctly. [00:03:00] And then I, then I go on vacation and I come back and I see my to-do list, but something else takes the place and. I start, I, I put that in a desk drawer. And the real tragedy, this is the real tragedy, is when I see the checklist again a month later, I'm like, oh, this is a great idea.
[00:03:22] And then I start making the same thing all over again. And I get this like deja vu in my head. Like, man, this is really familiar. Well, 'cause I, I keep planning, I keep planning and planning and creating, but never launching. Well, does that. Does that feel fa familiar to you? Like it's, it's comfortable for you to learn, it's comfortable for you to plan, and you even feel productive, but then you're like, well, haven't I done this already?
[00:03:53] Shouldn't I be launching this already?
[00:03:58] What, what would happen if you, [00:04:00] you stopped planning and you start scheduling and start inviting people, then you'd be exposed then. It doesn't feel safe. So today's episode, we're, we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna walk through three powerful truths that explain why we stay stuck and how to move forward.
[00:04:20] Each one has a pr, uh, some practical points and some sort of story that will help you, uh, retain the, uh, the, the lessons because. If you're like most of us creators, you don't need another plan. You don't need another checklist. You need to start taking action. The first idea here though is planning is a vaccine.
[00:04:47] It inoculates you from action. See, planning gives you a hit of control. There's a little bit of dopamine in there, like it feels responsible, right? It feels [00:05:00] strategic. It feels smart. Sometimes this hit of planning protects you. Protects you from the very thing you're called to do. You see your brain is wired to avoid discomfort and launching.
[00:05:18] Launching just feels risky. Planning feels safe. Planning uses your gifts, planning and writing out outlines and creating slide decks. Those are safe but engaging and put it out there. You feel exposed. And the other thing is learning and researching feels like progress. Like you're doing something. I have a stack of books on my desk.
[00:05:46] It, when I read these books and take notes, it feels like I'm making progress. But in reality, these things can be habits. Avoidance. I'm actually [00:06:00] avoiding some of the things I need to do. Finally here. You know, the longer you stay in planning mode, the more entrenched you are, the more entrenched your habits are, and the harder it's to start.
[00:06:11] There's no momentum. There's very little momentum. There can be momentum to keep you stuck. Like I gotta plan and plan and plan, or there's momentum with action. One of my favorite books that talks about this is The Mountain is You and. In that book, the author whose name I am forgetting right now, uh, she says, you cannot be committed to your dreams and your comfort zone at the same time.
[00:06:39] And boy that hits home. Your brain is designed to keep you safe. Your brain does not want you to take risks. It wants you to be comfortable and, uh, launching is not comfortable. It's safe to create content. It's not safe to launch 'cause you don't, you're [00:07:00] exposed, so you cannot be committed to your dream and your comfort zone at the same time.
[00:07:07] The next idea here is that planning is a placebo and action is the real thing. Planning often looks productive, but it rarely produces transformation. It makes you feel better. It makes you feel like you're doing things, but you're not, you're not actually moving. One of the things that action does is it brings clarity.
[00:07:32] Like when, when you're planning, you don't have it all figured out. I don't know if you've ever, um, there, there's two examples here. One is going on a trip and two is like putting some sort of construction project, uh, yeah. At your home. When you plan a trip, you don't plan out every turn. Like, like there's how, think of how many actions you have to take to go from here to the grocery store.
[00:07:58] You know, you gotta get in the car, put [00:08:00] on your seatbelt, look behind you, um, uh, put the, turn the car on, put the car and drive, turn, you know, 20 degrees to the left or right to back outta the driveway. You know, look ahead. Just how many steps are there to driving? There's, there's hundreds of steps. And if you had to plan every one of those steps before you drove, you would never make it out of the driveway.
[00:08:23] And that's kind of how it is for us planners. We love to plan every step. We hate making mistakes, but you're never, you're not gonna get all figured out. You gotta figure it out as you go. And the same thing is for, for construction projects. Uh, if I remodeled my basement a couple years ago, I didn't have much idea on how to do it.
[00:08:44] But, um, my father-in-law helped me, thank you, Grayson. And, uh, we made straight walls and put up the drywall and repainted, and we trimmed, we did some electrical, but there were several times during that project, maybe several [00:09:00] times a day where we just stopped and we thought. What's the best way to go about this?
[00:09:05] Because we had a plan and then, you know, something changed. There was, there was a, a board in the wrong place or, um, you know, how are we gonna, how are we gonna put drywall around this object that juts out from the wall? Like, that stuff wasn't planned out ahead of time. You kind of do it in the moment, so.
[00:09:26] Doing it brought clarity on our future steps. Sure. I, I planned a little bit. I bought the wood, bought the supplies, and then to, to, to complete the project, you have to take action.
[00:09:42] Another thing about action is like most successful people are, are action takers. Um, I was reading the book, uh, coach Builder, and he talks about, uh, Donald Miller talks about, [00:10:00] uh, leadership and, and high achievers, and it's, it's kind of a mystery about the qualities that make successful people because there's loud and boisterous people who are the life of the party, and there's quiet planners.
[00:10:17] There's people who are networkers, and then there's people who are high individual achievers. And what Donald Miller said in that book was one of the big differentiators from people who achieve and succeed, and the ones who don't is action. Most successful people take action. In fact, I would say all successful people take action.
[00:10:43] So you don't need to launch the whole thing. You just gotta launch a, a, a, we call it a minimum viable product. An MVP. What's the, what's the least amount of planning, uh, pro, what's the least amount of product you could do that you could [00:11:00] launch to experience the, the planning phase? Then you grow and test and move, move on.
[00:11:08] Uh, the, the Alchemist, um, the, from the, here's a quote from The Alchemist. There's only one way to learn. It's through action. Everything you need to know, you have learned through your journey.
[00:11:25] The final idea here is, uh, your brain is gonna try to keep you safe. And launching anything that you're unsure of is, feels unsafe to your brain, but you can rewrite your brain when you are working with others. I, I learned this recently at a mastermind and we were at breakfast. The day after the Mastermind, everybody was getting ready to leave and there were a few of us who stayed one extra day 'cause the flights or travel or whatever.[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] And we were sitting around breakfast and we were talking about limiting beliefs and we were talking about, you know, just imposter syndrome and all the things that go that, uh, that as entrepreneurs, you're, you're working through. And we talked about mindset and I, I had some, I, I shared some of my ideas where I had a, um, a.
[00:12:21] Every time I had a limiting belief, like, oh, you can't do this. Or there's people with bigger audiences than you, or you don't really speak well, you say, um, a lot. Uh, you're a little, you're, you know, you're too quirky. Uh, and I, I had limiting beliefs and what I did for two years is every time I had a limiting belief, I would capture that thought and I would write a, either an aspirational.
[00:12:51] Thought about myself or something that was more realistic. So I would, you know, I would think, oh, you don't have a big audience. Your email list is [00:13:00] small. But then the more realistic truth, the, the enabling belief was, well, everybody when they start doesn't have a big email list. Everybody starts at zero.
[00:13:10] And that really helped me, or an aspirational belief. Um. Uh, sometimes I get distracted by shiny object syndrome and I, I would say you are focused in a force of nature at that moment. I wasn't super focused or a force of nature, but I had, I was aspirational. I, I aspired to rewrite my brain. Anyways, I'm going long on this part where we talked about ways you could rewrite your brain individually, however.
[00:13:44] However, it really came to me as we're talking about belief shifts, that my belief about myself changed during that Mastermind because I was with other people who believed in [00:14:00] me and saw the benefit, saw my future before I did, and they, they talked without knowing it. They, they talked. They built up my belief that I am an amazing entrepreneur and I have great ideas because when I went to the Mastermind and I saw everybody talking and like I was like, I was comparing myself to other people and how further along they were, but when I asked my questions and I contributed, I got so much positive feedback.
[00:14:28] It was like rewriting my brain real time that, uh, with enabling beliefs. So you can rewrite your brain, but it works better with other people that, uh, you know, that the, um, the brain that's telling you to be safe, the brain that's telling you to, uh, don't go out of your comfort zone to don't expose your ideas, to don't take risks.
[00:14:54] That brain that wants you to keep planning, planning, planning, because planning feels great and it, [00:15:00] it, it, uh, inoculates you. It's the placebo effect or a vaccine from true growth. That brain can be rewritten by hanging out with cool people, by being around people who already believe you before you believe it yourself.
[00:15:16] So a community normalizes bravery or courage. And lowers the cost of taking risks. So yes, you can. You can do what I did for like two years and create your list. In fact, if you're struggling with imposter syndrome, I would say reading that list every day helped me incredibly, and that made me believe in myself enough to join some communities and share my ideas.
[00:15:47] So flip the script, join a community. What if you just join a community to rewrite your brain so that it feels more normal to [00:16:00] take action?
[00:16:04] What if you could be in a group that already holds those beliefs about you? Um, those live mastermind events, I wouldn't trade for the world. And you can either join one or uh, create one for yourself. Finally here, I wanna, I wanna say action isn't magical. You know, setting your goals and taking action to them isn't magical.
[00:16:31] It's, it's not going to magically make you successful. But they, the successful people take action, these goals, uh, and your action steps, they're, they're maps and you're, you're taking them to reach your goals. We talk about setting goals in, uh, milestone six of the sustainable Therapist empowerment program, where the, these, uh, the success in getting out of your [00:17:00] comfort zone and achieving your dreams aren't vague.
[00:17:02] Like what they're, they're concrete things that we work toward, and it comes from measurable, visible goals and the willingness to take action and track where you're going and how you're getting there. So I wanna, um, invite you to take a look at the step program that's at course creation studio.com/step.
[00:17:26] It might be step group. Uh, I will ch I will get the, uh, link in the show notes because traveling with a, traveling with people makes your goals so much easier to achieve. Preparation is important, but preparing to move is not the same thing as moving. So my, my, uh, challenge to you is write down your next step.
[00:17:56] What's one thing you need to do to break out of your comfort [00:18:00] zone to stop planning And then do it. Don't take a, don't say, I'm gonna launch this program. That's probably not the next step, but, but maybe the next step. Is joining a community, or maybe the next step is doing a small MVP type project where you can test your idea and then take those other small steps to do it.
[00:18:24] If this episode stirred something in you and you're ready to move beyond stock, to plan beyond stuck in planning into real momentum, check out the uh, step program page. It's gonna break down. What you can do to start taking action with a group, we're gonna start a new cohort, uh, at the end of August. So if you're done planning and you wanna start taking action, go to that page and, uh, set up a small meeting with me.
[00:18:51] We'll talk about your goals, we'll talk about your next steps, see if we can make a plan for you, because your calling isn't just waiting for your perfection, it's [00:19:00] waiting for you to take the next step. This is James Marland. It's now time to stop planning, take some action and put your mission in motion.
[00:19:12] Thank you so much for listening.
