Episode Summary

In this episode of A Whole Lotta Shift, host Jen Ingram discusses the value of being committed to a decision, especially during challenging moments in life or business. By reflecting on the frustrations that initially propelled listeners to make their decisions, she dives deep into considerations such as end goals, smaller tasks, maintaining motivation, and setting intentions. She particularly emphasizes the need for persistence in business and warns against the belief that 'if you build it, they will come' without continuous effort and marketing.

00:01 Introduction and Welcome

00:10 The Power of 'Fuck This Shit' Moment

00:25 Staying Committed to Your Decision

01:08 The Significance of Empowerment

01:34 Overcoming Obstacles and Frustrations

02:18 Planning for the New Year

02:54 The Importance of Setting Goals

03:29 Defining Your End Goal

03:49 The Danger of Proving Yourself to Others

09:30 Breaking Down Your Goals into Manageable Tasks

10:11 The Importance of Intentions

20:43 The Reality of 'If You Build It, They Will Come'

24:22 Maintaining Motivation and Celebrating Small Wins

24:58 Revisiting Your Goals and Adjusting Them

26:57 Conclusion and Looking Forward to 2024

About the Host:

Jen is a Dream Catalyst and Business Mentor saving hustling female solopreneurs from the chains of corporate America. Her passion lies in helping women through their self awakening so they can finally break free, turn their side hustle into the business of their dreams, and live a life full of time, location and financial freedom.

Jen is a California girl at heart, now living out her dream in the Midwest, traveling, coaching female solopreneurs and sharing her own story of triumph and empowerment across speaking platforms. When she's not traveling, she enjoys spending time with her college aged son and her rescued Pit Bull.

After 20 years of various project manager and corporate trainer roles while juggling a wide array of side gigs, she has mastered the ability to help women see what they cannot see, believe they are meant for more and take aligned action to make it happen. With an MBA in Change Management, and a Health and Life Coach Certification from the Health Coach Institute, Jen is an expert at creating both the business process changes and the personal habit changes needed to finally Break UP with corporate and go all-in on your side hustle or long standing passion project.

Connect with Jen on Facebook or Instagram!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenelleingram/

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wholelottashift/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejenelleingram

Free Gift: https://mailchi.mp/4f4ae02ebe45/beat-the-odds

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The idea that.

If you build it, they will come is a bit of a farce.

It's kind of bullshit.

And that's the part that nobody wants to talk about.

If you build it, they will come and don't get me wrong.

You could have just an incredible grand opening or an incredible

launch or whatever that might be.

It could have just been amazing.

Welcome to a whole lot of shift podcast, the podcast for multi passionate women

with an entrepreneurial spirit, where we provide inspiration, motivation, and

education to help you shift away from all the shoulds and supposed to's to what's

truly possible for you in your business and your life, all on your own terms.

You ready, girl, let's make shift happen.

Hello and welcome to another episode of A Whole Lotta Shift.

I'm your host, Jen Ingram, and I am so glad you're here with us today.

So we are talking about That fuck this shit moment.

We talked about it last week and I kind of gave you some insights of how you

can use that frustration to kind of fuel that energy and put it into action.

But today I'm talking about the next step, which is being committed

to the decision that you made when you had that fuck this shit moment.

When you had that moment where you said and decided, I'm done.

I'm done with playing small.

I'm done with living up to other people's expectations.

I'm done with living up to whatever society standards they're

trying to set for me, right?

When you decided, I'm done living life on somebody else's terms.

I'm ready to be the leader of my life.

Whatever decision you made in that moment to move you forward, the next step is

to remain committed to that decision.

And that's what we're going to talk about today.

So I really want to kind of emphasize the the significance of that moment

and kind of, in some ways, the relief, but also the empowerment that you have

in that moment, because when you're in that empowered moment, you, you're going

to make some really quick decisions and you make that decision and in that

moment, you're fired up as hell and maybe even for the next few days, but

here's where it starts to get tricky.

As the days wear on, the weeks go by, maybe months, there's going to be some

moments of additional frustration.

Things may not move as quickly as you had hoped.

There may be some obstacles that you encountered that you had not anticipated.

There, there's just going to be a lot of things that go on, right?

Because that's life.

Because that's what happens, but it's important that you

figure out a way to keep moving forward and to keep pressing on.

And so that's kind of what this whole series is all about is taking you back to

that moment when you made this decision because it was a super empowering moment.

And I'm trying to get you to tap back into some of that energy and,

and use that to propel you forward.

As we get to talking about the new year, this is the last week of 2023.

Next week's episode is going to be a special bonus episode outside of this

little mini series that I'm doing here.

But as we are kind of rounding out the year and we are starting to plan for

the new year, I want you to really start tapping back into that energy of what it

felt like in the moment that you knew you could no longer settle for whatever it was

that you had been doing up to that point.

You know that something has to change in order for you to move forward.

So kind of discussing, the importance of remaining committed to that decision.

So what was the decision that you made?

Maybe it was that you you were no longer going to you were no longer going to

settle for less, whether that be in your relationships, in your career.

your income what have you, there was a decision that, hey, I'm no

longer going to settle for this.

This is no longer okay with me.

Here's what I'm going to do to move forward.

So in that decision, what's really important when you made that decision

was, what was your end goal, right?

And this is so important.

I I don't know that I talked about it less last episode, but I think

I may have made some, some recent social media posts about it.

Right?

Like in that moment, you may have even had some frustration where you were

kind of feeling like, okay, well, I'll show them or I'll show this person that,

that I can do X, Y, Z, or that I'm made of more, whatever it is, whatever that

frustration is that you're feeling.

It's okay if in that moment you're feeling angry.

It's okay if you're feeling frustrated.

And it's okay if in that moment you're feeling like you have

something to prove to other people.

Let that energy fuel you and provide what you need in order to take action.

But don't stay in that state of anger and just be doing something

to prove something to someone else.

Because I'll tell you, it's only going to get you so far.

If your end goal is to prove something to someone else, when

you get to reach that goal.

You're not going to be happy.

I really hate to be the bearer of bad news.

You might feel some enjoyment of being able to say, okay, now, now I did it.

I proved this to them.

There's nothing that they can say.

I feel like I've overcome this, but here's the deal.

And especially if you're doing something because you just want to

prove yourself to somebody else.

I hate to tell you, but they, they probably don't care.

And I, I don't mean that in a rude or mean way, but honestly, if, if somebody

was approaching you and, and giving you their feelings of disappointment in

you because you weren't doing something according to their, you know, their

standards or what have you, or maybe, maybe they never said shit to you.

Maybe this was just somebody that you looked up to, or maybe

it was somebody you did maybe.

Put on a little bit of a pedestal and you felt like you didn't present

yourself in the best light when you were presenting yourself to them.

And so now you're frustrated because now you're worried that they may perceive

you in a certain light or have some judgments of you or, or what have you.

And you're frustrated by that.

The thing is, especially if they never even said anything.

I don't want to say they don't care, but like, they don't care.

So the only person in the end that it's going to matter to is you.

So you need to be doing this for you, because if you're doing something and

you made a decision and in that decision, your only end goal is to get back at

somebody or to prove yourself to someone else, instead of proving it to yourself.

You're just going to be, you're going to be disappointed.

You're going to get there.

You're going to be happy for a hot second.

For like a minute.

Cause you're gonna be like, yeah, I knew I could do this.

I knew it.

I knew I would show them.

I'm here to tell you they don't care.

In fact, depending on the type of person they are, they may even still

just try and throw it back and be like, oh yeah, I'm still not impressed.

You've got to be doing it for you.

So whatever your end goal was, okay, when you sat in that moment, you said, I am

done settling for whatever I'm settling for or whatever I've been settling for.

I'm done living my life.

However, I've been living it up to this point.

I'm ready to I'm ready to really own my future and start creating

my own path for my future.

What's the end goal?

What does that mean for you?

You're creating your own path.

How?

What?

What does that mean?

Is that so that you know, I had somebody the other day say something

to me that they said I don't want to rely on anyone else for money.

Like I have to, I have to be independent of anything or anyone else.

And, and that's super important to them.

So this is why I'm asking you, what is your end goal?

Because your end goal can't be about somebody else.

It's absolutely got to be about something for you.

And, and it's got to be about something bigger and different

than what you've ever done before.

Because that's the other thing.

If you're just going to get into a cycle of something that you've

done before, you're probably going to get the same result.

I'm not saying that, you know, Now maybe you're reflecting back and

you'll go, Okay, hey, there's been things, some really big goals that

I wanted to accomplish previously.

And So, this was where I became really committed and I showed

up for myself every single day.

And in that moment, when I did that, I saw the results.

So I know that I can do that again.

I just need to tap back into that and do that.

That's one thing, but what I mean by it probably needs to

look a little bit different.

It's probably going to need to be in a way that is different from

what you've ever done in the past.

So, and I, I, I'll kind of, I'll get into that here in a moment, but

that's what I want you to first.

What is your end goal, right?

Define your end goal and really think about that.

Then if you know what your end goal is, and for a lot of you, if you're

listening to this podcast, my best guess is highly likely that end goal was

that you wanted to work for yourself.

You wanted the time freedom or the time freedom, the financial freedom, whatever

it was, you wanted to work for yourself.

That's probably why you're listening to this podcast.

So thinking that through and whatever that end goal was, great.

Now, how are you going to break that down into smaller, more manageable tasks?

Right.

How, what, what action steps need to occur for you to start

working towards that end goal?

Put some deadlines to it.

I Hate using the term smart goals cause I, I just smart goals just makes me

like cringe and like break out in highs because all I can think of is smart

goals as it relates to corporate America.

So, I don't even like using the term smart goals, but.

But kind of think about that, right?

What are those smaller, manageable tasks?

And can you assign some deadlines to them?

Um, the other, the other part of this is really digging in to

what are your intentions with it?

Right?

So I.

It talked about knowing what your end goal is, right?

And understanding what the end goal is and that it's got to be for you.

Can't be for anybody else.

bUt then when you're creating these actions and you're trying to remain

committed to it, really be thinking about.

What is the intention behind each of these actions, right?

You want to keep the bigger picture in mind when you're doing this.

So you want to think of these intentions as.

The feeling behind the actions is probably the easiest way I can describe it.

Let's go with that.

Attaching a feeling to whatever it is that you're trying to do, whatever

actions you're doing, whatever small, the more smaller manageable goals that

you've created to work towards the bigger end game, whatever those are.

Figure out what your intentions or feelings are that you're trying to

create behind those action steps.

So, in other words I'll just, I'll, I'll give an example.

I wanted to start a podcast.

Here, let's just talk about why I'm sitting here talking to you all today.

Well, I wanted to start a podcast.

What was my goal for starting a podcast?

Well, A, I wanted to get the message out.

I wanted to get my message out to more people and podcasts.

I listen to podcasts all the time.

Obviously a lot of people do.

They're super popular, but the feeling that I wanted to experience in having

a podcast was a feeling of oh, I guess a feeling of relief and a feeling of

freedom in having to create content.

I don't love writing content.

I can turn on a microphone and just start talking and I don't

have to have anything written out.

I'll usually I'll create a very rough draft of a timeline when I create my

podcast, like I'll have an idea of what I'm talking, what I want to talk about.

And I might even, Oh, I might even

. Type out a couple of key topics that I want to make sure that I do touch

on or cover within the podcast.

But for the most part, it's super easy for me to just turn on a

microphone and start talking.

And I, it's something I never have to think about.

It's something super easy for me.

It's something that I enjoy.

It's.

And so when I was sitting here going, okay, I want to grow my audience.

I want to grow my audience for my business.

How can I do that?

And what is my purpose behind that?

Well, I want to grow my audience because I want more people to hear

the message that I have to share.

I want more women to start understanding what this feels like to be empowered

and to learn how to become the leader of your life and to stop

living according to all these other.

Expectations or this, this so called American dream or whatever else it

is that's holding you back from truly living your life and living for the dash.

I wanted, I want more women to feel and understand what that feels like

so that they start operating at a much higher vibrational frequency.

Because when we're operating at a much higher, happier vibrational

frequency, it is contagious.

And those around us get to experience that.

And that's our families, our loved ones, our friends.

And then it just creates a ripple effect.

So that's the message that I want to get out.

So how do I do that?

Well, I turn on a fucking microphone, right?

So, so that's my purpose and intent for that.

What did I want to feel behind that?

I wanted to feel, I wanted to feel empowered.

And I honestly, I wanted to feel I wanted it to feel like it was easy.

I wanted it to feel like my content was easy.

And there was one thing I knew, and that was sitting down to just write out

content and hope that somebody reads my content did not sound fun to me.

Didn't sound easy to me.

Didn't sound like something enjoyable.

So I said, I want to do something fun.

I want to do something easy that still gets my message out

and drives home my purpose.

And so I started a podcast.

So this is what I'm saying.

Obviously my bigger end goal is a much, is a much bigger end game here, right?

Of own of working for myself, having the time, location and financial freedoms

that I desire while getting my message out and and then I kind of break that down.

Well, so how can I go about doing that?

Well, I can get on other people's stages, which I do on the.

A guest on podcasts.

I'm speaking on a panel, actually, an in person panel at an event in March.

And I'm speaking in May in Key West.

So that's one way.

The other way is I can create my own stage.

So I did that.

I created a podcast.

Right?

So these were the smaller Actions and then I set a timeline within them.

But what I also did was I created the feeling that I wanted to feel behind each

of them and I'm here to say, and I can safely say that all of my guests that have

ever been on the show have all come back to say, Oh, my gosh, that was so much fun.

And it was actually a lot more fun than I anticipated.

That was what I wanted.

I wanted it to be.

Fun.

I wanted it to be easy.

I wanted it to be freeing.

I didn't want the weight of written content still weighing

me down on my shoulders.

And so that was what that's what I've got.

Right.

But in order for me to do that.

I needed to really understand what my intention was.

Why am, why do I want to start a podcast?

What does that, what does starting a podcast have to do with my business?

How is it helping me get to the ultimate goal of time,

location, financial freedoms?

How, how is it doing that?

And I had to get real about that.

And then I had to say, okay, so what are my intentions behind it?

Because if there should come a time where I'm no longer having fun, if there should

come a time where I no longer feel like this is easy then that's probably at some

point, if I'm ever feeling like that, then I may need to look at it and say,

okay, is this still one of the actions?

One of the small, more manageable goals that I still want to use to help build

out my audience and build my business.

So that's what I mean by setting your intentions because I'm committed, I'm

committed to this, to the decision that I made, which was going back

to working for myself before I went back into corporate America in 2014.

And so if that's my decision, then I broke down the smaller goals

and actions that I had for that.

And I sat down and said, well, what are my intentions with those actions?

What do I want to be feeling?

Because your feelings are going to drive your.

Are going to drive your action,

okay I'm blabbering on about that, but I hope that kind of maybe helps understand

what I mean by when you've got your end goal and then you're breaking that down,

what are, what is your intention with it?

And understanding that the other piece of this and the reason why I'm really trying

to get you guys to go back and think about that moment is to think about what

action steps you can immediately take, because likely when you were experiencing

whatever, whatever you were experiencing that made you say, Hey, I need to

make a significant change right here.

And now while you had that fuel firing you up, you probably had

some action steps that you could immediately take and you probably

did start immediately taking them.

So I want you to tap back into that feeling and think about what, what are

the small steps that I could start taking right here, right now, if it's something,

and I really want you guys to get serious about that, if it's something like.

Oh, I know I'm not very consistent about building relationships with others, but

I'm in a service based business, which let me tell you, service based business,

like 99 percent of it is relationships.

But you say, you know, I'm never, I'm never that great

about nurturing relationships.

Start small, start small, who are, who are the five people that you talk

the most to that you want to be more intentional about or communicate with

more frequently or, you know, be more consistent with start, start there.

So kind of break those, break those down and really think about what are the

small, what actions can you take here?

And now if you're, if you're saying, Oh, I know it's that I want to

start, start up my own business.

Great.

Start doing the research.

I researched.

I researched a whole bunch of stuff when I was coming up with my bigger,

like five year plan of what I was going to do to really change my life

so that I could start taking the steps towards owning my own business.

And it was, it was lengthy, but I started, I mean, I started

researching every piece of it.

I knew I needed to get my finances together.

Great.

So I reached out to some organizations that could help,

help me with debt counseling.

I, I talked to a bankruptcy attorney.

I mean, do your research.

tHat could be a small action step that you're taking already right now.

thE other piece, and this is really what the crux of this episode is, is about,

because like I said, you need to remain committed to your decision, right?

Whatever that decision was.

The tricky part is maintaining that motivation because here's the thing.

It's going to get tough.

Life gets tough.

I already talked about that at the very beginning of this, of this podcast.

But what I really want to kind of touch on, and this, this is going to

be some difficult things to hear, but I think it needs to be a little bit

of a reality check , for some of us.

, and I count myself in that as well, because I sometimes in my brain, I go

through some of these steps also, but here's what's super important to know.

The idea that.

If you build it, they will come is a bit of a farce.

It's kind of bullshit.

And that's the part that nobody wants to talk about.

If you build it, they will come and don't get me wrong.

You could have just an incredible grand opening or an incredible

launch or whatever that might be.

It could have just been amazing.

People lined up around the block dying to get in, right?

That's your grand opening.

And maybe that even takes you through that whole first month.

And you're crushing it and you're like, Oh my God, I had no idea this was

going to take off as well as it did.

And , you're opening your first month in business is just flying.

And you're thinking, man, this is amazing.

And so it's easy to take those actions, right?

It's easy to be super excited about your business and to keep building

it and to be motivated to do some of these little things that you've got to

do and to nurture those relationships.

It almost feels.

Easy, right?

And then, and then you get 90 days in, or you get six months in, or you

get a year in, and you built it, and they showed up for the grand opening,

or they showed up for your launch.

But they're not showing up hardly anymore.

And that's where it gets really, really tough because that's where you have to

show up every single day and you have to keep showing up and you have to

continue to nurture those relationships.

You have to continue to grow your audience, nurture your

audience, customers, whatever your business model is, right?

And this is the part where so many people want to give up.

So many people want to give up.

And so that's why I'm talking to you all today about the absolute

key isn't just making the decision.

The key is being committed to your decision.

You decided you were going to have.

A business, you were going to work for yourself and you

decided upon your business model.

You made a million and one decisions.

That that is your number one job as a business owner is to make decisions

and you need to make them quick, right?

You made them, you're rocking it out and then it gets tough.

And I'm here to tell you, this is where, this is why you read so many

statistics about people who don't make it past the first year of business.

Because it's going to get tough, not every day is going to look like the most

amazing grand opening, or the most amazing launch, however that looked for you.

It's going to get tough, things are going to slow, the hype that

everybody had in day one might fade.

So how do you maintain that?

What are you going to do to maintain the motivation for yourself,

so that you can maintain that growth mindset for your business?

So that you can remain committed to your decision.

This is where attaching those feelings to a lot of these, and these smaller

goals and attaching those intentions really comes into key because you've got

to be doing something to maintain that motivation because it's going to wane.

It's going to it's going to fizzle, I'm here to tell you.

So this is why we do things like We celebrate super small wins.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

It might seem so silly, so superficial.

It might seem super small.

We gotta do it.

This is why we talk about maintaining a support network.

And this is why I'm always saying, hey, join the Facebook group.

Feel free to post in the Facebook group.

You wanna try out some new Some new content, or you want to try out an idea.

Great.

I want you to have a group that you can come back to because maintaining

a support network is going to be key.

And, you know, there's nothing wrong in going back and kind of revisiting.

Okay, here was my original goal.

And I see now that maybe I need to adjust it.

The only caution I would have, and I think I brought this up a few episodes

back, I'll have to go back and look.

Before you go recreating the wheel, make damn sure you even tried

using the wheel to begin with.

So many times, people get super frustrated because things aren't taking off the

way that they thought that they would.

And they, they don't suddenly have a million followers, or they, they don't

suddenly have a million customers, whatever it is, and they get frustrated,

and so they go trying to recreate the wheel, but the truth is they

never fully showed up 100 percent for the wheel in the first darn place.

And then they're just, they're, they're just doing like these mental gymnastics

and they're just banging their head against a wall because they keep

recreating and recreating, recreating and changing and nothing's happening.

And they just keep banging their head against the wall.

And I'm like, well, you never fully showed up.

Like you kind of showed up.

You said, Hey, I have a business.

You did the whole, if I build it, they will come.

Only when nobody came, you didn't know what to do.

When nobody came, you wanted to give up.

When nobody came, you wanted to try and recreate the wheel, but

you can't just open your doors and expect people to be there.

You're going to have to create the excitement.

You're going to have to create the draw.

You're going to have to continue to market yourself.

The marketing never, ever, ever ends.

The marketing never ends.

Okay.

I hope that some of this helped.

I was really, as we're kind of rounding out 2023 and we're, like

I said, we're stepping into 2024 I wanted you guys to kind of.

Think back to why, why in the hell did you start any of this to begin with?

What was that moment that made you say there is no way in hell I'm continuing

on in this manner with my life.

Go back to that moment and remember that moment.

You might need a bit of a refresher.

And a bit of a reminder as to why you ever started this, especially if you're

feeling super frustrated, go back to why you started this to begin with, and

start tapping back into those feelings.

What are your intentions with all of this?

What are your intentions?

And what are you doing to maintain your motivation?

What are you doing to celebrate your small wins?

What are you doing to build your network?

And what are you doing when you're readjusting , your goals

to make them more realistic?

Are you trying to reinvent the wheel when you know, you don't,

you don't even need to do that.

You actually just need to remain consistent.

with the first thing that you tried.

Likely, it's the latter.

Likely, it's that you need to fully show up 100 percent and remain consistent with

the first thing that you tried instead of creating something completely new.

Alright, I hope that I hope that this resonated with some of you guys.

Some key takeaways is of course, I already kind of went down, went down the list.

Think about what your, your end goal was, what you're going to

do to remain committed to that.

Think about what your intentions are with those smaller broken

down actionable goals and tasks.

Put those intentions to it and do something to maintain

your motivation by having your network celebrating those wins.

Next week, I'm going to be doing lots of celebrating because we're going to be

celebrating all that happened in 2023.

Which included the launch of this incredible podcast,

which is super exciting.

And and see what we're bringing into 2024.

I had some amazing, amazing ideas over the last well, over the holiday.

Really.

It's amazing how.

So, taking a complete and total step back away from everything

and having that moment of pause.

Can be super insightful and just create , a lot of, a lot of a lot of creativity.

Create a lot of creativity.

Alright.

Thank you all for joining and if you're not in the whole lot of shift Facebook

group, I hope that you will go out and you will join us because there's going to

be some big changes coming with us into 2024 and I am super excited about that.

You are not going to want to miss that.

I'm going to have far more opportunities for more interactive

networking within the group.

I'm super, I, I honestly cannot wait.

I'm super excited about this.

So, if you're not in there, be sure, go find a whole lot of Shift Facebook group

and be sure and click that join button.

But until next time, keep making Shift happen.

Hey shifters, thank you so much for tuning in to another

episode of A Whole Lotta Shift.

If you heard something today that inspired you or resonated with you,

please head over to iTunes and leave us a review to help others as well.

Your review helps me give as much motivation and

inspiration as I possibly can.

And don't forget, you can catch all the outtakes, bonuses, special live

stream interviews, and much more over at A Whole Lotta Shift Facebook group.

Until next time, keep making shift happen.