Change can be hard! In this week's episode, Tazmin and Sarah talk about the three C's that are needed: Commitment, Courage and Consistency.

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Each week we will cover topics specific to careers in the SEO industry but also broader topics too including professional and personal development.

Your hosts are Life Coach Tazmin Suleman and SEO Manager Sarah McDowell, who between them have over 20 years of experience working in the industry.

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Resources used for episode

• Energize: Make the Most of Every Moment by Simon Alexander Ong | Goodreads
• Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most by Greg McKeown | Goodreads
• Simon Alexander Ong - Life Coach & Business Strategist

Copyright 2024 Sarah & Tazmin

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the SEO Mindset podcast, where we aim to help SEO professionals to optimize their careers and lives. You have Sarah and myself today. Yay. I love these episodes, Sarah, and we're going to be talking today about what does it take to create real change in life. And I've been reading this book called Energize by Simon Alexander ong who is very he's up and coming. I mean, he's already up, but he's going to be big. You heard it here first, Sarah, and he talks in his book about the three C's that you need to be able to create change in your life. But before we get into that, a reminder to everyone, if you are loving what Sarah and I are doing and want to support the podcast, then there's numerous ways to do it. Two of which are you could do a one off donation through the Buy Me A Coffee link and it's in the show notes. And the other way is you can follow us on can you say Twitter anymore, Sarah? Is it x now? Anyway, the link is also in the show notes, so sorry. Giggling away.

How are you? That was fabulous. I'm good. It's oddly warm in the UK right now, seeing as we are in know it is.

It is. But I'm sitting here for some reason in a sweater, so don't know why do you've got hoodie?

It is. I think when the sun goes in, it does get a bit cold, doesn't it? But, yeah, no, I'm really good. I'm looking forward to like you said, I enjoy the episodes when it is me and yourself. I enjoy all episodes and when we have guests as well. But it's good to have a chin wag with you and record one together. So, are you good? Have you had it?

I'm good, yeah.

Good day?

Yeah. Do you know what suddenly struck me? When I'm recording with you, I feel like I can just chill. Whereas when I'm recording with a guest, I feel like I have to be a bit on best behavior.

Does that mean you're not on your best behavior with me?

I mean, I'm fairly a well behaved person anyway, but, yes, things are good with me. It was Visit My Mosque day at our local mosque last Saturday and Friday night I got a message to say, Would you give a speech? Thinking it's a bit last minute, crikey. I know it's 1030 at night. She messaged me and said, could you give us a speech tomorrow? So I thought, I know what I'll do. I'll go onto Chat GPT and say, could you write me a speech? Ten minute speech on visit my mosque. And in all fairness, it did. But the thing is, it didn't sound clearly it wasn't going to sound like me. So I scrapped that idea. I thought, Stuff this, I'm never going to be able to memorize this. I'll just write it as me and then it'd be easier to say as me. But I was super proud because I gave a ten minute speech with no notes, no slides, and everyone was saying, well done, Tazmin, great speech. But what I was really proud of was I didn't hesitate when she said, Would you do it? And I wrote it as me and did it as me and a few years ago would not have been able to do that. That was my win. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. In my windjar. And we've been talking about celebrating things that go well, so I thought I would share that with the listeners.

Wonderful. Well, I'm going to share a win as well. And then the actual topic of the episode. But I feel you shared. I'm going to share. We are both in the women in tech SEO community. Shout out to Reid and that wonderful community. There are lots of wonderful initiatives. One of the initiatives is a mentorship program, so people either sign up to be a mentor or a mentee. So I decided this year that I would sign myself up as a mentor and I basically got over my impostor syndrome because we know that shouldn't be a thing. Right? Put that aside. I've got things that I can help. And, yeah, I think I make a good mentor. So, yeah, I have been putting it off because obviously these have been going every year, so I think this is like the fifth cohort or. Yeah, so it's taken me a while to actually be like, come on, Sarah, put yourself forward. So I did. I had my first session yesterday, or no, I think yesterday. I don't know, days and weeks are kind of like merging into one. Had my first session whenever that was, and I got a lovely message from my mentee saying that they found it really inspiring. So there you.

Well done. That's brilliant. That's really, really great. Thank you for sharing that and good on you for helping somebody else.

So me and Tazmin have obviously communicated our wins to each other. Listeners, now's the time for you to celebrate a win. Right? So share it. If you're around people, share a win with someone, write it down to share it later because you might want to focus on listening to this episode, which you should do, actually. Or write it down on a postit note and put it in your wind jar later.

Loads of yep or message one of us. Connect with one of us on the social media platform of your choice. Clearly I'm not hot on Twitter, so LinkedIn. Come and talk to me on LinkedIn and come and tell us what your wins are.

Exactly.

Right. Shall we dive in?

I mean, I feel like this has been the longest intro hasn't I'm going.

To I'm practicing talking faster since Brian, so I'm going to go a little bit faster than usual. So what the author, Simon Alexander Ong is saying in his book Energize now, I do not get any kickbacks from this. Just letting everyone know is change is hard, right? You set out to do something different. New Year's is around the corner. People may be thinking, oh, next year my New Year's resolution is going to be blah. And deciding what you want isn't hard, but making it happen is. And as we know most people, by February, that news resolution is done. It's gone. It's just not even a thing anymore. So the author asks two questions. If in a year's time you were exactly where you are now, how would you feel? Okay, pause for reflection and onto the next question, which is, imagine where you could be in a year's time instead if instead of avoiding what you needed to do, you actually did the.

Ah. So visualization is what we're talking.

Yeah. What would you like to do next year, Sarah? Put you on the spot.

What would I like to do? Obviously grow this podcast because it's already going really well. I mean, shout out to season seven sponsors who are wix. Thank you very much. Big win. Big win. And also we have listeners. Like, we've grown. Yeah, we've grown our listeners really well. Like we've doubled or more than doubled, I can't remember from when we first started and stuff. So I'd like to continue growing that so then we can have more successes with the podcast. What else would I like to do? Buy a house?

Yeah.

Maybe keep pushing myself and doing more talks. Because there was a time where I was doing all the talks and then I felt like, oh, I'm a bit exhausted, so had a break, but I think I'm now ready to do more. I don't know. How would you answer that question? Tazmin?

A thought that just popped into my head while we were talking. Why don't we have an SEO Mindset day? Like an event where we talk about all the things we talk about here, and we could get speakers to come and talk about their area of expertise, and people could come and get that information firsthand for inspiration. That could be good.

Could be good.

It would be wonderful.

It would be wonderful.

Yeah. But the thing I really want to do, which I'm actually doing at the minute, is writing a book, and it's going to be full of journal prompts and maybe a bit of poetry interweave woven into it. So that would be this time next year, if I could be sitting here and say, that book is now published, I'd feel really good.

Nice.

Right, so we know what we're going for, right?

Yes.

Go on.

I mean, yours feels more targeted and easier to well, not like being more targeted. You've got your one goal, whereas I went all a bit about the place. But anyway yes, continue.

My brain is just it's funny. You should say that because what the author says is to make change happen, you need three C's commitment, courage and consistency. And I'm going to start talking about commitment now, because he was saying that you can have an idea. We all have lots of ideas and I'd like to do this, I'd like to do that, but an idea is not concrete enough, it's too vague. You need to be committed to the thing you want to do. It's a bit like, what's your why? What's the reason behind it? Because an idea or something you're interested in resonates as, oh, I might do that, I should do that, whereas committed is, I must do that, I will do that. And if you're just interested in something he says, interested loves distraction, whereas commitment loves progress.

Yeah.

And when I was putting this episode together, I thought, okay, the live podcast. It started off as an idea, but then we got quite concrete very quickly, because we had a common why, we had a shared vision of how we wanted to help other people. And we had found certain things in the SEO world difficult, like conferences, yet beneficial. And we wanted to, if, you know, just diverting a little bit into the live podcast that we do with Jack, again, we've got a why. And with the coaching business, for me, the commitment factor is it's my vehicle to share my experiences again, to help other people. So it's easier to be committed to it because there's a reason that underpins it.

Okay, makes complete sense.

Yeah. What are your thoughts on that one?

Sensible. Sensible. So, yeah, you have to have a reason to why you want to achieve the thing that you're wanting to achieve, because otherwise it will just stick it as an idea, like you've said. And I also think with the live podcast that could have easily just stayed as an idea. But I think what helped us was the momentum and talking to the right people and getting the right people on board as well. Because I think we all kind of said it just carried on snowballing until we were there and we were doing it. That's how I would answer that one.

So with the two things that you mentioned, buying the house, I can imagine there's some really big whys behind that one. But the other thing that you wanted to do was give more talks. It's understanding for you to understand what's in it for you? Why do you want to give those talks? Is it to share your knowledge? Is it to raise your profile? Is it a bit of both? And when you know why, I think.

That'S the latter right there. And I also really enjoy it as well. I love being, I don't know, on stage and well, it's performing in a way, isn't it? Yeah, and I get a buz from it as well, especially if it helps someone or someone takes something away from what say so.

Yeah. So that's the first C. The next C, he said, was courage. And there's a quote here by a French born this is again from the book, a French born novelist, lin, I think that's how you pronounce the name. Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. I quite like that. Yeah. Because if you're fearful, you're just going to shrivel up, aren't you, and not do the things. Whereas if you're courageous, you go off and do the thing. And what the author is saying is that which we know anyway, that fear will always be in the car with you saying something like, it's all going to go wrong, you don't know how to do this, or something like that, because it wants to keep us from danger, wants to keep us safe. Whereas courage will say, you'll figure this out, it'll all go well, you can do this. It's that belief that you'll be okay despite the fears and what's the worst can happen? Rejection. Well, even rejection has a value, and I think this is a misconception that people have that confidence means that you're not scared, that you're not nervous, that you're fine with it, but confidence is you are nervous. But again, that commitment is there. So you go off and do the thing, and it's finding ways to make you feel more courageous. So we've talked about reframing. We talk a lot about reframing, especially in the live podcast. One is always going to be louder than the other, and it's trying to make sure that courage is the louder one.

Okay.

How do you find courage at times when you're feeling nervous?

I suppose it is hard to find that courage when you are feeling nervous because you want to stay within your safety zone. You want to keep that safety blanket on you, don't you? But I just always remind myself that you don't know until you try something. And nine times out of ten, the fear of something is going to always be much worse than the actual doing it. So if I look back on all the things that I've tried for the first time, I was so scared beforehand. But the actual, once I've done it and I'm doing it, it's never been as bad as the fear that I had. And I think it's because we fear the unknown. We don't have an experience that we can relate it to. We don't know what it's going to be like. But I just have to remind myself that, Sarah, if you don't like it, just don't do it again, or you might actually bloody well enjoy yourself. So, yeah, I try. And obviously the fear is always going to be there because we're human and it's there to protect us. But I always try and sort of question why that's there, and try and be like, okay, what if you actually did it and you actually really liked it? Or what if you did this thing and it brought you these opportunities.

I think it's a great way of looking at it that there's very few things that we're going to try that are going to be life and death.

Exactly.

Or even career life or death. You're having a go at something I'm finding, although I didn't plan it that way, that I'm doing more and more of public speaking. Public doing, but at the mosque, but it's my local mosque, so I feel really at home. It's almost like my sandpits. And even the talk that I gave the other day, I felt courageous enough to not have any notes and just speak because I felt at home. So if anybody out there is wanting to do something, then find as close to home as possible because you're still doing that thing that you're nervous about. But it's in a safe environment. So it could be if you want to do public speaking, start off in your own smaller team and then go bigger and bigger, bigger within your own organizations. And I'm sure that they would be hugely supportive rather than jumping into the big stage at Brighton for your first talk. Although some people do that. There was one guy who was in auditorium, one who had never spoken publicly before and that was his first and that's really courageous. And he did really well. Yeah, he did really well.

Right, Tazmin? I'm just conscious about time because time is a ticking and we need to be taking a short break.

So let's take one.

Oh, well, I was going to say.

Let'S take one now.

Isn't there one more c. Yes.

So we can come and talk about that C after the break and then chat a bit more.

OK, sounds wonderful.

Hello everyone. Sarah and I am back from our short break and today we're talking about the three C's that you need to create change in your life. We've talked about the first two, which were commitment and courage. And now we're going to talk about the third C, which is so there's. I've got lots of quotes today, sarah Denzel Washington said, without commitment, you will never start. Without consistency, you will never oh, how's.

That for a mean mic drop? Walk away.

I know that's it, I mean, I'm not going to mic drop, I am going to continue. But it's a good quote. So what he is saying, and the author is saying is you've had this idea, you've figured out your why you've mustered up your courage and then rather than go for it and then do nothing. And then go for it and then do nothing. It's little and often. Keep going, be consistent, enjoy the journey, trust the process. Because the author's book is called Energize and what he's saying is impatience creates an energy block.

Right. Makes sense.

Yeah. And if you repeated your day every day for the next five years, would you be closer to where you'd like to be. Well, yeah, and I'm trying this with a book of journal prompts because I want to get 365 prompts. So I do ten to 15 every day. Just chug along, chug along, chug along. Rather than thinking, oh no, I've got to write this book and it's got to be done now because that doesn't work. That just makes me feel quite fearful and nervous.

That is really interesting that you said that, because I'm just finishing a book as well called Effortless by Greg McEwen. I think that's how you say I may have not pronounced the last name right, but Greg is Greg. Right. But yeah, something in that book is about how to be effortlessly more happy. And one thing that he talks about in the book is if you've got a big project, chunk it down. But also he reminds us how important the taking a break aspect is. So, like you've done, you've set yourself okay, every day I need to do ten to 15 prompts. That's what I do. That's my limit. And even if you feel that you could carry on, you need to stick to that limit because it's about consistency, because there'll be days where you don't feel as good, but you still need to get the 15. But it was just really interesting and I thought it linked to this book and what you're talking about as well.

Yeah, that sounds really good. And I like what you said about the taking a break. So one of the people that was on my Revitalized cohorts currently she wanted to write a book, so she set her target for 5000 words a day and she would stick to that target. And then she said to me, even if I want to carry on writing, she might do for a bit, but she would stop, she wouldn't exhaust herself because she knew that maybe she was effortless. One of the books on your book club because she's on your book. Yeah, same Josephine. So she was saying she would then stop and take a break because that's important too. Resting is doing something. Resting isn't doing nothing. But what he is saying is, and all of this is really common sense, we've heard it time and time again, but we seem to need a reminder. I certainly need a reminder. He's saying, take a step a day reframe and accept that the first ten times you might do it are rubbish. So this is if you are pitching for a talk, maybe the first ten times you'll get rejected. But you can learn how to pitch better and better and build habits that become who you are. Brushing your teeth. Never had to think about brushing my teeth. It's ingrained. And another habit could be how you greet your loved ones. I saw this clip probably it was probably an instagram reel of children going into the kitchen and their mum's already there and she gave them all a big hug and greeted them really beautifully. And she said that's become part of her routine now because if you have setting them up for the day so that's another great habit. Another thing he said was add fun to it, make the process easier, especially at the beginning. Reminds me of Poppins. Yeah. Spoonful of sugar, some medicine. Don't know why she popped in my head right now.

Anyway, I mean, wonderful. Love. A bit of Mary Poppins.

What a star. What a star she was. So things like if you want to take the habit of walking or running, if you have something like an audiobook or music playing alongside, that makes it easier. Another thing that helps you build good habits is accountability. Biggie, I think.

Biggie, yes. 100%.

And celebrate the wins, which we did at the beginning.

We're already celebrating. Tick.

Yeah. So those were the three C's and yeah, it was just now chat about what your thoughts are or if you've got some examples to add to that.

I really liked it. And something that I will say to our listeners is we'll make sure that the links to the books are in the show notes so then you can check this out yourself. But it's interesting what you said about most of the things. These things are common sense because when you read about these things you're like, of course that makes sense. But we still need to be reminded about these things, don't we? And yeah, it completely makes sense that you need the three things. Like you need to commit yourself to something. You need to have consistency. And I think consistency is the thing that is hard because you have to keep something up. What's? The other C?

Courage. Courage.

Courage. Yeah. So they're all tricky ones. Would we say they're tricky ones or? I don't know.

I mean, it's deceptively simple. I think. One of the things that I've learned from this and from another couple of things I've heard lately is if you're giving a talk or if you're writing something, if you can create a model with three things, because humans are really good at remembering three things and if they're the same letter, even better. Poetry. Who I am. What can I say? So that's a really good tip for anybody who's doing a talk. If you can get three things all at the same letter. But they're deceptively simple, I think figuring out the why, although it might be hard initially, once you've figured it out, that's it.

Yeah. And I suppose it's all part because something that we always talk about is self awareness. Getting to know yourself, what is it that you want to do? And also don't worry about because life is there for trying out new things, do you know what I mean? No one's going to be 100% sure and satisfied. Like this is everything, do you know what I mean? Like complete check. Life is messy. And you have to try stuff out and you're never going to know 100% what you want to do. But that's good because it's all about developing yourself. And I think the biggest thing for me is we kind of think of the comfort zone or that security blanket as keeping us safe and that's great, but actually it's holding us back from lots of wonderful things and what truly can make us happy and try new things out.

Yeah. And I think lately, maybe in the last six, eight months, I've got to the point where I think stuff the comfort zone because I'm at a certain age I've just got to go for it. Now Sarah, this is my time to go for it. But I think out of all three C's, so okay, you've figured out your why, you've got your commitment, you've mustered up the courage. Fine. It's that consistency because I don't about the more people you have in your life, the more likely your day is going to be hijacked by them.

Yeah.

In a nice way. So if you want to be consistent, how do you do it? Because they may come in and say you might have had a plan that ten to twelve, I'm going to sit and write my book. And somebody comes in and says, oh mom, do you want to go out for lunch? I'd quite like to go out for lunch. Or do you want to do this thing? And we live close to family, there's always something going on. But I think it's part of the able ability to do it is to have that boundary on time. So my husband goes cycling every morning, well, five mornings a week, but he goes at silly o'clock. So he's out the house by sometimes quarter to six. So he gets up at five, he's out by quarter to six and him and his two buddies on the weekend, that is commitment but it's accountability because they're going together. So if one of them doesn't feel like doing it, he can't say, he won't say.

So two things to add to this. So with accountability. So you mentioned the book club. So it was part of the Women in Tech SEO community. It's a book club. And the reason I put forward that to happen and the reason was because I decided I wanted to read more books but I needed accountability. So I was like, okay, here's a book club, you have two months, we meet up. So I have a deadline of when to read the book by because then everyone turns up and you talk about the book and you want to have read the book so you can talk about the book. So that's one thing. And also boundaries. Something that I've got better at is you can say no. Okay. So sometimes, especially working from home, it is harder. So my wonderful girlfriend, love her to pieces, but there's sometimes where I'm in my focus time and she's not right and she want to come in and have a little chitchat or she wants to share something. And I used to feel bad because I just talked to her or support her in what she needs at that time. But actually what I've got better at is saying, Tash, I want to give you my full attention, but right now I can't because I really need to focus on this. Can you give me 1 hour for me to do this and let's reconvene? And she does the same to me because there's times where she's in a focus zone and I'm not, because I want to walk around and chat and stuff and she says, I need to focus on this one thing. So it's so important to respect our boundaries and it's okay to say no. Obviously, if she comes in like absolutely crying, there's going to be times where you can't, but more often than not, if you just say, look, because at the end of the day, they want your full attention anyway. And if I'm kind of half in something, they're not going to have my full attention anyway. So that is something that I've got better at.

There is an episode, one of those Oprah Soul Sundays with.

Shonda rhymes. I had rhymes in my head as well, but I didn't know.

And she said that she went through a year of saying yes to things because she was always saying no, or actually she was ignoring. Then I think she started saying yes a lot more and then she learnt how to say no properly and she had this phrase of somebody asks you something, go. And Sarah, ask me something. Invite me to something.

Okay, Tazmin, would you like to come to my house and we can drink some Vimto and natter for the evening?

I'm afraid I am unable to do that right now. End of no reason, no nothing.

Yeah.

She said, just practice that and get better on the house and say that to yourself. So then it's easier just to say, but yeah, boundary setting is hugely important to be able to have that consistency. And I think also with Hasnain, I know those five days of the week, in the mornings he's not around, so that's become part of him. So if I also create a Wednesday afternoon, Tazmin will always be writing. No point asking her if she wants to go out for a meal because that's what she's doing. And the more people get used to you doing that thing at that time, it's easier.

100%. And I just thought of something else as well. And I think this is something that you say if you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. Yeah. So that's also something good to be mindful of. What are you saying no to? For this yes to happen. But yeah, and we shouldn't feel guilty, we don't have to. Do all the things all the time that people want us to do. And it's absolutely fine to say, and I used to always come up with all these reasons and excuses of why you said it or Shonda says it. Just say no. You don't owe anyone an explanation, even if you don't want to go out because you just want to sit on your couch eating biscuits in your pajamas and you want to catch up with the latest Netflix series you're watching. Doesn't matter. You don't owe anything to anyone, do you? You do you?

No, you do not. You do you? I read somewhere that the no's are just as important as the.

I say.

I'm conscious of I've lost track of the time. Is it time for us to wrap up?

Come on, Tazmin.

Okay, sarah main takeaway.

Main takeaway? Crikey. I think there's loads main takeaway. I kind of said it already.

Okay, you do.

You don't owe anything. You don't owe anyone. Owe why am I getting in my head with this? You don't owe anything to anyone. And also yeah, so three main C's for change. If you want something to change, you need to be committed. What's your why? Consistency. So how can you regularly do this? Make it a habit. All of that wonderful stuff and courage. Okay? Get out of your head. Get out of that comfort zone. That comfort zone is holding you back. Break free.

Yeah. And to the listeners, before I wrap up a question that the author asked, if I just go back to my notes, imagine where you could be in a year's time if instead of avoiding the thing that you need to do, you actually did the thing. So what is it, dear listener, that you really want to do? And these are some tips to help you make it happen. So, other things to remind the listeners is support the podcast. You know what? Sarah and I are so committed to doing this and spreading information and knowledge that are going to help you in your career and your life. So ways you can support there's a one off donation via the Buy me a Coffee link. Link is in the show notes. And follow us on X or Twitter, whatever you want. Or Twitter. Twitter's. Such a nice word. Well, don't know why they change it anyway. Hey ho. Just time for us to say goodbye.

Sarah. I feel like we could easily talk for an extra 20 an hour a day. We could just carry on, I'm telling you.

Yeah, we should have an event coffee with the SEO Mindset podcast.

I mean, let's do it. Or a vimto, depending on what you want. Thank you so much for that episode, Tazmin. It's been very helpful. I've got stuff, actionable things to take away and implement, so thank you very much. You're very welcome. Thank our audience, too.

Bye for now.

Goodbye for now.