Welcome to the Stop Sabotaging Your Success Podcast, episode forty-one. I’m your host, Cindy Esliger. This is the podcast focusing on what we can do today to take control of our careers and overcome the inevitable barriers to success that we encounter along the way. 

Are there new things you’d like to try that you’ve never done before? Are you hoping that there’s a roadmap or step-by-step instructions that you can follow in order to get there? What if there aren’t? Does that mean you’ll give up your goal and move on to something more reasonable or realistic, where you know ahead of time what you need to do? 

In this episode, we’ll explore why you’re selling yourself short when you get fixated on knowing how it’s going to get done before you start. Because really, you just need clarity for the next step. That’s all. And when you take that next step, trust that you’ll figure out what’s then needed to take the next one. 

Be brave. Try new things. If you have to know the how before you attempt any project, you’ll only be able to do things you’ve already done before. Those are the only projects where the how can possibly be certain, but if you want to create and innovate something new, you’re going to have to start, and believe that it’s possible, without knowing exactly how it’s going to happen. 

Sometimes the path forward is unclear. Not everything is known. Sometimes we have no idea where to start. We’re left wondering what we should do first. Do something. Anything is better than nothing, but that sounds so much easier than it is to do. It’s easier to wait, learn more, and overthink things, at least that’s been my approach in the past. I wanted to get some sense of the ‘right thing’ to do before I ventured into action. But the opposite is true. 

Start by trusting that you’ll figure it out as you go and get started. The more belief in yourself that you can muster, the more you will want to get moving. You’ll want to figure out how to get it done by attempting to do exactly that, doing things to get it done. You will learn what works by finding out what doesn’t work. 

Start trying all the things, just not all at once. Start with your best guess of what makes sense to try first. If that doesn’t work, try something else. Just keep going until you get the results you want. 

It takes a very determined mind to stay with something when you don’t know how to do it. Your mind will always want to tell you that you will never figure this out. It’s impossible. What’s the point? You’re completely wasting your time. 

This is why everyone doesn’t do extraordinary things. Our brains are not wired for the risk it requires. If you desperately want to know the ‘how’ of completing a new project, you will have to start the project to find out. This is why they don’t teach us this in school. It’s not linear, repeatable, or testable. But success can be messy. Try something. Learn what works. Learn what doesn’t work. Rinse and repeat. Nothing is certain, but the ride is worth it. Too many people quit halfway there. 

Start by figuring things out. The best results emerge from out-of-the-box thinking and being able to leverage the know-how and experience of others. Be willing to try and try again. 

Stop looking for shortcuts. We actually learn by doing. We don’t know how we’re going to get there until we’re there. Yet, the first thing we want to know is how to do it. It’s the equivalent of asking what’s on the test. We want to know the exact thing to study so we can have the result we want, and we’d prefer to have it right now. 

We want to know exactly what we’re up against because somehow we think that knowing the ‘how’ will make believing in ourselves easier, if we have a clear path from here to there, and we get to keep some sense of certainty. But the problem with doing things we’ve never done before is there is no certainty. It’s a collection of days filled with lots of risking and lots of failing, while acquiring the skills we need, yet still not knowing exactly how to get there. 

It’s a new experience for most of us. We have little or no training on how to do this in school. We need to learn it. The process basically looks like a lot of falling down, and it sounds like ‘no’ a lot, and it feels like overwhelm and confusion. 

Yet, if we believe in the goal that we have set and we believe in the possibility of an extraordinary future, we will keep moving towards creating the path to success with many wrong turns and missteps along the way. We may think we aren’t making any progress, that we’re failing, because we don’t have a finish line in front of us. I like the analogy I’ve heard more than once: It’s like turning around halfway to the grocery store because you’ve hit a red light. So we must retrain our brain to keep going until we get what we want. Don’t wait for the ‘how’, create it. 

Every team and every project is different, so you must be able to customize your approach to the needs of the particular project. In project management, we tend to want to focus on the method, and while there is no shortage of methods to try, the method is the ‘what’ of project management. And the appropriate method is often at the core of an effectively run project, but the method can only take you so far. Really, it’s in the approach or the ‘how’ it’s done that separates great projects from ones that are merely satisfactory.

Great project managers rise above the rest, and what differentiates them is their specific approach. Because there is an effective approach to complement any method. The ‘how’ permeates every aspect of a project: in the way you communicate, in the way you solve problems, and in the way you lead. You may have a toolkit of project templates with orderly steps to follow, but if you can’t effectively solve a problem with efficiency, competence, and finesse, your toolkit isn’t going to be of much help. 

After many years of real world experience managing a variety of projects and watching others manage their projects with access to the same toolkit, I’ve learned that the ‘how’ is what creates client satisfaction and sets you apart.

 Here are the top three traits needed to master the ‘how’ of any project or goal:

Number one is adaptability. This is the ability to quickly assess a new situation and adapt to what’s happening. Adding a framework or structure where required, but often due to the fast pace of things that are happening, it’s better to adopt a more fluid approach. 

The second trait is resourcefulness. Often, you are not the subject matter expert of any given project, so you will have to rely on others to bring important knowledge and know-how to the table. Successfully managing a project requires creativity, tenaciousness, and know-how to gather information and effectively leverage the resources available to you. 

The third trait is flexibility. By now, you’ve heard it a million times. The only constant is change and how you handle change can make or break any experience and any project. Being flexible encourages creative thinking, which no project can succeed without. And too much rigidity stops the flow of creative ideas. 

And if you’re working with a team, there are two more traits that are also required: collaboration, because no one succeeds alone, so engage others in problem solving and decision making. And communication, because engaging with or motivating others is how we get things done. Try staying open to new ideas and approaches. 

If I had to pick just one, I’d say flexibility is key because your whole project dynamic changes depending on your level of flexibility. Be firm with your goal, that’s the ‘what’. But be flexible with your approach, that’s the ‘how’. 

We can use risk to help us reach our goals. Seriously, risk is your friend. Because by reaching for what appears to be out of reach, even if we don’t quite get there, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would’ve done had we not made the attempt. It’s that discomfort that keeps us going and trying new things. 

We tend to equate comfort with happiness, but now we’re so comfortable, we’re miserable. There’s no struggle in our lives, no sense of adventure. When it comes to meaningful achievement, comfort equals boredom and low engagement. 

So we should embrace discomfort for three reasons: 

The first reason is comfort is overrated. It leads to self-absorption and discontent, which doesn’t lead to happiness. 

The second reason we should embrace discomfort is it’s a catalyst for growth. It makes us yearn for something more, forcing us to change, stretch, and adapt. 

And the third reason we should embrace discomfort is it signals progress. When you push yourself to grow, you will experience discomfort. So embrace it, whether you deliberately choose it, or it simply happens to you. 

Personal engagement, satisfaction, and happiness all come when we’re working towards significant yet risky goals. If dreaming about a big goal makes you feel uneasy, you’re on the right track. We tend to jump ahead of ourselves and start worrying about how we’re going to achieve these goals. We run the risk of downgrading our aspirations when we let the ‘how’ it’s going to get done overshadow the ‘what’ it is that we want to do. 

When we don’t immediately see how we can accomplish it, we throttle back our vision. Convincing ourselves instead, that our goals need to be reasonable and realistic, then we aim low and settle for less. What we don’t realize is that there’s a direct relationship between the difficulty of our goals and the likelihood we’ll achieve them. There is greater motivation, creativity, and satisfaction to be had the more difficult it is to achieve. 

For a goal to matter, it has to stretch us. It has to be somewhere outside of our comfort zone. If you know exactly how you’re going to attain your goal, it’s probably not far enough. Intentionally choose things you’ve never done before, knowing you will figure it out once you’re committed to doing it. 

Difficult goals are far more likely to generate sustained enthusiasm and higher levels of performance. Because we get more out of an experience the more we put into it. When delivering that result will require more from you than you currently know how to manage, that’s when growth happens. When we don’t see the path or when we’re unsure that we have what it takes to reach that goal, then we’re closing in on a goal worth trying for. 

Instead of shrinking from discomfort, let it guide you toward accomplishment. We tend to hold ourselves back when we feel negative emotions. Any journey will have bumps along the way. Trust that you’ll figure it out in order to do something you’ve always dreamed of doing. You will be proud of the fact that you’ve done it, that you’ve created value in the world, and that you’ve ventured somewhere beyond your comfort zone. 

There are four ways to prepare you for the negative emotions that are sure to hit you during your journey:

Number one is there’s value in getting outside of your comfort zone. Acknowledge that value of trading limiting beliefs for more empowering thoughts because unless you do, you won’t experience the growth you want, or get the solution you need, or find the fulfillment you desire. Remember, playing it safe is not that safe. 

The second way to prepare is to embrace the discomfort. Instead of holding yourself back from the experience, move toward it. There’s magic in the struggle. We all have to go through the discomfort to get to what we want in life. 

And the third way to prepare is to welcome your fear. Notice the anxiety and the uncertainty, but you don’t have to be controlled by either. Fear can signal danger, but it can also indicate that you’re on your way to a breakthrough. When negative emotions come up, allow them to pass through you. Then focus on your goal and take action. The ability to push through your fear is the only thing that separates those who succeed from those who fail. 

And finally, the fourth way to prepare is to take the next step. Don’t overthink it. We are tempted to want to have a roadmap to the destination, but we rarely get one. All you really need is clarity for the next step. And then, when you take that next step, believe that you will be given the insight you need to take the next one. 

There’s an art to learning how to believe in something so much that you actually start being the person who has accomplished it in your mind. As you start being this person, you start making decisions and taking actions from that place because your brain is now convinced that it’s already real. So try on that new identity of a person who has already done that thing and see how it feels. Then, when you fail at something, you don’t make it mean something terrible. You simply learn from it and move on. 

We don’t often enjoy these things while they’re happening, but looking back, if we’re honest, the really important stuff of life happens outside your comfort zone. It’s where growth happens. It’s where the solutions are. And it’s where fulfillment resides. We tend to encounter this retrospectively, but we can engineer those experiences by intentionally embracing goals that have a greater degree of risk. 

Everything is clearer in hindsight because how to do it starts to emerge only in the rear view mirror, after you’ve already done it. When you’ve created the path you needed, as you needed it. Only after you’ve done it can you look back over your path and explain it beautifully, step-by-step. And then it makes it sound so easy, so simple, and so straightforward. 

But the journey wasn’t like that at all. The reality is we struggled. We complained and tried ten different things before one finally got some traction. And during that time, we wanted to quit because it all felt like it was too much and we were questioning whether it was worth the effort involved. But then, after the fact, we have a selective memory. We don’t remember how crazy the path was. All we remember is that we did it. This is how anything new gets created with an unknown ‘how’ until it’s done.

So stop fixating on the how and just take the most logical next step. 

And that’s it for this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success. Remember to download your Guide to Mastering The How at cindyesliger.com/podcast, episode forty-one.

Thank you to our producer, Alex Hochhausen and everyone at Astronomic Audio. Get in touch. I’m on Instagram @cindyesliger and my email address is info@cindyesliger.com. And if you liked this show, please tell a friend. Subscribe, rate, and review. 

Until next week, I’m Cindy Esliger. Thanks for joining me.