Ep #52: What Are You Waiting For?

Unlock Your Life | What Are You Waiting For?

Most of life is about showing up and how we do so. But occasionally, we come to a point in our lives where we realize we are just going through the motions. But then at some point, we wake up and think: what am I doing with this one thing called life?

Over the past year of episodes, I’ve been talking about noticing what you’re noticing, pausing, and really recognizing what is going on. Many people still have that one thing they want to do. The one dream they dream of. So I want to ask you, what are you waiting for?

Listen in this week and find out why waiting to do anything isn’t going to get you where you want to go, and what it is actually keeping you from. I’m showing you the importance of taking action in the direction of the thing you want, and the importance of celebrating your progress along the way.

If you would like some help with figuring out how to listen to your intuition and show up and serve in the world, I’d love to help! I can help you create a vision for a life that you absolutely love living. Click here to arrange a session with me.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

  • What you can expect from the next season of the podcast.
  • How to break down a goal into bitesize, manageable steps.
  • Where inspiration, confidence, and creativity come from.
  • The importance of celebrating the progress you’ve made.
  • Why there is truly no right time to do anything.
  • How to stop waiting and start taking action towards your goals.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Are you ready? You know most of life is about showing up and how we show up. So occasionally we will come to a point in our life when we notice we’re just kind of going through the motions. We’re just kind of pretending to be alive. We’re not really doing anything. We barely show up.

There are things that can happen that will jolt us back into reality. Maybe it’s a birthday that ends in a five or zero. Maybe it’s a 9/11. Maybe somebody died, or got born, got married, got divorced. But at some point, you wake up and you go whoa, what am I doing here? What am I doing with this one thing I call my life? Am I doing it? Am I showing up? Today, we’re going to culminate 52 episodes. We’ve talked about a few things. This week I’m asking you, what are you waiting for? Let’s get going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

So ready or not life is happening. It’s happening right now. It can be tempting to put off the things that we would love to be, do, or have, to explore that part of ourselves that’s still curious about life. That still wants to be expressed and exposed to the light of day. I wonder if you ever have that feeling.

I suspect that you do. We’ve been talking together now for 52 episodes. Almost a year. We released a few episodes at one time. So while it is 52 episodes, it’s not quite a year, but we’re getting there. I’m excited about it. So ready or not, here I come. This thing called life is happening. It’s happening right now.

I’m reminded of my daughter in like the last year of middle school, first year of high school. She loved Vivienne Westwood. Everything was Vivienne Westwood. If ever she was invited to write a report about someone important, she’d talk about Vivienne Westwood. If she had to do a book report, she’d find a book about Vivienne Westwood.

Her teachers were a little bit concerned. Because Elizabeth would talk about Vivienne Westwood and the Sex Pistols and her influence on British fashion. It was quite moving for her. She loved her some Vivienne Westwood. So when Gwen Stefani started wearing Vivienne Westwood, she was all about it.

As I was preparing for this episode this week, I was reminded of Gwen’s song What Are You Waiting For? It’s such a fun song. So I looked it up. I see that there’s a whole music video that goes with the song. Obviously, naturally, there’s music video. In the video, Gwen is struggling with writer’s block. She’s waiting for inspiration to come upon her. She’s wanting something to happen in order for her to remove the writer’s block.

In the video, she finds out, like we all find out, that inspiration doesn’t come upon you. Confidence doesn’t come upon you. Creativity comes from action. Our confidence comes from action. So when I ask you what are you waiting for, I’m encouraging you, I’m imploring you to take some action, to not wait for inspiration to fall upon you. But let’s see what we can do to develop a routine.

Because there’s truly no right time for anything. There’s no right time to get started. Get started when you’re thinking about the thing. Get started when you discover the desire. Get started when you start to notice there’s something bubbling inside you. Take the time to discover and tell yourself the truth.

So what we’ve done in this past year is talked about a few things. We talked about noticing what you’re noticing. We talked about pausing and recognizing what is really going on as opposed to the thoughts and the meanings that we put upon a situation. To interrogate is that true? Is that accurate? Am I seeing this rightly? Is there another way to look at it?

We’re reminded that our perspective has a significant impact on our experiences. Because when we put meaning upon a situation, then we have thoughts, feelings, and ideas, and we take actions from that place. Sometimes we’re right. Sometimes we’re wrong. We need to be able to pause and recognize that.

So when we find ourselves waiting for motivation to kick in, waiting for inspiration to come upon us, waiting for the news to show up. We’re reminded that we can build our confidence by taking action. So when we decide what it is that we would love to be, do, or have, then we decide to take some small action in the direction of that one thing.

So in the song What Are You Waiting For? Gwen is kind of mean to herself. At some point, she yells at herself and she says, “Take a chance, you stupid ho.” Now what I want to remind you is, just like in the zone, when we’re unkind to ourselves, it kind of mires us in more quicksand. It makes it more difficult to get up and get the thing done.

So when you notice that you’re not doing the thing that you most love to do, celebrate that you’re noticing. Celebrate because only in that moment can you make a change. Only in the noticing of doing something contrary to what you really would desire can you do anything about it. Then rather than make it worse, that second arrow that we’ve talked about in previous episodes.

Rather than making it worse, you gently bring yourself back. Bring yourself back to center and remind yourself you’re on the same team. You want the same thing. You have the same desire. Kindly, as you would like a little one, someone that you love, kindly bring yourself back to center, and say it’s okay. We can get going again. Let’s stop. Let’s pause. Let’s come up with an approach to get the thing done. Let’s do the do, as my friend Gina, another coach, might say.

So as you get started with making the decision to move forward with the thing that lights you up, then you can break it down into smaller pieces and come up with an action plan. An action plan to get the thing going for you. If you take small, daily steps, then you can see progress being made. So you want to break your tasks down in the smallest, most minute tiniest pieces so that it’s something that’s clear and identifiable, and it’s not generalized.

I hate to talk about weight. So we’re not going to talk about let’s lose 20 pounds, and let’s do it by the fall. You could do it that way. You could talk about your weight. You could decide that you want to lose weight, come up with a number, break it down into smaller increments, and then come up with tasks to do. But in my 60 years of living, I’m exhausted with talk about body weight and body image. I know that I have better things to occupy myself with.

Not that I don’t care about my appearance. But I just don’t want to engage in this platform, talking about weight. We can break other things down into smaller tasks other than our weight. We get break down making a monetary goal, generating new income, and what that might look like and what we might do. We could decide that we would love to create something, perhaps a writing project, and come up with a plan.

So first, we could just brainstorm ideas. What might I love to write about? Come up with certain ideas. From that we could select the ideas really have some fire for us. Like oh, I really like this topic. I want to explore it. With that, we could decide to make an outline. From the outline, we could decide to break it into chapters. From the chapters, we could decide what will be my first step? What will be the first paragraph that I will write?

While it might seem daunting to think about writing a whole book and how long is it going to take? How many words is it take to create a book, a true book? Is it 75,000 words? How many pages does that work out to? Is it about 200 pages that make up a true respectable book?

I’m going to invite you to reframe it, to rethink it. Think about what it is that you would love to create and why you want to create it. Is there a story inside you that’s dying to get out? Is there information inside you that you really want to share? That you know that would be helpful to other people? Rather than the judgment of what would be worthy for other people, what can you do to be helpful to other people? What can you do to be creative, to bring joy to the world?

I love artists, and I love art. Art is created by artists. So it’s important for us to remember and respect the creators in our life. Because I find these people to be particularly vulnerable and particularly brave. I’m reminded of a story that Martha Graham is referred to, and she’s talking to another artist. That artist is lamenting the fear of doing a project that’s not well received by others or is not good.

Martha Graham says, I really just decided it’s my job to make the art. It’s my job to put it out there. It’s my job to respond to that creative force and allow it to come from me. It is not my job to decide if it’s good. That’s not my job. My job is to put it out there and to get it out there into the world.

So I invite you to think about those things that light you up, that you would love to see in the world, that you would love to be, do, have, or create. Then allow them to come forward. Don’t worry about whether or not somebody else will think you’re good. Don’t beat yourself up about whether or not you can deem it good.

Allow yourself to show up for the work. Whether it’s writing a motion for work and feeling really paralyzed in daunted by looking at that flashing cursor on the very, very blank screen. Start. Start with what you know. Start with that very first sentence. Start and allow that thing to flow through you.

Start. Stop waiting. Waiting is not going to get you where you want to go. Waiting will keep you from having what you really want to have. So it doesn’t have to start on Monday. You don’t have to wait until the first of the year. You don’t have to wait until the start of the fiscal year. You don’t have to wait until winter solstice or spring solstice or summer solstice.

Start. Get going. Stop allowing the waiting game to keep you from experiencing that part of yourself that you’ve not yet discovered. Stop waiting. We’ve talked about this all year. Notice what you’re noticing. Pause and reflect. Make a decision and then take action. You know you’ve made a decision when you move from just being in thought and you pair it with an action. When you’ve made the decision about the thing that you will do, be, have pursue, take a step daily. Organize yourself. Know what small daily step you will take and develop the habit of celebrating your wins.

I’m celebrating with you that I’ve done 52 episodes, and my producers will tell you it has not been easy for me. There are lots of things they would love for me to do differently. But I’m celebrating that I came up and I showed up to get 52 shows out there. Celebrate your wins so that you can build a foundation to have more.

As we go into the next season for the Unlock Your Life podcast, you can look forward to a little bit change in format. I’m going to be doing things in more of a seasoned format point of view. So it will be a defined container for you to move through and meet goals with me. We might do a little bit of updated branding, and it will all come out one year anniversary for the Unlock Your Life podcast.

I’m gonna leave you with a fun poem, The Waiting Place by Dr. Seuss. “The waiting place for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come or plane to go or the mail to come. Or the rain to go or the phone to ring or the snow to snow or the waiting around for yes or no. Or waiting for their hair to grow.

“Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for fish to bite or waiting for when to fly a kite. Or waiting around for a Friday night. Or waiting for perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a week with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting. No, that’s not you. Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where the boom bands are playing.”

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. This was episode number 52. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. If you want to help the show grow an audience and help even more people, you can rate and review the show. Go to Apple podcast, follow, rate, and review.

Let us know what you love about the show and how we might improve. You can give us a rating from one to five. We’d love a five star review, but more importantly, we want to know how we can best serve you. Thank you for listening to the Unlock Your Life podcast. Remember, it’s your life. Make it a great one and how we do it. I’d love to hear from you. Sign up for the mailing list. Thanks.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.

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