Doing Life Backwards to Reach Your Next Level

What is the one thing you want to or need to do but are scared to pursue? You know, that thing that you keep putting off…

Maybe you want to quit your job but are scared because you don’t have all the steps figured out yet, even though you know it's time to leave.

Maybe you’re waiting to purchase your dream house or car, even though the opportunity is right in front of you, because making that huge investment is scary, and you don’t feel ready.

I’m here to tell you it's okay to do things a little backwards. In this episode, I share how doing things in an unconventional way actually transformed my life and my business for the better.

Before you say, “Lindsay, isn’t it kind of irresponsible to encourage this behavior?” listen to the episode.

I quit my job before I felt ready and before I was ready on paper.

Without a plan B or a second thought about “Is this the right time?” I quit because I knew I needed to leave. I knew I would just keep making excuses for myself if I didn’t. From there, my entire life changed in ways I could never have imagined.

Are you ready to stop making excuses for why you shouldn’t follow your dreams?

Are you ready to take the leap and do the thing you want, even though you’re scared?

Tune into this week’s episode for a little encouragement to take that leap and for a reminder that it's okay to do life a little backwards. All that matters is that it works for you. 

Transcript

[00:00:59] Lindsay: Hi, my loves. Today I want to talk to you about the power of doing life a little bit backward, doing things in a not-so-conventional way, as I have done many times in my life, probably the biggest one being quitting my job to go all in on a business that I had not started yet. And many people might say I should have started my business first, but there are a few reasons why I don't actually think that would have worked for me, or it wouldn't have been as effective as doing it the way that I did. This was completely fucking backward, admittedly, but there's a reason why this works and why it's worked so well for me so many different times in my life in so many different areas of my life, but I want to start by talking about how I quit my job. 

[00:01:53] The way I did it didn't make any fucking sense. At the time, I was planning on quitting my job for months, so I was studying to get my personal training certification.

[00:02:04] For those of you who don’t know, I started my business as a fitness coach, right? So my certification exam for that was scheduled for December. I think it was December 13th or something. 2018. Okay, on a random Sunday, it wasn't random; it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving that year, when I was sitting on my couch in my apartment, and I made the decision that I was going to walk into work in the morning and quit.

[00:02:30] I was only a few weeks away from my certification exam, so logically, you know, I could have waited until I knew for sure that I would be certified even to do the thing I wanted to do after I quit my job. Because if I hadn't passed that exam, I wouldn't have been able to start coaching people.

[00:02:47] This was my only plan to make money after quitting my job. But, I just had this moment of knowing that if I waited like, I knew that quitting my job was right for me. I knew it was what I needed to do. I had no doubt in my mind I was going to pass that exam, and I just felt like I was holding myself back from going all in on the thing that I really wanted to be doing and was meant to be doing.

[00:03:10] And the only reason why I even was planning to wait any longer was just because I was fucking scared. I was scared to make this big change. I was scared that I didn't have enough money saved, even though I had a year's worth of expenses saved. And I just realized that I kept giving myself excuses as to why I can't quit my job right now when in all actuality, I could.

[00:03:31] I did, but I had to put myself on the hook even within that decision. I had to dissociate and just do the thing before I could talk myself out of it. We spend so much time making excuses and talking ourselves out of doing what we know is the right next step for us, right?

[00:03:52] So I went in that Monday morning. And before I could even think, before I could talk myself out of it, before I could do anything, I sent an email to my manager asking if I could talk with her that day. And I hit send, and then I let the emotion of what I was about to do hit me. But I knew that I had to send that email.

[00:04:12] I knew I had to put something out there that would get these wheels in motion before I talked myself out. I had to create some sort of accountability. I had to put myself on the hook, or I would never quit my job. I would never do this thing that felt so scary and impossible.

[00:04:30] And that's how I did it. I felt like I was just dissociating, and my body was just going through the motions of sending that email, talking to my manager, and putting in my two weeks, but I knew it was the right step for me. I knew that it was what I needed to do. And I've shared this example before, too, of buying this house that we currently live in that I could not afford at all, but I knew that this was our house.

[00:05:02] This was our house. I knew from when we looked at it that I wanted to live here. And logically, on paper, it didn't make any sense that I would be able to. But instead of running away from that, instead of seeing that as a reason why I couldn't do what I wanted to do, I decided that moving into this house was going to force me to make more money in my business because I fucking had to.

[00:05:23] This has worked for me every single time when it comes to money, and I will say it's not the least stressful way to go about life, but it is it has been a very effective way to go about life for me, particularly when it comes to money. Investing in the thing that I can't afford and trusting that the money will come in to cover it.

[00:05:42] I've done that plenty of times. I put coaching investments on a credit card that I didn't have the money in my bank account to pay off, and the money always came in for me to make those payments. Every single time I bought a house I couldn't afford, and all of a sudden, I was making more money in my business.

[00:05:59] I can't really explain to you how it works. I explained this in a different episode where I talked about my energetic minimum around money. I don't remember what it was called, but you can go back and listen to that one. I'm not going to dive into all these examples again, but so many times in my life, I have invested in things, bought things, and done things that on paper made no logical sense for me to do financially, but it always worked out.

[00:06:25] It always elevated me to the next level to do it a little bit fucking backward. Again, probably doesn't work for everyone, but for me, and I'm not saying I always do that; I'm not saying that every time I want to buy something expensive or make an investment, I do it when I don't actually have the money to do it. Still, it has worked really well for me. Whenever I'm in a situation where I know there's something I want to do, I know there's something that is the right next step for me, but all these reasons and excuses hold me back from doing it. I do it anyway and let all those reasons figure themselves out, which is my point. 

[00:07:05] So another thing, another way that this is coming up for me currently in my business, is I have been really struggling with delegating, and I want to build out my marketing agency. I have a team already, and I want to grow that team, and I want to be able to give more of my client workload to my team because I am getting really overwhelmed with how much I have on my plate, but I'm much better at it now. When I first had more work than I could handle myself, the idea of delegating some of it to somebody else was terrifying to me. And it's terrifying to everyone who gets to this point in their business, especially as someone who never set out to create a marketing agency.

[00:07:51] I never imagined that I would have a business where I would have a team working with me. I'm so glad I do now, like, I fucking love my team, but it is really scary when you reach that point, and you have to trust somebody else to do things the way that you have always done them and trust that your clients are going to be happy working with someone who isn't you, right?

[00:08:14] And so I have been struggling for a while. I've gotten much better at it, but there's still this hesitation, this resistance that I have to delegate work in my business. And so one thing that I actually was working with a coach about this, one of my clients who is a leadership coach was helping me out with it.

[00:08:34] And one of the things she said was, well, you should pause taking on any more client work until you have the right training procedures and things going on on the back end to feel comfortable delegating that work to your team. And I decided to do the opposite of that and take on more client work that I knew I didn't have the capacity for.

[00:09:00] Why? Because I knew that that would force me to delegate that work. It would force me to do the thing that I've been so scared to do. It would force me to figure it the fuck out. And that's where I'm at now. I still have new clients coming to me and potential projects coming across my desk, and instead of saying, 'Oh, I don't have the capacity for that right now.'

[00:09:21] I am saying yes to everything because it's going to force me to delegate work to my team because I simply cannot take on any more clients on my own. I just can't. Is that the smartest way for me to run my business? Maybe not. Is it a very stressful way to run my business? Yes. But is it also incredibly fucking efficient? Also, yes. 

[00:09:49] I feel like it is the fastest way for me to just get over this hurdle that I've been struggling with because I could spend 10,000 years working with a coach trying to get certain training practices in place and working on how I delegate things, how I communicate to my team, how I provide feedback.

[00:10:10] I could do that all day long and still not feel like I'm ready to delegate because it's one of those things that will be scary no matter how prepared you are to do it. And therefore, what I have found to be the most efficient way to get over that resistance is to just do it despite the fact that I'm not fucking ready to do it. I don't know what I'm doing, but I know I will figure it out, and maybe that's the key to running your life backward. You have to trust that you are going to figure it out, right?

[00:10:43] And I don't know why I've always had that just certainty that I'm going to figure it out. I have got my own back. I'm not going to let my business fall apart. The universe has my back. It's all going to work out, and therefore it's okay to do things in a way that might be a little bit risky, to do things in a way that might not seem completely logical.

[00:11:06] So, whenever I find myself stuck in a place of knowing that next step, knowing what it is I need to do to get to where I want to be, I know that the way to get to the business and life that I've been dreaming of for so long is to build out my team and to delegate more work to them. I know that's what I need to do.

[00:11:26] So whenever I'm stuck in a place of knowing what I need to do but being terrified of it or feeling like I don't know how I'm going to get there, or I'm just making excuses and procrastinating, I find it can be incredibly efficient to just put yourself in a position where your only option is to figure it out.

[00:11:46] To remove whatever is giving you an out, right? Because I could have just stayed with my current workload that I have, but if I did that, then I wouldn't have been uncomfortable enough to grow. Doing things backward and taking on more work than I can handle forces me to get so uncomfortable that my only option is to change.

[00:12:12] My only option is to do things differently. But if I wait until this non-existent day in the future when I feel comfortable enough to delegate things to my team, then I'm just going to keep making excuses. I'm just going to keep saying, ‘Well, it's not so bad. I don't really mind the workload that I currently have, so I don't really need to delegate it.’

[00:12:31] But if I take on three more clients, there's no way in hell I can do that all myself. My only option is to delegate work to my team. My only option is to figure these back-end systems the fuck out; you know what I'm saying? So sometimes putting yourself on the hook and removing your out and removing your excuses and removing whatever it is that's keeping you comfortable being stuck is just the fastest way to get to where you want to be.

[00:12:58] Is it stressful as shit? Yes, but it also works. It also works as long as you have that foundational belief that you're going to figure it out and as long as you know it's the right next step for you. And so because I was so confident about those two things when I quit my job, so confident about those two things when we bought this house, I was so confident about those two things now as I'm growing my business, I feel like the most efficient way for me to get to where I want to be is to do things backward in the order that doesn't make any sense at all. But it has worked wonders for me in my life. So what is that thing that you're currently procrastinating on? What is the thing you know you need to do but are scared to do?

[00:13:45] What is that thing that you keep telling yourself you want to do or need to do, but you haven't quite reached a point where you're uncomfortable enough to take that leap and make that change? In what area of your life do you need to jump now and find the net later? What is it that you keep telling yourself, 'Oh, I'll do that when I'm ready?’

[00:14:08] Oh, I'll do that someday when X, Y, Z.' And how can you force yourself to do it now? Because if you keep telling yourself, you'll do it when you're ready, you'll do it when the stars align; you'll do it when whatever, it's never going to happen, babe, because there's always going to be another reason. There's always going to be another excuse.

[00:14:24] Your comfort zone is always going to win. Even though sometimes our comfort zone isn't comfortable at all. Our comfort zone sucks. Our comfort zone is being stuck in a job we hate. Our comfort zone is being burned out. Our comfort zone is completely overwhelmed by our business, but it's what we know.

[00:14:41] And until we make that comfort zone uncomfortable enough for us to take action, we're going to stay stuck there forever. And this is just one highly effective way to get yourself to take action. Put yourself on the hook. Remove the obstacles that are in your way, do the thing that feels scary, and let your life get chaotic for a hot minute so that you can take that leap into your next level.

[00:15:10] I hope this message found whoever needed to hear it today. I love you, I appreciate you, I am here for you always, and will talk to you in the next episode.