Episode 73 – The Milestone – One Year

This is Rebecca Clark Episode 73. The Milestone. One Year of the Journey Things Podcast is for anyone that knows they haven’t yet found and offered up their best work but are compelled to seek it out and do it. Are you ready to move your desk? E have a project management background? And so the word milestone has meaning on every project because their distinct milestones, where there’s deliver bulls or events that occur, or that must occur in order for you to complete the journey and claim success. So I wanted to look up the word online to see what it actually meant to everyone, right? And there’s two definitions for noun one, a stone set up beside a road to mark the distance in miles to a particular place, and to an action or event marking a significant change or stage and development. And so both of those do apply to project management in their own way. But I decided this week that I have a milestone to claim on. I wanted to talk about it for a few minutes last year. That would have been September 2019. I was working on my podcast this week, and I remember sitting on the couch and listening to a couple dozen short snippets of music, and I narrowed them down to three snippets that I liked. And I took those snippets and let them play on the computer while I recorded on my phone my voice saying, This is Rebecca Clark episode blah, blah, blah And then recording this podcast is for anyone that feels they haven’t yet offered up their best work, right? I was doing a lot of practicing. I was trying to figure out the music for the podcast. I was trying to figure out what the tagline would be and what I would talk about, because I had journal DSO Maney topics over the years, and I was anxious to share them, and I was doing all over this and creating my first five episodes that went live at the end of September and into that first week of October last year, I thought, Wow, how far I’ve come from that moment, I remember I had chosen three song snippets and was surprised to find out that my favorite didn’t sound quite right with my voice, and so I chose one of the other ones, and I love the music that I use on my podcast, and I’ve had to adjust it periodically as I learn more how to do that and shorten it and lengthen it appropriately to fit the show. But I was figuring all of that out last year, yet I felt like I hadn’t accomplished very much this past year. As many of you know, I quit my job, which was a huge sacrifice. But I had wanted to try something new for quite a few years and hadn’t had the guts to do it, and I finally had the guts to do it. And lately I was getting coached by my coach, M. J. Walsh, and I told her, You know, I haven’t gotten a lot accomplished this year since I left my job and she’s been through this year with me. We’re practice partners and coaching, and we’ve coach each other back and forth throughout this year. And she offered me a new thought about this year, and that is that I have grown so much. And so I took some time with her and by myself to find out, you know, have I really grown this year. Have I accomplished something that I’m proud of? And I realized, Yeah, I have tried a lot of things. I’ve been completely out of my comfort zone on some things. And though it feels like there’s moments where I’m incapacitated, there’s moments where I’m discouraged and there’s moments where I’m not sure whether or not I can apply everything I’ve learned. I can look back and see that there is a lot of growth and that growth has come through a lot of pain and experimenting and having courage. So I’m going to share some of these growth areas that I’ve had this year. As I hit this one year milestone on this journey of offering up my best work, I’ll start with the podcast, since that’s the example I gave. I have produced 72 podcasts this year, so if you do the math, you know that I produced more than one a week and what’s really interesting is this year I had a lot more illness, and what is amazing to me is that most of my illnesses impacted my voice. And yet, in the weeks before my voice would get impacted, I had two or three days this past year where I recorded five or six episodes in one day on, I thought, How am I possibly going to share all these? And then, of course, I’d lose my voice or gets sick or whatever, and I could easily share them e because that I face them out so there would be one a week. And so in one year I’ve had 72 podcasts, and now this is the 73rd. I have about 700 downloads per month, and it’s mostly the United States at this point. But it’s fun to see someone in South Africa and Canada and Japan and Serbia, France and India listening to the podcast. And it’s amazing to live in a time where this is possible. This time last year, I started training as a life coach, and I’m now a certified coach, and I went through entrepreneurial training as well. I created two online courses and ones live, and one that I am revamping Slowly. I created a new website. I created websites in the past, but I created a new one. Move your desk. I learned all about online marketing, the Facebook ads, the social media writing, selecting a niche defining a target audience. I say I learned a lot about it, and I’ve done a lot of it, but I haven’t taken it to the level that I’d like, but I’ve learned all about it. I’ve learned lots of things, and I have learned in that process that I have much more toe learn. I’ve learned about entrepreneurship in new in different ways and how important mind management is in this process because you go through lots of ups and downs because your learning and earning and churning along the way I’ve learned new technology tools that were different than all of the systems and tools that I’d used in my learning technology jobs over the years. So I understand that a lot of new coaches and a lot of new entrepreneurs have a lot of mind drama around technology, and that’s not where I have it. And yet I’m still having to learn a lot of new tools and have found great value in that. I think that becomes something that I can then add value in other interactions I have in other corporations and with individuals, and wherever I do work on a more personal level. I went through a lot of illness and learned how to use that time to reflect and learn and grow in different ways. I experienced Cove it with all of you and its impacts on relationships, at home and online and with family and friends to see all of the different reactions that people have had over time as we all view it differently and make judgments on how others view it. I had a summer that I had promised myself for 20 years that I would have, and that’s a summer with lots of sunshine and walks. There were no beaches or pools in the summer, but every day practically I went out on one or two walks, and that ties in with another accomplishment. I spent so much time with my son this summer, and that was a goal that I’ve had since he was born. I even told him today on a walk that this had been something I had wanted to do. But in past summers I worked every day and had those walks in the evening or early morning, and now I could have them whenever I wanted. This year I increased my coaching knowledge and skills and abilities. My experience was totally different than the coaching and mentoring and training I’ve had in the past. It focused on getting to the root cause of your thinking and how that impacts everything. And I’ve always been very aware of how our thoughts impact our lives. When I was very young, I read as a man thinketh and thinking grow rich from Napoleon Hill and all of those kinds of books. It’s in Scripture and it’s in thousands of books and resource is that we have available to us. But I was not aware of how important our emotions are in all of this that our emotions drive all our actions that lead to our results. But our emotions come from our thoughts, and so we can decide what emotions tohave because we can work on our thoughts and you can change your emotions. And this was mind blowing for me and also mind blowing was learning about becoming aware of our emotions and to take time to reflect and stop and go. Why am I feeling this way? What’s the thought I’m having about this that’s causing this for me and understanding that some of the things I was doing frequently in my life were things that showed that I was trying to hide my own emotions from myself and for me. That was in a form of doing a lot of work, doing a lot of projects, doing a lot of learning, doing a lot of eating cookies. All of these were actions I was taking when I had an emotion that I couldn’t handle and becoming aware of. That has been really powerful for me. One of the hardest parts about that, though, is that I started to focus on the awareness so much that I would sit in awareness and kind of get stuck in it. And that’s a realization to write, to realize, Oh, wait on now, I’m super aware, but now I’m kind of stuck in that awareness. Um, I coach MJ wrote this and said, The emotional upheaval you’re experiencing is a product of your new awareness and years of emotional repression. This was meant to happen, and it, too shall pass, and I really have come to realize how I was able to remain calm in certain situations. I was able to remain levelheaded. I was able to be pragmatic and make certain decisions, but it was because I chose to hide from myself certain emotions instead of allowing them out in my work and in my life. And as I allowed that more, there’s been amazing growth and learning, and I know I have a long ways to go in this process. I have also learned this year some new insights about old principles that I had been taught in life church in a home. And one of these insights is unconditional love. I think a lot of us hear about this our entire lives. And yet I learned about it in such a way that I decided to practice it in riel situations that were difficult. And this has drastically increased my empathy, my ability to walk a mile in another’s moccasins. It’s impacted how I serve. It’s helped me be more patient, and I know I have a lot more to learn about it, but it’s fascinating to see the outcomes of practicing that in difficult areas of life. So this is my one year mark, and as I look back on these reflections, I realize yes, I have accomplished a lot it looks different than in the past. I can’t claim that I worked 2300 hours or that I had all these deliverables or got massive teams to produce something or to get something live to an audience. But I can claim the thought. I have grown so much and it’s been hard and doesn’t feel like growth most of the time. But I have results that show me that I have made progress, that I have improved myself, that I have exposed myself to more areas of myself that I want to work on and that I have the capability and the capacity to offer up my best work. And the amazing thing about this is that I’m starting to think of my work in different ways and exploring how I’m really going to offer that up going forward. What combination will it really be? Will I go back and be an employee while also coaching on the side? Will I ultimately be a full time entrepreneur? Will I take a combination of different work and life experiences and use those in different ways because I have ah lot of different motivations now and I’ve already tried to climb a ladder on. I’m not interested in that right now. I’m focused on offering up my best work, and how do I really do that? And what is my niche? Who is my target audience? And does that matter right now, or do I just keep exploring and offering up my best and knowing that the right opportunities and the right things will come my way? I’m hopeful that as I shared my one year milestone thoughts that you will think about progress you’re making in a certain area of life for work and your growth and honor the milestones that come up, whether it’s one year on a new job or six months into Ah health plan that you had for yourself, or some goal that you have set out to achieve and reflect on it a little longer and pat yourself on your back and say, I have grown so much, I’m keeping up with my learning. I’m keeping up with my growth. But I’ve learned so much because from that thought, you’re not going to beat yourself up. You’re going to keep going. You’re going to keep producing. You’re going to keep sharing. You’re going to keep learning, and you’re gonna keep offering up your best work. So thank you to my coach, MJ, this week for helping me see my year differently. And it spurred further reflection and decision making that was necessary. And I’m excited to see what two years looks like. And I hope you’re still here listening. In the meantime, have a great week. Thanks for listening to the show today. If you enjoyed it, I’d love if you’d write a review and share the show with your friends, sign up for a weekly nudge at move your desk dot com. See you next Monday.