186. How to Succeed at Practically Anything
Years ago, I accidentally got really good at country dancing.
Of course, it didn’t start out that way.
At first, I was terrible. But I also loved it.
This was a new experience for me - I wasn’t used to liking things I sucked at.
But I did like it, and so I kept going, even though I was so bad.
I didn’t really believe I’d ever get better, but that was ok with me. The pleasure of the dancing was enough.
But it turns out when you enjoy something and keep doing it, you are very likely to improve. I did it by accident, but I learned a lot from this experience.
Between accidentally becoming good at country dancing and six years coaching myself and my clients, I’ve learned a thing or two about how to achieve goals and create success.
And on this week’s episode of Satisfied AF, I’m sharing the essential steps with you.
Whether you want to learn to knit or find a significant other or launch a business, this week’s podcast episode will help you succeed.
Want customized support creating your wildly delicious life? Let’s hop on a free consultation call.
I’ll help you understand the blockers you’re facing and how to handle them moving forward. And I’ll share how a three-month 1:1 coaching package could supercharge your progress as well as your satisfaction.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
5 steps you can use on repeat to succeed at practically anything.
Why each step matters and how to do it.
Which steps are the hardest and what to do to succeed at them anyways.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about five steps you can use to succeed at practically anything.
The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs. No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one of a kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.
Hello, hello, hello, happy Wednesday. The other night I was having trouble sleeping, which happens to me sometimes. And as I was laying there tossing and turning, my brain started coming up with steps you could use to achieve basically anything.
I don’t know why this is what my brain was thinking about in the middle of the night, but my brain was like, what are the basic steps to achieve any goal, regardless of what the goal is? Whether you want to get a job in tech or move to Portugal or find a significant other or learn to knit, what are the interchangeable steps that would work no matter what you’re working on?
And then it came up with steps. And I was just like, all right, I would actually rather be sleeping, but if we’re not sleeping, I don’t mind that you created this whole formula, this methodology. And yeah, I’ll share it with the world on a podcast episode, even though I would prefer if my brain could do its problem solving and content design during the daytime hours. Sometimes it just does it when it wants to.
So I wrote down later what my brain had come up with, and then I did some refining and I’m pretty excited to share this with you. So without further ado, here are the five steps you can use to succeed at practically anything.
Step one, take action. Now, you might be surprised at this because I am a coach who focuses a lot on perspective, on the power of mindset, on the power of thoughts. But when you want to succeed at something, I actually think it’s a great first step just to do anything. That being said, it doesn’t have to be a huge thing. And I would really suggest actually that it’s a very tiny thing. Just take a little teeny tiny action.
What’s the easiest first thing to try? How can you get yourself to do it? So if you wanted to learn to knit, could you walk yourself over to a local bookstore and see if they have any books on knitting and then just kind of look at them. Or maybe watch a YouTube video or maybe go to the yarn store and touch the yarn. Like what is the teeniest, tiniest action you could take to get you moving towards that goal or that thing you want to succeed at?
Step two, make it feel good. Add things that are pleasurable, add praise, add friends or community. If you want to keep doing anything, if you want to keep going at anything until you’re good at it, until you succeed, I think it’s really important to make it enjoyable. And there’s lots of different ways you can do that.
I also think this ties back to step one. Well, I think it specifically ties back to making step one a small step because I think that’s often more enjoyable. When we try to take a really big step, it often feels stressful, unsustainable, and unpleasant. In certain cases, taking a really big step could even lead to an injury or a consequence or a problem.
I know that lots of people out there think that the way to get things done is to hustle and grind and push and force. But if you actually want to get to the success part and be able to enjoy the success part, it makes a lot more sense to take small steps, make it enjoyable, and then it’s an easier habit to keep going. It’s an easier practice to stick with and it’s more enjoyable, which I think is half the point.
Like I know a lot of people just want to be successful, but if you’re successful and miserable, what is that really getting you? I also think that’s when we’re at a much higher risk for burnout and for giving up and quitting. So if you actually want to succeed and have something have staying power, be able to stick with it, make it enjoyable.
All right, step three, be creative if possible. Like, yeah, if you want to try whatever the tried and true things are, go ahead and try those. But what other ways could there be to achieve your goal or to succeed at whatever it is you want to succeed at? What sounds fun to you as an approach? What resonates with the way you like to do things or the way you like to learn or the way you’ve been successful in the past, right?
To return to the knitting example, are you a person who likes to just jump in? Do you just want to get some needles and some yarn and try it out? Are you a person who likes to learn in community? Like maybe you want to find an experienced knitter to learn from, whether that’s a friend or a knitting tutor or someone at the local yarn store.
Or do you like learning from books? Like would you benefit from a book, whether you buy one or get a copy from the library or borrow it, or just sit on the floor at the knitting store and check out a book that they have? Or do you prefer something like a video?
I know I learned to knit a lot from a person and then from books, but then there are certain kinds of stitches that I couldn’t understand what it was from the book. So I needed something like either a real person who could know that advanced stitch. And at that time, I didn’t know anyone who did, so I was on the internet. Or maybe it’s not that I didn’t know anyone, maybe I just wanted to do it right then and didn’t want to go get in the car and go find a knitting store. I don’t really remember because it’s been years.
But basically there are lots of ways to succeed at pretty much anything. And so I think being willing to be creative, if you need to, in order to keep going, in order to get to where you want to go is a great step.
And that leads us to step four. Step four is to evaluate. What’s working? What’s not working. What could make it more delicious? What could make it more interesting? What could make it more attuned to you? Circling back to step three, is there a way to make this more creative? Is there a way to make this more in your style?
Maybe your style isn’t just one thing. Maybe you’re like, okay, I need a live person and then a YouTube video and a book. And I also need a meetup. These are the things I need to have in place to make it truly enjoyable and sustainable and habitual for me.
Is there anything you’re doing that feels like shit to you? And if so, can we eliminate that part? And if we can’t eliminate it because it’s integral to the goal somehow, then can we make it more enjoyable?
And we can make things more enjoyable in a lot of ways, right? We can add things that are pleasurable. We can add praise. We can add friends or community, like we already talked about. We can also shift our perspective. Sometimes it’s the perspective that makes something unpleasurable, especially when people are trying to succeed at things and they’re kind of in the in-between place where they’re like, I don’t know if this is working or not.
That can really be a point at which I see a lot of people be very hard on themselves. They belittle themselves. They may name call themselves. They tell themselves like, you should understand this already. Or like, it’s too late to learn this. Or like, do you know how old you’ll be by the time you get this figured out?
So those are perspectives that you could eliminate or shift away from and choose perspectives that feel more pleasurable, more interesting, more creative, and more aligned with you actually doing the thing and sticking with it long enough to succeed, whatever success looks like for you.
And that could be something like, I applaud myself for trying. Or it’s so fun that I’m working on this. Or it’s really powerful that I’m still invested in finding ways to succeed at my goals. Or there’s plenty of time. Or I’m going to get older either way, so why not get older while learning how to knit? And then I can get older with sweaters and socks and scarves and the ability to make something warm out of a piece of string.
And let’s circle to our fifth step, which is keep trying. Oftentimes being successful at something means sticking with it, definitely for longer than one attempt and often for longer than a lot of attempts. And here’s the real thing, even when you are successful at something, like even if you are successful at knitting and you learn how to do it and you make your first scarf, you know, you can call that success and be like, I’m done with that. That’s totally cool.
Not everything we do has to last forever, whether it’s a hobby or a habit or a relationship or anything else, a job, a career. But if being successful, if your definition of being successful means to keep going, then keep going. Like being successful often requires effort, right? It requires, it doesn’t always have to be exactly consistent, it doesn’t always have to be exactly continual. But it does require continuing to put time and effort and energy and attention and care into the thing if we want to keep getting results from the thing.
So again, you also have to define what success is. If success is like I learned to knit and I knit a scarf, and then you did it and you do it and you don’t want to keep trying, okay, then you can skip step five and you actually only have four steps. But if you’re in the middle of figuring out how to even knit that first scarf and you really want to get to the point where you’ve knitted one and then you’ll decide later if success means to keep going, then you’ve got to keep going in the middle if you want to get success.
I want to be really clear here that like, I don’t think there’s anything better about having knitted a full scarf than trying knitting and deciding it’s not for you. The keep trying piece isn’t because continuing to try is morally superior or anything like that.
The keep trying thing is if you are not at a point where you believe you’ve succeeded yet, if you’re not at the end of the road of where you want to be with this goal or habit or idea or concept and you want to be successful, then part of how you be successful at pretty much anything is you keep trying.
And then that brings us to the question of like, if you do want to keep trying until you get to whatever point it is you want to get to, what do you need in place to keep going? Do you need actual things in place? Do you need perspectives? This is kind of like step two of making things feel good. Like what do you need in place to make it feel good? What do you need in place to make it doable, enjoyable, interesting, and yes, pleasurable to keep going?
Now, these are the five steps in the way that I was thinking through them that night when I wasn’t sleeping in bed, when I was thinking about what are the basic steps of succeeding at practically anything? But I also want to be clear, there are lots of ways to succeed.
You could also take these steps and rearrange them if that feels better for you. You could start with like, what would make it feel good? And then you could be like, now that I’ve thought about what would make it feel good and I’ve put that in place, now I’m going to be as creative as possible before I take action and figure out what actions sound really delicious to me.
Then I take action, then I evaluate. I use what I learned from evaluating to inform how I will keep trying. So that’s an example of how you could take these steps in a different direction and still be using them to succeed at practically anything.
Let’s walk through an example besides knitting of what this could look like. Let’s say that you, like so many people out there, want to find a relationship. So you could start with taking action, like make a profile on an online dating app or go out and go to networking events or whatever, groups and meetups.
And then you could find ways to make it feel good like, oh, what elements can I add? Or you could start with step three, like, okay, being creative as possible, so here’s the tried and true methods of finding a significant other. But here are the other things that I’m really interested in trying.
I feel like back in the day, the tried and true methods were different. Now for a lot of people, the tried and true method is dating apps, but some people never use dating apps. Like my partner, Alex, for instance, hasn’t ever used dating apps y’all. And she didn’t meet me on the apps, she met me through friends.
So if you have tried the apps before and you don’t like them, or you just don’t feel like doing it, or maybe you’re willing to do it, but you want to find some other things to do, you could write a list of like, what are all the ways I can think of that one could find a person to partner with? And then of those, like, which one sounds the most pleasurable to me? Why not start with what’s most pleasurable, even if you’re willing to do the things you’re less excited about?
And then you could begin to take action and then you could evaluate, and then you could find ways to keep going. Because sometimes when we want to succeed at something, like if we want to find a partner, sometimes it’s the first person we go on a date with, and that’s so fun. A lot of times it’s not the very first thing we try.
A lot of times it’s not the very first person we go on a date with. A lot of times it’s not the very first time we pitch to be a guest on a podcast. A lot of times it’s not the very first attempt at knitting. A lot of times it’s not the very first job application we put in that turns into us getting a job offer.
So that is why I think the keep trying, if you want to go further than you already have gone, and if what is successful to you means achieving something you haven’t achieved yet, then that keeping going piece is so essential.
And there are two of these that I think are really hard, and they’re the first one and the fifth one. I think one of the hardest things is to go from doing zero action to taking an action. I think that can feel really vulnerable. I think for a lot of people, me included, but lots of my clients and friends, there’s this thing of like, what if it doesn’t work out? Or like, it probably won’t work out. Or like, why bother?
There’s actually a full podcast episode on why bother versus why not? So if you find yourself in that kind of like, “ugh, why bother,” maybe go have a listen to that. But this is where I think the perspectives can really come in handy of like, well, I want this thing. So I’m willing to try for it, even though there’s no guarantees about what will happen. Or like, I want this thing, so I want to be at least able to tell myself like, well, you put yourself out there, you made an effort.
Or I want this thing and lots of people have it, so I’m willing to believe I could get it if it is something that lots of people have. But like, as an example, lots of people can knit, lots of people are partnered, lots of people get new jobs, lots of people move to Portugal if that’s the thing you want to do. So that one I think is really hard. So like, what do you need in place to get yourself over the hump of no action into taking some action?
And the other one I think is really hard is the keep going one, step five. I think for a lot of people, we want things to be instant. And listen, I too want things to be instant. I love when things happen immediately. I love that I can just turn on my TV and there’s Netflix and all these shows readily available. And for lots of them, there’s like a bajillion seasons. I think that’s so fun.
And it’s really fun when the first thing you try works out, and a lot of times it won’t. So if there’s any extra additional lesson on how to succeed at practically anything, I think the extra lesson is this: succeeding at practically anything often will involve multiple tries and sometimes a lot of multiple tries.
I know clients who’ve submitted dozens, if not hundreds of job applications before getting a job offer that actually was a good fit for what they want to be doing and the pay they want to be earning and the total comp package that they want. I know people who’ve gone on tons of first dates and been single for years before they find the person who turns out to be their significant other.
And honestly, that’s true for me. Like before Alex and I got together, my last long relationship before that I think was like three years. And there was a lot of time in there where I was just happily being single, but there had also been times in there when I was dating pretty actively and looking for something and just not finding it.
And if you need to take breaks to keep trying, I think that’s okay too. I did that a lot during the dating. I’d be like, okay, I’m dating. And then I’d be like, all right, I need a little break from that. Taking a break can be a very important part of succeeding at practically anything.
And if you think about it, we’re really designed that way. Like humans need to sleep at night, right? We need rest. We need breaks. Going towards a goal and working on succeeding at something doesn’t mean you just go for forever until you get it. You also are going to need to sleep and have meals and move your body and have social time and rest and relax.
So keeping going isn’t just like drive until you get there. It’s a fluid thing of what needs to be in place for you to keep going until you get this thing, even if that’s a really long time. And if that’s something you want a deeper dive into, check out the podcast episode on mellow massive action.
Because massive action is kind of this idea of like, if you really commit to something, you decide you’re going to get it, you just do whatever it takes until you have it. But I see people burn out doing that. So I wanted to kind of give this approach of like, yeah, if you’re going to keep going until you get the thing or die first, you need that to be done in a sustainable way in order to not burn out, get sick, give up, et cetera.
Okay, so that’s what we have today. The five steps you can take to succeed at practically anything are to take action, make it feel good, be as creative as possible, evaluate and keep trying. And I think they work really well in that order personally.
And also creating a satisfying AF life is all about what’s satisfying as fuck to you and what works well for you. And that doesn’t have to be what works well for everyone else. So you can reorder them, mix and match, you can even try taking some of them out and see if it still works for you because it’s all about what works for you because you’re the one who’s out there succeeding at practically anything.
And if you want to take this work deeper and you want some customized support as you do this, if you want a fun, silly guide who still knows how to get shit done in a very serious way, come work with me. You can sign up for a single coaching session, or we can work together for three months if you are working on something that is going to be needing a little bit more of that consistent support.
And if you go to KoriLinn.com/learnmore, you can either book one of those one-off single sessions, or you can book a free consult call where we can talk about working together in a three month package.
All right, that’s what I have for y’all this week. Have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time.
Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs. No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one of a kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.
Hello, hello, hello, happy Wednesday. The other night I was having trouble sleeping, which happens to me sometimes. And as I was laying there tossing and turning, my brain started coming up with steps you could use to achieve basically anything.
I don’t know why this is what my brain was thinking about in the middle of the night, but my brain was like, what are the basic steps to achieve any goal, regardless of what the goal is? Whether you want to get a job in tech or move to Portugal or find a significant other or learn to knit, what are the interchangeable steps that would work no matter what you’re working on?
And then it came up with steps. And I was just like, all right, I would actually rather be sleeping, but if we’re not sleeping, I don’t mind that you created this whole formula, this methodology. And yeah, I’ll share it with the world on a podcast episode, even though I would prefer if my brain could do its problem solving and content design during the daytime hours. Sometimes it just does it when it wants to.
So I wrote down later what my brain had come up with, and then I did some refining and I’m pretty excited to share this with you. So without further ado, here are the five steps you can use to succeed at practically anything.
Step one, take action. Now, you might be surprised at this because I am a coach who focuses a lot on perspective, on the power of mindset, on the power of thoughts. But when you want to succeed at something, I actually think it’s a great first step just to do anything. That being said, it doesn’t have to be a huge thing. And I would really suggest actually that it’s a very tiny thing. Just take a little teeny tiny action.
What’s the easiest first thing to try? How can you get yourself to do it? So if you wanted to learn to knit, could you walk yourself over to a local bookstore and see if they have any books on knitting and then just kind of look at them. Or maybe watch a YouTube video or maybe go to the yarn store and touch the yarn. Like what is the teeniest, tiniest action you could take to get you moving towards that goal or that thing you want to succeed at?
Step two, make it feel good. Add things that are pleasurable, add praise, add friends or community. If you want to keep doing anything, if you want to keep going at anything until you’re good at it, until you succeed, I think it’s really important to make it enjoyable. And there’s lots of different ways you can do that.
I also think this ties back to step one. Well, I think it specifically ties back to making step one a small step because I think that’s often more enjoyable. When we try to take a really big step, it often feels stressful, unsustainable, and unpleasant. In certain cases, taking a really big step could even lead to an injury or a consequence or a problem.
I know that lots of people out there think that the way to get things done is to hustle and grind and push and force. But if you actually want to get to the success part and be able to enjoy the success part, it makes a lot more sense to take small steps, make it enjoyable, and then it’s an easier habit to keep going. It’s an easier practice to stick with and it’s more enjoyable, which I think is half the point.
Like I know a lot of people just want to be successful, but if you’re successful and miserable, what is that really getting you? I also think that’s when we’re at a much higher risk for burnout and for giving up and quitting. So if you actually want to succeed and have something have staying power, be able to stick with it, make it enjoyable.
All right, step three, be creative if possible. Like, yeah, if you want to try whatever the tried and true things are, go ahead and try those. But what other ways could there be to achieve your goal or to succeed at whatever it is you want to succeed at? What sounds fun to you as an approach? What resonates with the way you like to do things or the way you like to learn or the way you’ve been successful in the past, right?
To return to the knitting example, are you a person who likes to just jump in? Do you just want to get some needles and some yarn and try it out? Are you a person who likes to learn in community? Like maybe you want to find an experienced knitter to learn from, whether that’s a friend or a knitting tutor or someone at the local yarn store.
Or do you like learning from books? Like would you benefit from a book, whether you buy one or get a copy from the library or borrow it, or just sit on the floor at the knitting store and check out a book that they have? Or do you prefer something like a video?
I know I learned to knit a lot from a person and then from books, but then there are certain kinds of stitches that I couldn’t understand what it was from the book. So I needed something like either a real person who could know that advanced stitch. And at that time, I didn’t know anyone who did, so I was on the internet. Or maybe it’s not that I didn’t know anyone, maybe I just wanted to do it right then and didn’t want to go get in the car and go find a knitting store. I don’t really remember because it’s been years.
But basically there are lots of ways to succeed at pretty much anything. And so I think being willing to be creative, if you need to, in order to keep going, in order to get to where you want to go is a great step.
And that leads us to step four. Step four is to evaluate. What’s working? What’s not working. What could make it more delicious? What could make it more interesting? What could make it more attuned to you? Circling back to step three, is there a way to make this more creative? Is there a way to make this more in your style?
Maybe your style isn’t just one thing. Maybe you’re like, okay, I need a live person and then a YouTube video and a book. And I also need a meetup. These are the things I need to have in place to make it truly enjoyable and sustainable and habitual for me.
Is there anything you’re doing that feels like shit to you? And if so, can we eliminate that part? And if we can’t eliminate it because it’s integral to the goal somehow, then can we make it more enjoyable?
And we can make things more enjoyable in a lot of ways, right? We can add things that are pleasurable. We can add praise. We can add friends or community, like we already talked about. We can also shift our perspective. Sometimes it’s the perspective that makes something unpleasurable, especially when people are trying to succeed at things and they’re kind of in the in-between place where they’re like, I don’t know if this is working or not.
That can really be a point at which I see a lot of people be very hard on themselves. They belittle themselves. They may name call themselves. They tell themselves like, you should understand this already. Or like, it’s too late to learn this. Or like, do you know how old you’ll be by the time you get this figured out?
So those are perspectives that you could eliminate or shift away from and choose perspectives that feel more pleasurable, more interesting, more creative, and more aligned with you actually doing the thing and sticking with it long enough to succeed, whatever success looks like for you.
And that could be something like, I applaud myself for trying. Or it’s so fun that I’m working on this. Or it’s really powerful that I’m still invested in finding ways to succeed at my goals. Or there’s plenty of time. Or I’m going to get older either way, so why not get older while learning how to knit? And then I can get older with sweaters and socks and scarves and the ability to make something warm out of a piece of string.
And let’s circle to our fifth step, which is keep trying. Oftentimes being successful at something means sticking with it, definitely for longer than one attempt and often for longer than a lot of attempts. And here’s the real thing, even when you are successful at something, like even if you are successful at knitting and you learn how to do it and you make your first scarf, you know, you can call that success and be like, I’m done with that. That’s totally cool.
Not everything we do has to last forever, whether it’s a hobby or a habit or a relationship or anything else, a job, a career. But if being successful, if your definition of being successful means to keep going, then keep going. Like being successful often requires effort, right? It requires, it doesn’t always have to be exactly consistent, it doesn’t always have to be exactly continual. But it does require continuing to put time and effort and energy and attention and care into the thing if we want to keep getting results from the thing.
So again, you also have to define what success is. If success is like I learned to knit and I knit a scarf, and then you did it and you do it and you don’t want to keep trying, okay, then you can skip step five and you actually only have four steps. But if you’re in the middle of figuring out how to even knit that first scarf and you really want to get to the point where you’ve knitted one and then you’ll decide later if success means to keep going, then you’ve got to keep going in the middle if you want to get success.
I want to be really clear here that like, I don’t think there’s anything better about having knitted a full scarf than trying knitting and deciding it’s not for you. The keep trying piece isn’t because continuing to try is morally superior or anything like that.
The keep trying thing is if you are not at a point where you believe you’ve succeeded yet, if you’re not at the end of the road of where you want to be with this goal or habit or idea or concept and you want to be successful, then part of how you be successful at pretty much anything is you keep trying.
And then that brings us to the question of like, if you do want to keep trying until you get to whatever point it is you want to get to, what do you need in place to keep going? Do you need actual things in place? Do you need perspectives? This is kind of like step two of making things feel good. Like what do you need in place to make it feel good? What do you need in place to make it doable, enjoyable, interesting, and yes, pleasurable to keep going?
Now, these are the five steps in the way that I was thinking through them that night when I wasn’t sleeping in bed, when I was thinking about what are the basic steps of succeeding at practically anything? But I also want to be clear, there are lots of ways to succeed.
You could also take these steps and rearrange them if that feels better for you. You could start with like, what would make it feel good? And then you could be like, now that I’ve thought about what would make it feel good and I’ve put that in place, now I’m going to be as creative as possible before I take action and figure out what actions sound really delicious to me.
Then I take action, then I evaluate. I use what I learned from evaluating to inform how I will keep trying. So that’s an example of how you could take these steps in a different direction and still be using them to succeed at practically anything.
Let’s walk through an example besides knitting of what this could look like. Let’s say that you, like so many people out there, want to find a relationship. So you could start with taking action, like make a profile on an online dating app or go out and go to networking events or whatever, groups and meetups.
And then you could find ways to make it feel good like, oh, what elements can I add? Or you could start with step three, like, okay, being creative as possible, so here’s the tried and true methods of finding a significant other. But here are the other things that I’m really interested in trying.
I feel like back in the day, the tried and true methods were different. Now for a lot of people, the tried and true method is dating apps, but some people never use dating apps. Like my partner, Alex, for instance, hasn’t ever used dating apps y’all. And she didn’t meet me on the apps, she met me through friends.
So if you have tried the apps before and you don’t like them, or you just don’t feel like doing it, or maybe you’re willing to do it, but you want to find some other things to do, you could write a list of like, what are all the ways I can think of that one could find a person to partner with? And then of those, like, which one sounds the most pleasurable to me? Why not start with what’s most pleasurable, even if you’re willing to do the things you’re less excited about?
And then you could begin to take action and then you could evaluate, and then you could find ways to keep going. Because sometimes when we want to succeed at something, like if we want to find a partner, sometimes it’s the first person we go on a date with, and that’s so fun. A lot of times it’s not the very first thing we try.
A lot of times it’s not the very first person we go on a date with. A lot of times it’s not the very first time we pitch to be a guest on a podcast. A lot of times it’s not the very first attempt at knitting. A lot of times it’s not the very first job application we put in that turns into us getting a job offer.
So that is why I think the keep trying, if you want to go further than you already have gone, and if what is successful to you means achieving something you haven’t achieved yet, then that keeping going piece is so essential.
And there are two of these that I think are really hard, and they’re the first one and the fifth one. I think one of the hardest things is to go from doing zero action to taking an action. I think that can feel really vulnerable. I think for a lot of people, me included, but lots of my clients and friends, there’s this thing of like, what if it doesn’t work out? Or like, it probably won’t work out. Or like, why bother?
There’s actually a full podcast episode on why bother versus why not? So if you find yourself in that kind of like, “ugh, why bother,” maybe go have a listen to that. But this is where I think the perspectives can really come in handy of like, well, I want this thing. So I’m willing to try for it, even though there’s no guarantees about what will happen. Or like, I want this thing, so I want to be at least able to tell myself like, well, you put yourself out there, you made an effort.
Or I want this thing and lots of people have it, so I’m willing to believe I could get it if it is something that lots of people have. But like, as an example, lots of people can knit, lots of people are partnered, lots of people get new jobs, lots of people move to Portugal if that’s the thing you want to do. So that one I think is really hard. So like, what do you need in place to get yourself over the hump of no action into taking some action?
And the other one I think is really hard is the keep going one, step five. I think for a lot of people, we want things to be instant. And listen, I too want things to be instant. I love when things happen immediately. I love that I can just turn on my TV and there’s Netflix and all these shows readily available. And for lots of them, there’s like a bajillion seasons. I think that’s so fun.
And it’s really fun when the first thing you try works out, and a lot of times it won’t. So if there’s any extra additional lesson on how to succeed at practically anything, I think the extra lesson is this: succeeding at practically anything often will involve multiple tries and sometimes a lot of multiple tries.
I know clients who’ve submitted dozens, if not hundreds of job applications before getting a job offer that actually was a good fit for what they want to be doing and the pay they want to be earning and the total comp package that they want. I know people who’ve gone on tons of first dates and been single for years before they find the person who turns out to be their significant other.
And honestly, that’s true for me. Like before Alex and I got together, my last long relationship before that I think was like three years. And there was a lot of time in there where I was just happily being single, but there had also been times in there when I was dating pretty actively and looking for something and just not finding it.
And if you need to take breaks to keep trying, I think that’s okay too. I did that a lot during the dating. I’d be like, okay, I’m dating. And then I’d be like, all right, I need a little break from that. Taking a break can be a very important part of succeeding at practically anything.
And if you think about it, we’re really designed that way. Like humans need to sleep at night, right? We need rest. We need breaks. Going towards a goal and working on succeeding at something doesn’t mean you just go for forever until you get it. You also are going to need to sleep and have meals and move your body and have social time and rest and relax.
So keeping going isn’t just like drive until you get there. It’s a fluid thing of what needs to be in place for you to keep going until you get this thing, even if that’s a really long time. And if that’s something you want a deeper dive into, check out the podcast episode on mellow massive action.
Because massive action is kind of this idea of like, if you really commit to something, you decide you’re going to get it, you just do whatever it takes until you have it. But I see people burn out doing that. So I wanted to kind of give this approach of like, yeah, if you’re going to keep going until you get the thing or die first, you need that to be done in a sustainable way in order to not burn out, get sick, give up, et cetera.
Okay, so that’s what we have today. The five steps you can take to succeed at practically anything are to take action, make it feel good, be as creative as possible, evaluate and keep trying. And I think they work really well in that order personally.
And also creating a satisfying AF life is all about what’s satisfying as fuck to you and what works well for you. And that doesn’t have to be what works well for everyone else. So you can reorder them, mix and match, you can even try taking some of them out and see if it still works for you because it’s all about what works for you because you’re the one who’s out there succeeding at practically anything.
And if you want to take this work deeper and you want some customized support as you do this, if you want a fun, silly guide who still knows how to get shit done in a very serious way, come work with me. You can sign up for a single coaching session, or we can work together for three months if you are working on something that is going to be needing a little bit more of that consistent support.
And if you go to KoriLinn.com/learnmore, you can either book one of those one-off single sessions, or you can book a free consult call where we can talk about working together in a three month package.
All right, that’s what I have for y’all this week. Have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time.
Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
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