Cara Brookins's Blog, page 2
March 31, 2021
What to Do When You Feel Restless
Somedays you just feel restless. Filled with a fidgety energy and no clear idea what to do with it. That uncomfortable, restless feeling is actually a good thing. It’s a sign that you’ve outgrown the spot you’re in and it’s time to move on to bigger and better goals. Your mind is sending your body the message that it’s time to get up and moving. I have tips today for how to recognize restlessness and take advantage of this unique energy surge so you can put it to good use.
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Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, or iHeartRadio
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Resources & Links mentioned in this episode:
Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or shoot me an email at cara@carabrookins.com!Ready to stop procrastinating & get your idea off the ground? Join me and Build Something!If you enjoyed this episode, I’d so appreciate a review for the show! (To leave a review go to The Cara Brookins Show on the Apple Podcast app, then scroll all the way down to the bottom and you’ll see “Ratings & Reviews.” At the bottom of that section is the option to “Write a Review”!!!)…
Transcript:
Welcome to the Cara Brookins Show, this is where you’ll find all the tools you need to get unstuck and build a better life. I know what it feels like to need a friend to talk you through the hard stuff. From cleaning off your desk, to building a new desk, or even rebuilding your entire life from scratch, I’ll be here with you for every step. Let’s get moving and build exactly the life you want.
Here’s a small fact you already know about me: I have a lot of hobbies. But did you know one of them is painting? Ok, well that’s not entirely true. I WANT one of them to be painting, but the practice part of that one keeps getting pushed further and further down the road. Sometimes I think maybe time’s run out for that hobby. But today’s show proves I have plenty of time.
I was reading an article this week about this really amazing lady known as Grandma Moses. If you haven’t heard of her, she’s an artist. (Pretty well known) She did a lot of landscapes in bright primary colors and with this kind of simple, nostalgic, and almost whimsical style. They’re just a lot of fun. Picture if you could paint optimism, I really think that’s what Grandma Moses did. In fact, she said one time that she painted her daydreams. And as we talked about in last week’s episode on boredom, daydreams are vital for creativity so I like her description a lot. And, well, it turned out a lot of people liked hanging out in her day dreams with her by hanging them on their walls. And you guessed it, they paid a lot of money for her paintings.
Not only have some of them sold for over a million dollars, her artwork has sold on somewhere around 50 million Christmas cards. Not bad, right? Well that’s not even the impressive part of her story. Which I’m going to tell you in just a minute.
But first, I want to talk about that feeling I mentioned at the opening today. A feeling we all have sometimes. It hits us fast a lot of time and we feel like we should really quick get started on learning to paint or play golf, or strum a guitar. We’re not always sure which one to try first, either. There’s a desperate feeling that time is running out.
It’s a little irritated wiggle of a feeling that’s hard to describe so we just call it feeling restless. Break that word in half and you get Rest-less. Which just means not resting. Your mind is not resting, and you can’t make it. This is a frustrating feeling because this one doesn’t come with a clear resolution. It’s not like hunger where we know eating will make it go away. It’s not even like being cold or tired where we can grab a blanket or maybe a nap. Really it’s like the opposite of all those things in a way.
Because restlessness is a feeling of not having something and but at the same time you may have no idea what that something is. It can feel like you’re moving a million miles a minute with no target. I think of it like if you jump in the car to drive somewhere, and whoever is supposed to give you directions keeps falling asleep or just telling you stories and forgetting that they’re supposed to be the navigator. So you’re driving 70 miles an hour down the HWY never knowing if the exit you’re about to pass is the one you’re supposed to take. Restlessness is a feeling of constant anxiety that where you are right now isn’t where you’re supposed to be. Sound familiar?
This is seriously one of the most frustrating emotions because you feel powerless to solve it. I mean, we all know we can’t hit a target that doesn’t exist. And that’s what feeling restless is, it’s an endless loop of wanting really bad to hit some target …. but not having a clear idea what that target is. And here’s the worst part: because solving this restless feeling feels impossible, you feel absolutely desperate to do it. And as desperate people we all do really. Dumb. Stuff. Yeah, you know what I mean, don’t you.
Here you are on say a Saturday night, feeling restless. So you start just throwing random stuff at the feeling, like it’s a fire you have to put out. Maybe you cook something or run through a drive through, either way there’s zero chance you’re eating anything healthy. But after you eat three bags of microwave popcorn, you’re still restless. That wasn’t it. Lucky for you, we live in fantastic times where diving into a month long Netflix binge while flicking through TikTok, or Pinterest, or twitter or maybe all of them, is the perfect combo to smother that restlessness. By the time you hit the end of season 4, you have forgotten you ever felt restless, or just about anything else. Problem. Solved. Or—is it?
What if restlessness doesn’t exist just to annoy you. What if it has a purpose? Now just stick with me for a minute, what if, you felt restless for a reason. And what if you were actually meant to do something a lot more productive with that flicker of a feeling than binge watching action movies. What if feeling restless was supposed to inspire you to do something completely new. Something big. Something that would change your life.
And instead of fanning that persistent little flame like you were supposed to, Netflix gave you a shortcut to just hold that little feeling under the water until you drowned it. Umm yes, this is where we all say: whoops.
Because here’s what that restless feeling of bottled up energy is actually all about. You start to get that wiggle of restlessness when you realize that there’s a disconnect between where you are right now and what you’re capable of. That’s right, on some level you can see this gap between what you’re doing right now and your potential. You can do more. You can do better. And when you realize that, even on a sort of subconscious level, your brain begins getting you ready to fix that problem. To close that gap between what you’re doing now and what you’re capable of doing. It’s really a great system when you think about it.
Your subconscious brain is on top of this, sending energy out in these sort of waves down your arms and legs and all the way down to your fingers and toes. Your brain is getting you ready to move. To take action. Practically screaming at you through your nerve endings: it’s time!
But the problem is, on a more logical level, conscious-you hasn’t figured out yet exactly what that thing is that you’re going to do. And we’ve gotten into a really bad habit now that life is filled with an endless selection of easy distractions. Instead of taking a little time to figure what that restless feeling is prompting you to do, you just do everything you can to get rid of the restless feeling.
It’s a terrible reaction that’s the same as killing the messenger. Why would we snuff out the very thing that’s trying to encourage us to do more, to do better?
Because we’ve gotten too used to eliminating everything that makes us slightly uncomfortable. And we don’t like feeling restless. It feels uneasy and we equate that with bad, even though the reality is that we just misunderstand why it’s there. It’s a fidgety feeling designed to make us uncomfortable enough to MOVE from where we are. We’ve outgrown this spot and it’s time to move on.
To make matters worse, even if you suspect what’s happening you still may just plug our ears and kill that restless feeling. Drown it in season 27 of CSI, or candy crush levels, or whatever. Because the spot you’re in has been comfortable for a long time and you’re not sure you want to do more and do better. Doing more and doing better feels like a risk. You will fight to hold onto your comfortable, familiar spot in life, kinda like a stubborn lap cat refusing to move from the sunny spot near the window. But seriously, that’s no way to live. It all boils down to this.
When you feel restless, it means that you have something more to do, and the time to start doing it is immediately. As soon as you feel restless, start to explore your options so you can immediately start reaching for the next spot you’re meant to be in life. There’s a bigger, better sunny window for you to hang out in. And since we’re talking cats now (mostly because my cat Fable is stretching in my lap rt this minute) I think a really good way to think of your restless feeling is to think of yourself like a cat who just saw a spider all the way across the room. And you know that little hunker down, bottom wiggle a cat gives before he pounces? That’s your restless feeling. That’s you revving up for the big pounce!
I promised you the rest of the grandma Moses story. Really this is the best part of her story, and it sounds unbelievable. Let me tell you why she started to paint in the first place.
. . .
Before we dig into those details, we’re going to take a short break.
Do you have an idea that you just haven’t been able to get off the ground? Or maybe you worked on it for a while and then got stuck? And even though you still love the idea—can’t get it out of your head, you just have no idea how to get unstuck.
If you could *just* take all the time you spent putting off a project, and put that time into doing the work to reach your target it would change everything. Take the distractions, the extra coffee breaks, TikTok videos, and Netflix binges and instead spend all those hours, weeks, sometimes years making real progress toward your goal.
If procrastination has been holding you back, my course Build Something can help.
I’ve put EVERY SINGLE THING you need to build your ridiculously big project into Build Something. All the strategies, tactics, and methods I used (and still use) to successfully turn my big ideas into real-life projects and finish them. #BuildSomething will teach you how to: plan your projects, get started, take action, actually do the work, work through the hard parts, and stay motivated until you reach your goal.
Go to carabrookins.com/buildsomething/ for all the tools you need for this project. The one after that. And the one after that. And—you get the idea. That’s carabrookins.com/buildsomething/.
This is your chance to get unstuck and start the project of your dreams so you can #BuildSomething you’re proud of.
. . .
And now, back to the show.
One of the most unusual things about Grandma Moses and her wild success, was that she never studied art. Remember, her paintings have sold for over a million dollars. Over 50 million Christmas cards. Celebrities have her art in their homes. But now I’m telling you she didn’t study art and she didn’t even work at it for very long. She actually spent a lot of time raising kids, taking care of her house, and doing needlepoint. She thought of the needlepoint as a way she painted with thread. She did quilting too. But then, something terrible happened to her.
She developed really bad arthritis and couldn’t do any kind of needle work anymore. This wasn’t a case of early onset arthritis or anything. She was seventy-eight years old. Seventy-eight, and restless. She was restless. She tried to just sit still, enjoy what she had achieved in life. Feel content. But it didn’t work. She felt really restless and she couldn’t shake that restless feeling. Picture it now, this 78 year old woman was revving up for a pounce just like a cat.
Thankfully Netflix wasn’t a thing yet, this was around 1939. And without the option to pull out an iPad to play candy crush or solitaire or whatever, her sister suggested she ought to try a little art. That’s when she picked up a paint brush and paints, and instead of tamping down that fire, she began to feed the fire.
She painted happy farm scenes, holidays, and snow days. Simple realism in bright colors. And she just kept painting and selling and painting and selling. She won awards, went on TV and wrote an autobiography, Norman Rockwell even painted her into one of his paintings. And there she was, little old Grandma Moses painting and selling and painting. Until something terrible happened. Again.
It was the arthritis again. Her right hand was just too painful to paint anymore. She of course felt restless. But not for long. Because she knew now how to deal with restlessness—you fan that flame. Feed the fire. She picked up the paintbrush with her left hand. And practiced until she could just pick right up where she’d left off. Painting and selling.
Grandma Moses died in 1961 with around 1500 paintings completed. She was 101.
So, are you ready to pick up a paintbrush?
No, I’m kidding. Well, kind of.
Let’s think this through a second. When I built a house, or started a speaking career, when Grandma Moses started painting, first with her right hand, then with her left, we were at a turning point, the cusp of change. It’s not always exactly like that, it can be that everything in your life is just chugging along as usual but one day it’s not enough anymore. One day, you feel restless. You’ve reached a turning point. And here’s why I think it is really interesting.
You have to be a little dissatisfied with your life in order to change it. You have to not like something about it in order to reach for something bigger. You have to WANT something. But it all starts with that dissatisfaction. You realize on some level that there’s a disconnect or a gap between where you are right now and what your’e capable of. Your potential.
That moment when you feel that, every single time you feel it in life, it has the potential to launch you toward a much better version of your life. Use those restless moments. Turn off Netflix and pick up a paintbrush. Start asking yourself lots of questions about what you want your future to look like. What are some things you were interested in as a child that you always thought you’d try someday? Start somewhere. That’s all it takes.
I want to go on this journey with you—because you know how much I love a new project. Hop on Instagram and tag me as you explore your options. I’m easy to find—just my name, Cara Brookins. I can’t wait to see what your restlessness uncover.
Now go grab that bin of really expensive hobby stuff you bought last time you felt restless. Thankfully everything you need to become a photographer, or go rock climbing, is right there on amazon. The how-to videos are on YouTube, and the experts in the field are right there are Twitter and Instagram and they check their DMs. Give one of these things a shot. Quit putting out the fire.
We can’t tap into our own amazing brainpower if we’re always tapping our phones.
Imagine what you might create by this time next month or next year if you channel all that restless energy into a hobby or a business that add up to something real. And your family, your kids, your parents, your coworkers will learn from you about how to channel their restless energy and fan those flames to something bigger and better. That’s how we change our corner of the world and create a movement—by getting up and moving.
Your mind and body work together to help you get to a better place. Listen to what your mind and body are telling you. That energy isn’t just appearing for new reason at all. It’s a little gift from your subconscious mind that is actually way more on top of things in this case than your conscious mind, because it is weighing where you are over where it knows you could be and giving you a shove.
Lean into the momentum of this restless pull and keep going forward.
What an amazing change we’ll see as more and more people recognize and harness this energy so they can channel it toward a project or a move that will take them closer to their biggest goals. Now that you understand everything behind that restless fidgety feeling, go put it to good use and build something big with your life.
I’ll see you right here next week where we’ll set up a one day plan to wrap up all the small stuff that’s cluttering your space and your mind so you can get your life together and make room for your big goal.
Thanks for hanging out with me today, head over to carabrookins.com for more (free) tools, and we should really connect on social media too. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast.
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The Truth About Boredom
Along with outdoor toilets and riding to town by horse and buggy, one thing modern society has pretty much eliminated is boredom. And it may surprise you to learn that this is actually a bad thing. Because being bored sets up a special condition in our minds to be our most creative selves. Today, I have tips for how and why to spend more time alone inside your own head.
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Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, or iHeartRadio
…
Resources & Links mentioned in this episode:
Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or shoot me an email at cara@carabrookins.com!Ready to stop procrastinating & get your idea off the ground? Join me and Build Something!If you enjoyed this episode, I’d so appreciate a review for the show! (To leave a review go to The Cara Brookins Show on the Apple Podcast app, then scroll all the way down to the bottom and you’ll see “Ratings & Reviews.” At the bottom of that section is the option to “Write a Review”!!!)…
Transcript:
Welcome to the Cara Brookins Show, this is where you’ll find all the tools you need to get unstuck and build a better life. I know what it feels like to need a friend to talk you through the hard stuff. From cleaning off your desk, to building a new desk, or even rebuilding your entire life from scratch, I’ll be here with you for every step. Let’s get moving and build exactly the life you want.
My best thinking moments are when I’m doing something routine like taking a long shower, or a solo road trip that hypnotizes me with the dotted centerline, or some other monotonous task, Sounds familiar? You’re going to love today’s show about boredom.
Yesterday, I had a zoom coffee break with a good friend. And we started out listing all the stuff we were up to. For me that’s work, family, pets, hobbies. You know how that goes we took turns, back and forth. Some of the things were going really well, and some aren’t going as well. But good friends can always make you laugh anyhow—especially at yourself.
It was a great conversation. But then, my coffee started getting cold and and we started to wrap it up. We each ran through our to-do list for the rest of the day, and then just before we were about to sign off, I said something that felt really ordinary at the time, it wasn’t profound, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
What I said was: we will never, in a million years, get bored…. That’s it. Just: We’ll never get bored.
And the reason I can’t stop thinking about that, is because I know a thing or two about boredom. And I happen to know, it’s important. That’s right, being bored is a really good thing in a lot of ways. And if we completely wipe it out of our lives, we will miss out on a lot of important things. So we should all make a little more time for boredom. Don’t believe me?
Well, I understand why boredom doesn’t sound like a good thing. It sure as heck doesn’t light up the same spots in your brain as say, an ice cream cone. And I can remember being bored as a kid. You can too. I would go whining to my mom, “I’m bored. What can I do?” Dad always had plenty of hard work ideas lined up, so I never asked him, always mom. And she would list a few things: You could do a puzzle sweetie, or draw a picture, or train your little dog to do a trick. I would roll my eyes and never ever want to do any of the things she came up with. Still, she’d patiently keep listing the most boring things in the world. My same old toys and games. And eventually I’d wander off, aimlessly bored. Until, all of a sudden, wham, my very own idea would strike me out of nowhere. Something brand new and fresh. The exact thing I’d LOVE to do right then. And off I’d go. This has happened to all of us.
Just get someone to list a bunch of really bad ideas, give up, wallow in your boredom and THEN you’ll have a good idea. It sounds silly, but it works and there’s actually a really good reason why this works. And it has everything to do with the positive side of boredom. But before we get into that, let’s get a couple details out of the way.
First, what exactly is boredom? It’s different than restlessness. Which is what we’ll talk about that next week so make sure you’re back here for that. Restlessness is a little wiggle of a desire to do something—you’re just maybe not sure what. So restlessness is like a kind of launch into something. But boredom isn’t a push like that, it’s more of a sinkhole that you’re stuck in. Boredom is a yawning emptiness. You feel hollow and it feels like everything has been happening exactly the same over and over again and you want something DIFFERENT to happen. It’s like being stuck on a hamster wheel. A loop. It’s the movie Groundhog Day. You just want something new. A change of scenery.
Boredom is a negative feeling. We don’t like it at all. When we’re bored our body language, our word choice, everything about us shows that we don’t like being bored. Kids are really obvious about it. They’ll groan and flop down on the sofa all dramatic, and it’s like they are in physical pain, they practically wail: “IIIIII’mmmmm booooored!”
Adults don’t like to be bored any more than kids do. In fact, oh you’re going to love this. Let me tell you about this experiment about boredom. It’s fascinating. Or maybe it’s actually a little creepy. So some researches at the university of Virginia I’m pretty sure it was, did a boredom experiment. They put volunteers, all alone in an empty room—blank walls, just a table and a chair. A place where they would obviously be bored. And the only thing on the table was a little device that if you pushed a button you would give yourself an electric shock. Everyone got to try the shock device before the experiment started so they would know what it felt like. And it hurt. Not like a taser or anything, but a little electric shock. It was strong enough that almost all of these people said if the researches gave them $5, they would give some of that money back to not be shocked again. Obviously, the shock was strong enough to be uncomfortable.
Ok, are you with me? They stick a person alone in a room with a button—if you push the button, you shock yourself. Which obviously no-one would do. Because who wants to get hurt. Not me. I could sit there bored all day long and I’m not going to push that button. That’s what everyone would do, right? Ummm, actually, no. Half of the people when they got bored, pushed the button. Yeah. Seriously.
You heard me right. Half of the volunteers would prefer hurting themselves to being bored. One guy shocked himself 190 times—they excluded him from the study though, because come on, guy. Geez. You’re a little too extreme. Now about this room though. When I say they were locked in this room and bored I don’t mean for a week, or a day, or even an afternoon or an hour. They, were, in a room, alone with their thoughts, oh boy, are you ready for this: FOR 15 mins. Or less. Wrap your head around that!
More than half of us are so horrified by 15 minutes of being alone with boredom that we will hurt ourselves to make things interesting. That’s a little disturbing. Of course, thankfully, in our real lives we have lots of other things to turn to when we’re bored. Netflix, a bag of chips, our phones, or even taking a walk or hanging out with friends. We have tons of distractions at the ready and we really as adults rarely get bored anymore. But remember, I said at the beginning today that boredom is important and good. And that we’ll miss out on things if we don’t find a way to be more bored more often. And that’s because boredom serves a couple purposes.
First, our ability to get used to things that happen over and over again, makes room in our head for new things. If we couldn’t to do this, if we couldn’t get used to things around us and get bored with them, think what our life would be like every single day. We’d just sit in stunned amazement by the way the water falls from the shower and then we’d get over-the-top excited by the buildings and fields we pass on the way to the grocery store. We’d have to pay extreme attention to all the details of all the things all the time.
Nothing would become routine or boring. So we’d be locked in to all of it. And that means we’d be exhausted by the over stimulation of all of it, and we’d also have so much stuff in our head all the time that we’d have no room for new ideas and new things. No place for our minds to wander. The world, innovation, would stand still. And a world (or a life) without forward progress will die. Boredom is not just good, it’s essential to coming up with new things. Let’s expand on that.
Does that mean if it’s good to be a little bored, with things like the drive to the grocery store and my shower, that being a lot bored is even better? Hmmm. Well it would seem like the whole electric shock boredom experiment would say Nope. Nuh-uh. A lot of boredom is bad. But unless you were listening really close, I bet you missed something important that happened in that room. Let’s look a little closer look and we’ll find a completely different answer.
. . .
Before we dig into those details, we’re going to take a short break.
Do you have an idea that you just haven’t been able to get off the ground? Or maybe you worked on it for a while and then got stuck? And even though you still love the idea—can’t get it out of your head, you just have no idea how to get unstuck.
If you could *just* take all the time you spent putting off a project, and put that time into doing the work to reach your target it would change everything. Take the distractions, the extra coffee breaks, TikTok videos, and Netflix binges and instead spend all those hours, weeks, sometimes years making real progress toward your goal.
If procrastination has been holding you back, my course Build Something can help.
I’ve put EVERY SINGLE THING you need to build your ridiculously big project into Build Something. All the strategies, tactics, and methods I used (and still use) to successfully turn my big ideas into real-life projects and finish them. #BuildSomething will teach you how to: plan your projects, get started, take action, actually do the work, work through the hard parts, and stay motivated until you reach your goal.
Go to carabrookins.com/buildsomething/ for all the tools you need for this project. The one after that. And the one after that. And—you get the idea. That’s carabrookins.com/buildsomething/.
This is your chance to get unstuck and start the project of your dreams so you can #BuildSomething you’re proud of.
. . .
And now, back to the show.
Okay, let’s reopen the doors of that boredom room with all these volunteers for just a minute. Because we haven’t talked about the other half of the people. The ones who didn’t shock themselves. What in the world were they doing? Who were these people and how were they different than the people shocking themselves?
It turns out, they were different in really specific ways—and that’s really important. These were people who daydreamed move often and had happy daydreams. They were people who planned out things in their head. They were self reflective, which just means they thought back about their decision and why they made good or bad decisions. And they also had more agreeable and cooperative personalities. They had strong imaginations and were more creative. I think the way I would summarize all of that is that they spent a lot more time in their own minds so they were comfortable there. But what exactly did they do with their time alone in that room?
They used their 15 minutes to let their minds wander, and they didn’t mind it. They came up with new ideas without being distracted from them. They thought back on past events sometimes, but mostly they thought forward to things they were planning to do. So really, they were doing a whole lot of things that we would all like to be able to do better. What’s the deal then, can we all become more like this half of the group?
Yes. Yes, we can. Because the only real difference is, that instead of looking for a way for their body to get rid of the boredom, they charged right into that downtime. They faced it down and aimed their brain at it like a target so they could take advantage of the boredom. And this is a really powerful tool that anyone can learn to use. Here’s what I mean by that.
When we’re bored, our brain starts looking really hard for something to stimulate us. We’re wired that way, and we can’t change it, we actually shouldn’t change it. In this experiment room though, half of the volunteers in that room turned to the quick, easy zap of electricity to bring something new and interesting to the table. Zap, boredom gone.
But the other half who had a habit of letting ideas run wild in their head, just sat there and let their mind wander. They day dreamed. Instead of wasting the boredom, a moment their minds were actively and desperately searching for new things, they used the boredom.Their brains were more open than ever to making new connections because they were bored. Think of it like this:
It’s the difference between driving down a 12 lane hwy at rush hour when you can barely move from one lane to another or get to an exit ramp because of how crowded it is—that’s your normal busy, overloaded brain with all these thoughts crowding in on each other. Compare that to the same 12 lane hwy if you’re the lone, single car driving on it. You can switch across lanes at will, take any exit ramp you want and get on and off the hwy, maybe take alternate routes if you want. That’s your brain on boredom!
You can freely explore all kinds of ideas in new ways and come up with things you never would have on a thought-crowded hwy.
Because thoughts in that empty room were so clear, unblocked, and undistracted, the non-shocking people could turn from the conscious stuff in front of them to the subconscious. And that’s where it gets even more interesting.
Because there are a lot of different and unusual connections our brains can make when it moves into the subconscious. It’s like you bypass some of the normal habits and rules and ANYTHING is on the table. The more bored you are, the more unusual the connections will become. You’ll think of brand new things, you’ll plan and imagine and invent in ways you never have before. Being bored, creates an environment in your mind with the most potential for creativity you’ll ever have. That’s a pretty wild system isn’t it?
This kind of day dreaming thought process we go through is so important to us as humans that scientist think of it as one of the things that separates humans as more complex creatures. And one of the reasons is because it is how we project into the future. A thing that is 100% essential for setting goals. You can guess what that means.
The better you are at daydreaming, at letting your mind wander, at even setting up specific times for your mind to wander, the better you are at setting goals, visualizing the result—which is kind of like looking into your future. The better you are at imagining, the better you’ll be at reaching big goals. This is true for two reasons, One taking advantage of that clear brain space gives you more innovative ideas, and two because you are able to imagine the results, you reach harder for the goal.
You can imagine every single detail of what your days will look like after you reach your goal. The more detailed you can be in imagining your results every single day the more driven you are and the more motivated. If you can really see and feel in your mind what it’s going to feel like to wake up in your new house, drive your new car, work your new job, step across the line in that marathon, nothing in the world can stop you from starting and achieving that goal. So let’s get busy at… not being so busy.
Start by practicing. Put yourself in a boring room and set a timer. Maybe just five minutes the first time instead of 15. For five minutes let your mind explore options for your next goal. No pencil and paper. No phone. Nothing. Just think, and let your mind wander in all different directions about that project. And if you don’t have a room or this isn’t working for you, practice this in the shower, when you are doing boring stuff that you don’t need to think about. Or on your morning commute. Turn off the music, the podcast in your car, or if you’re on public transport, don’t play a game or scroll through social media. Just you and your brain taking off like crazy to create pathways you’ve never imagined before. This is exciting!
I want to know what ideas you have or what problems you solve when you create some of this intentional boredom. Go over to Instagram and tag me with some good stuff. I’m easy to find over there, just my name, Cara Brookins. I know your results will be anything but boring.
Instead of having all sorts of chaos in your head with neurons firing all over the place with everything you can do or see, you’re clearing that out and making room in your brain to make new connections. Companies that really value creativity and innovation will schedule this sort of brainstorm time on the calendar for employees. And they understand that someone staring at a blank wall is actually doing productive work. Practice this. Practice zoning out. Spacing out. Run straight towards boredom, invite it in. Boredom is a bullet train straight to your best creative work.
I’M going to be a lot more intentional about finding time to be bored so I have room for the most creative thoughts. You’re going to see a huge difference in your life after you learn how to be alone with your thoughts. After you practice using these times that we have every single day to invite creative thought in, instead of wasting your boredom by drowning it out with music, games, Netflix, or the constant minute to minute schedule of our modern lives.
Picture the next time you see someone staring out the window, or stretched out on a blanket in the park just staring at the clouds, and now you will know there’s a good chance that they aren’t being lazy. In fact, there’s a good chance they are doing some of the hardest, most important work of their life, and now you know how to do that too.
Go bore yourself.
I’ll be right here next week to talk about restlessness, a close cousin to boredom that serves a great purpose when you know how to use it. And I’ve also got a great story for you about an amazing person who proved that restlessness can awaken your hidden talents.
Thanks for hanging out with me today, head over to carabrookins.com for more (free) tools, and we should really connect on social media too. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast.
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March 28, 2021
The Yet Principle
Most big projects die on the planning table because we’re overwhelmed by how difficult they’ll be. But there’s a really simple way to shift your approach so you can jump right in and begin even the most complex and difficult projects. Today I’m going to add one three letter word to the end of your “I can’t” sentences, and it will forever change your approach to projects.
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Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, or iHeartRadio
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Resources & Links mentioned in this episode:
Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or shoot me an email at cara@carabrookins.com!Have you taken my Unstuck Challenge? Get it FREE here! If you enjoyed this episode, I’d so appreciate a review for the show! You can share your thoughts on Apple here!…
Transcript:
Welcome to the Cara Brookins Show, this is where you’ll find all the tools you need to get unstuck and build a better life. I know what it feels like to need a friend to talk you through the hard stuff. From cleaning off your desk, to building a new desk, or even rebuilding your entire life from scratch, I’ll be here with you for every step. Let’s get moving and build exactly the life you want.
Yesterday on my daily COVID walk, I was thinking about how the little things we do, our littlest habits can make a huge difference. And that reminded me, of this great 3-letter word I use all the time, and it changes the way I think. So today I want to share it with you. A little word habit that will get you up moving on your projects.
I’m sharing one of my favorite little words with you today. And I know you need this. Because I just read that most of the time people quit projects before they even start. That’s awful, isn’t it. Most people quit projects just a little while after they have the idea. It’s happened to be before, so I know how this goes.
You have this idea for a project. And you want to do it. You know the finished project would put you in a really good spot. But…… the more you think about this thing, the more you have to admit you have no idea how to do this. So, you take a step back, no ones looking, so you casually walk away. Maybe for good. Or, maybe just telling yourself you’ll wait a while. Do it later. Do it someday. But we all know where that kind of a project lands. It lands in the project graveyard. And you never, ever bring it back to life. But, do most of our projects really have to end this way?
yNo. The good news is that this doesn’t have to be you. I’m going to share how I get past this exact moment so I can jump right in and do all kinds of projects that I have no idea how to do. I start them, and I finish them. You can do this too. The only thing you need is one, small three-letter word that we’ll get to in a minute. First. Let me give you a little background.
I grew up making things. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, that’s one reason we did stuff ourselves, but I also think they just really liked digging in and trying to do things themselves. Maybe it’s genetic, I don’t know. But mom had a huge garden, dad hunted, they made everything from clothes to concrete fence posts by hand. I remember this one summer they put together all these plans to build a motorized glider—like a mini airplane—and they were going to build it using old lawnmower engine. Sound a little crazy?
I never thought so. Whatever weird kind of situation you grow up in, that just feels normal to you. So I thought every family dug their full sized swimming pool with shovels. I thought all kids watched their dad wheel their little red wagon into the back corner of the garage and spend an entire Tuesday welding improvements and upgrades onto it. You’re starting to get the picture, aren’t you. You’re starting to see why I had the idea I could build a house by watching YouTube videos in the first place. Well, stick around. There’s more.
Because I continued believing this kind of crazy mindset was normal until I was almost finished building my house. The kids and I had worked our tails off and we were running out of time. (I had only a nine-month construction loan building the house so we were pretty much behind schedule from day one.) And after we’d built all the foundation, walls, roof—so most of the big stuff. We were down to details. And we weren’t just running out of time, we were also out of money. So I couldn’t afford some of the really basic but essential things like countertops. That’s when I had to get really creative. One day, I decided our only option was to make our own countertops, and we would make them out of concrete.
That same afternoon, this good friend, a guy named Eric, who had heard what we were doing but hadn’t seen our crazy construction site. Well, he heard we were in a tough spot with the build and he stopped by and offered just to help wherever we needed him. Incredibly generous. He warned us he knew nothing about building houses. The kids and I didn’t care, I mean neither did we, we were just happy to have a couple extra hands to help work. But apparently, Eric’s parents were nothing like mine.
The countertops were my next big project. So I took Eric into the bathroom, explained what a finished concrete countertop was supposed to look like, I pointed at this series of the little post-it-notes stuck right on the wall above the vanity. Where I had drawn out three or four possible ideas for making the frame to hold the concrete. Then I showed him the pile of lumber he could use to make a frame, a pair of safety glasses, and I went back to laying tile in the other bathroom. I already had mortar mixed up so I had to keep working.
I thought what would happen is that Eric would try a bunch of ideas until he figured out a way to make the frame. But that’s not what happened.
Not five minutes later he was standing over me saying, “I don’t know how to build that.”
I blinked. A bunch. I was waiting for him to say the last word of that sentence. But he didn’t say it. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t seem to know the little three letter word that is supposed to end any sentence that starts with ether “I can’t” or “I don’t know how.”
So, I told him the cold, hard truth. “I don’t know how to build that either….” But I said my sentence the right way, ending it with that all important three-letter word: YET. “I don’t know how to build that either, yet.” And then I went on. “But give me a few minutes in there with that pile of wood and I’ll figure it out.”
Eric blinked. A bunch. And then asked if there was something different he could help with. I took him into the attic and told him we needed a knee wall to hang the tankless hot water heater on. He shook his head. Nope. Not that either. But I didn’t stop there.
I showed him the garbage disposal. The stack of toilets in the garage. A pedestal sink. “I don’t know how to do that.” He said every time. And every time he left off the last, all-essential word. “Yet.” I don’t know how to do that, YET. And Boom. That’s when it hit me.
This is why people have been looking at me like I’m crazy. All these people, at the hardware store, at the permit office, random neighbors and friends, they all think in an entirely different way than I do. They all think you have to know how to do something before you start it. And instead, I think, you have to start something before you know how to do it. Think about that. Two types of people.
Know how to do something before you start it.
Start something before you know how to do it.
One of these types of people keeps putting projects off until “someday”. And the other type actually does the project. Starts it. Figures it out. And finishes it. And the only difference between these two types of people is one three letter word. Yet. Here’s another way to look at it.
If you only do the types of projects that you know how to do, then the best you can hope for is to stay where you are. You’re just treading water. Staying still. And that idea of staying still and not making your life any better, that’s not what you’re here for. Is it? You think you can do more than what you’re doing now. And you can have a better life than you have now. That’s why you’re here. And you’re right. You can. And it’s easier than you think.
. . .
Before we dig into those details, we’re going to take a short break…
Do you have an idea that you just haven’t been able to get off the ground? Or maybe you worked on it for a while and then got stuck? And even though you still love the idea—can’t get it out of your head, you just have no idea how to get unstuck.
If you could *just* take all the time you spent putting off a project, and put that time into doing the work to reach your target it would change everything. Take the distractions, the extra coffee breaks, TikTok videos, and Netflix binges and instead spend all those hours, weeks, sometimes years making real progress toward your goal.
If procrastination has been holding you back, my course Build Something can help.
I’ve put EVERY SINGLE THING you need to build your ridiculously big project into Build Something. All the strategies, tactics, and methods I used (and still use) to successfully turn my big ideas into real-life projects and finish them. #BuildSomething will teach you how to: plan your projects, get started, take action, actually do the work, work through the hard parts, and stay motivated until you reach your goal.
Go to carabrookins.com/buildsomething for all the tools you need for this project. The one after that. And the one after that. And—you get the idea. That’s carabrookins.com/buildsomething.
This is your chance to get unstuck and start the project of your dreams so you can #BuildSomething you’re proud of.
. . .
The only thing you have to do is use this mindset of ‘yet’. I know what you’re thinking. “Mindset? Whoa, wait. I have to learn a mindset? Mindsets are hard.” Stay with me here.
This isn’t technically a new mindset. You already thought exactly like this when you were a kid. And somewhere along the line, you stopped. Which means instead of developing some brand-new way of thinking and doing things, the only thing you have to do is vacuum the dust off a mindset you already own. Super easy. Here’s how this works
You were born not knowing how to do a single thing. You began learning by trying things until you figured them out. You watched other people standing on two feet and they were getting around a lot faster than you were on all fours. So, you knew it was possible. But watching other people walk wasn’t enough for you to really learn how to do it. Learning the names of the muscles, and bones or technicalities of balance and coordination wouldn’t have done the trick either. The only way you were going to learn how to do it, was to start doing it. Sound familiar?
I told you, you already know how to use this mindset. You did it when you were a kid. It’s simple: I don’t know how to do this yet, but I’ll keep trying things until I figure it out. You got up onto those wee-small feet, balanced, and took those steps, when the only thing you had to start with was the idea that it was possible. That’s it. You knew it was possible. And you kept trying different things until you did it. Sometimes you fell flat on your face. You had to practice some of the skills more than once before you got it all to work together. You had to build some muscle. Get the motions down. After a while, it was easy. Eventually so easy that you didn’t even have to think about any of the details to just do it. And you didn’t stop there.
You saw someone jump, use a fork, pour a glass of milk, draw a picture. When someone sat a box of crayons in front of you the first time, you didn’t wait to learn the names of all the colors or understand why crayon friction against paper made a mark. You grabbed one, and you did everything with it. Including taking a bite of it and coloring on the walls. You tried out everything you could think of, and each time you used some of the skills you’d already learned and mastered and combined them with a few new things. The drawing muscles helped you hold a spoon. The walking muscles helped you jump. And run. But then, one day, something terrible happened.
You tried a new thing, fell flat on your butt like you always do when you try new things. But this time, instead of mom and dad cheering you on, the kids on the playground laughed at you. They said you were the worst ball player or rope jumper or singer they had ever seen. This may surprise you.
What they said, it didn’t matter to you. Not at first. You were curious enough and your mom and dad had filled you with enough confidence to keep trying things. Maybe you wouldn’t try singing on the playground again, but you would leap right into other things you had no idea how to do yet. Until, the terrible thing happened again. And again. And before you knew it, you were a different type of person. And you’ve probably already guessed what type of person I mean.
You learned to be the type of person who doesn’t start anything unless you already know how to do it. Unless you’re already sure you’re going to be good at it. And that really narrows the scope of what you’re going to do in life. So, here’s what happened with Eric, the guy who really wanted to help me build a frame for a concrete countertop: he couldn’t get over that barrier in his head that said he might do something wrong so he shouldn’t do anything at all. He was so nervous about what it felt like to do things wrong, that he did nothing. Let me tell you a little secret.
He would have absolutely done something wrong. I have no doubt about it. If he had randomly tried some stuff, he would have cut the wood too long or too short. He would have put something in the wrong place and we would have to take it out and do it over. He would have sucked at building a countertop frame because he had never done it before. He would have fallen flat on his face. How am I so sure of that?
Because an hour after he left, that’s what I did. Because I didn’t know how to do it either—yet. And just like the first time I walked across a room, I had to learn how everything coordinated together, build up the muscles, fall flat a few times before I got anywhere near something workable. Do you see what the biggest difference was between this guy and me?
It wasn’t skill. We were pretty equally skilled—or unskilled—at framing this thing. It wasn’t our desire to build it, we were equal there too. We had the same resources, tools & materials. You know, it really was that one little three-letter word. We both didn’t know how to build it. But my mindset was that I didn’t know how to build it yet. Pass me a 2×4. I will keep trying until I get it right. Even if that means I do it wrong. Probably a couple of times. Even if I fall on my face. Even if someone laughs at me. Because at the end of the day, I’ll have built a countertop, an entire house. And then, I’ll be the one laughing. Now, here comes the good part.
Once you look back at your life and see all the ways you’ve already used this mindset, then you can easily get back in the habit of using it again. This isn’t some kind of vague metaphor you have to put together from your childhood and learn how to apply it to something totally different today. It’s a simple principle applied in exactly the same way. Just like when you were little, the only thing you have to know going into any project is that it’s possible. Just that it’s possible. Then you go in and keep trying things until you figure it out. And this builds on itself.
Each of the skills you learn doing the current project will help you do some part of the next project. And if there’s any advantage I had over Eric, that’s what it was. I had a lifetime of trying to do all kinds of crazy projects, of learning what works and what absolutely does not work. And even if the only frame I’d built was a picture frame and a window and door frame at least some of those same principles would apply to my countertop frame. There’s this confidence level that builds with each success. Every time you figure something out you see yourself more and more as the type of person who can figure things out. The benefits keep building. (No pun intended. Well, maybe.)
Now, I didn’t know how to use a nail gun, set a concrete foundation block, frame a window, install a sink. Build a rafter. I didn’t know how to do a single one of those things — YET. But I knew a lot of the small skills that I could creatively put together to figure out how to do those things. Every single day, every single project my kids and I did on our construction site to build a house, we went in with this idea. I don’t know how to do that thing YET—but give me a minute and I’ll figure it out.
You probably guessed that also means the first couple of times you leap right into a project and try some things you won’t have a great skill base, and you’re going to fall down quite a few times. But you will build up your skills, your creative muscles. You get really good at combining weird skills that didn’t seem like they had anything at all to do with each other and using them to do some really creative things. What this means, is that it gets easier and easier for us to figure out more and more complex things.
Does that mean my kids and I didn’t fail? We didn’t ever do it wrong? Of course not. We did it wrong a dozen times. We framed out a window. Cut it apart. Did it again. And again. Until it was right. We never thought of it as failing, we just thought: I don’t know how to do that—yet. The next window was easier. By the time we did all of the windows we really had it figured out. And those skills—All the little things we figured out framing windows— were all going to help us for the next part of the project. If you’ve tried and failed, fantastic. You’re doing great.
Shrug it off like you did when you were a kid who bounced right off the ground for the next try at walking. Keep getting back up and keep trying until all the times you said, “yet” add up to: I already know how to do that. What’s next?
We all talk about how quickly kids learn and how many new skills they pack into a few short years. But the same fast rate of doing and learning and accomplishing things can happen to you today after you dust off that childhood mindset. Get back in the habit of just starting those big projects that you have no idea how to do and figure each one out, one step at a time.
Oh, and one last thing you should do at the end of every single project, you should share it with me! Find me on Twitter this week, I’m CM Brookins. And you can look for the little blue check mark so you’ll know it’s me. I’d love to see what you’re up to. Tag me with your project progress and how you’re using the YET principle. Because I know it has you leaping into new things.
I’ll be right here again next week and the same time and place where we’re going to talk about your favorite pizza toppings (I have a lot of them, but olives are currently at the top of the list, I’m obsessed.) Oh, and the pizza topping story is going to show us how to use our brain’s habit of holding on to things to really lock into goals. Pizza and goal setting. I’ll see you there!
Thanks for hanging out with me today, head over to carabrookins.com for more (free) tools, and we should connect on social media too. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast.
March 27, 2021
Welcome to the Cara Brookins Show
Welcome to the first episode of the Cara Brookins Show! In this episode you’ll hear how building a house with my four kids by watching YouTube videos forever changed my approach to life. I now apply the strategies I learned with mud and 2x4s to every project and every major life decision. And I’ll share how this new approach can forever change your life, too.
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE:
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, or iHeartRadio
…
Resources & Links mentioned in this episode:
Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or shoot me an email at cara@carabrookins.com!Have you taken my Unstuck Challenge? Get it FREE here! If you enjoyed my first episode, I’d so appreciate a review for the show! You can share your thoughts on Apple here!…
Transcript:
Welcome to the Cara Brookins Show, where you’ll find all the tools you need to get unstuck and build a better life. I know what it feels like to need a friend to talk you through the hard stuff. From cleaning off your desk, to building a new desk, or even rebuilding your entire life from scratch, I’ll be here with you for every step. Let’s get moving and build exactly the life you want.
Hello, and I’m so glad we found each other here. My goal is for every single episode of this podcast to give you ideas you can use right away. I want you to build a better life than the one you have today. That means it’s time to get unstuck on the projects you’re working on… or maybe more specifically on the projects that you’re NOT working on but you want to be. Sound Familiar?
I want this show to be all about taking action. But, weirdly, That’s not what this first episode is about at all. I know. I know.
The first episode probably shouldn’t break the rules! But when you hear what I have to say today, I think you’ll agree that this is exactly the right way for you and me to begin.
For starters, some of you are meeting me for the first time. And that means you have no reason whatsoever to take my advice about taking action on anything. I mean, who am I to say what works and what doesn’t? What do I know?
Well, that’s what I’m going to tell you today. I’m going to tell you the story of why I’m starting this podcast. And it all began with a crazy big project I took on, even though I had no idea what I was doing, and no real business doing any of it. Then while I was doing my best to make that project work, I realized that a lot of the ideas I had that were working really well for that big project, would work for every single project I took on for the rest of my life. Yeah, this surprised me too, It’s not at all what I was expecting, believe me.
And then, what happened next, after I finished that project, was a lot of people asking me: How’d you do that?! I told them. In person. By email. By phone. By Facebook. By Instagram. Until now, today, I’m right here sharing my ideas with you on a podcast. Why would I want to do that?
Because I had to go through a lot of really tough things to learn these lessons. I failed a lot along the way. And if I could have heard and understood these ideas a lot sooner, my life could have been easier. I could have reached really big goals a lot earlier in my life. What I mean is, I could have been more successful in every area of my life a lot sooner. And that’s exactly what I want for you: bigger success stories on a faster timeline. And you want that too, so let’s get to it.
You may already know that the big project I’m talking about was building a house with my kids by watching YouTube videos. Yes, we built an entire house. I was a single mom with four kids (they were 17, 15, 11, and 2). And yes, I even did things like mixed the concrete in a wheelbarrow and I ran my own water lines, sewer pipes and natural gas lines. We raised walls and made everything from stick-built roof rafters to concrete countertops. You may be thinking, “That is not actually a sane project for a single mom and her kids to take on.” And you’d be right.
At least according to what is considered, normal, acceptable, sane behavior by most people. And in fact, most of those same people would say that it wasn’t possible for us to build an entire house. But you know what happened, we did build an entire house. Not a small hut, not a tiny house on a trailer, not a little cabin in the woods, we built a 3500 sq foot house with 5 bedrooms and three bathrooms. Plus a three-car garage, a huge shop, and a two story tree house. We did this as a family. Every 2×4 and nail and pipe running through our hands—like three or four times because we almost never got something right the first time around.
We built a house. We rebuilt our lives. And you’re probably thinking this is an interesting story because we broke the rules! We did the impossible. We defied all the odds! Or…. did we?
No. We didn’t defy any odds. I would argue that the odds were in our favor right from the start. And the reason I say that is because we succeeded not because we’re unusual or exceptional people who are capable of doing things no one else can replicate, but because we built this house using a very specific set of ideas that work. They work for anyone doing any project of any size at any time anywhere. That’s a bold statement isn’t it. Luckily, I have more than a statement though, I have proof.
And if me sitting right this minute in my library in the house I built isn’t proof enough for you, don’t worry. This isn’t a one and done example. I have lots more. After the house, I went back to writing, but this time I applied the ideas I used to build the house, and over the next six years I wrote 5 fiction books and my memoir, Rise, which is about us building the house. (In total, I’ve had 8 books published.) What? That’s not enough proof?
No worries. Because I didn’t just write a memoir about build the house. I got it into the hands of a major agent. And it sold in a big NYC auction for a six figure deal. It was optioned for film. Optioned for reality tv. And the book was actually no where near the biggest place my story went. The next thing that happened wasn’t an accident, we did it—you guessed it—using the exact same methods we used to build the house. And what happened is, we became a global viral story.
Not like the 10,000 likes kind of viral. Not even the ‘spot on the news’ viral. We’re talking within just a couple weeks I had done media interviews, magazines and TV spots all over the world. Good morning Poland, Good morning Turkey, Good morning Canada, Good morning Italy, Indonesia. 75 countries just in the first weeks, and by the end of the first year my story had over two billion hits. Billion with a B. Wrap your head around that. It’s actually difficult to find a person who hasn’t heard about ‘the mom and her kids who built a house with YouTube videos’. Wether they heard it on social media, talk shows, radio stations, even multiple college text books and high school entrance exams around the world now use my story as an example. Convinced yet that I might be onto something with the methods I used?
Just to be sure, lastly, let me tell you about my speaking career. Because not long after Rise was published I quit my day job as a computer programmer. And I became a full time motivational speaker, getting up on stages all over the world. And you want to know why some of the biggest corporations in the world wanted me to tell their people my story? Because the ideas and strategies I had used out there with mud and 2x4s, could be instantly applied to each person at every level of a corporation to every project they have going. And that’s the same reason I decided to do this podcast. So every person who listens can instantly apply these ideas to their career, their relationships, their entire life in order to be more successful at every project.
Oh, but wait. I almost forgot to tell you my absolute favorite part!
In case you’re thinking that the only common denominator in all these situations is ME, that maybe I have some advantage, let me tell you about some of the people who have already learned these ideas from my presentations and my Build Something course. Because they were immediately able to apply these ideas and do some extraordinary things of all shapes and sizes. I’ve heard from women who became a CEO, rewired their trailer lights, remodeled a house boat, built a backyard yoga studio (both the building AND THE BUSINESS). And I’ve heard from men who opened a restaurant, built a cabin, up-leveled their job or changed careers entirely, became an actual ninja, and both men and women have written oh-so-many books. And here’s the part that will surprise you most.
Every single one of these people already had everything inside of them that they needed to achieve these things. They really did. They just needed a new way to apply their determination and stay motivated. And what I shared with them that changed everything wasn’t a gimmick or a one word mantra or anything like that. What I learned and share is how to understand the way your brain is designed to work in a variety of different circumstances and then use techniques to work with your brain and leverage existing pathways to do extraordinary things. Or, more simply put: Stop fighting against your brain, and get in sync with it to do more, better, faster. Make sense?
Really this means my ideas aren’t really all that new. They are just new ways of understanding and using very old brain habits—we’re talking caveman primitive old brain habits.
And because I’ve now applied these ideas to multiple successful projects of my own, and I’ve watched other people apply them successfully, I have the unique perspective to offer lots and lots of examples and strategies for using them. And that’s where you come in. Whether you and I made eye contact at a crucial moment across a sea of people from a stage event, or we were delayed on a flight together, stranded in an airport and ate too much popcorn together, or had cocktails at an event, went to high school together, bumped into each other on Facebook or Instagram or even TikTok, or you landed here because you were curious about a news story about me, or a friend introduced us. No matter how you found this podcast, here’s what I want you and I to get out of this: a friendship.
That simple. A friendship.
This is a space where I can share some of the things that really work for me and I know they will work for you too. And I’ll give you lots of ways to share your ideas right back my way. Because as friends we’re going to communicate and collaborate. We’re going to get together in as many places online and in person as possible. We’ll spend time together. Because that’s what friends do.
That, in a nut shell, is why I’m doing this.
When I built my house I was starting over from scratch in so many ways. And maybe you are in some ways too right now. As I imagined what starting over meant, I had this really big idea in my head of what my future could look like. I knew, beyond any doubt, that I was capable of creating a better life than the one I had in that moment. Specifically I wanted, a better job, a better place to live, a better sense of confidence, and most importantly, a better relationship with my kids and a better future for them. That’s a pretty tall order. I know. It sounds like I wanted an entirely new life, doesn’t it. Well you bet I did.
And I’m not naive, I knew that in order to change that many things about my situation, I was going to have to put in a huge amount of effort. And so were my kids. I didn’t know how I was going to do it yet—I sure as heck didn’t know yet that I was going to build an entire house—but I knew for sure I would not give up until my real life matched this picture in my head of what I wanted and what I felt capable of achieving.
If you’re ready for a big change in your life. If you know for sure that your life can be a lot better than the life you have today and you’re ready to put in the work to get there, then you’re in exactly the right place. Even if you don’t know yet what that thing is that you’re about to build—you’re still in the right place. Because together we will lock in on a big, life-changing goal, take the first steps, and then stay motivated all the way until you reach that goal. And the goal after that. And the one after that. And—you get my point.
Human’s have been on the planet for a long time. And we haven’t survived this long by chance. We’ve done well because of how efficiently our brains adapted to not merely survive, but to dream and create. That means the methods you’re about to discover are an ancient way of doing things. And learning how to use those adaptations to excel in a modern world is going to put you miles ahead. It really is that simple to change your life. Think about what your life will be like when you have an idea and immediately start taking action to make it a reality. That’s the sweet result we’ve all been looking for, isn’t it.
And that will be just the beginning. Because the next thing you’ll want to do is share these new ways of thinking with your family, and your neighbors and friends—maybe a few strangers, too. Before you know it, huge numbers of people will have ended the ridiculous habit of fighting against their own minds and learned to instead work with their strengths, to work with the way our brains are already set up to work.
That’s a day I’m really looking forward to, when someone wakes up with the idea of becoming a ninja and immediately begins that journey. Or a single parent decides to begin—right now—to start building the skills and the network to land their dream job. This really can happen. We can all learn to leverage the strengths of our own mind to propel us forward into exactly the life we want. This is huge. And it will work for you, exactly like it worked for me.
Ready to give this a try? What have you got to lose.
No matter what sort of thing I’m trying to do—or you’re trying to do—the exact same types of things hold us back. So that means we can all use the same ideas and strategies to really get us up and moving on our next project. And then we can reapply the same steps to the next project, and the one after that.
Thanks for hanging out with me today, head over to carabrookins.com for more (free) tools, and we should connect on social media too. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast, and meet me here again next week for a three-letter word that will forever change the way you approach the projects that you have absolutely no idea how to do.
I can’t wait to see what we build together.
