Transcription
Generally speaking, I tend to notice that whenever someone isn't unlocking the outcome that they want, it's really not because they don't know what to do. It has more to do with the fact that they just aren't doing the thing that they need to do.
So, if that's not you, and that's great, and you know, you've been consistent in executing for 2 years straight every single day, that's awesome. But, I will say in general, a lot of the things that we talk about, you know, I can give you 10 different tactics or 20 different little micro adjustments that you that you can make, but at the end of the day, it's like if you don't build the habit or the skill of doing those things on your own, and you aren't consistent over a long period of time, then it it honestly doesn't really matter, you know?
The other thing that I think is important to remember high-level is, and this this is something that I've I've had top of mind for a decade because I run into the same issue. Whenever, uh, like this is so true with marketing, but whenever you're trying to set some sort of goal or build something inside of a business, for example, there is never a shortage of things that you can do. Like, even LinkedIn's a great example. It's like, what are all the things that you can do to achieve your goal? There's infinite things. The The question isn't what are the things that are possible? The question is, what are the things that are possible relative to the constraints of your life? Right? Like, it's not helpful if I go, "Hey everyone, here's a tactic that you should go do. It's just going to cost you 5,000 hours and half a million bucks." That's not helpful, right? Because it doesn't it doesn't work in the context of your life.
So, if you take an extreme example like that and you pair it down, it's it's sort of like someone who you have you have severe time constraints or you you haven't gone through the the hard decision-making process of of unlocking time, right? Clearing time on your schedule, and then you go, "Oh, let me come up with a content strategy where I post five times a day across 10 different platforms every single day." Well, that's that's not helpful because you don't have time, right?
And so, I I feel very strongly, this is a really important uh point when it comes to like setting priorities for yourself, is everyone here, you need to start with, "What are my constraints?" Before we list through and go, "You know, here's 20 different things that you can do," you have to first be honest with yourself and go, "All right, what what am I actually operating within?" Right? How much time are you willing to dedicate to just LinkedIn, for example? Right? Cuz anyone can say, it's very easy to sit down and, you know, write your goals and go, "I want to use this platform to land more clients, for example." And then you can sit there and come up with 20 things that you can do, but it has to sit in the context of, "But, how how much are you actually going to prioritize this? Is this even a priority at all? Or is this just something that you're like, 'Eh, yeah, I'm sort of thinking about it.'"
So, I think as as a way to get a rep in here, I think it would be really helpful for everyone to drop drop in the chat, what is what is the constraint that you're operating within? Do you have 40 hours a week to dedicate to LinkedIn? No? Okay, so how much time do you have? Is it an hour a day? Is it 5 hours a week? Is it an hour a week? Is it 2 hours a month? How much of a priority is it for you? Because depending on the size of that priority, then you can come up with things to fill it with.
So, wherever you fall on the spectrum, the reason why I point this out is because one of one of the things that holds people back the most whenever they're trying to make progress on something, is they tend to set really unrealistic expectations and put those expectations inside of a container where failure is inevitable. Like, if you don't take the time to internalize, "Okay, so how much time do I actually have? Or what is what is my priority here?" If you don't take the time to do that, then what happens is you set this really big goal, and you think that goal should fit within the container of the thing that you unconsciously haven't really crystallized yet. So, you're like, "I have an hour per week, but my expectation is I should be able to generate 500 leads for my business per week." That is an unrealistic expectation inside the context of that priority.
And then what happens is because people aren't honest with themselves about, "Here's my goal, here's my expectation, and here's the context it sits in," which is time, resource, priority of some sort, then what happens is they fail to achieve it or they fail to see meaningful progress toward this unrealistic goal relative to the size of the priority that they're giving it in their life, and then what happens? They get really down on themselves. A lot of inner critic, self-negativity talk, right? They get really frustrated. "Oh, I guess this isn't for me. Oh, I guess this doesn't work. Oh, I guess this platform is broken. Oh, I guess" And the reason that happens isn't because any of those things are real. The reason that happens is because you've set a goal or you've created an expectation that doesn't fit inside of the container. Does that make sense?
I think this is this is one of those things that is so simple, but you fail to realize how much this informs your day-to-day experience. Right? And if you're not honest with yourself about, "What's the real priority? How big is the container? How much time and resources am I actually giving this?" If you're not honest with with yourself about those things, then inevitably, it's not going to work, it's going to fail cuz you don't have the the size of priority or vehicle to accomplish this unrealistic goal, and then you're just going to get really negative, really down on yourself, and then what? And then you you quit. And that's why like the biggest risk that people face with so many of these things isn't actually the platform itself or the niche or the audience or the offer. The biggest risk is people stop. The biggest risk is that people give up. And they give up because they're they're not honest with themselves about unrealistic goal sitting inside of size of priority. So, I think that that's just a really helpful concept to understand.
The reason why I feel like that's also a good place to start is because we can talk about these different things, but like, if it it's not helpful to you if I give you a bunch of things to do, and then you go, "Great, my takeaway from this is I should go do all of those things." Maybe, you know, if you have 20 hours a week, maybe you can. If you have 1 hour a week, you probably can't. And so then, depending on the size of the priority, the game for you becomes, "All right, Cole gave me, you know, 20 different things that I could do. It's not about how do I do all 20 things?" Progress is about looking at that list of 20 things and going, "You know what? I think relative to the amount of time that I have, I think I can prioritize and do this one thing. Or I think I can do these two things." And that allows you to set a more realistic goal. And a realistic goal executed well and consistently is always better than an unrealistic goal that never gets executed on. So, I feel very strongly that this this sort of mentality and this way of thinking is crucial. Okay?
It is not about all the things that you can do. It's about identifying, "What are the Of all the things that I can do, what are the one or two things that I can prioritize inside of the context of how much resource I actually have?" And resource is usually constrained by time.
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