Episode 60: Tired of Not Following Through? Here's What to Do Instead
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Tired of making plans you never follow through on? In this episode, we’re talking about why it’s so hard to do the things you say you’re going to do — and what to do about it. Whether it’s getting more sleep, meal planning, or tackling your to-do list, you’ll learn five simple, practical strategies to rebuild trust with yourself and start taking action (even when life is busy).
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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Hey there. I've got a quick question for you. Do you ever feel like there's never enough time to do all the things that you need to do as a working mom? If you're anything like my clients and a lot of the listeners I've been talking to, I'm guessing the answer is yes, no matter what. You try from time blocking and turning off notifications to fancy planners or intricate lists, full of color coded categories.
Nothing seems to really have an impact on the size of your to-do list, let alone how you feel about how much you got done each day. If you resonate with that, I've got something for you. I am bringing back my popular training called Plenty of Time, four Steps to Create More Space in Your Working Mom Schedule.
During this class, I'm gonna walk you through exactly how to get things done in the time that you have, no matter what season of life you're in or how busy you are. It is happening on Thursday, July 31st at 12 noon Eastern time, 9:00 AM Pacific. No complicated tools or just double down mentality. This is just a simple, repeatable way to make progress on that never ending list.
Go to the mother nurture.com/class to get all signed up. Again, that's the mother nurture.com/class. I can't wait to see you there.
You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.
Hey, welcome back to the. Podcast. I am so excited to be with you today talking about this topic that came up yesterday in a consult call someone who is interested in pursuing coaching. And I love it when someone comes to a call and knows exactly what they want from.
This kind of support and for this particular working mom, in short, she wanted support in following through. She's tired of planning. She's tired of saying she's going to do things and she wants to learn how to follow through. And it had me thinking about my corporate days , if you haven't heard my story before, well.
My career is a long and jumpy one as to how I got here today. But I did work in corporate. I had all three of my kids on a 12 week maternity leave from corporate, went back to traveling and pumping and a typical in office nine to five job. And I don't know if you have ever worked with someone who was.
I don't know how else to say this, but flaky, the person who always is quick to say, yeah, that's a great idea, or let's definitely create that document, or put together that report or get that meeting on the calendar for all of us to discuss this project. But then the days get busy, weeks go by, you're back with them in another meeting and you bring up, Hey, this thing we thought was so great, we were gonna do it to check in on the status.
And they again say, oh yes, I'm sorry. Things just got busy. But I'll definitely, I'm gonna do that. And after so long you realize that it's either not going to happen or you or someone else is going to have to do the thing if it's important because this person is just not going to follow through.
Whether or not their excuses are legitimate is not the point. I'll be the first to say. That most professionals and I coach women from all different types of industries and companies and parts of the country and world. We're all being asked to do way too much, where employers are cutting staff, shrinking teams, which just means that everybody is doing more than what they are supposed to be responsible for.
So again, it's not about that person not being busy. It is about our trust in them because you stop trusting the person who says yes, because what they've actually shown you in practice is that they're not ever going to actually do the thing that they said yes to. The original task doesn't get done, and.
We stop asking them to do really anything because their actions have shown us what to expect. The colleague who doesn't do what they say they will. That's also many of us in a lot of scenarios in our own lives. You say you're going to go to bed early tonight and actually prioritize sleep, but then you stay up late scrolling your phone and you wake up tired again the next day.
Or you say you're going to meal plan for the week so that you can eat at home more. But then the weekend when you thought you would do that gets away from you and you end up defaulting to takeout again because the random ingredients that you have in your fridge don't exactly make up a meal that you would want to eat or you say you're going to block focused time on your calendar so you can finally make progress on your to-do list.
The things that are important for you to do. But instead, you spend that time replying to every email and ping that comes in during that hour. I hear it over and over again in my conversations with working moms. It's not that you don't know what to do, you do know. You know that you need more sleep, you know that you want to cook more at home and what you need to do to make that happen, you know that you need to exercise for your mental health and for your longevity, and you know that you need to set aside time to make progress on your priorities because no one else is going to do that for you.
But it's the follow through that fails. It's the follow through. That breaks down.
This working mom that I was talking to yesterday loves to create plans. I so relate to that. I too love the process of creating a plan, of making a project plan of breaking things down and thinking about how I'm gonna get it done and what needs to happen in what order, and on what timeline.
Thinking back to her childhood, she said, I've always been a planner. I've always made lists and loved scheming and strategizing and creating processes. But when it comes time to actually execute on the plans to follow through, she's not doing it. She gets distracted. She has shiny object syndrome. She second guesses her plan after seeing someone else do something that, I don't know, maybe I should be doing that, or she lets other people hijack her time.
Maybe you can relate to some of that. She said to me, I'm tired of not doing the things I say I'm going to do.
Here's the thing, it feels really good to do the things you say you're going to do. It feels good to follow through. Regardless of the outcome, maybe the workout that you tried, maybe the workout that you did wasn't your favorite, or the project you thought was a top priority, ends up being a bust. Keeping your commitments to yourself builds trust.
It builds confidence, and honestly, it has a ripple effect into so many other areas of your life. So how do you follow through on the things that you say you want to do
well, I have some ideas because I've been thinking about this not just from the conversation yesterday, but in general it always is a topic that comes up in coaching. But before I tell you what my ideas are for following through. I just wanna say that if you have gotten into a pattern of flaking on yourself, of not following through and doing the things you say you're going to do, just know that that is a pattern that you have now started to follow, and so your tendency will be to repeat that pattern.
Just like once we start to get into the habit of scrolling our phone before bed or biting our nails or any other habit that we don't like,
it's good to notice that because it can be a little bit more of an uphill climb to shift that pattern or break that habit. Go back and listen if you haven't already, to the mini series I did on change. To learn more about why changing patterns and habits feels hard sometimes it's episodes 54, 55 and 56.
I'll link to those in the show notes, but just be aware of that if that is where you find yourself right now. So I'm gonna walk you through five ideas that I have for actually following through on the things you say you want to do, and I'm gonna use the Sleep example as a way to illustrate. Each of these ideas.
So if you, maybe this is you, you want to get more sleep, but you're just not prioritizing, getting to bed on time, having a good bedtime routine, whatever it is that you need to be able to get more sleep, this will be helpful for you. And if you have something else, just use this as your example and apply it to your own scenario.
So first, it sounds cliche, but it is. A step for a reason. I want you to remind yourself of what is important about the thing you want to do. I know you might be thinking like, who has the time to stop and journal, or even just think about this, but it can be a very simple, quick question that you ask yourself.
This is what you would ask, what do I want to learn, or what question do I want to answer by doing this thing? So your answer might be, I wanna see if I am able to focus better after I get eight hours of sleep at night. Or I wanna see if I wake up feeling more rested when I get to bed by 10 o'clock.
Ultimately, we wanna know if I follow through on this thing, will it make a difference and how hard is it going to be to follow through? Sometimes what is important about this thing is just that you want this thing done and off your to-do list. That is okay, but name that. . The answer to that question in that scenario then is I want to see if I feel better not having this task hanging over my head anymore.
And the only way to answer those questions to find out is to do the thing. So it's not just what's my why.
It's what is it that I want to learn, or what is the question I want to answer by doing this thing?
The second tip is to ask yourself if the thing you're trying to do is realistic. So this is where I see a lot of follow through breakdown because what you're trying to do is too much, it's too big of a goal or too big of a change, and there's no way to actually do it without overhauling everything. So if you are going to bed, let's say regularly right now, on average at midnight.
Giving up two hours in your evening, going two hours earlier to get to bed by 10 o'clock is a big leap. Maybe following through would be easier if you started with 15 minutes earlier or 30 minutes earlier even something that you could actually see yourself doing. It's like shopping for clothes or something like that.
It's shop for the lifestyle. You have, not the lifestyle that you want. Don't go buying a bunch of suits or fancy dresses. If your lifestyle is shorts or jeans and t-shirts, you can upgrade that. Do a step up from where you are, but making that big leap. It is not gonna be practical. It's not gonna be doable.
Third, I want you to walk through the steps of following through and really visualize it. This is one that is too often skipped and it is a game changer. If you can't picture how or where or when you're going to do this thing, it's going to be hard for you to actually do it. With sleep, like what will you do at 10 o'clock to get ready for bed?
What are the steps when you climb into bed? Are you reading? Are you scrolling? Or are you just turning out the lights and trying to go right to sleep? What about the chores? When will those get done? How does this new bedtime fit with your kids'? Bedtime? What happens if you are in the middle of a really great show?
Play through that scenario. Will you turn it off? Will you allow yourself to finish it? If it's within reason, what are you going to do to combat the auto play on the next episode? Think it through and think through what might get in your way so you are prepared with an answer for all of those scenarios.
Fourth, I want you to think about committing to just a short timeline. I gave this coaching to a client earlier in the week.
What do you feel like you can actually do? Maybe you wanna commit to doing this for five days in a row, or three days in a row, or one week. Give yourself a clear, doable deadline. No problem. It's like the thought I could do anything for 15 minutes, right? When you're getting to the end of maybe a really hard workout, it's like, okay, just 10 more reps.
I can do 10 more reps.
We wanna create conditions for success, so set a deadline or an end date that you feel confident you can actually do. You can always extend it. You can always create a new one after that. But do it for three days or do it for five days. Prove to yourself that you can follow through.
And lastly, this is one of my favorite coaching questions as we create a plan, is to think about to whom or what can you be accountable ultimately? You wanna be accountable to yourself. You want to say that you're going to do something and then do it, but as you are strengthening that muscle and building trust with yourself again, think about creating some additional accountability.
Think about it like bumpers on a bowling alley. Perhaps you tell a spouse or a friend to check in on you. I have done this many times with my husband, and here's kind of what I say. It always makes me chuckle, but it works.
I might say to my husband, Hey, I really wanna prioritize getting more sleep, and I'm going to aim to be in bed by 10 o'clock each night. You have my permission. I'm saying it right now to remind me that I am supposed to be going to bed if I'm still up doing things after 10 o'clock. I might not like it. I might be mad at you or grumpy about the fact that you are telling me to go to bed, but that's okay.
I still would like you to do it even if that's how I react in the moment, so you can borrow that if it's helpful, if getting some accountability from those in your life. Accountability is a big piece of coaching as well to create, again, those guardrails as you learn to do this for yourself, there is no shame in hiring a coach or support to help you learn to be accountable to yourself.
It's a huge part of all coaching, but especially my group program Beyond Balance, where everyone is flexing and strengthening this muscle. Because here's the thing, once you actually follow through and feel what it's like, or you are reminded of what it's like, you'll want to do it again.
You'll start getting the results you've been looking for, the sleep, the strength, the career growth, and you'll trust yourself again. You will become someone who decides to do something and then just does it. You'll know instinctively how to make things realistic and doable, and then you will just go do them.
If you want to follow through and finally do things that you need or want to do, you need time and space, and you need to know how to prioritize. I'm teaching a simple, repeatable process that will help you get things done in the time that you have and create more space in your schedule. In my upcoming training, plenty of time.
If you haven't signed up yet, head to themothernurture.com/class. I would love to see you there. And as always, you can find all of the links and details from today's episode in the show notes over at themothernurture.com/podcast. Thanks for being here and listening all the way to the end. I appreciate you so much, and until the next episode, take care.
I'll talk to you soon.
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