Episode 117: 4 Ways to Actually Do the Thing You Keep Saying You'll Do

ITUNES | SPOTIFY

In this episode, I'm digging into why we say we need to do something more than we actually do it, and what that gap is quietly costing us. Because every time you say, "I should really do that" and then don't, you're eroding trust with yourself.

It's the same reason your kid raises an eyebrow when you tell them to get off their phone while you're scrolling yours. What we DO speaks so much louder than what we SAY, including to ourselves.

I'm walking through the exact four options I give myself and my clients anytime something is sitting on the "I need to do that" list and going nowhere — whether that's the donation pile, your pelvic floor exercises, that SOP document, or the permission slip deadline. No more vague guilt. Just a clear decision tree so you can stop saying it and start doing it.

If you're a working mom who's tired of watching your to-do list grow while your follow-through stays flat, this is for you.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

•  Learn all about what it's like to work with Katelyn → www.themothernurture.com/work-with-me

• + Click here to read the full episode transcript

  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.   Hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Whew, I just got back from walking my oldest to his theater camp this week, which is amazingly in our neighborhood. It's like a 10-minute walk away, and I always think, "Oh, it'll be a nice morning walk. I'll walk him there, and then I'll walk home, and I'll get all these extra steps in." And I'm reminded as I look at myself here in the Zoom window at my frizzy but also somehow flat hair that, gosh, summer, at least in this area where we are , is so humid. It rained overnight, so it has that, like, sticky walking through water feeling. And ugh, I'm, I'm trying to enjoy the season, but I just get so hot. Oh, anyway, I think I probably would do better up north. I love our week in Michigan on the lake later in summer, and so I don't know. I don't know. Maybe, maybe we should move up north. What do you think? I've been thinking a lot, too, when I think about summer, and there are all of those posts going around about a '90s summer, giving our kids a '90s summer with freedom to be outside and play and wander the neighborhood and have popsicles and sleepovers and all of those nostalgic things that we remember. But I was remembering this phrase that circulated some when I was a kid, probably more so for our parents' generation, but the whole, "Do as I say, not as I do," that mentality that it should be enough for me to tell you what to do, and you should just follow that, and it doesn't matter whether I'm doing it or not. I'm the adult. I'm the parent. I know best. Well, we all know that doesn't actually work, especially when it comes to parenting. It is so much more effective to be the example. If you want your kids to be readers, show them what it looks like to sit down and read a book. If you want your kids to prioritize movement and taking care of their bodies, take care of your own body. Walk, exercise, do things that make your body thrive and feel good. Whereas if you tell them to read, to be a reader, but you are always on your phone, or you tell them they need to exercise and move their bodies, but you are always sitting on the couch- They start to question that because what they see is what sticks. It is about what you do so why then do we say repeatedly the thing that we need or should be doing more than we actually do the thing that we need to do? If we spent half as much time taking action as we do saying we need to take action We'd actually get a lot of stuff done. I'll, I'll give you a silly example, 'cause this is actually what sparked the inspiration for this episode, and once I noticed it, I saw it everywhere, not just in my own life, but in talking with clients and friends even. So over the weekend, our kitchen trash started smelling really bad. Remember? It's hot here. Maybe for you, too, and it just ... It cannot sit in there very long. And so it started to smell pretty bad, and every time ... Ours lives in a drawer in our kitchen island. Every time I opened that drawer, I thought, "Oof, I need to take that trash out." Not only did I think that every time I opened the, the trash, I also said it out loud multiple times a day for, like, two days. "We really need to take that trash out. Ugh, that trash smells so bad. We need to take it out. I should really take that trash out." Now, I don't know if I was waiting for someone else, like my husband, to do it, or more likely, this is usually the case for me, I never felt like I had the time in the moment to just take it out, so I said it instead. It was like the next best thing. But after two days, I got so sick of smelling it and hearing myself say, "We need to take the trash out," that I finally just took it out We do this all the time. Think about it. I'm sure you can come up with many examples in your own life. We say we need to sort through that pile of too-small kid clothes for donations versus what we pack away for maybe a younger sibling. We say it again and again. We say it more than we do it. We say it with that process document you've been meaning to create that you know would make operations easier, but instead of doing it, you just say, "We should do that." Or with your pelvic floor physical therapy exercises. How many of you have those exercises that you know you should be doing regularly? And you say it over and over, and yet you don't do it. Every time you sneeze, you say, "Oh, I should do it." Every time you try to run, you say, "Oh, I should be doing those." But you don't do it Here's the thing. The more you hear yourself say the thing you need to do without actually doing the thing, the less you trust yourself. Saying without doing slowly erodes the trust that you have with yourself Think about the kid whose parents say social media is bad, but then he sees them staring at their phones, at the algorithm all the time. He probably starts to question that statement. "Well, why is it so bad if you're doing it, if you're using it?" They doubt whether that is really true, because if it was really bad, wouldn't his parents also be avoiding it? Well, the same is true with the relationship you have with yourself. We build trust with ourselves or confidence in our ability to do things when we do things. When we go from thinking, "I need to do that," or, "I should do that," to getting that thing done. When we do, when we take action, we prove that we can follow through, and that is a really powerful place to be. Action drives motivation. Thinking doesn't necessarily drive motivation. Doing the thing drives it, creates it, and it becomes a snowball effect So you might be wondering, but how do I actually do the thing? Whenever I think about something I should be doing, something I need to do, it never feels like the right time. I'm in the middle of something else. I don't have enough time to do the thing. Someone else needs me. Something else feels more important. I'm managing kids or I'm at work and that thing is at home or vice versa Well, you really have just a few options. And I love to boil it down to just those options because our brain can make it very confusing and very overwhelming, like we don't know, when really you do know. You just need to see the options so you can own your choice. I do this with my clients all the time, and I'll be the first to say, "What other option am I missing?" So I'm gonna say that to you here. I've come up with four options, but you tell me, what else is missing from this list so that you can make an informed decision about how to actually do the thing that you say you need to do? So if it's not the right time, your first option is to put it onto your running list, and then onto your calendar for some time in the near future. I really need to sort through those clothes to get my donation bag ready to go. I can't do it right now 'cause I'm in the middle of bedtime. I just happened to walk by the pile on my way to the bathtub to get the kids in the bath. I mean, tell me if that's not your reality all of the time. So let me grab my running list from the Notes app on my phone or whatever app you use, or a scrap piece of paper if you're a paper and pen girl. Write it down. Write it down, type it in, and then the next time you're sitting down with your list, know that this is something that is really driving you nuts, and you do wanna take care of it, and you're tired of saying you need to do it. So where's it gonna go? Is it gonna be your after-bedtime chore on Thursday night? Is it gonna be, , something that you do during nap time on Saturday? Is it gonna be while your husband is doing bedtime?, come up with a solution and put it on your calendar. Option B, your second option, would be to put it on a household list that I hope you're sharing with your partner, and potentially even assign it out to someone else. Partner, caregiver, whatever that would look like. I don't know, it depends on the task I have been saying, this is real for me right now today, I have been saying for days we need to register the kids for fall soccer because the deadline's gonna be here before we know it, and I hate missing that deadline. I've been saying it over and over again, so I put it on our household list, which if you've been following along and you know how I manage Fair Play in our household, I just put that on a list that lives on our counter that my husband and I both share. And I put a deadline of tonight, and we're gonna do that after dinner. We're gonna sit at the family computer that's right in the living room while the kids are doing, I don't know, something, and we're gonna knock it out. Probably take us 10 minutes. Okay? So instead of just saying, "I need to do that," and not having a plan for it, put it on a list, either yours or your household one, and then assign it to a day and get it done. Another option, option C, would be to do the thing right now. Instead of walking by the trash, instead of saying you need to do the process document, start it. Start it. Even five minutes of it, even with a kid in tow, very imperfectly, sort one piece of clothing into a donation bag. Heck, just find a bag or a box and put it, open it up and put it next to the pile, so every time you go by, you can pick one item up, put it in either the donate pile or the save pile. So do it right now. Stop saying or thinking, "I need to wait for a larger block of time," and start the thing And your fourth option, as far as what I can tell, option D, is to do it next. So if you're in the middle of washing dishes and you walk by the trash, I will often repeat to myself, "Dishes, then trash. Dishes, then trash. Dishes, then trash," right? As soon as you are finished with the dishes, walk right over to the trash can, take it out As soon as I finish sending the email, I put two of the items away from the pile of junk that is accumulating in my office. I walked by it on the way to my desk. I thought, "You know what? This email is most important. Let me send the email, and then I'm gonna go grab one item and put it away." So do it now, do it next, put it on your list, or put it on a household list Saying you need to do something isn't a plan for actually doing it Your brain thinks that that is action. It thinks it's helping. Oh, if I just say it out loud, eventually it'll get done. And maybe that's true. But chances are, or what I've experienced, is we just continue to say it over and over again until we, , erode away at that trust that we are someone who actually follows through and can get stuff done. Instead, it starts to become this story about who we are and how we can't finish things Noticing that you need to do something and then putting it on your list or onto your calendar creates a greater likelihood of you actually following through because you've added it along with everything else onto your list of commitments And if you're just saying that you should do something but you don't actually believe that, then stop saying it. Saying that you should read more but not , actually believing that that's a valuable skill isn't helping you or your kids. It's better to just not say it So if that document for your team needs to be created and you believe that it does, then put the structures in place to help you actually do that thing And sometimes just recognizing how often you say something versus how often you actually do the thing can be enough to shine a light on the habit and force you into action. For me right now, I am tired of saying I need to empty out this bin of stuff in my office, as I said, that's accumulating here. What is the saying? If I had a nickel for every time I said it, I would be insanely rich. It's going on my list, and I'll put it into my plan, which coincides with my calendar for next week, so I actually get it done and can stop saying, "I should really find homes for all of those items." What are you tired of hearing yourself say you should do? Aren't you ready to actually do it? Yeah. I thought so. You are. Let's go do the things instead of saying we need to do the things. Let's just do them. Let's let our actions speak louder than our words. As cliche as that sounds, it is true. Let's trust ourselves and our ability to follow through and go get the stuff done. A big part of my work with clients is helping them put the systems and habits in place so they can follow through on doing the things they know they need to do. Work tasks and projects, exercise, going to bed early enough, decluttering the house. The list is endless of options But it's about having those processes so you can finally do those things. If you're tired of not following through, of watching your list of to-dos grow longer and longer while you're not really making any progress on those important but not urgent projects in your life, let's talk. I would love to help you be the kind of person who takes action, who does things and follows through. You can learn more about coaching, how it works, what it's like to work with me over on my website at themothernurture.com/work-with-me. It's themothernurture.com/work-with-me. All right, let's go get some stuff done instead of just saying we're gonna do the things. Let's be working moms who take action and follow through. All right, until the next episode, I hope you take care, and I'll talk to you soon Thank you for listening and as always, for being a part of this working mom community. You can find everything related to this episode in the show notes at themothernurture.com/podcast, you can also find information about how I support working moms just like you through one-on-one, and group coaching, as well as access a number of resources and articles all on my website at themothernurture.com. I will see you again next week for another episode of the podcast.

If you enjoyed this episode, you won’t want to miss what’s coming next! Make sure you hit the subscribe button to tune into future episodes.

If you love the Life Coach for Working Moms Podcast, I’d be so grateful if you’d rate and review it on iTunes! Simply scroll down, tap to give it a five star rating, then tap “Write a Review.” Your rating and review will help more busy working moms discover helpful episodes each week!