Episode 25

Hello and good morning to all you good follow-through-ers! I keep saying morning because it's morning for me. I know it might not be morning for you, but it just feels good to me to say good morning because it's a fresh start to the day for me. I want every time you tune into this episode to feel like a fresh start for you, too. 

Today I want to cover a condensed version of the six obstacles to change and the six resources of consistent action that will help you accomplish follow through. I'm going to breeze through them as a reminder.

The first hidden obstacle is a lack of courage capital. When we're not in the habit of stretching outside our comfort zone a little bit on a consistent basis, we lose the capacity to engage in those ways in those areas that require a little bit of a stretch.

Obstacle number two is weak expression of our goals. That's when we get vague and imprecise with what it is we're trying to accomplish, which means we can’t access the energy of our passion.

Obstacle number three is improper use of creativity. That means we're letting something called negativity bias get traction in our minds, imagining the worst more than we're imagining the best possible outcomes. That unconscious habit derails us because then we believe these worst-case scenarios are true, which stops us from moving forward.  

Obstacle number four is a weak foundation of stamina. That's when our health and our physiological integrity is not what it could be, so we just don't have the energy. We don't have the physical capacity to hold a focus and follow through on it because our bodies are not properly prepared and trained for this work.

Obstacle number five is process overwhelm. That's the habit of looking at a big picture and focusing on a goal from a high level but not being able to break it down into small, incremental steps. This leads to a sense of being stalled out because we can’t see what our next steps could be. 

Number six is trying to change by ourselves, being a lone wolf, thinking that we've got to do this independently and be some kind of hero who bucks up and grinds it through without getting any support. And that's simply unnecessary. That’s not how human life works.

So now, corresponding to these six obstacles that we need to overcome are the six resources that we focus on in The Follow Through Formula. As I said in the Master Class, this is something you can do on your own.

The first essential resource is courage, which we develop by consistently stretching ourselves and challenging ourselves to do things that feel a little bit scary or a little bit risky or bit of a stretch for us during the day. It involves paying attention to where we're withdrawing or shying away and, instead, engaging just a little bit.

The second essential resource that we need is insight into our purpose. It's not always easy to see, let alone hold, our purpose when externally we are being bombarded by information, ideas, distractions, and many different narratives that others want us to adopt. We can get lost pretty easily, even in the course of a day. Our energy and attention can get scattered, making it unavailable for what we really want to do. So, getting insight into our purpose and having a way internally to keep re-identifying what our current purpose is, is very important.

Essential resource number three is conscious creativity: the ability to actively and intentionally use our imagination to our advantage so that we are moving our attention toward best possible outcomes instead of worst-case scenarios.

Essential resource number four is physiological resilience. So that's where we're actually building up a physiological capacity to hold the charge of change and progress toward what matters.

Essential resource number five is process neuro-hacking. This is training ourselves to look at any large goal and break that down into the small steps we can take to keep moving forward.  

Essential resource number six is partnership, getting help and support from other people, accessing it and learning how to ask for it in a successful way.

I wanted to review these obstacles and resources to remind you that follow through can be simple and easy. You have six different avenues through which you could be moving forward: developing your courage, defining your purpose, using your imagination properly, building up your physical stamina, learning to break things down into small steps, and getting help. If you do any one of those over the course of a day, then you are following through.

Let’s say you hit a day where you just can't get a handle on exactly what your current purpose really is. Well, if you're doing something to build up the stamina in your body, if you're taking care of the physical vehicle, then you are still following through on that day. Or say you fall off the wagon and you just can't get it together to exercise on a particular day. If once during the day you line up some help and get somebody on your side to support you or be an accountability partner for your exercise program, or help you when your imagination turns to the dark side and starts painting worst case scenarios, you are still following through. The same goes for developing courage. If you step outside of your comfort zone even a little bit in the course of a 24-hour period, you are following through.

This is the basis of the follow through formula. If you put your attention on accessing and developing even one of these resource areas during any single day, what that means is over time there is no way that you're not eventually going to reach goals that are important to you. Because all six of these resources are like a slippery slope—once you get on any one of these practices, they're going to start funneling you and guiding you towards being a human being who can take action on the things that matter most.

The idea here is that we make it simple and easy, so that during the course of every day you can do one of these things, and over time your entire habit body will become oriented to follow through. Your mind and body will be trained to pursue what matters most in a sustainable way.

It's not complicated. It's not hard. It's using the diversity that's built into the approach to your advantage so that you can get a little bit of traction every single day. If you've been listening along to each episode, you've been hearing the arc of my ups and downs as well as the things that are coming up for me in the process of following through on my commitment to make this knowledge available to people in simple and graspable terms.

This is where you get daily inspiration for defining your purpose and getting traction for action, following through on you. This has been episode 25 of The Follow Through Formula Podcast. A short and sweet one today so you can jump into the rest of your day without delay and have a good one! I'm Rick Lewis. This is The Follow Through Formula Podcast, and I'll be back tomorrow.