Category / growth

by Nathan Coumbe

Consistency is key

“If you want to change your body, being consistent is more important than anything else.”

—Precision Nutrition, “Prepare for liftoff”

This is wonderful advice. But it doesn’t just apply to your body.

With anything you pursue, consistency is the key factor that will determine success or failure, change or stagnation.

If you want to be a writer, showing up to the page consistently—upon waking for Morning Pages or each evening on a blog—is the most important thing you can do.

If you want to start a business, showing up to work on it every day—writing copy, sending emails, building an offer—is the way to do it.

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” To be the thing you want to be, you have to do it day after day.

What do you want to become? What do you need to do consistently to become that?

by Nathan Coumbe

Avoiding tension

Perhaps that’s what’s got you stuck… For humans are born for tension.

It’s only by overcoming strife and difficulty that we figure out who we are.

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal…”

—Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, p. 105

The tension in our lives gives us something to pull or push against. And thereby a way to become who we’re capable of being.

Perhaps that is who we are meant to be.

by Nathan Coumbe

If you’re surviving, you’re succeeding

Every day that you’re still “playing the game“ is a day you’re moving closer to achieving your goals. 

If you’re still in the game (whatever that game is to you), you’re succeeding. 

You might not be moving forward quickly. In fact, you might be standing still. 

Sometimes, literally surviving—keeping your head above the water—is all you’re capable of doing. And that’s enough. 

Because until you quit, there’s still the possibility of winning. 

Staying in the game the first, and most important, part of playing the game. 

But once you’re out, there’s no longer any possibility of winning. 

by Nathan Coumbe

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly

You’ve been told your entire life you should do things well.

Perfectly.

Like an expert.

And if you can’t do it well, you might as well not even bother to do it at all.

That’s wrong. You can’t instantly be great at doing ANYTHING.

The only place to start is at the level we currently are.

The always relevant, and sometimes irreverent, Zig Ziglar said one of my favorite quotes of all time:

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly.”

What did he mean?

Simple: anything worthwhile requires that we start as a beginner.

Golfing, tennis, writing, painting, jazz improv… It doesn’t matter what it is.

If it’s worth pursuing, you owe it to yourself to be bad at it. And then get better at it every single day.

He uses the example of someone learning to play golf: if everyone could join the PGA Masters tour after a couple of lessons with the local pro, there’s no reason to do it.

Give yourself time to do things badly…

On the way to doing them well.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Overcome Overwhelm with One Tiny Step

I’m sure you’ve experienced this before: you’re tired, exhausted, stressed out… You have too much on your plate and feel like you’ll never get everything done.

You’re staring at the car keys to drive to the gym…

Or at the blinking cursor on your keyboard where you’re writing your next post…

Or maybe it’s the pile of stuff in the corner you’ve been meaning to organize and put away…

Or that stack of books you want to read but just never get around to…

And every time you look at it, you get hit with a wave of anxiety. You just don’t see how you can do it all. 

And because you can’t do it all, or you can’t do it all perfectly, you don’t do ANY of it.

I’ve been there. There have been days where I just didn’t feel like dragging myself to the gym. Days when I had no desire to write another blog post…

But I learned from my Precision Nutrition coaches how to get out of the f*** it mentality and make steady progress. The secret?

Just do 1% of whatever it is.

If I don’t feel like exercising, I tell myself “I’ll just do my warm-up and that’s it.” I don’t even tell myself “I’ll see how I feel.” I just do the warm-up. 

I’d say 80-90% of the time, I end up doing the whole workout. But there have been times when I just did the warm-up. And you know what? That’s okay.

It’s so much better to do 1% of something every single day than it is to do 100% of something 3 days in a row… And then burn out, not doing ANYTHING for the next two weeks (or two years in the case of me exercising at one point…)

It’s the Kaizen method, the Japanese practice of tiny improvements over a long period of time that lead to massive gains in effectiveness.

You can do this with anything that’s overwhelming you. Just take the next right step.

  • Have a book you need to read but don’t have the motivation to tackle it? Just tell yourself you’ll read one page… Or one paragraph… Or one sentence
  • Need to declutter or clean? Put away exactly one thing or sweep one corner
  • Just write one sentence instead of feeling obligated to write an entire blog post

Doing that small step is better than nothing at all. And if that’s all you do, you still did better than zero. 

But chances are, you’ll do that one thing and feel motivated to keep going. If you do, then run with it! 

But if you don’t, feel satisfied knowing you did something. And that you’ll do something again tomorrow. 

(H/t to James Clear for reminding me about this practice. Read his post on the subject here.)

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by Nathan Coumbe

The messy middle

Any worthwhile pursuit has a messy middle. In his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller talks about what it’s like to cross a stretch of water. We leave the shore and eventually arrive on the opposite side.

But in between those two points, we have “the hard work of the middle.” That’s where the journey becomes a slog, the motions seem repetitive, and the effort seems useless.

Pursuing a goal, starting a business, losing weight… All of these pursuits have that same hard work to be done in the middle.

In almost every case, we start strong and make decent, even quick, progress. But soon after we hit a point where we lose focus and motivation.

“Why am I at the gym for the third time this week? I just want to go home…”

“I really just want to pig out on pizza, beer, and ice cream. I don’t feel like cooking…”

We get frustrated, hit plateaus, and our motivation wanes.

It’s when we hit that point we have to rely on our “why”.

Our reason for pursuing whatever it is has to be strong enough to get us through the messy middle. Seth Godin calls this “the dip” in his book of the same name.

Without a strong why, without a reason to keep pushing through, we burn out and quit.

Not only does our motivation have to be strong, but we have to revisit it every day. Zig Ziglar had a saying about this rule:

“Motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it every day.”

First, identify a strong reason why you want to pursue something.

Then make time every day to review it. Keep your motivation front of mind.

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by Nathan Coumbe

What does coaching mean to you?

I heard the best description of what a coach does this week on Michael Hyatt’s podcast, “Lead to Win”:

“I love developing people and helping [them] to see the best potential in them and call it out. And that is what coaching is all about.”

That quote is from Michele Cushatt, Chief Coaching Officer at Michael Hyatt & Company. (You can check out the episode here.)

Her definition of coaching leapt out at me… I had to listen to it at least three times. 

Most of us have an image in our head of a coach as a cheerleader… Maybe it’s someone who tells you “great job” when you finish a task or make a little progress. 

Or maybe “coach” conjures images of someone putting you through drills or practices to help you develop a skill. 

Coaches can and should do those things. But that’s not the essence of what coaching is…

A great coach sees the potential in another person and calls it out! That’s the key. They bring forth what’s already inside someone else. 

They help someone become the best person they can be. The person they are destined to become.

Do you have someone in your life doing that for you? If not, can you find someone?

Or is there someone you know who’s got tons of potential but can’t see it? Or hasn’t developed it? 

Why can’t you take the role of coach and call it out to them?

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by Nathan Coumbe

Are personality tests preventing you from being yourself?

If you’re like most people in the United States, you’ve taken at least one personality assessment at some point in your life.

DiSC. Myers-Briggs. StrengthsFinder. Enneagram. There are too many to name, but I’ll bet you’ve taken at least one.

On the DiSC profile, I’m a CSI, with an extremely high C. That means I tend to be:

  • Analytical
  • Slow to make decisions
  • Precise & detail-oriented
  • A rigid rule-follower

And I can attest that all of those things are 100% true about me.

But because I’m so rigid, I tend to take everything that I learn as a rule that can’t be broken.

For example, when I get “career results” back about what I’m ideally suited for, I instantly assume those are the only jobs I can do. It’s how my personality works.

So when the field of marketing was nowhere to be seen in my “ideal” careers, I immediately wrote it off as something not worth looking into.

Even though I was fascinated by marketing…

Even though I wanted to learn how to do it ethically, with a service-oriented style…

Even though I could use it to help make the world a better place. To help other people start and grow successful businesses…

But I couldn’t! Because a personality test told me so.

Doesn’t that sound ridiculous?

Personality tests are great for:

  • Developing self-awareness
  • Understanding your natural tendencies
  • Learning about your strengths and weaknesses
  • Discovering how best to relate to other people

But they do not define who you are or what you can do.

If anything, they help you learn how you would do certain things.

So now, years later, I’m involved in marketing—doing it and teaching it to others on a regular basis. And I do it in an analytical, detail-oriented, service-to-others way.

Remember that personality tests are tools, nothing more. One of my mentors, Ashley Logsdon, put it this way:

“Never make the profile bigger than the person.”

They aren’t supposed to define what you do, but HOW you do them.

This is just one of the many conversations going on in the 48 Days Eagles Entrepreneur group during our Monday Mentor Calls.

If you want to get into the right network to help you level up your relationships and career, join us now!

Click this link to see what all you get when you become 48 Days Eagle.

by Nathan Coumbe

Are you scared of failing? Or…

Are you afraid the path you’re walking is taking you somewhere you don’t want to go?

The former means you should probably keep going.

The latter is a warning from your inner self, your conscience, your child artist… Whatever you want to call that little voice that whispers truth in your ear.

But here’s the problem:

Often the two fears are hard to distinguish. To figure out which it is requires time for introspection, writing, silence… Sometimes even experimentation with what’s scaring you.

Often this fear manifests itself around our careers.

Are you afraid you might fail at being a salesperson? Or does the idea of selling this particular thing make your skin crawl?

Remember: one means you should try. The other means you should rethink your path.

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by Nathan Coumbe

3 Easy Tips to Help You Get Unstuck

Being stuck is rough. It can leave you with feelings of hopelessness, frustration, or even anger.

Maybe you’re in a dead-end job you can’t stand…

Or your money situation is quickly moving from bad to worse…

Maybe you don’t even know why you’re feeling stuck. All you know is you are.

So how do you break the logjam?

The good news is there are a few things you can do now that’ll help you get unstuck:

  1. Learn Something New: This might be a new skill, a new way of doing the same thing, or just a new piece of information that helps you change your mindset. Pick up a book from the library or Amazon. Type your problem into YouTube and find 100 videos that’ll give you a new approach. Or listen to a really insightful podcast or TED talk. I wrote up an entire blog post on how you can get a free (or nearly so) education WITHOUT having to go back to school. Check it out here.
  2. Take a Break: One thing many folks do is bang their head against the problem over and over without seeing any new results. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop and walk away from the problem. This could be as simple as going for a 20-minute walk outside. Or it could be even more extreme: a weeklong vacation to leave all your troubles behind. Regardless of how you choose to take a break, you’ll come back to the problem with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective.
  3. Find a Teacher or Mentor: This tip is the one that’s helped me the most. Coaches, mentors, and teachers have a way of looking at the same problem you’re dealing with and seeing it in a whole new light. I was stuck in my career, hating every single moment I was at work, but I thought there was no other way to live. “That’s just how work is…” Then I had a coach show me that work could be a part of my life’s purpose AND enjoyable. Now I’m in a job I love and doing work that matters. All thanks to an outsider’s perspective.

Speaking of mentors, my coach Dan Miller is hosting a free masterclass today at two different times: 1pm CDT and 7pm CDT.

And the best part? The whole thing is about getting you unstuck no matter your problem.

“5 Reasons Big Dreamers Get Stuck And How To Blast Through Them To Success”

You can register for your seat here.

If you’re tired of going it alone and want an outside perspective on your problem, I strongly encourage you to sign up.

You’ll come away with fresh ideas, a renewed sense of hope, and strategies for moving forward on your most important goals.

There’s still time to register, but it’s happening TODAY. So make sure you sign up before it’s too late.

Save your spot now by clicking here!

I’ll be there too. I hope to see you this afternoon.