Episode 336: Getting Your Work Done Early + Easily (Part 1: Content Creation)

Episode 336: Getting Your Work Done Early + Easily (Part 1: Content Creation)

If you hate that you’re always leaving important tasks until the last minute, I want to invite you to listen to today’s podcast episode. 

It’s the first in a three part series where I share all of the behind the scenes perfectionism work I needed to do during the most recent PGSD launch to get all the content created early (and easily).

Creating the most recent PGSD launch was a profound experience for me. I had to learn, and unlearn, a lot about myself. It was an exercise in releasing my perfectionism handbrake – in a BIG way. 

And I know that the lessons I learned from this experience are going to make a big difference for you and your business, regardless of whether you’re a coach or not.

Tune into the first episode today. The other two episodes will be released over the next two Mondays.

PGSD is opening to new students on 27 July 2022:

The PGSD Process will get you out of your own way in your business and have you making more money more easily. The doors to Perfectionists Getting Shit Done will be opening at 6am New York time on 27 July and closing at 11:59pm New York time on 2 August 2022. To find out more about the program and be the first to know when the doors open, join the waitlist here: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.

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If you hate that you’re always leaving important tasks until the last minute, I invite you to listen to this episode. I’m sharing a behind the scenes look at all the work I had to do on my perfectionism to get all of my launch content created early and easily.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project, a podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake, so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Perfectionist Getting Shit Done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.

I am so excited to be sharing this three part series with you where I am taking you behind the scenes of our most recent PGSD launch and the work that I personally had to do on my perfectionism handbrake, to get out of my own way and get all of the content completed for the launch early and easily, which was something I truly hadn’t done before. I have probably launched at this point, I want to say 20 times plus for PGSD and then other courses I used to have in the past. So I had been doing this for a while.

And I had always left different elements until the last minute. And there were a lot of emotional reasons for that, and perfectionist reasons for that. And I go into that in this series. So I have decided to divide it up into three parts. Initially, I’m just going to do two parts, which is why in some of the updates, you might hear me mention that, but we’re doing three parts. So this episode is me sharing what went on in the pre pre launch period.

So just so you’re aware, the pre pre launch period is before the podcast series went out the podcast series that I created on procrastination. The pre launch period is when that podcast series was going out. And we were talking about the doors to PGSD, that they were going to be opening very soon. And then the open cart period, the launch period is when enrollment for PGSD was open. We do open and close enrollment and we are strict with closing enrollment.

It isn’t a program where we say it’s open and close, but then actually you can always get in. You can’t always get in. We’ve had people emailing us since the cart close saying that they regret not saying they want to join. So we’ve said join us for our next opening so that at the end of July will be open for enrollment for one week. If you are not yet on the PGSD waitlist and you’re not yet a PGSD, then make sure you go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.

If you can relate to what I talk about on this podcast, if you want to plan properly as perfectionist and get out of your own way, then you are going to love being with us inside PGSD. So I really want to invite you in, in our next enrollment period because this episode and the two following this are really sharing so much of myself, as I always love to on the podcast. But I really feel like I shared some things that are potentially embarrassing a lot of my raw and real thoughts. And I really wanted to do that in the moment because I think maybe I even mentioned this in the first part of the update.

So sorry, if I’m repeating myself, I recorded that like two months ago, I haven’t really listened to it all. Trust me my past self that it’s good enough to just put out without having to listen to it all. So yeah, I love sharing these things. When I’m doing an in the moment update, I did this for the last launch as well. It was episode 316 and 317. If you want to go back and listen to that, if you enjoy these episodes, because when we’re reflecting in hindsight like it’s so helpful to do that. We do want to be evaluating and reflecting.

But there are so many wins and highs and lows along the way that if I was just to get on the podcast and share what I do share at the end of the third episode, like my full debrief of the launch and the wins and the lessons, that’s great, but it’s so helpful to really get a sense for what it actually feels like to be working on your perfectionism handbrake and getting out of your own way, like what that looks like in practice, the day to day of that, and also the evolution of that and that it can often feel like one step forward and two steps back. It’s not this linear journey and it’s not meant to be.

So I really hope that by sharing this style of podcast episode, it really helps to normalize your own journey with your perfectionism handbrake and gives you some permission for it not to just be this experience. It’s in a nice little box wrapped with a bow and is just, you know, this perfect experience that we wanna have that it is going to feel messy and uncomfortable. And that’s part of it. So anyway, we’ll finish this little intro so that you can begin listening to my updates from this episode. As I mentioned, there are three parts this is the very first part in the next episode.

I will be sharing what I worked on, after I created all the content for the launch. And then in the third episode, the third part, I will be sharing what happened, all the numbers, everything that happened during every single day of the launch period. And if you are, regardless of what kind of business you have, I know these episodes will be helpful. But if you are doing any kind of launch or promotion, you definitely don’t have to be a coach.

But if you’re doing a promotion or anything, where there’s maybe a week, like it was for me, or a set period, where you are expecting there to be sales, and you have created some hype around it, and you’ve been talking about it, and there’s a period where it’s kind of like feels very vulnerable of this period where we’re like, Okay, did it work, and we really get to have our ideas meet reality and see that. That’s often during that period, that can really be some highs and lows. And so I really wanted to make sure some of these, even the two updates. I wanted to share like that experience day to day today. And so I really hope that’s helpful. So anyway, I hope you enjoy this. And yeah, let’s get into it.

This episode is going to be a compilation of recordings to share the behind the scenes of the PGSD launch in April 2022. So today, I’m recording, it is the first of March. And I’m really in these episodes, wanting to capture something that I’m particularly working on with this launch. So I did a launch behind the scenes episode thing series for the podcast episode 316 and 317. I shot a behind the scenes look at the self coaching that goes on and just I guess more of a top level overview of what my process is and how I work on my perfectionism as I’m launching.

And for this one, which is about procrastination, the content of the launch itself is about procrastination. The work I’m doing personally with this launch is creating the content ahead of time, and well ahead of time, not just doing it a couple of days before it goes out. But I’m creating everything for the launch by the 27th of March 2022. And the launch will really begin at the end of April. So the podcast series will start on the 18th of April. So that’s the beginning of the pre launch period. And then the launch period, which is when the doors to PGSD are open, we’ll be starting on the 27th of April.

So there’ll be a full month between when I finished creating the content in terms of podcast episodes, emails, Instagram content, anything like that and when it actually goes out. And my brain does not think that’s a good idea and that is exactly why it’s the work that I’m doing. In the last PGSD launch, I did a lot of the work ahead of time. And then I could really just feel myself dragging my feet towards the end and not being as diligent with my power planning. And that’s another thing I really want to talk about in these episodes is power planning during the launch and how I’m doing that.

And yeah, I guess behind the scenes look at that as well. But I could feel that last launch, I was just not wanting it to be done ahead of time. I think it felt too calm not to do that too easy. And that there was a bit of overworking or trying to create the feeling that I was overworking so I could feel deserving of things. And also, I think my brain has been making a connection for years now between doing things at the last minute and getting a great result and it feels vulnerable to do that work ahead of time.

Like it feels like there’s less control over the result. If I do things ahead of time, and just let them be done. And then the emails go out and the podcast episodes go out, like it feels a bit disconnected from my experience of it. And I’ve just really been investigating those thoughts and getting coaching on them. And the best coaching is where you take the coaching get and apply it and so that’s what I’m going to be doing. With this launch is it’s really going to be a vehicle for me to create safety around, doing work ahead of time that create that emotional safety around it.

And to also let myself feel the resistance that comes up and not use myself probably try and self sabotage that and then doing my best to just keep to my plan and get dealing with the discomfort of that. Rather than that avoiding the discomfort by letting myself do things the last minute. I’ve done that in different ways, shapes and forms. Over the years, I have really made some dramatic improvements with that. And I’m so proud of the progress that I have made when it comes to procrastination and doing work ahead of time. I’m so so proud of that.

And this is just that next layer is really working towards my growth goal for this year, which is a million Australian dollars 750,000 US dollars. And doing that in three work days a week and doing that, with the work being done in a calm and orderly manner. And just noticing myself wanting to add chaos, want to add drama to that and just being onto myself about it. So that is a big thing. The other reason I’m really excited to be working on this is, it’s really going to help me achieve a goal that I have for the next time that I take a break when I have a baby.

So at this point in time of recording, I’m not pregnant, but God willing, we do hope to have more children. And for the first child, Lydia, when she was born, I was so proud that as a team, we were able to keep the business running and serving our PGSDs fully I think even better than before, with me being able to take a break completely. And it turned out that because I took a break completely, I wanted to get back into things because I didn’t feel like I had to, but I had that space and freedom. And we were able to keep the business fully operating. And for the next one, my goal is that we will not only be able to keep the business fully operating and serving, but that we will also be able to continue selling during that period.

And that to me is really motivating. And just thinking about the possibilities that are created when I can be creating such incredible things in my personal life, like a child. And also the business can continue to thrive during those periods as well. So that is a big motivator for me to do this work and to deal with the discomfort and not just deal with it. But get comfortable in that and really helped my brain see that it is safe to do the work ahead of time, that I’m going to create even better result. I love this idea of, it’s not that I do my best work at the last minute, it’s that I’m yet to experience my best work.

So that’s really what I’m going to be doing with this. Also part of this as well is knowing that I’m going to be giving this a full effort. And if the result of it isn’t what I had hoped it would be, then I really need to be on to myself about blaming me having done the work ahead of time, because that isn’t the cause. It’s so easy and I know I do this as a university student. It’s easy to blame, preparation, for lack of results when you have been in the habit of doing things the last minute and say, well, if I’d done and the last one I probably would have done better, reinforces this story that we have, which is of course a self fulfilling prophecy that we do our best work at the last minute under pressure and all of that kind of thing.

And so I know that my temptation would be to say, Okay, well, it was because I was doing things ahead of time. And maybe next time, I’ll just try and stay in the energy of doing it during the moment and be more organized about that. That I’m willing to achieve that goal that I have, have been able to take time away from the business and have the business continue to sell and have new PGSDs join us and have that kind of thing. That I need to learn the skill of selling ahead of time of selling, without having to be in that launch energy in terms of getting DMs from people and that kind of thing that I can manufacture and create that state myself with my brain. I don’t have to rely on external circumstances in order to create that.

So yeah, that’s really what I am focusing on. And I’m really going to be, I’m really excited about this, but I’m really going to be planning using my power planning and following through with that. So in PGSD, the PGSD process we plan properly as perfectionists follow through without plans 80% of the time, rest without guilt and repeat. So that’s what I’m going to be doing. And I’m recording this before I do the power planning for the launch, which I’m about to do. So I’m about to get everything launch related. And I don’t know yet at this point, every single task. I’m working with Daisy and our team to take the process that we followed last time, and make adjustments to it so that things run even more smoothly behind the scenes.

So I haven’t yet got a full list of every task, but I know that I’m going to be writing combined for the whole thing, 30 emails, and we’re going to be recording a five part podcast series. And publishing, it was either two or three episodes during the launch period, as well. So those are the main items that I have. So I’m gonna beadding in buffer time to account for tasks that I haven’t yet determined. And also, I’m going to be adding in quite a lot of buffer time to add in for time to create new ideas and super think and all of that kind of thing. And at the moment before recording this, I have a ton of thought download this morning, which was really helpful to see where my brain is at and that I’m currently in a state of belief that this is a great plan and that I’m going to be able to do it and then it’s going to achieve a great outcome. And even if that outcome isn’t in terms of signups. And by the way, our goal for this launch is 60 signups. So and I guess maybe I could talk through why it was 100 for the last launch, I might 60 for this one. So just briefly on that, I really did some self coaching, and got coaching on after the last launch, that the goal was 100.

And that I was kind of telling myself like I’m committed, I’m really experienced that commitment. But in the back of my mind as well, I also had this other belief going on about, well, we could still achieve our annual goal without having a 100 PGSDs sign up. So it wasn’t full, full, full commitment and so what I’m doing for the remaining launch is that there are gonna be four launches in total for 2022. They’re all going to be very simple, very basic in terms of how they’re set up, so that me and the team are required to grow. And we’re not getting lost in all of this change that’s going on.

And this design I think I was talking about, I think it was on the most recent PGSD coaching call that I did that when I was doing a lot of Bikram yoga, I love that the sequence of postures stayed exactly the same every time. The teachers at all have their own little spin on things, but the main dialogue would be exactly the same words. And that every time you were the only thing that was different, I was the only thing that was really different. And so it really allowed me to explore that. And really notice it, it became so obvious when the process was the same every time how I was different every time.

And so that’s really the approach that I’m taking with this year, with the business, that the launches are going to be pretty much the same process, we’re going to be refining things on the back end so that it’s even easier to run and even easier to communicate with each other and all of that kind of thing. But it’s going to be a very simple format. And we’re going to be keeping that the same way so that as a team, it becomes really obvious where we need to grow. For myself personally, it becomes really obvious, the mindset work that I need to do, it’s very easy to get caught up in staying busy with looking at the latest launch trends and what content to do in terms of formats, particularly, and all of that kind of thing. And I just want to keep it so basic.

So that is something that’s going to be a real focus for this year. And for this launch, that’s going to be something that really influences things. So with that said, in terms of the goal. So the goal is 750,000 US dollars. That’s my growth goal for this year. And I think it goes without saying but I’m gonna say anyway, without growth goals, we’re always achieving them in a way that’s alignment in alignment with our values. And I’m gonna be doing a podcast episode soon on how to pursue your growth goal and make long term decisions while also pursuing quarterly milestones and an annual goal because it’s so important to be making long term decisions.

And a few of the PGSDers I’ve coached recently, have really been in this kind of goal panic in a sense around like, well, I need to just achieve my quarterly milestone and be so focus on that, that they’re thinking that, there isn’t a time and place for long term decisions. So anyway, I don’t know if by the time this episode comes out, that one might have already been recorded and come out, or it might come out later. But all of that to say that, when I’m thinking about this year, and my growth goal of 750,000 US dollars. It’s in US dollars. In my mind, well, it’s kind of in both US and Australian, but I’m in stakes payments, 200k mastermind, and that is all kind of run in terms of how people talk about numbers in US dollars.

So that’s what my goal is set in US dollars, but to achieve that goal, in terms of revenue, and the number of launches that we have planned, 60 signups per launch would be achieving that goal. And that is something not like being committed to that 60 is something that I hadn’t realized is really important. And now I’m really sold on like, really just being committed to the goal, and guess you can overachieve on it. But just being so committed to that is what I’m aiming for. Not like, Oh, but I could achieve less than that and make up for it later and all these different things.

It’s not to say that’s not rue, but just being so committed to this as the goal. And this is what I’m focusing on. So 6 years ago, I’m going to be mentally thinking about selling to 120 people, and in terms of having 120 PGSD sign up and 60 will sign up in this round, and 60 will sign up in future rounds. And that was another lesson from the launch that I did that I had underestimated what, not what it took as such, but I guess kind of, I guess, I know I guess a lot.

But what I recognize is that I was really focusing on being committed to 100. And doing that work. And you can hear me go through that in those episodes. And the result of that was it produced 51 signups. And so this time, I’m really focusing on selling 120 spots in PGSD. And having 60 of those sign up in this round and 60 Sign up in future rounds. So I did a whole thought download about this month and what my focus is, and I think it’s really powerful. This is my hypothesis. I guess, anytime we think we say I think that’s what we’re saying. This is my hypothesis, that this month for me is really about creative output.

And I feel very excited when I think about it. In that sense. I’ve really noticed myself lately, like this isn’t anything new for me. But really noticing it has been so helpful that when I get a high level view of things, I can really allow myself to go into the weeds of it and feel safe doing that and really create a lot and do it confidently from that way. But when I’m not giving myself that top level view, then I find it challenging.

So for example, with the launches once for this year, once I mapped out the exact dates, and decided how many signups for each launch and the format for each launch and all of that kind of thing, which PS I’m like, eight or nine years into business at this point. So don’t put pressure on yourself for that to be the case for you. And yeah, when we have our PGSDs, with that growth goal, we’re really just focusing on the revenue, because a lot of times the ‘How’ will change along the way, because you’re learning so much. And really at this stage of the business, it’s about deciding on something and then really rinsing and repeating again and again and again, to create mastery.

So when I had that top level view of okay, these are the launches, and this is the plan of when things will be happening, I could really just see the year and felt so calm about it and that kind of thing. So thinking about this month as about creative output is really powerful for me. And so I did some journaling about it and journaled about what my inputs are going to be. And these are things that I have learned from at this point, multiple years of power planning. I really know myself well when it comes to how I work best and what really sets me up for success.

And that doesn’t mean there aren’t times where I do things that aren’t in alignment with that. But I really have learned so much about myself and so my focus in terms of inputs, rest, which includes clean rest and sleep, and I could feel myself when I wrote down sleep because I have it an eight month old baby that, that feels like well that’s not really my control but the sleep that I do get, I can do my best to make it high quality sleep. Eating healthy food 80% of the time drinking a lot of water, I think this is so important because our brains need water to be able to think at a high level, they need to be hydrated as to our bodies. And yeah, over the last month or so, I haven’t really been drinking a lot of water, I haven’t been drinking as much as I would like to. So drinking water, feeding my mind with that, which fosters creative output. So for me, that means I’m constraining myself in that area. So I’m only consuming long form content, which could be a general rule that I adopt going forward because it’s why this podcast is long form.

I really thrive on long form content and going deep into an idea rather than getting lots of little spurts of all these little things. So there are going to be two kinds of long form content that I will be consuming. And this is what I have noticed, really so I’ve invested over time. So first of all, in terms of the specific business strategy side of things, I will only be consuming content that is consistent with what I’m doing. It’s not going to be introducing any kind of new marketing or selling ideas or anything like that.

So I’ll be listening to my coach Stacey Boehman, her podcast, ‘Make Money As A Life Coach’ and also the calls that we have in the mastermind attending those. And then if I feel like it, I really enjoy, I don’t think I mentioned it very much, but Simone Seol, she’s also a student of Stacey. She has a podcast, ‘Joyful Marketing’, that I love and a lot of what she teaches is consistent with what Stacey teaches. She has things that she teaches that are different as well. But I really find that listening to her helps me apply even better when I’m learning from Stacey and also Brooke Castillo, who is the mentor of Stacey.

So it’s like Brooke, Stacey, Simone. But they all teach in a relatively consistent way. But the focus will be on Stacey’s content and what she creates, as she is my coach. And then in terms of other content, it will just be high level stories that really get my brain thinking that I find in terms of inputs for creative outputs. Like I get asked about the perfectionist power ups, how I write those, and how I get ideas for things. And it’s often listening to something that seems unrelated, that I will then be able to think of it in terms of, I’m not even doing this intentionally, my brain just does this.

But think about it in terms of what I teach and what we do in PGSD. And yeah, it comes from listening to podcasts and really just sharing like a high level look at things. As you can tell my brain likes this kind of high level bird’s eye look. But, The Diary of a CEO by Steven Bartlett is a podcast I’m really enjoying and have been for maybe a year now. And the Tim Ferriss show. So those are two that do really great interviews, and also Armchair Expert, actually, with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman.

So those podcasts I find really give me a lot of creative inspiration. And they’re very long form. All the episodes of those podcasts are at least an hour. So I’ll listen to those. Typically, when I’m going for a walk, and then the marketing podcast, I tend to listen more to when I’m doing things around the house. So that is something that I have intentionally decided for this month. And I’m really thinking about creating for my best client on their best day. I’ve written, it’s not about perfection as a creator or my viewpoint on my work. It’s about them holding the vision of what’s possible for them in their business.

And I’m explaining it in a way that’s more simple, clear and doable than I ever have before. I’m selling 120 on PGSD and 60 will sign up for this next round. If you can hear me kind of reading slightly it’s because I’m trying to improve my writing. I hadn’t intended to read this out when I wrote it and it’s kind of a bit scribbly. I have more than enough time to create what’s needed slash what I want to create. This month I’m flexing my brain and exploring what is possible for me as a creator, $250,000 in Australian dollars worth of value will be created this month with my brain. What a joy, what a contribution.

I know that this will happen because the PGSDers who joined we’ll get all their money’s worth and then some. This process works as in the PGSD process. And my job this month is to live that process and lay out the path so they know that it’s safe to walk along it. My brain is now in high gear, and I’m capturing all of that value, knowing this overflow and knowing that doesn’t need to be perfect to me. There’s also an abundance of ideas. So it’s safe for me to share my very best ones, because they won’t run out.

And it will only help me create higher level slash more impactful ideas in the future. So that’s kind of where my thinking is at pre doing the power planning for the launch, I can see that my brain is still like, well, we’re not going to have enough time. So I’m working three days a week and that’s it, as in, I’m not letting myself kind of have that creep. And I can tell already in my brain, I’m like, well, I could add an extra day in the last couple of weeks, if I need to do four days a week. So everything get done, because I really want to, like I’m committed to getting everything done by the 27th of March. I can just see myself kind of negotiating with it a little bit. So I have some self coaching to do on that.

And to really just test myself in terms of like a fun kind of test. What I can create in. So how many days have I got one, two, plus three plus three plus three. Was that 11 days after today for creating everything in terms of mainly 30 emails that I’m writing, and then about eight podcast episodes that I’m recording. And it takes me about 45 minutes to write an email. So I need to get this in my calendar, because my brains like well, we’re not going to have enough time for that. But I know sometimes I can write a really quick email.

And other times it takes a bit longer. And I’ve been recently exploring. I did an evaluation last week, during the week of my copywriting and how to really set myself up for success without like, what thoughts make it easy to do my best copywriting. And that was a big breakthrough and made that so much easier. But yeah, I’m excited to get it in my calendar. So at this point, I’m thinking there is enough time. But I’m also like, well, but if there’s not, then we can work around it.

So I will report back once I’ve done my power planning. And then in terms of, after that third download, what I did was I just wrote down obstacles that might come up, that would make it challenging to have this month be about creative output and that kind of thing. And it’s all just external things that could happen. A lot of internal thoughts I could have that could stop me. And then I wrote, I cannot create a solution for all of these obstacles. And so that is the mindset in which I’m going into this launch.

And I was also thinking a lot about the different industries where people really don’t have the option to do things at the last minute, or even if they’re doing it at the last minute, there’s still a significant period of time between when something was created, and when it’s delivered to the consumer of it. So as an example, in the fashion industry, a piece of clothing won’t be physically created the day before you buy it in most cases. And even if those people are working till the last minute, there’s still then there’s delay between when they conceptualize the idea. And even when they finalize the garment and there’s time obviously for it to be created and shipped and all of this kind of thing. Also thinking about I love Harry Potter. So JK Rowling, she wrote Harry Potter, and then there were lots of edits and that kind of thing. And then it needed to go to the publisher. And then there was a launch date and then hype around, especially for the later ones, hype around the launch date. And then you know getting shipped to different bookstores and all that like there’s a delay, and that that doesn’t make it less valuable.

And the coaching that I got on this in the mastermind, when I put my hand up for coaching was really about how my brain has been seeing this as like, if I do it at the last minute, I feel like I have more control over the result. But really about how I’m going to be able to create my best work when the launch isn’t going on. And I’m not in the thick of that. And I know that to be true because like the last launch I was creating in the thick of it, but my story was predominantly that it’s going well, the launch.

So that was okay to do that in the sense that my experience was that that was okay. But in other launches I’ve done where my story has been that it’s not working, that it has been really challenging to create at the highest level with this story. And even though you can see it’s a story it’s so hard not to be consumed by it. That is not working and no one’s gonna sign up in all of that kind of thing. So I know that doing my best work ahead of time, is the reality that that is what has been true that I’ve been ignoring. And really allowing myself to do my work ahead of time is the only thing that will help me create the new belief for me that doing my work ahead of time is safe.

And doing my work ahead of time, is what creates my most powerful, impactful results, because I’m always doing things at the last minute. Even if I’m mainly doing some things ahead of time and then a few things last minute like I did for the last launch, I’m still not allowing myself to really see the power of doing it ahead of time. And it wasn’t Stacey who was coaching me, it was one of her students, and who’s in the $2 million group. And she was just saying that for her launch that she had just done, she didn’t even check during the launch what the signups were like it was really, everything was created ahead of time, and then it just goes out and you just live your normal life, and you don’t even know the result of it until it’s all completely done. And that, to me feels like the next level. This while, I will still be checking in during the launch, I’m planning to do what I did last time, which is one check per day. And that really worked well for me. And then the next level after that, I’m just trying not to make myself do everything it was in terms of, ah yeah, I’m just kind of like reaping the benefit of halfway and then fully.

But the next launch after that is when I’ll be thinking about okay, let’s again, create it all ahead of time. And now let’s not even check in on it during the launch and still have an incredible result created. So that’s the next level. So that is where I’m at. And I will report back once I have done my power planning, and give you a bit of an update on how that went and what my thoughts are. And yeah, then after that. So basically, a plan for this episode is that I’m going to be documenting different times along the way during this creation process. And then I’m going to do another set of updates that will be during the pre launch and launch periods.

After I’ve finished my creating and just my experience of having that already be created and what’s going on, I’m assuming there’s gonna be a lot to talk about, there might not be, you know, there might have no mental drama about it. But that is my plan. And I really hope that me sharing a behind the scenes look of these launches, and the specific work that I’m doing with the launches is helpful for you. And this is like in PGSD. So we do the three month commitment. And that’s a commitment that we make again and again. But it’s so much easier to think of it that way.

And like what I’m committed to all of this for the rest of my life and our brains just freak out but three months, by three months, by three months is where we have a growth goal. That is 12 months long, we break it down into three month quarterly goals, we focus for the first three months in PGSD, you’re going to be focused on planning properly as a perfectionist, and learning how to set your growth goal setting that and pursuing it with power planning and clean rest. And then after that three months, and you’ve really started to master that and really understand that and understand yourself more, you will then choose a focus for each quarter, each three month commitment.

And so essentially, for me, a three month commitment at the moment, it’s really about focusing on doing my work ahead of time. And I love that I hadn’t even thought about the connection between, like my work and the content itself, like the topic for the launch, which is procrastination, how connected they are. But I love that it’s really, at the same time that I’m teaching on procrastination, that I am taking my mastery with that to the next level. And yeah, really being focused on being the PGSD process like being the result of that and creating possibility in that way alone.

And also through the content that I share but just in how I’m showing up and how I’m planning properly and falling through 80% of the time and taking my clean rest that that alone is going to be so beneficial to our PGSDs past, present and future. So guess I’m going to wrap it up here. And also just as a side note, if you’re not yet in PGSD, you can get on the waitlist at sam laura brown dot com slash PGSD, that is where you will find out more about the program and you will also find out when my next opening and everything like that. So I just wanted to mention that that as well, in case you’re not get on the waitlist and you’re not yet in PGSD, I will talk to you soon.

Okay, so it is the afternoon of the first of March. And I have done my power planning as much as I could, for the PGSD launch. So I’m going to have to make some tweaks to it. Every week, when I do my Power Hour, I’ll also be reflecting on all in the weekly review. And once we have confirmed all the tasks that are needed, at the moment, I just have one buffer day, right at the end, and pretty much every day has buffer time. And I’ve been generous with the amount of time that I have given myself for writing the emails.

And I think the biggest thing was that when I was doing my power planning, this is why it’s so powerful to do it, I realized that I need to do the podcast series first. And that pretty much I’m gonna have to start the podcast series recording that tomorrow. And to do that tomorrow in the next day. And then next week, I can focus on all the emails basically, for three weeks, I’ve just been writing emails. And I didn’t want to see that. Because it feels like one of those tasks that just feels like a big deal. And that’s just because of the thoughts. I’m thinking about it. And I found last time I was having similar thoughts, perfectionist kind of thoughts about the outcome of the launch, depending on how perfectly these podcast episodes are put together.

And so I did a bit of self coaching around that today as well. And really just got clear on exactly what’s going to be in each episode. And when I did that, it was really fun. Because I created a few new concepts that I haven’t really spoken about before. They’re just better ways of articulating things that I’ve already thought. I’m really excited to share those in the episodes. And yeah, just having it on my calendar for Wednesday and Thursday, with a bit more time to fresh out the notes. I don’t ever read, you probably know this from listening to the podcast, because of how I talk. But I don’t read from a script or anything like that I just chat, but I do like to have some dot points to guide me.

So I’ve outlined each episode very, very roughly, and written a few dot points. But before I start recording tomorrow, and the next day, I’m going to do two episodes tomorrow. And then three episodes the next day, I am going to just go over that. So yeah, that was the main thing, just realizing that to get it done by the deadline, I’m going to need to get a move on with that. It just made me think of an analogy that probably isn’t very powerful. But anyway, the analogy that came to my mind was, it feels like with these podcast episodes andAnd they feel different than normal ones, again, because of my thoughts don’t because they’re actually different.

But it’s almost like going to the gym and looking at the rack of weights, and just be like, oh my goodness, those weights are really heavy, those weights are gonna weigh a lot, that’s going to be hot, like all this mental chatter. And the other option is to just go and pick up the weights and let your muscles flex and let that be okay and deal with any emotions you have afterward about how well you did and all of that kind of thing. So I don’t know, that just flashed in my head when I was thinking about it earlier that my inclination is that I would spend time kind of dreading lifting up the weights instead of just lifting them.

So that’s what I’m doing. I outlined it, as I said today, so I can just dive in tomorrow. And I knew that by outlining it today, it would get my brain thinking so that when I’m taking my clean rest, my subconscious can be working on it. And yeah, so I’ve done that. And I wanted to mention a few things as I was going through the power planning that I wanted to mention in the first part, but I didn’t notice different things that came up. So the first is that I’m really going to be selling myself on the 27th of March as a deadline for this and not having any extra work days.

And as I was doing my power planning thing about well, I could add a workday like there’s a lot of just pure clean rest days. And when I say pure, clean rest, I am on a lot of those days looking after Lydia and I’m also at the moment planning a wedding, decorating the house, doing all those things as well. But in terms of non business time, there is a lot of that. And I can just feel myself as I was saying in the first part kind of negotiating that, well, I could add an extra day or whatever. And I realized as I was doing my power planning that that’s so similar to what I was saying before, in terms of what I did with the last goal for the January launch of PGSD, that I was like, well, the goal is 100. But it’s totally okay if we don’t hit that.

And it’s not that it’s not totally okay, if we don’t hit that, but it’s so important to be committed. And to not not hit it because of lack of commitment. Rather than it being basically, we want it to be that we’re fully committed. And then if we don’t hit the goal we set that’s totally okay. And we are compassionate with ourselves in that. It’s not an excuse to let ourselves off the hook. And it’s, it’s kind of like we give ourselves a sneaky compassion ahead of time, which is really just not being committed. I don’t know if that’s making sense. But anyway, that’s how I was thinking about that.

So I’m committed to the 27th. The March, no extra work days, I had a chat with Steve about the hours that I’ll be working. Typically, I’ve been working from, like 7:30 till 4:30. I’m still breastfeeding Lydia. So every three hours, pretty much, three to four hours, I’m pumping or feeding Lydia. So I had some thoughts as well about how interrupted my work days will be for this. But I did some self coaching on that. And I also have really got into a rhythm with that, too. So that’s certainly okay. But yeah, I had a chat to Steve about what I would need to do, I would need to do if I needed to work, like start earlier, or work later. Not that that’s a goal, but just having a conversation with him.

And he was just like, just tell me when you’re starting and when you’re finishing and like the most important thing is that I stick to that, which is what I do. So yeah, that was really helpful to just see that he was already on board. I wanted to mention, too, that when I was starting to prep for this launch, and creating the content, that my inclination and temptation, and I was really like for a couple of weeks working on to try and figure out how to do this was to create all the other non launch content first.

So podcast episodes that go out before the pre launch starts, emails, for the PGSD waitlist, for all our email subscribers, the perfectionist power ups, like I wanted to have all that done and squared away with a nice little bowl on top. And then I could turn my focus to the launch content. And I caught myself on that and realize how Oh, nothing that was and that actually the best thing to do was to just treat it all together. And I created an Airtable system to really lay out what emails are going out and when they’re going out, and making all the decisions around that and being super clear about it.

So when it came to my Power Planning, it was really easy to slot in the different emails. And to set things up. So I could give a put a little checkmark next to it in Airtable, which if you don’t want to Airtable is to really cool platform. And now Notion has pretty much replaced that. But we’re still using Airtable. But yeah, I could just tick in that. And have a view where I hadn’t ticked that it had been calendered. So I could see what was left to put in. So that made it super easy.

Also, I wanted to mention in terms of my motivation. So I talked about when I have my next baby, God willing, that I want to be able to have the business continued to sell while I’m not working, or while I’m just dabbling in different things. But actually, another big piece of that related to having a baby is being able to sell through all stages of pregnancy. Just because the first trimester with Lydia, I just felt so flat and so unmotivated, and mildly nauseous and I just really struggled to get anything done or feel like I had any kind of personality. So I’m really motivated to have things organized so that that can happen again. And every pregnancy is obviously different. So there’s a lot of unexpected things that can happen along the way. You’d feel more unwell, less unwell, all of that. So basically just having the business set up and when I first got pregnant, I’d started prepping the business for that about six months before basically from when we decided that we were going to try to have a baby soon, I started prepping the business.

So basically I’m just in that mode again and I find it so helpful. Like regardless of whether or not you want to have a baby, it’s really helpful to see how you could remove yourself from the business and what needs to be set up because that tends to create a business that runs really smoothly, and isn’t dependent on you feeling motivated or things like that. So that’s another big motivation for me. I wanted to mention too, so power planning, which obviously, you’ll learn inside PGSD, the full process for that.

So with that, I want to make sure that, like here, I’m talking about power planning for a month at a time. And this is something that you will be able to do once you’ve at least done three months of power planning, it might even take you a bit longer, but I don’t want you to be thinking that you need to plan out everything for an entire launch like a month’s worth at a time. Just let yourself plan a week worth at a time. And trust that that’s going to be enough. Because I have been planning for so long now that I know how long it takes me to write an email, how long it takes me to record podcast episodes, how much buffer time I need, what time of day, I work best. All those different things.

And so I’m at a point now where I can plan a month at a time or in other launches, I’ve done five to six weeks worth at a time. And I still do my Power Hour and my little tweaks that’s so important. It’s especially important. And I think that is why my recommendation is to just continue doing a week at a time for at least three months. Because you really need to be a master at the little tweaks so that you don’t just ditch your plan altogether. It’s really a lesson in keeping plans workable. I know these plans that I made today are going to look very different once they’re all ticked off, but everything will be ticked off.

And then the weekly review, so I’ll still be doing that as well. So just wanted to mention that this is kind of a glimpse into the work that I’m doing now with power planning. And I love the tool of power planning and the growth goal and clean rest and all that because it has new levels to it and new layers in PGSD. Everyone in there is so into personal development and the journey of it. And even though sometimes we’re in a bit of a rush, and we want to be done already, that we do love it. And that’s fine. I personally love as well.

So it’s not surprising, that we attract a lot of PGSDers like that. But it is really a tool that will help you at every level. And I’m just really wanting to show you what it looks like to me in the hope that it helps you. So there’s that. And also, I wanted to mention, so I’m just reading off a list of notes, the thoughts that I had today, this morning that I was reading out to you about this launch and all of that. Those thoughts I was having were because I have come off three days of clean rest. And like last night, I was saying to see like, I’m so excited to work tomorrow. And even though I’m know I’m going to be doing challenging things, I just am so ready to get back into working.

And the last few days that I had off. I have my 31st birthday. And actually I did a PGSD crypting call that day, but besides that, that they have, but it has been flooding in Brisbane severe floods. And yeah, that’s been kind of crazy to witness. And we’ve spent time helping friends out and checking in on everyone and making sure the house is okay. And all of that kind of thing. We had a minor leak downstairs in our laundry and mudroom and garage. And I say mine out like it, it is significant. But compared to the devastation that so many people have experienced in Brisbane in the last week, it is very minor.

But with that inside, just having time with family and doing Peloton classes or whatever, I just really felt so keen to get back into everything. And this is why clean rest is so powerful. Because I know that if I hadn’t had any proper rest that time or even if those all those days, I’ve been telling myself that I needed to, I should have been working and actually I had plan to work on Monday, but I ended up changing my plans given the flooding and things that we had going on so that I’m working today Tuesday instead. Yeah, if I just been telling myself, if I should be feeling guilty about resting and I should be more productive with my time and whatever.

It’s not productive to read this fiction book, then I don’t think I would have been having the quality of thoughts that I have had today. So just wanted to vouch for clean rest in that sense. Another thing is that in terms of my month of creative output, in terms of books, I have chosen two books that I’m already in the middle of reading, and I’ve just put them on the bookshelf in a reading nook at the bottom there, with all of Lydia’s books just so I can really easily grab them when I’m feeding her or when I’m having a minute to read and I’ve just been feeling that lately I like I wanna read more classic. I want to read more, but what I wanna read and all of that kind of thing, and I was like, No, these are the books I’m reading until they’re finished. And mind you, I’m not someone who finishes a book just for the sake of finishing a book. So that could change. But I’ve already been loving these books, The Inner Game of Tennis, and also Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty. So I am going to be finishing them.

So that’s just another part of the long form content. And I’m not telling myself I should be reading all these books on marketing or different things like that. Yeah, I’ve also been planning when I do my power planning for my unmotivated slash asleep deprived self. So that’s something we talk about a lot inside PGSD, that when you are doing your power planning, it’s not for your ideal self, who apparently never needs a lunch break and doesn’t need any time to switch between tasks and doesn’t need to sleep, and doesn’t have a social life and all these things that it’s really planning for your unmotivated self, if you have a young child that like myself, you might also be planning with your sleep deprived self in mind.

So that is where as well, little tweaks really come in, not just for children, but health issues, a whole lot of other things. Almost all of us have different situations where we might need to change a day that we’re working or scrap a block of time that we had for work and move it to a different time. So the little tweaks in power planning really make a difference. I also today did a 30 minute Peloton class with Lianne. I really loved it. But I had given myself 45 minutes to do a 30 minute class and I ended up taking a break for an hour and 15 minutes because I did the clock you had to get changed, got set up, needed to cool down, then I had lunch, then I’d had seen Lydia for a bit.

So that is something already that I know I’m going to need to go into my power planning and make little tweaks about because I had given myself only 45 minutes for a 30 minute Peloton class or I might choose to do a 20 minute class really just to get my brain firing again, I find that works really well if I did that out lunchtime. And I’ve already mentioned my final note, which is the other things going on in my personal life during this time planning a wedding for the end of June. That wedding is my wedding to Steve. And that’s really exciting. So that’s happening, family time.

Also navigating like every new month with Lyd, Lydia, it is really learning what to do and what she’s experiencing, and all of that kind of thing. And I might have talked about this previously on the podcast, but I had planned for each month that I would decorate a different room in the house. And it ended up that in February, I had planned to do the office and I did little bits and pieces, but I didn’t fully commit to getting it done. So it didn’t get done. So I’m just letting it be that it had not happened. No shame in that, no guilt. And March is when I’m going to be getting the office together. So that is going on as well as, exercise, seeing friends and family and birthday parties and all those different things. So that is all for now. And I will talk to you when I have another update.

It is time for another update today is the third of March it is, 9:54am. And I just have a weird little pocket of time as I’m waiting for Lydia to wake up for me to feed her. And then after that, I’m going to be recording podcast episodes. So I thought now it’d be a great time to just give a little update on how I’m going so far with following my power planning and getting the work done ahead of time.

So on the second, so yesterday, I wrote out notes for the first two episodes in the planning sorry, Planning Series. That was the last of the procrastination series. And then I recorded the first two episodes of the episode on the three types of procrastiworking, and then the episode on why zero procrastination is not the goal. And it was so interesting that after I recorded those episodes, I had the same kinds of thoughts that I did when I did the Planning Series, I recorded that in December 2021. And that went out at the beginning of January, when I recorded a couple of those episodes, I really felt this overwhelming urge to rerecord them, that they weren’t good enough.

And really, there’s all or nothing thinking that every element of the launch needs to be perfect in order to get any result. So if there’s just one little bit of imperfection, then I’m not going to be able to achieve anything. And I think this is one of those subtle ways that the all or nothing mindset shows up, that can be a bit more challenging to notice. And at least that’s my own experience that when it’s this idea of doing things perfectly or not, not at all, then it’s kind of obvious to see it sometimes. But when it’s this thinking is all or nothing thinking of everything needs to be just right or I won’t create any of the desired result. That is that all or nothing mindset.

And yeah, it was just fascinating to see my brain have the same thoughts that I had last time. And to know that last time, I coached myself on not re recording and I’m so glad that I didn’t let myself re record. And so what I did is after I finished recording those episodes I, Steve just tapped on my door today, he’s ready to have a feat. So I will wrap this up, I won’t give too much of an update. I’ll save it for the next one. But when I was finished with recording those episodes, I listened to them back.

So I adjusted my power planning to add in time for this. And it was so interesting to, to notice that I just recorded about procrastiwork here in the different types, being busy work, under work and overwork. And that here I was editing my procrasti, oh sorry, editing my power planning to add in this period for procrastiworking, which was really listening in order to see if it was good enough and to decide if I should rerecord, which would be procrastiworking and I love that that is the work that I’m doing as I’m creating the procrastination series, and that it’s just proof that you don’t need to completely eliminate procrastiworking, in order to achieve a lot with your business, to help a lot of people. And that’s why zero procrastination isn’t the goal. So I really listened to those episodes at double speed. And I was really thinking about someone who is listening to it rather than critiquing myself as a creator. And a, a thought that I had yesterday morning, that was really helpful and this came out of the self coaching that I did in the morning before doing those episodes was that, the easier I let my creative process be, the more value I create, that actually in the ease of creation, there is by virtue of that more value created than if I overcomplicated, overthink it, make it super hard. And also, I am practicing what I’m preaching, when I am doing that. I am embodying the PGSD process, the work that we do in the program.

And did that get our clients even better, even quicker results when they’re working on getting out of their own way in their business. So I re-istened to those episodes. And I decided to keep them knowing that that was just my brain freaking out and I re-listened to it all, send it back to them or listened back to them. Which is something I don’t normally do when I record a podcast episode. And I normally just put it out. But doing all this work ahead of time really gives my brain the opportunity to overthink and overcomplicate because there’s time to do that. It’s not at the last minute.

And I think that I’ve really had this story before of like I’ve done the work on my belief and my story about doing my best work at the last minute though there’s obviously still layers of that work to do. But also this belief of I just do my best work when I’m teaching live. And that I love the energy of that. I think really what it is when I was reflecting on it last night is that when I am recording something live, I have a lowest standard for myself in terms of what I can create because it is a live format.

And you aren’t able to redo it. And so I’m kinder of to myself in that. And so what I’m wanting to do instead of just doing everything live is to practice doing the work ahead of time and being kind to myself while doing that and letting my work be good enough without needing to redo it. Anyway, so I listened to those episodes. I decided to keep them that I wrote my Perfectionist Power Ups, I wrote a month’s worth. And it took me 15 minutes to write each week. So it took an hour in total. And that was half the time that I had allotted. So that saved me some time in my power planning, so I could adjust that.

And then last night, I could tell I was still thinking about these episodes, like they are the best. And to just know and just sharing this because it’s so normal to have those sorts. And just because we’re having those sorts doesn’t mean we need to listen to them. It doesn’t mean that’s correct. And so this morning, I didn’t get much sleep last night. Lydia woke up at about, I think it was about 1am. Steve settled her for about half an hour and then I settled for a half hour. And then there was a storm and Cotton just really wanted to be in bed on top of us, like literally lying across both Steve and I, which is kind of cute. And I’m a sucker and a big softy. And I can’t say no to that.

But I had a call in my mastermind group call. And I really went into that, knowing that I was going to hear exactly what I needed to hear. So that was at 6am. And before that, so I woke up at 5am. And I listened to a podcast episode that I recorded. It was originally an Instagram Live, I recorded it after I did the first two episodes in the planning series. And I shared my decision making process for why I wasn’t going to let myself do redo those episodes. And so I was just reminded of all the reasons that I don’t want to let myself redo the episodes. And I don’t want to let myself keep entertaining that either. Because that’s a wasted energy, that energy that isn’t spent thinking about my PGSDers, thinking about how we can better serve them.

That’s where I want my energy to be going or with my family or towards different things other than, like having made a decision, but still second guessing it even after that decision has been made. So I was like, I just want to make a strong decision about this. So when I listened back to that, and had my own wisdom on that, I was like, Okay, I get it. It’s like exactly the same thought process. And I really feel that by letting myself keep those episodes, it is really going to teach me how to, like really just be open to my work ahead of time, being my best work, because if I’m always redoing work, I never actually get to experience the result of the first bit of work that I did.

I’m always trying to control the result by redoing and reworking and doing that overwork. And when overwork is always there, we never get to experience what it’s like not to have it that we never get to experience that our best work, our best results are created when we’re not overworking. And then on the call, there was so many notes that I wrote down hearing others getting coached on their business. And something that really stood out to me was someone was getting coached on their plans for their business. What they had planned out for the year, when they plan to do launching, when they had planned to take a holiday and basically there was a change in their plans.

And Stacey was saying that this is what I had said as well. In that episode, I listened back to of myself talking about this, I was like, Okay, I get the method, that the best way to, how can I articulate this, the best way to really bring up the work you need to do and to learn how to stick to the plan is to stick to the plan, and then do your coaching and what comes up as you stick to the plan. So as an example, with this person who was being coached, they were saying that they wouldn’t be able to coach their clients, they’re still doing one on one coaching, they wouldn’t be able to coach their clients when they are away.

And they were kind of seen it as I either need to not coach them or maybe not take a holiday or what do I do about this and Stacy was saying like if you just are committed to sticking to the plan, then you can start to see all these other options as maybe you could hire a coach to coach your clients for you and put up an example of another person in the mastermind who done that with success and just really getting that when I am sticking to this plan.

Because I can feel myself still like oh, I might need to add a day or and I I feel like I’m 95% away that with just sticking to the number of days I had but I caught myself this morning thinking like, oh well if I haven’t given myself time to really do super thinking on the emails I’m going to write and the content, so I may need to add an extra day for that, and to just really be committed to, this as the number of days and I’m going to see what I can create in that number of days, and be focused on the growth from that, rather than Oh, well, I’ll just do whatever I’ve done in the past, because that feels like it’s more likely to create the results that we want in terms of the goal that we have, for the launch and the number of signups that my growth is sticking to this plan, and working it to the best of my ability, and then doing a reflection after that.

And then in the next one, I might decide, okay, I actually need an extra week, or an extra three days, or whatever it is, to create the content I wanted to create at the level that I want to create it. But I’m not going to get to learn that unless I create a plan, I stick to it, that doesn’t mean sticking to it perfectly. I’m following the process that I teach in PGSD, which is planned properly, follow through 80% of the time, rest without guilt and repeat. That’s what I’m doing.

So it’s about following through more often than not, but also within that the weekly review part of power planning, being on to myself with why I’m changing my plans. And really recognizing yes, there’s a time and a place to do that. But making sure that I like my reasons. And that’s what I spoke about in the previous episode, I think the title of the episode, I think, is maybe episode 315. It’s on when we’re doing your work as self sabotage and when it’s not. But in that episode, I was just really talking through like, it’s okay to redo an episode. But I need to like my reasons. And me not feeling articulate enough, or like I explained it well enough, they’re all reasons focused on me.

If I want to change it, it needs to be for o reason that I like, which would be in the service of my client, and my listener, not in service of my perception of myself as a creator. And so that’s a really important distinction, because we can be like, Oh, no, it’s best to do my best work. And that’s gonna help everyone. But a lot of times, it’s just us being super self critical. And we’re not really thinking about the experience of the other person. Because when I listen back through that lens, I’m like, oh, there’s so many things I’m sharing in this episode that I know are going to be such a revelation.

And even though they feel obvious to me, and like I kind of stumbled through explaining some of it or teaching some of it, that that doesn’t matter. And my best client is going to love those episodes. And so yeah, I’ve just been going through that. So I’ve prepped for the next three episodes that I’m going to be recording today after I feed Lydia and I’ve really just been in letting it be easy. That mantra of the easier that my creative process be, the more value I create, really creating for the people who are already a yes, who already want to join PGSD, who are already in PGSD, these episodes are going to help our PGSDers as well.

And I’m really excited to record them. I found myself thinking like, I want to record these other kinds of episodes, but aren’t these episodes and I was like, No, I’m going to let these episodes just be like my normal episodes, take the pressure off. And that doesn’t mean I’m not prepared. That doesn’t mean I am being reckless or anything like that. I think we think that if we take the pressure off, then we’re going to do something reckless or irresponsible or miss something. And that’s not the case at all.

So I’m just going to let my best work flow through me it’s safe to be in flow. That is another part of the mantra that I adopted yesterday. The easier that my creative process be, the more value I create, and it’s safe to be in flow. So that is what I’m going to be doing and focusing on. And I’m really excited to record those episodes. I’m really excited to keep sticking to the plan and doing the work that comes up along the way and sit with the urges to procrastiwork and to change the plans and just see what I can create, see what we as a team can create with sticking to this plan and then reflect evaluate, iterate from that. That is my update for you today and I will be checking in again soon.

Well, this is exciting. It is the 24th of March so while since I have done an update, I have been in my work hours, so focused on getting shit done and doing all of the content for the launch that I haven’t done any updates. Since I think the beginning of when I first started creating the content I have been keeping notes on so many different breakthroughs I’ve had during this process. It has been incredible, like the best personal development experience ever. And I am going to record a full update about what went down next week, at the moment, it is 5pm.

I need to go and pick up Lydia. But I have just submitted to my team, all of the content for the PGSD launch. Interestingly, I noticed that today I tried to add an extra task to my plate, which would constitute overworking in terms of recording some Instagram Stories ahead of time for the launch. And I just like an hour ago had to be like, Okay, we didn’t actually plan to do that task. It was like, it was so interesting that it felt really important to do that. And then when I looked at Asana, which we use for our task management, and saw that I didn’t have that as a task to do, and I just added it almost as a way so that I couldn’t get it all done.

And I needed something to drag over and like add extra time or something. Yeah, just noticing that a habit to do that past habit was really interesting. So anyway, just wanted to record this, I have officially got it all done, within my work hours that I had determined ahead of time, no late nights. I actually started a little bit earlier the other day, because Lydia woke up really early. And so I just got stuck into it. But I have stuck to my planned work hours, my planned work days and I added one extra whack day in the end. In the next update, I will go more into why that was.

But basically, I had a friend that I wanted to help out with something that it came up on a work day. And that took about half a work day. And then I also had some interviews with PGSDers which you will have heard by now to record and that it wasn’t worth stressing, over jamming it all in. And just to give myself an extra day, I was proud of myself for asking for the childcare that was needed in order to get that done. And then getting it done. I just gave myself one extra day, and everything has been completed. I feel so good. It feels so good. I can still feel in the back of my mind me like oh, what we could have done this extra thing. But I’m just letting it be done.

That is such a big lesson from this, letting things be done. There have been so many things I have wanted to go back, and rework like pretty much everything when it comes to the podcast episodes, the emails I get every stage, I have wanted to go back, especially as I’m learning so much as I’m doing this and really evolving how I want to talk in the emails and about PGSD, I’m like, but I need to go back and fix that.

And just like not letting myself go back and rework. And really in my mind kind of pretending that it’s going out live in the sense that if I was doing it the last minute, I wouldn’t be able to go back. And just noticing how I think part of the reason we like doing things that last minute is it kind of removes any urge to go back because it’s not even possible. And so part of this has just been sitting with the urge to rework, and to just keep going. And I am so grateful to have power planning. And that’s I was able to just not be overwhelmed about it, not be stressed about it just sit down each day, know exactly what I need to work on my calendar.

Now at the end of it looks very different to when it started still the same work hours. But tasks have been moved around, I realized that I needed a day to actually really think intentionally about things at a higher level in terms of mindset, and how I wanted to be thinking about the launch of myself as it related to the launch and all those different things. And I just kind of was in such a rush to get started that I just jumped in.

And I didn’t give myself the time to do that mindset work that I did at the beginning of the last launch. And then I would typically do I just was kind of like shit gotta go. So I gave myself that time, but I worked it all in. So anyway, all this to say I’m so fucking proud of myself for getting it done. This is normal for me and I will record an update next week to fill you in on all the aha moments, the lessons there have been many, and how I was able to do it as well. Okay, I’ll talk to you soon.

Today is the 18th of April, which means it has been a while since I got everything done. And yeah, I still wanted to come to you with this update about my reflection on letting my work be done getting my work done early and easily because I learned so much about myself from going through that process and also so much about the business as well. So I’m just going to get straight into it. So I do want to mention in full transparency, that I have already recorded this last bit of the episode, and it went for an hour. And I just kind of felt like I talked around in circles even more than I normally would.

And so I’m just gonna record it again, and just be to the point and as much as I like to be, and then let this be done. And then I will be recording the beginning of the next part of this series, the second part, which will be all about the launch period and all of that, which I’m really excited to get into. So let’s talk about some of the biggest lessons that I learned during this experiment, this commitment to getting my work done ahead of time. So one of the things that happened and was very helpful during that period, was that I got coached a few times in the mastermind that I’m in, and I had a few important revelations, we’ll two, a couple.

So the first one was about getting my best work done ahead of time. I had gone to this coaching call and I had my self-coaching curriculum so I knew what to get coached on and I was talking about the launch, and really trying to get to being in belief about creating my best work ahead of time. And the possibility that my work done early could be as good as my work done at the last minute. And on that call, a thought that was presented to me was that it could be even better to get my work done early like the quality of the work I could produce ahead of time, when I’m not in the throes of the launch in the sense of, I’m not in the drama of it, I’m just able to create for myself a little bubble, and really be in belief and not have any external circumstances that might make it easier to believe that it’s not working.

And then from that belief to stop reading the emails and doing that kind of thing. And for sure, it sounds so obvious a lot of the best coaching is stuff that sounds really obvious. But I had never considered that it could be a higher quality of work. It was more if I got it done early, it was more that I wanted in a practical sense to be able to have the ability to do it early and to be able to create ahead of time in the business. But I was still in this belief that I hadn’t really picked up that it could be as good as my work done at the last minute. But it couldn’t be better. So that really just opened up a whole world for me to really intentionally think about how my work done early could actually be higher quality.

And I think having it presented to me in that way, really allowed me to step into that and to lean into that. And to not just see it as a substitute, a poor substitute for getting it done at the last minute. But actually really asking my brain to find all the ways that having my work completed early would mean that I was creating higher quality. And I already mentioned for example that like in previous launches that I’ve done, especially like some of these, I’m thinking about once, particularly in say 2019 and 2020, that if I did a launch and everything was on it last minute, if it was going well, like meeting these unwritten expectations that I had it my mind about what success look like, then I could write the emails and show up.

And this makes me think of the launch that I did in 2018 when I had my first 10k month for my get out of your own way program that I sold at the time. And I was able to really easily keep showing up and writing the emails and doing it the last minute because it was meeting my unwritten, like made up expectations that I had about sign up numbers. And I had at the time really thought I was in belief. But after doing other launches. After that experience, I realized that it was more that the result I wanted to have was happening. And so it was easier to be in that belief and to think I was believing regardless of the result even though that wasn’t the case.

So there have been launches that I’ve done. Where I have I’m thinking of one that I did in 2020 where I did a webinar and then I had left myself to do the emails and everything after that, and I was thinking like, I’m going to be on such a high after the webinar. And like I love presenting things live and doing that. And I was just like, it’s gonna to be so easy to write the emails. And I had created all of these expectations for myself about how many signups we would have for PGSD.

Like during that I was so proud of the presentation, and like, all these different things, and I think we had one person sign up, I want to say, within 24 hours, I can’t remember exactly now, and maybe four or five sign up in total, which was much less than I had predicted. And we didn’t have anyone sign up during the actual presentation. And I was in such a shame spiral about it, that it, I could barely bring myself to write any of the emails. And so there’s reasons like that for getting it done early, and that I could really, look, I had the story to that, I need to be in the energy of the launch.

And that is created by other people and me interacting. That is created by me getting DMs, and I was getting emails and that kind of thing, that it’s kind like this dance, and I need the other partner to be in the dance. So I can be dancing. And what I really learned from doing this all ahead of time, was that I can actually just think of all of the thoughts and create that energy and that experience for myself. And during this period of time where I was creating a low launch content, I was able to feel like I was in the launch. And the weeks following getting everything done.

And now, the day of recording this, we are starting the technically the pre launch period where the podcast series goes out. And it’s like getting myself to warm up back into being in that mode because I was able to really create that energy of being in the launch, and really be thinking at a high level about it. And then I had a few weeks not creating launch content. And now it’s in the delivery of the launch that I’m really I’m going to be going into it more in the upcoming episode that will be released next week.

But really my work is being able to lean in and being engaged with the launch, without them needing to be controlling or micromanaging or meddling and that kind of thing that I’ve been finding, I either want to lean back and like let go just by being disengaged with how things are going and like waiting and seeing or be fully leaned in and micromanaging every little thing in terms of what goes out and is it at the right time.

And what what are people asking I’m just my work I know for this is to find the middle point with that to be leaned in and engage and to not micromanager meddle. So that’s my work. Are we talking about it more or the next episode? But yeah, that was one of the the big things that came out of that coaching for me was like, oh, actually could be possible that I could do better work ahead of time.

And then I also got coaching again on a different day about another thought that I had around this, which was if I am getting things done early, then like how do I know that the questions that people ask during the lunch like I don’t know how people are going to respond to the content or what questions people have about PGSD and that kind of thing. And the coaching I got was actually like life changing in the sense of I’d never even thought to do this. And it had me creating such a higher level of content, like much better quality.

And that was that yes, I do know what questions people are going to ask, which is true. And my work was to use my brain instead of just responding to what questions people have, which tend to not be the the questions we get asked tend to not be the ones that my best client is actually thinking. And so it means we’re answering a lot of questions that people might have, but they’re not the ones that are going to really sell them on getting out of their own way and signing up for PGSD and all of that.

So to write down all the questions that someone would have, and to really be present with that, and to create the content from that point, instead of just not thinking about their questions, and then waiting to see what they are and then responding and maybe, you know, working it into the content later on. So thever change the way that I will think about there being questions asked during a launch a promotion.

And even if you’re not doing a launch, this is so helpful to think about when it comes to your customer, your client, whoever you’re helping what questions they have instead of just relying on them to ask them, and it didn’t even take that long to do it. But what I realized when I did this was that there were the major groups of questions fell into who, what, where, when, why, how, which makes sense, because that’s what our brain wants to have answered, in order to feel safe.

Taking the next step, whether that is doing something like signing up for PGSD, whether that is I don’t know, going to movie or whatever, like, our brain wants to know those things. And it doesn’t need to have crystal clear clarity on that. It’s not saying that we never do things unless everything is completely mapped out. But we at least want to have a sense that either our selves now have figured that out, or our future self, I feel like everything is considered. And so anyway, at least that’s how my brain works.

So I went through all those questions and grouped them into who, what, where, when, why, how. And then when I was creating the emails for the launch period, I pulled out some of those key questions that we hadn’t actually explicitly been asked before, but I know 100%, that my best client is thinking about them. And I could create emails on those topics, and really consider a lot of different things. So for a few examples, one of them that I hadn’t really addressed is, how do I know that this is the right time? So this is kind of like a when question, how do I know this is the right time for me to do this? Because I want to do this, I want to get out of my own way. But how do I know that now is the right time? Or should I be spending my time now doing a marketing program? And then coming back to this later? Like?

How does this fit in to the bigger picture of my business? And I was thinking back to really the questions that I had when I was in like 2018. And I was investing in different things. And a lot of those questions like, like I had, there was no question around investing in myself, I was sold on that. I knew the transformations that came from getting coached, and being supported and all of that. So I wasn’t asking any of those questions. I wasn’t asking any questions about like, when coaching call times would be because I just knew that I would get the result, regardless, because that is what I had created the self image around that it always pays off, because I make sure it does.

And so it was more like, will the other people that are in the program be at a similar stage of business to me, like, Will I like I wanted to not know 100%, I didn’t need to have any kind of clarity necessarily around what would be taught in the program. But I just wanted to have a glance, so that I could just mentally check off that box in my mind. And so just a few different things like that, that I hadn’t considered previously, when it came to questions and answers and that aspect of a launch. And it was really interesting to be able to think about, it doesn’t matter if I’m there live during the time to answer questions that come in, but I can use my brain.

And at this point, I have, you know, had the PGSD program for a few years. It’s on a new offer. I know the questions that people have about it. It’s not to say there won’t be some that are actually questions we need to address. But I can get 98% of them just by thinking about it. And tasking my brain with that. So that really informed them the emails that I was writing, the way that I was writing, and as well, talking to 2018 me. I hadn’t realized this before this launch, that I was without realizing it talking to 2013 me who had not yet started or just started and was completely paralyzed, or 2016 me, who had just started investing myself but hadn’t made any money yet and that kind of thing. And that’s when I think about how best PGSD is and who is served best by the program.

If I think about my 2018 self, I know that I am talking to them. And it’s really when you know what to do, and you’re just not doing it but you are doing things. And you’re just this is like what I told you in the procrastination series. You’re doing a lot of stuff in your business, you’re committed to it. There are things you’re doing that are working like you are making some money, but you are just not doing the needle movers or you’re jumping from them before they are complete or you’re spending too long on them. And it’s really about, you know, what issues and things coming up at that stage of business and recognizing that is something I hadn’t thought of before.

And it just really helps me to get so clear on like, what are the questions that people will have? And what kind of problems am I talking to, because at, you know, with perfectionism in business, there’s stuff that comes up at every stage of business. And so it’s like you couldn’t talk to I could talk to any stage. And that’s why when you sign up for PGSD, you get lifetime access, because we are going to be there to help you release your handbrake at any stage of your business. But really talking to our, like we’ve found that our PGSDers, who are at that stage, get the best results and are the most successful with the PGSD process.

And I hadn’t recognized that before. So yeah, that was one of the things that came out of doing this. And it provided so much clarity to me. And that was, for example, I was like, oh, no, I realized this, I want to go back and rerecord the procrastination series, because I didn’t realize who I was talking to. And I want to go redo it now that I have more clarity. And I just let them be done. I know I talked in an update on this episode about how I had that urge to redo the episodes, the first ones that I did. And I kept having that urge come up again and again.

As I was going through this process of creating the content and having realizations about who we’re helping, and all that kind of thing. And I wanted to share that too, because we can be all or nothing about it. And think that, you know, we need to do all of this thinking and meditating around, who we help and what we help them with and how we worded it in the messaging and all of that. And then once that’s perfect, we can go out into the world. And it’s really about recognizing that that doesn’t have to be perfect for you to be able to help people and to make a lot of money and to achieve your goals and all of those things.

So I just let it be done. But it was very uncomfortable when I was like, Oh, but I feel like maybe some of the things I said and not isn’t going to be talking to 2018 me, and I just let that be okay. That was my growth with that. So I highly recommend using your brain. And it’s not going to want to do it. But to sit down and write up all the questions someone could possibly have. I think before when I done that kind of thing, I kind of was writing down maybe like five questions in terms of like, how much time will it take in one of the coaching calls, and I wasn’t really thinking about questions that someone would have, I was thinking about where the holes were in terms of what I had shared, or very basic surface level questions that I’d seen on other people’s sales pages.

But really stepping in the shoes of the person who is buying and thinking like, like I wrote maybe 50 different questions. Some of them were repetitive, like had been said it in a similar way. But I just really sat down and thought about and typed about what are the questions that someone would want to know. And it’s someone who wants to join PGSD. They want to get out of their own way, like someone who is not convincing someone and answering the questions and coming up with them from that sense. It’s really someone who is a yes. And now who just needs to be sold on signing up? What questions might they have? And yeah, creating the content for the emails from that really had me creating things that I hadn’t shared before.

And also thinking about the emails as being basically onboarding for PGSD. Because that I’m talking to someone who’s already Yes, so they’re going to be signing up. So things like the video that I shared with Kristen Kane, which was just from a PGSD coaching call that like, was completely unplanned. But on that call, I pulled Kristen on to talk about how she thinks about the coaching call so that other PGSDers could learn from how she was thinking about the calls. And when she submits a request, like what she’s thinking about and how she knows it’s the right time and that kind of thing.

And then during the launch period, or when I was creating the content, I realized like actually, that would be great, like onboarding content, like I want our new PGSDers to see this. So I made it an email going out during the launch. So things like that. I also did a walkthrough of the PGSD website, like a little video of hey, like, once you sign up, here’s what you’re gonna see, here’s where you need to go. Just because for me like that, when I was thinking about signing up for things, and even still now, like, I don’t need to see what it would look like but also it does, like tick a little box in my brain when I do and it was super easy to create. So that’s that.

But yeah, that alone was worth doing this whole experiment for because I learned so much. Adding a day, I did end up adding an extra day to my calendar for work. And I got, like, I did some self coaching around the reasons for that. And I was happy with the reasons for that. So I think I added a full day. And I figured out how to get childcare for Lydia. Like I asked for the help that I needed, so that I could add that extra day. And I was, it wasn’t just a day to do whatever, like I was very clear about what was getting done on that day. And that day was added to accommodate that I had overlooked, needing to have a day for basically like thought work and mentally prepping, like doing up a list of beliefs, myself coaching curriculum.

So let me go back the list of beliefs is really identified, like beliefs that I have had the last launch, which I’ve already done it a debrief on that last launch, but the beliefs I had that really served me well, the beliefs I had, that didn’t serve me well, that would need to be changed, what my growth is, for this launch, different things like that, and identifying what I needed to believe and be focused on as I was creating, because I think I just felt like there wasn’t enough time to get all the launch stuff done. So I just dived into it without actually taking a minute to do my mindset work.

And so once I realized that I just created the space for myself. I did that day on the 10th of March. So that was before I had written any of the launch emails I shuffled around my power planning. So it looks my power planning, by the end look very different to how it did at the beginning. And that is by design. That’s why little tweaks is the second step of power planning, because we are making those adjustments and having it be workable. And yeah, that’s the whole point, I got it all done within my work days, I added an extra day.

But besides that, I got it all done. And a lot of the emails took me way less time than I had planned. The perfectionist power ups took way less time. And when I added that day, basically there are a few things I didn’t have, I did have some buffer time to interview PGSDers for the podcast, but actually adding in when those times were, and then having that mindset day to just as I said, Look at the beliefs I wanted to be in, create for myself myself coaching curriculum, and to really outline the launch content, having been in the place of being in that belief. And how I was going to celebrate and the vision for the launch.

And then I’ve been in a team on that and all of that. So I was happy that I added that extra day. And that I was really able to make the most of it. It wasn’t, as I said just a day to do things that weren’t needle movers, I really did things that not particularly on that day. But within that period, I was able to get things done that were important. And on that note, I interestingly, on the last day, when I was like I’ve actually done like the 24th. I’ve actually done all of this early and not allowed myself to rework edit all this stuff.

And I found myself wanting to put on my plate like these Instagram related tasks that weren’t in the plan. And that I couldn’t if it was going to be a bunch of stories, like little recorded things that we could upload his stories, I think it must have been. And I found myself wanting to add that. So basically, then I was behind. And I was like, You know what, this was not the plan. And I am just going to like if I want to have that stuff created as part of the launch and something that I do, then that’s what I can learn for next time.

And next time, I am going to put that in my calendar when I’m doing the launch content, but I’m not going to add it at the last minute. And so I can see in my tasks or sorry, in my power planning, I have a task that went from 12:15pm to 3:30pm on the 24th where I reviewed all our emails and finalize, redo the show notes basically like brought everything together.

And it’s one of those things that it like you think oh just take me a couple of you know half an hour to review everything but I had to read all the emails, read all the show notes, like I what I did actually in Airtable where we have all the content laid out. I set up a view so that I could see basically what order things went out in in terms of what emails I would receive it was like a waitlist email than an email newsletter and then this email and that email and that email and see this and that like, all in order and then I read it all in order as if someone was receiving it and just identified if anything needed to be made more clear or more simple, or more compelling.

If there was anything I’d miss out, like I just gave myself that bird’s eye view look at things. And it was so powerful to not let myself add in a whole lot of extra tasks just because it felt so uncomfortable to be done. And who like wanted to feel. It’s like that addiction to feeling behind that I might as well, I wanted to feel like I didn’t get it all done, even though that’s what I’ve been working to and committed to that I when I got there, it was like, Oh, is this it? No, this isn’t dramatic enough. Like this isn’t interesting enough, I want to go back and like add something new. So I’m really glad I caught myself with that.

So those are the main updates that I wanted to give about my experience. And also the other thing, final thing I wanted to mention is what really came up for me during this as well was been with that feeling of vulnerability. And it was almost like a feeling of not being in control that if I just got it done early and easily, then I wasn’t in control of the result. Which is so interesting, because that’s not how it works. Like I told you that intellectually, but it really feels like unless I’m overthinking things, and man handling them and that kind of thing, then it’s not going to work.

And just exploring, being with that feeling and what that feeling was about. And it really led me as well to have a huge breakthrough around feeling helpless, and that I have been avoiding, like for so many years, and I yeah, just avoiding like anything where I would feel helpless and not in control. And that I just had a realization around during that time that I may have felt helpless at times, but I’ve never been helpless. And I never will be helpless.

And it was just a really liberating realization to have that I had been. I think a lot of times when I’m trying to control things, it’s really trying to avoid being in a position where there’s nothing I could do. And just recognizing that I may have felt that way that may feel true. And be true emotionally in terms of like that feeling is like that feeling is valid in a sense.

I don’t know if this is making sense on I’m trying to say, the feeling is a real experience that I had. But that doesn’t mean that it was true that I was helpless. And so yeah, that really just opened up a lot of things for me. And I think that a lot of it had been underlying, doing things at the last minute because it gave me that sense of control. So I know that going into the launch and having everything be released. That that is my work to as I was saying to be engaged and leaned in and really be like in belief, and doing that work without meddling and trying to control and micromanage. Especially when I have time to do that. That that really is what I’m going to be working on.

And yeah, just not being kind of checked out. Or checked in in a meddling way or like checking things, but just leaning in, and self coaching. And yeah, just really letting myself feel safe in things going out that don’t feel perfect to me. So with that said, that is my update for what was technically like the pre pre launch period. So the way I think about launches, there is the pre pre launch, the pre launch and the launch.

So the launch is the open cart period, when people can enroll for PGSD, the pre launch is from the beginning of the podcast series till open cart till the launch period. So that lasts about 10 days, and pre pre launches anything before that. And basically from the end of the last launch, once that’s done to the beginning of the next pre launch and it’s been so helpful actually even think of it that way instead of just thinking, oh, there’s time where I create free content.

And then there’s times where I’m launching. It’s like it’s all connected. Like it’s all in service of having people sign up for PGSD so we can actually help them and get out of their own way. Because I love this podcast, I really, really, really, truly do. But there’s only so much that you can learn from listening to a podcast, you can definitely intellectualize, you can have a lot of small wins, be more consistent, be more brave and all of that.

But really, it’s when you join PGSD, that is when the transformation truly begins. And so it’s not like, and I’m saying this because there might be times where you’re thinking like, well, I’m, I love doing like free content. And I hate doing times where I’m selling, and to just really see that it’s old selling. And that’s beautiful and in service of your customer. And I was actually having a conversation about this with my brother yesterday.

And he was talking about how it’s so great that some, like their Instagram accounts that are really giving you a lot of great advice. And his words were that they’re not peddling anything. And I just thought that was so interesting. And I was saying to him, like, the reason that they are asking you or inviting you to sign up for things is because those things will be more helpful than an Instagram post.

And so it’s just like, being mindful of that when you are a creator, if you have a business where you are creating content, that it is really your program, or service or whatever it is like that is the best thing for your best client to be in. And so, yeah, why not invite them, sell them? Have them actually create that transformation.

So yeah, so anyway, that is it for this update. And definitely tune in next week to hear about the pre-launch and launch period. And as in from when the podcast series begins. And also I will be sharing the numbers and I plan to do a lot of self-coaching, and getting peer coached as well. So yeah, I’ll be sharing all the things in those episodes. I really hope these helped you with your perfectionism handbrake with your business and I enjoy creating them. So yeah, with that said, if you enjoyed it, take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram. I’m @perfectionismproject. I hope you are having a beautiful day and I’ll talk to you in the next episode.

If you enjoy this podcast, I invite you to sign up to receive a short, daily “Perfectionist Power-Up” from me. These are little notes and reminders sent to you by email that will help you plan properly as a perfectionist and get you out of your own way. So you can go to samlaurabrown.com/power to sign up today and you’ll start receiving motivating Perfectionist Power Ups this week.

Author: Sam Brown