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Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week’s episode of Motivate Me!

It’s Me! Time here on Motivate Me! and we are working on coming back from flat.

Before we start, let’s get into the right headspace. Let’s engage in the idea that this is time where YOU are the priority. Let’s take two slow, deep breaths to get us centered. Just follow me.

Today’s focus is: Create an Action Plan

So, when I began the process of creating this podcast, I had some really important things to figure out: what will my show be about? What am I about? How will I use my new professional coaching certification to help people? I had learned the kind of information in my coaching program that you can’t just un-know, if you know what I mean? And I wanted to share it with people. I wanted to use it to help people.

In Episode 558 of this season, I talk about how to uncover your life purpose. That was my first step in the creation process of this show. I needed to do a deep dive into who I was and discover what I believed my purpose to be before I could move forward. In Episode 558, I walk through that process with you, so you can do the same for yourself.

I discovered that my purpose is to empower others. OK, I thought, how can I live in my purpose while using my coaching knowledge? One of the greatest points I learned in my certification process is that we all have the answers we need; we just need to learn how to uncover those answers. And that in order for people to buy-in to change, it has to be their idea. My job as a coach is not to roll into your life to tell you what you need to do; a coach’s job is to roll into your life to ask you the right questions that will help you determine what you need to do.

Nobody knows you better than you. Nobody knows what’s best for you better than you. Especially the people in your life who try to tell you they do. Chances are those people are trying to control you or control the direction you take in life. Sometimes people do this with the best intentions, sometimes not, but either way, this is your decision to make.

Getting back to when I started this podcast, it was with the intention to help the masses. I wanted to help people live a life that was more exciting or more meaningful than their current one. And, to me, that meant passion. I wanted to help people discover or rediscover their passion, because I felt so many of us were not living lives we were passion about. We were just existing.

Since I knew that people have to make their own discoveries, I devised a Motivate Me! plan. I thought, if I interview guests who are living exciting and meaningful lives, living their passion, then our listeners can learn from them in a non-threatening way. Listeners could then apply what they’ve learned to their own lives in a way that works for them.

One of my favorite examples of this is show guest Chris Nordhaus. Long story short, Chris was blindsided by a divorce. His passion had always been sport cars, and he had an old one in the garage he would tinker with. Chris, ultimately, recovered from his divorce by buying himself a brand new Camaro and joining a Camaro club. The greatest part about his story is how he rebuilt his life through an old, rekindled passion.

In a short time, he made friends outside of those that were a part of his marriage, he was taking road trips around the country to places like Sturgis, South Dakota, and he became part of the board of the club. He leaned into his passion and he used his passion to recreate his life.

Similarly, when show guest Karen Babb Newhall was going through her divorce, she taught herself how to train Border Collies to herd sheep. When she got good at it, she started a business training other dogs and she has since built a Border Collie rescue on her farm.

I think these are fantastic examples of how someone going through a divorce can hear these stories, consider their own passion, and pull from the practices of both of these show guests.

This is why I started my show, then I thought it would be amazing to interview people in each of the United States. If you’d like to hear a detailed account of how that idea was conceived and carried out, you can check out Episode 533. So we did that, we traveled the fifty states in ninety days interviewing people about passion, me and two women I hired whom I’d never met.

All of this brings us to where we are today – coming back from flat together. And while listening to the experiences of others can be a powerful and informative eye-opener, it means nothing if we don’t act.

Motivate Me!’s foundation is based on an action plan. It’s based on the formula I use to make my own decisions, to take my own actions. And I’m going to share this with you today with the hope that you will write this down and fill in your own blanks.

This action plan is based on three basic steps that are determined by your unique person and passion. The three steps are Envision, Explore, Execute. I’m going to explain each one and give you ideas on how to utilize each.

Action #1 is to Envision

Let’s say your passion is teaching. You’ve always enjoyed being class mom, the cheerleading coach, helping your kids with their homework and projects. But you find yourself in your thirties or forties and you don’t know if it’s too late to start a college career? You try to talk yourself out of it. You know it will cost money, it will take your time and attention away from your family, and you don’t even know if you have what it takes to be a college student. You don’t know if you’re smart enough?

It’s at this point in the process you need to envision yourself doing the thing. See yourself working in a school. How does that feel? What are you wearing? What does your classroom look like? What does it smell like? What do your students look like? How old are they? What subject are you teaching? How do your shoes sound when walking down the corridor? What are you holding in your hands? See yourself designing lesson plans and grading papers. How does this feel to you? See yourself managing home-life. Are you sitting at the kitchen table doing “homework” with your kids – you grading and them working?

Envision how this impacts the people in your world. Do you see a paycheck coming in that’s contributing to the family in a way you couldn’t before? Do your kids have a new perspective on the importance of education? Do you see yourself off from school when your kids are – during breaks, holidays, and snow days? Do you feel proud of yourself for accomplishing a teaching degree? Do you have more to contribute to the family conversation at dinner? Is your partner looking at you a little differently?

How does this vision feel?

Action #2 is to Explore

Wow, OK, you didn’t talk yourself out of this yet. Nice! You want to take the next step and just explore what it would take to make this teaching thing happen. The Explore step is research. It does not cost a penny to explore your options. You could make a list of three or five or ten possibilities for yourself, and comparing them is probably not a bad idea!

But there are things you need to know before making this decision. Is there a teaching certification program near you? Go to the school site, compare the programs, look at the course descriptions. Does this degree interest you? How much does it cost? What does the schedule look like? Do you need to take an entrance exam? Is there a way to prepare for the entrance exam? Do you need childcare or to carpool with friends? Do you need to work around a current job? Is this feasible? Can you make it work? What obstacles will you need to address?

Action #3 is to Execute

If you are at this step, good for you! You have decided just to take that first step towards getting your teaching degree. You may not be ready to sign up for the whole enchilada, but maybe you are ready to schedule yourself for the entrance exam. Maybe the results of that exam will give you the confidence you need to take the next step – or maybe it will inform your decision to abort this mission. It’s OK. It’s a small fee and a little time to figure out if this is your path. So you do it, you register for the entrance exam – step one taken!

Next, you reach out to friends and see if anyone can tell you more about how to prepare for the entrance exam. You borrow the book from a friend and study like you never remember studying before. You take the test. You know the result of this exam will be the deciding factor, and when you open the results and see that you’ve passed, you know there is no stopping you now.

You have made the decision to go for that teaching degree! And all you need to decide next is whether to start slowly with one class, or come fast out of the gate and take a full course load.

Envision, Explore, Execute.

We would love to hear your thoughts. Join us in our Private Facebook group: Motivate Me! Support System and checkout MotivateMePodcast.com for anything else.

I am going to leave you with some truth talk from me to you: We have talked in many episodes about all the things we allow to hold us back. Not today. Today we are only focusing on those things that will move us forward. So, pull from the experiences of others, see that you deserve the same or better, and figure out what and how you need to do that. And most importantly, take that action – you are worth it!

Remember, you Motivate Me!