#261: How to Follow Through

How to Follow Through

Hello my friends. We're gonna talk about follow through today and how to follow through.

I get so many lawyers who come to me and they tell me that they have a huge problem following through. And I hear things like, you know, I just don't feel motivated to do anything. Or, I hear from them that they think that they're lazy and that they don't have enough self-discipline.

And what I wanna share with you is that we do or don't do anything based on how we think it will make us feel. And so, as you know, if you've been listening to this podcast, what creates our feelings is what we think. So we're gonna walk through step by step what you can do to begin learning how to follow through. And one of the big ones is starting to gain awareness of those thoughts.

But our thoughts move super quickly and they move something. I mean, imagine this, you've got 60,000 thoughts every single day, and they are just moving through your head like a tornado. And sometimes your head probably feels super busy. And one of the things we need to learn, it's a skill, is to how, is to slow our brain down? One of the tools that I use with my clients to do this is the model.

And you could do this in any number of ways, but I talk about this in another episode called What Does What It Really Means To Slow Down. And so I'm going to share that episode along with a couple other episodes, um, that are gonna be related to the topics we talk about in this one, so that you can really begin understanding your brain more and what's happening when you don't follow through on something, whether it's something you put on your calendar or whether it's a a target, a goal that you wanna, you wanna do, that you're noticing that you're just not taking the actions to make it happen.

What's really happening here is that there are things going on in your brain creating emotional feedback, vibrations in your body that we're gonna talk about later in this episode. And we are not paying attention and we're not learning how to process and move through that difficult emotion so that we can take the actions that we wanna take.

So one big thing I want you to take away from this is motivation is not what moves us. Um, self-discipline is not what moves us. What moves us is understanding ourselves and so often understanding that we're beating ourselves up and creating friction between us and the action that we wanna take. And at the end of this episode, I'm gonna be sharing a message for you perfectionists out there.

If you think you have to do this perfectly, I want you to think again. So as we go through these steps, I want you to just be so compassionate with yourself and understand this is a learned skill. Following through is a learned skill. And I want you to think back to when you were a toddler, right? You don't remember this, but when you were a toddler, you had to learn things like learning how to walk, learning how to eat solid foods, learning all of these different skills.

You didn't just accept, expect yourself to just suddenly know them. What you did is you kept practicing them even though you were bad at them, even though you spit up your food, even though you kept falling on your face <laugh> when you tried to walk. Right? Me too, right? Even though we were doing these things, we just kept practicing and it was the practice that helped us get good at it.

The same goes with follow through. So everything that I'm gonna be talking about in this episode has to, has to be practiced. These are all things I needed to do. I'm gonna give you specific examples of where things have shown up in my life where I needed to learn these skills. And when I did, I was able to follow through with what I wanted to create in my life. I'm gonna give you some other examples along the way.

So one of the things that lawyers come to me with is they say, look, I have projects due. I have phone calls I need to return. I don't wanna do any of them. I don't feel motivated to do any of them. And they'll get started on a project and then they'll leave it to sit for weeks. They just won't get to it. Um, or they think about calling a client, but they don't wanna do it, and they can't understand why they don't just do it. They're having different thoughts around the different tasks that they need to accomplish.

And those tasks are things that are being procrastinated on because they feel a certain way because of what they are thinking. So for instance, they're thinking thoughts like, it's gonna be hard. I don't know what I'm doing. I should be working harder. I should have done it already.

I should be doing it. I'm a bad lawyer for not doing it. It's not that big a deal. I should just do it already. <laugh>. Or, you know, like those kinds of thoughts and those kinds of thoughts create feelings like self-doubt and shame. So of course, when we feel self-doubt and shame, we're not going to feel enticed to do any work. We, of course, are gonna procrastinate or we're gonna abandon projects.

And this is how you'll know if some of this is showing up in your life. It could, procrastination looks like a few different things. It could be rolling up on the couch and ruminating and eating donuts, or it could be, um, doing busy work that feels productive instead of tackling the project. But those busy work projects aren't really all that productive. They're just things that you're using as an excuse not to tackle the project.

Or maybe you have a lot of ideas and you're not implementing them. I have fallen in every single one of these categories. So know that you are normal. And when you are going through this, it can feel like it's impossible to move that you're in molasses, that you cannot do anything. So know that speaking from experience, what is happening here is that you are being really hard on yourself.

You are really hurting yourself by telling yourself you should be better, that you are not doing enough. And I have done this, I have beaten myself into submission, as I've talked about in this podcast before. And that does not create a situation where you can sit down and really do your work. And this is really interesting because when we're beating ourselves up like this, we have had past times when we have done that and we have made ourselves be productive, we're usually using dread to fuel, completing a task for a deadline, right?

We're using that deadline to fuel the action. That's like our, our faux motivation. But when we do that, we're creating all of the stress in our bodies and we're depleting ourselves. So once we get that task done, we are too exhausted to really get into a routine where we can follow through on the tasks that we want to do regularly. So it's really important that we're watching our thoughts and really slowing them down so we can see like what is going on in our brain.

I'm gonna give you some more examples about this. So let's say you have a, a phone call or a project or an email, and you're not completing the task, you're not doing it well. The first thing you wanna do is you just wanna get awareness that you're avoiding things. Sometimes we just move right on into the busy work, or we find ourselves scrolling social media for an hour and we realize that the time that we had allotted for the project is now gone, and we're not recognizing our actions because we simply aren't paying attention.

That is very common. I would say that that is 99 a percent of the people who come to me don't have that awareness yet. Very normal. I had to work through this too. I had to create that awareness. It's a learned behavior. We move so fast in this society, we're not paying attention to our actions, and our brain is on autopilot. It wants us to feel good all the time. So it's constantly looking for dopamine hits. So that's why the busy work is so attractive. That's why the social media and checking quick emails, that's so attractive to our brain, it feels really good. Same thing with sugar. If you're going to the fridge, you're grabbing something to eat, you go online and you buy something really quick. You know, like those kinds of dopamine hits are replacing the energy for the, the follow through that you have, right?

You're, you're like, oh, well, I'll just do these other things that feel really good because it feels really bad when I think about doing this project. So the very first thing is just to gain that awareness. Once you notice that behavior is happening, then it's up to you to stop. It's up to you to press pause, to put the phone down, to step away from the fridge, to step away from the, um, online shopping site. It's up to you to just press pause and then just sit with the, the discomfort of not doing something that's gonna give you an immediate dopamine hit. This is the hard part, at least it is for me, because my brain desperately wants the dopamine hit. It's like, oh, but it's gonna feel so good if you just like lay down for a little bit. Or maybe like, you know, you just like have a cookie, or it's just like you go, you know, whatever it is.

When I know that I don't actually need rest, like my brain is just telling me like, you know, it'd be super nice if we could just snuggle with the dog, right? <laugh>. So I, it's up to me to remind myself, well, wait a minute, how nice will it be once I complete this task? It's gonna feel so good, right? But I have to remind myself of that. I have to catch that behavior before I can remind myself of that. And then what I do, and what I encourage you to do once you start noticing the avoidant behaviors, is you start asking yourself like, why am I avoiding it? Why am I avoiding this phone call? Why am I avoiding this, um, project? What's happening? Well, these are the thoughts that come up when I'm coaching clients because I'm afraid the client is gonna yell at me, and then I'll feel bad because I'm afraid that they're not gonna like me, and I'll feel bad because I'm afraid I'm going to make a mistake and I'll feel bad because I'm afraid I'm gonna fail and I'll feel bad because I'm afraid I'll feel rejected, right?

These are all different thoughts that are creating feelings. And usually when I say bad, it's usually shame. Usually shame is what comes up. Maybe disappointment, but shame is huge. And, and when we don't recognize what's going on that we're having these thoughts that are creating lots of shame, then we start blaming ourselves for not following through and telling ourselves we're bad attorneys, that we're lazy, that we're just not disciplined enough, versus, oh, I have some shame happening in my body. And I I've never been trained how to deal with it, right? I was never taught how to deal with, to process shame. That's just the way it is. Like we learn how to be in this world based on what we were taught as kids. And if we don't learn the process of recognizing what an emotion is, realizing that emotion is okay, and then being able to, in a healthy way, process that emotion, we're gonna take that into adulthood.

And I definitely took what I learned as a kid and I applied it to my adult life, and it resulted in me procrastinating, beating myself up and not taking care of myself. And so what this whole episode is about is about you not just learning how to follow through, but how to address the behaviors that may have been well that have been learned over the years. And a big part of it is just not learning how to process the emotions. So this is why I help my clients get that emotional awareness, because most of us are so detached from our emotions because we're in such a heightened state of anxiety too, right? Like we have this, I, I did a masterclass last week. You can, you can watch it too. It's at dina cataldo.com/take control now. And in that masterclass, I was talking about this funnel.

And in this funnel at the very top of it, we have all of these things coming in. We have our cases, we have emails, we have client calls, we have all these responsibilities, not to mention family responsibilities all coming in at the top of this funnel. And then what we need to do is we need to start getting awareness of, okay, what are the most important things? How do we organize them in our brain? How do we problem solve and make decisions so that we can then at the bottom of the funnel begin to get a refined sense of what we need to get done? But when we don't do that, most of us don't, it's because we're in this heightened sense of emotion and we don't have awareness around it, and we cannot calm ourselves enough to help us like create that refinement. And we end up doing nothing because we feel so horrible.

And you're not gonna like number four, I'll tell you that right now, right? And I'm giving these as steps, but this happens so quickly in our brain, I want you to know this, this is why it's a practice. This happens so quickly in our brain that the only thing that you're probably gonna catch at first is just, oh, I'm doing it. I'm like avoiding it. That's gonna be what you're noticing at first, and that's normal. That's okay. Over time, you're gonna notice that you're avoiding it, and then you're gonna start noticing like, oh, I'm avoiding it because I'm afraid the client won't like me and I'll feel bad. Right? It'll become a little more specific, and then you'll be able to take it to this next step, which is just allow yourself to feel horrible for a minute. It's okay. All an emotion is, is a vibration in our body.

And what that emotion is telling us is that our brain is saying something to us, that's okay. It doesn't mean anything has gone wrong. Your brain is working exactly as it was meant to behave. We just want to recognize it. I wanna give you an example of how shame was really impacting my business. And I needed to really sit with the feeling of shame in order for me to move forward. So when I started noticing the, well, first of all, I needed coaching to notice this. This was not something I was able to notice on my own. I thought that when I didn't hit my goals, that that meant that I was doing something wrong, right? And I made that into bad. So I made it into shame, but it wasn't from a neutral place where I could simply evaluate things and just kind of say, okay, what worked?

What didn't work? Be really methodical and treat it like math. I was telling myself that I was a failure, that I wasn't capable, and that created massive amounts of shame. I had no idea that I was thinking these thoughts. Like I didn't have that awareness. I just knew I felt bad and I wasn't getting the results that I wanted. It took a coach to show me, oh, wait a minute. What's happening here? What's happening in your brain? Oh, you're beating yourself up. You're telling yourself you're not doing enough, that you don't know what you're doing, that you're not capable. And so I had to, to see that thought and realize that was what was causing the feeling in my body. And when I could sit with that feeling in my body, that's when I could take the next step. I don't even wanna get there yet right now.

I just want you to know it's okay to be with that feeling. So often I'll have clients say, I just wanna know a thought that makes me feel better. I just want a thought that'll make me feel better. And then, then that's all I need. No, that's like putting wallpaper over a dirty wall. The dirt is always under the wallpaper. You always know it's there. We really want to clean the wall. We wanna know that it's pic and span before we put anything over that wall. And the only way to do that is to recognize the emotion and let it be okay, because it is a normal human emotion. And to deny even the emotions that feel bad is to deny your humanness. It's like saying, you know what? I don't wanna feel grief anymore. I just wanna be happy all the time. Of course, you wouldn't wanna be happy all the time.

You would want to feel grief when someone you love is gone. You would wanna feel these emotions. You wouldn't wanna have a smile on your face all the time. Same thing goes with every single emotion. There's a reason that we have it. We would not be given these emotions if we were not meant to understand what they are, to allow ourselves to feel them, let it be okay, and to then start to just use them as a tool to give us awareness. Like that's how I look at my emotions now, is they are a tool to give me an awareness. So if I felt really sad, maybe heartbroken, it would be information, it would tell me, oh, I'm really sad about that breakup, or, I'm really sad that that person's going through that, right? It's just information. It's telling me what my thoughts are. So if I'm feeling shame and I can connect with that shame, it's like, oh, I'm feeling really bad about myself.

Why? Oh, because I'm telling myself I'm lazy. I'm telling myself I'm incapable, that I should have more self-discipline, that I just am a bad attorney, right? But we can't even get there until we start making peace with those emotions. And when we get peace with those emotions, that's when we can start making the change that we want. And by making peace, that moves me into the next step, which is to be kind to yourself. And this is the hardest, when you've been really mean to yourself for years, then this becomes, uh, a new task, a new thing to learn. And that's okay, right? When I was going through this, when I was building my business, and you know, I'm still building it, but when I was in the very early stages of it, I wanted it to go faster, right? And I had a ton of shame and a ton of self-doubt, and I was trying to hustle through it.

I was trying to work through it, meaning grind, do more work, do more things. But what was happening is that I wasn't following through on the most important things. I was doing the busy work. I was working myself really hard, but I wasn't doing what really need to be done. I wasn't doing the most important tasks that would build my business. I wasn't connecting with my audience regularly because I'd feel really good for a few days, but then I would be steeped in shame and self-doubt for several days more. And so I was creating really inconsistent income. And then I noticed that, you know, I, I couldn't really love my work or my business because I was at war with it, and I wasn't really connecting with the people I loved the way that I wanted to. So I might snap at somebody who interrupted me, or I might disconnect from my friends because I thought I needed to work more, and I would have lots and lots of ideas, but then I wasn't choosing one or two of them that were most important for the growth of my business.

And then following through on them, I was just like taking lots of notes and just kind of leaving them everywhere, right? Like I said, oh, this is a good idea, this is a good idea, this is a good idea. But I wasn't really just saying, okay, well let's, let's take a look at what is the best of these ideas and let's make it part of a plan. And here's something else that I realized and I see a lot with my clients, is that they're working not to, not for a living, right? Not, not because they really enjoy it, right? They're working to prove their self worth. And that's where I was too. I was working to prove my value in the world versus just serving my clients. And we don't have to prove ourselves or our worth in this world. We come to this planet a hundred percent valuable.

No matter you know, who you are or where you are in your life, you are always 100% value valuable. It doesn't matter what it is, like who you are. Like when we start equating our work with our self worth, we are never ever gonna feel like enough because our self value is infinite. But when we are saying the work that we're doing then equals our self, wor our self worth, the work that we can do is finite. You can never match those. You'll be working all the time to try to prove your self worth. So the sooner you have the ability to accept how valuable you are in this world, then you don't have to work to prove your self worth because you just know. And then you can just serve your clients. You can serve because that's what you want to do. You want to serve the people that you're serving.

Um, a lot of lawyers I talk to experience the same thing when they are building their practices. So if you're experiencing this, know that you're normal. There's nothing wrong with you. You've been given a paradigm by society that tells you you need to work to prove your self-worth. You need to work harder for that. A plus. You need to work harder for that promotion so that people approve of you, and then you can get the to the next rung of the latter, versus recognizing a hundred percent right now how valuable you are. And walking into a room and understanding that, and nobody's giving you a promotion. You're telling them that this is what it is that I need, and if you cannot give it to me, then I'm going to walk away. But so few of us have the ability to do that because we're simply not trained to, we have to learn this.

We're like, we're in a relearning process. A lot of us, I am included relearning this social paradigm that's been fed to us that doesn't make any sense. And when I talk to my clients, they start to recognize like what they've been fed over the years doesn't make sense. And when they hear this podcast, they're like, oh, this makes sense. Like, this is what makes sense to me. And I've been following these rules that society has given me and told me, like, do all of these things. The harder you work, the more you struggle, the more valuable you are, the more you prove your worth and worthiness to be on the planet, versus just accepting we are already a hundred percent valuable and a hundred percent worthy to be here. All right? So the next step is after you have really felt the feelings, and yes, I know I'm telling you, it requires you feeling horrible.

Yes, I know it sounds horrible, but it's okay. It's just a vibration in your body. You'll get used to it and you'll start to accept it as part of you and you're kind to yourself. Then the next thing you wanna do is you wanna talk yourself into the next steps, because you can count on putting items on the calendar to follow through on. And your brain is gonna say, I don't wanna do it. It's gonna say, no, I think we should go on social media. I think we should go work on that other little project. I think we should, um, roll up on the couch. I think we should go get a snack, right? Our brain is going to do these things. And I, I'm gonna link to another podcast episode in the show notes, and it's called, um, a Study in Distraction. And in a study of Distraction, I walk you through how I talked through, and I, and I do this on a regular basis, how I talk through my brain when it wants to be distracted.

So that is something to really watch. This is part of observing our brains. So once you notice that your brain wants to avoid and distract, and you're noticing, okay, I'm feeling shame, I'm feeling disappointment, whatever it is, and you accept, you're kind to yourself, you're like, okay, this is normal. I know that this is okay, then you're gonna say, all right, it's okay, girl. You're gonna say, how can I make this easier for myself? And one of the things that I do, this is one of my very favorite questions, because you can ask this question, how can I make things easier here? And your brain will come up with answers. Just listen. It's meant to come up with answers. When whatever questions you ask your brain, it's gonna want to come up with answers. It's the most amazing supercomputer in the world. And it'll give you answers like, well, how about we just break up this project into smaller pieces and we'll do one piece today and we'll put two pieces on tomorrow, and then the last piece we'll do on Wednesday.

And by the time we do that Wednesday, it'll be done. We don't have any problems. Let's just do that. Okay? Or maybe you just ask yourself, okay, why am I, why, why is it that when I think about calling this client, I feel such dread? And the answer comes back because you're afraid of what the client's gonna say to you. You feel the fear and you recognize it, and you let it be okay. And then you just start talking to yourself. You're like, it's okay, hun. Right? Whatever she has to say, it's gonna be fine. You may not like what she has to say, but maybe it won't be as bad as you think. And even if it is, that's okay. We'll handle it no matter what. I've got you. That's what it takes. It takes talking to yourself, really, like recognizing like, okay, how can I make it easier with this client call?

Okay, well, maybe I'll just call in the morning, get, get it done, and then I don't have to think about it for the rest of the day. I just ask yourself that question and your brain will come up with answers. And then you just talk yourself through these different situations. The last step here is to practice this. Now, at first, this is gonna seem totally foreign to you. I mean, this is why I coach <laugh>, because this is not natural, like the process that I'm walking you through, nobody teaches us this process. I've really gotten into the, the weeds here of this process, and it's something that takes so much practice and so much awareness that people come to me so that they can get this awareness. So if you are feeling a little lost right now, it's okay. You can go back, you can listen to this episode as many times as you need to, that this is a process and it takes practice.

Now, first, you're not going to notice anything. You're not even gonna notice the habit that you're in of avoiding the project that you have. You're going to then suddenly start noticing, oh, wow, I really am on my, my cell phone a lot, and I'm doing it while I said I was gonna be working on that project. And then you're gonna notice that a few more times, and you're not gonna do the next step, right? You're not going to recognize, oh, I'm having a thought. What's the thought? What's the feeling associated with that thought? You're not gonna notice these things right away, and that's okay, right? Just know that you can do this. This is forming a brand new habit in your brain. I love our brains because even if we have an old habit that we've established in childhood, we can come in as adults because our brain has this thing called neuroplasticity where we can form new connections in our brain and we can create new habits.

I learned this when I became, when I made myself into a morning person, and I started learning all of these different things about the human brain and all of its potentials. But it really only happens when we start becoming aware of what's going on in our brain on a regular basis, and really slowing our brain down and understanding why we're behaving the way that we're behaving, and not beating ourselves up for behaving that way, telling ourselves we're being bad or wrong, or that somehow we're not disciplined enough. So when you start seeing yourself in this cycle, right, it's a normal cycle, and it takes practice to move through it. And this is part of what I wanna share with the perfectionist listening out there, is that it's really gonna be easy to use this episode against yourself if you believe that you don't follow through a hundred percent of the time and don't do all of these steps all over the time.

But there's nothing wrong with you if you don't, because this is a learned behavior. It's a learned habitual pattern. Hey, you have a human brain. And I teach myself, and I teach this stuff, and my brain doesn't follow through a hundred percent of the time either. I've raised my capacity to follow through a lot, and because I, I have done that, I've created a lot of self-confidence and a lot of self-trust that I will get things done, and I do it, and I figure it out. I figure out how to make things happen without burning out, without being mean to myself, without shaming myself. And I take rest when I need it, and I don't tell myself that it's wrong or bad. So this is something that you learn over time. Okay? So let me walk through these steps again, and you can take from this what you will.

Maybe it's just step one, just recognizing having awareness of when you are avoiding behaviors, avoiding following through on something, and what your avoidant behaviors are. Okay? So step one is just get awareness of what's happening. What are you avoiding? What are you avoiding it with? Hey, are you avoiding it with shopping, food, social media, busy work? Find out note. It might even wanna keep a journal about it just so that you can get awareness, not so that you can use it as a weapon against yourself, just as a way to get some awareness around, around what's happening. And then you're gonna ask yourself, why am I avoiding this? And it's always gonna be a feeling. So remember, the feeling is gonna be something like, I'm afraid they're gonna yell at me. And then I'll feel what? I'll feel like a failure. I'll feel shame, I'll feel disappointed.

What is the feeling? The one word emotion. And this might be difficult at first because we're so disconnected from our emotions, but just keep practicing, keep trying and recognize like there's always gonna be a feeling that I am avoiding feeling, and that is why I'm not following through. And that's okay. The next step is to then, once you've found that emotion that you're avoiding, is to then just sit with it and feel it. And you're not going to want to, you're gonna wanna reach for social media, you're gonna wanna reach for the email, all of that good stuff. But you've gotta sit with it and let it be okay to feel it. It's just a vibration in your body caused by a thought that you're having. It's okay. You're safe to feel the feeling. And this is something that I've worked with myself a lot because I would feel anxiety, and sometimes I still do.

And I will sit and just feel the anxiety and let it shake through my body and just breathe. And when I sit with it, sometimes it'll just dissipate on its own. I don't have to do anything else. And sometimes it doesn't, and that's okay too. But I just allow it to be, I don't make it wrong or bad, it's okay. And then I'm very kind to myself now, wasn't always tell yourself it's okay to feel this. You're not bad, you're not wrong, you're normal. And then you can then start processing some of this emotion. Talk yourself through the project that you wanna do. If you wanna do a project, asking yourself the question, how can I make this easier? Can really help break it down into very small pieces. And if it's something like a client phone call, it may be just something that you put on first on the calendar, and you just go, and then of course, practice this.

Okay? Know this is a practice. This is something just like a calendar. It takes practice because you're building a new neural network in your brain. New connections that need to be formed so that you can create this habit. And if you want help with this, if you wanna create these connections faster, book a call with me. You can book a strategy session with me at dina cataldo.com/strategy session. Now, one of the things that I talked to a couple people after the masterclass about last week was, um, why they found coaching so attractive. And one of them said it was because I let them know there was no homework. And that <laugh>, they didn't have to follow through on doing homework. And that is what I wanna share with you right now, is if you're afraid you're not gonna follow through and then you're gonna feel bad, then you're not going to do things that may be helpful for you.

So I want you to know that when I work with my clients, I don't give them paper homework. They just come and they visit with me every single week. And we start to build these neural connections. We start to build this awareness, we start to create the ability to manage emotions, process emotions in a way that we've never been taught, and then we start creating these new habits. And it's something that can be seen immediately when I work with my clients, like there's a difference immediately. They feel more empowered, they understand themselves more, they're kinder them to themselves, and it really shows in how they show up in their day-today. So if that's something that holds you back from coaching, is worrying that there's gonna be some homework, and that you know, you're gonna feel obligated to complete something before you come to a session, I want you to know that that's not part of what coaching is in in my world.

And you never have to show up ready in my sessions. Sometimes clients will tell me, they'll say, you know, I, I thought like I needed to be prepared to come to your session, and I was afraid to show up like not ready. And what I always tell them is, you don't have to show up ready to my, my client calls. You just show up as you are. You could be a total hot mess. It's perfectly fine. And I just ask questions. And we start doing this work very naturally. It's very organic. I have a process that I will work through with you and I'll, and I'll talk to you more specifically about what you want and what you need in a strategy session. But it is very much a process where I just, we just talk, right? Like I just ask you questions. And then we start building on that, and we start creating the foundation for what you want to build, whether it's to build your practice, whether it's to build, build, follow up skills, whatever it is. So book a strategy session with me. You can book a call at dina cataldo.com/strategy session, and we will work on creating an environment for you in your brain to start following through. All right, my friend, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and I will talk to you soon. Bye.