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There’s a LOT of information out there on how to grow your business. We should know – we create a lot of it ourselves!

But the profit comes from DOING, not the learning. In this episode, we’ll help you figure out not only why you’re stuck in learning mode… but how to get out of it.

Alyson Lex 0:01
In the spirit of today's episode, we are going to keep it short. Because the last thing we want to do is give you more information to overwhelm you. We've all been there, you learn, and you learn, and you learn. And you get into this habit of continuing to learn and never actually implementing, which means you're not actually making a difference in your business. So today, we're going to talk to you about how to get out of that cycle. Because like I said, We've all been there.

Jennie Wright 0:32
It's really hard. Staying in learning mode is what we do when we're sort of concerned or worried about how it's all going to go. I mean, I was a professional. It was a professional university student for extra time, because that fit the Hello, I'd say for them getting out into the real world. Would you have more struggling with imposter syndrome, when we're too afraid to try if we do if we're perfectionist, and we're worried that we won't get it so perfect, and so ready, and so exactly how we want it to be. So we keep learning trying to eliminate every possible variable for any failure.

Alyson Lex 1:08
I think we also stay in learning mode, when we don't exactly know how to connect the dots between what we know and what to do with it. That we feel like we don't have our step by step plan. And we're not really sure how to put one together. So we just figure we'll learn more. And we rabbit hole, instead of seeking out a specific solution. And what that does is it makes us feel like we're still making progress. Until we actually do something with that. We're not any action, we're not actually any closer to launch, we feel like we're making progress. But we're not making progress. We're not making more money, we're not getting closer to being profitable, or implementing the thing we're excited about. We're just learning something new, and we maybe see something shiny and go in a different direction. And it feels like we're so busy making plans, we never get around to making money.

Jennie Wright 2:13
Long time ago, I knew somebody who was trying to develop an online game. And it was in development for eight years. Eight years, he was trying to get better at understanding the platform's and learning how to code and learning how to do this. And by the time that game was ready, it was actually no longer something that people wanted, the time had passed for him. And I'm not saying that that necessarily will happen.

Alyson Lex 2:42
However,

Jennie Wright 2:44
speed to market is a thing. And you've heard the phrase done is better than perfect. I wonder if you've heard the phrase of intellectual procrastination,

Unknown Speaker 2:57
or analysis paralysis.

Jennie Wright 3:00
Both of those mean pretty much the same thing where you'd rather spend the time trying to learn and perfect and play in the, in the doing or the preparing versus the doing. Can we just tell you that nothing is ever perfect, like ever, ever,

Unknown Speaker 3:15
ever, ever

Unknown Speaker 3:17
going to be perfect.

Alyson Lex 3:19
Never

Jennie Wright 3:21
done is better than perfect. Although it was really hard for somebody like me to do that. There's a lot of conditioning behind that of not putting your best foot forward. But I also remember when I was about 11 years old, being told I was going to do my first ballet solo. I practiced and practiced and was horribly afraid and so anxious. And when I got on the stage, and I did this solo, I screwed it up, I don't know, four or five, six different ways. And it was a full house. My parents were there. My grandparents were there. Everybody was there in this like steady and not to stay in a theater. I screwed it up. And afterwards, do you know that nobody actually even noticed the mistakes? All they saw was this kid dancing her heart out on a stage doing our best and nobody gave a crap. And clearly, pretty much that's how it is nobody's really going to look at you and criticize you to the level that you think they will for a mistake. If you want to work on your website for three or four years and not get it done. Yeah, kind of looking at myself sometimes here. Then you're making a big mistake. You're leaving a lot of money on the table.

Alyson Lex 4:31
I want you to think about a Hollywood movie. Okay. You go to a theater you spend about an hour and a half, two hours watching a movie or you did in the before times. And what you see is the result of months of work. There have been scenes cut there has been editing. And yeah, it's probably deviated from the script. There are scenes in that movie that were not in the script. One of my favorite examples of this is Erin Brockovich the movie with Julia Roberts. If you've seen it, awesome, you might know what I'm talking about. But there's a point in the movie where she's holding a toddler age child in her arm. And she sees a car. And the toddler age child points at the car and says, I want that. And Julia Roberts reacts appropriately, as one might expect from a movie. Nobody told the toddler aged child to say that it was a quote unquote, accident. But it was perfect it made it into the movie. And if you didn't know that little tidbit about the behind the scenes, which I don't even know why I know it, you would never know that it wasn't scripted. That's my metaphor. For nobody knows what your script looks like, they just know the movie you're giving them. Nobody knows the moves that Jenny was supposed to do on those that stage. They just knew that what she did they liked, and they were there to support her. And they clapped. Yeah, they did. So don't worry if it doesn't match the script that's in your head. And I'm saying this from so much experience. And I'm telling you as much as I'm telling myself right now, because I am that person, that everything has to be perfect. But I've learned to let it go. Because half the people don't notice and the other half don't care.

Jennie Wright 6:49
They really don't. They don't, we're not going to be able to fix your idiosyncrasies. In this episode. If you have deep seated idiosyncrasies about perfectionism, this is not the platform for that. But hopefully, we can knock you a little bit loose from clinging to that perch of perfectionism. So here's how to start doing we promise this would be a short and sweet until the point episode we're going to get through. Setting a time limit on how long you spend in the learning phase, versus the doing phase helps me if I only give myself a certain amount of time to research versus what I can do, because I love research, I can go down that rabbit hole for hours, my friends, Oh, my gosh, and also knows this and so as my partner because I'll send them numbers of links, limit your time, find the best resources, you've totally can do this, and then research and then be done with it. Move forward. limit the number of resources that you'll use before you start to implement. Don't think that you need 60 resources, you might just need like three or four to learn the thing that you need. You don't need to watch 60 YouTube videos on how to connect Active Campaign to Click Funnels. You really just need one, maybe two, you know, if one of them's the 13 year old, like Hey, man, you know, subscribe to my channel, like that might not be the one, find another one. But you know, you get my point of view.

Alyson Lex 8:19
You bring up something really, really important and I want to differentiate something. There are two types of learning you do. There's just in case learning and just in time learning. And I want you when you're looking something up, what are you doing it for? Do you have a plan and you need to know how to execute it. And you're looking up how to connect Active Campaign to Click Funnels because you're in the middle of connecting Active Campaign to Click Funnels that's just in time learning. Or are you in the middle of connecting Active Campaign to Click Funnels. And now you want to know how to create a 32,000 step automation. For all of those leads you're dreaming about from your webinar, to get them into whatever secret club you have. That's just in case learning. You don't need that yet. The point. Also, seek out an expert who can help you fast track this, you're gonna have to pay for it. In some instances, you're gonna have to pay to learn the step by step that you want or need right now. To get done what you want to get done.

Jennie Wright 9:36
Allow yourself some grace and some understanding for the knocks and bumps that might happen along the way. Kids don't learn how to walk from watching and waiting and then getting up and running and doing it perfectly. They get up they fall over, they get up again, they fall over, they fall backwards, they you know, they get up and they keep getting up and then eventually those two steps come together and if you were like me at two years old, you get up and faceplant on your driveway and lose your two front teeth. And we have to wait till you're 12 for the other two to come back in. That's a completely different story. But I you keep getting up and moving forward.

Alyson Lex 10:11
It's also really important to define your goal, really have a clear definition on your goal. I know we've done a couple episodes on this, and we'll link them in the show notes. What must you accomplish? And what projects are going to get you to the goal. So this is actually going to help you prioritize and keep in action mode. If you have a goal, a clear goal that's going to that you are focused on? Is this project going to get you there? Or is it for funsies. And give yourself a deadline for these projects. If your big goal is to make $200,000 by the end of the year, well, what's your plan to make that happen? They need to have deadlines because you can't implement the whole plan on December 31. And make your goal

Jennie Wright 11:13
like what you were talking about with prioritizing. And doing that. And I think with prioritizing, one of the things that we have to do is getting everything out of our heads. One of the things that Allison and I do and I do a lot is I get stuff out of my head, because if it's rolling around in there, it's actually preventing me from doing what I want. So using a Google Doc, using Evernote, whatever you would like to use to get your thoughts out of your head, get out of your head, put it down on paper and see, see where the things that you must do. And that relates back to the must accomplish stuff. And then the stuff that is just for funsies that we don't really need to do right now that you don't really need to spend your time and your energy on.

Alyson Lex 11:57
One last thing that I want to mention, if you find yourself going back to the learning over and over again, kind of as a default, start tracking your time. I'm a big fan of just a legal pad next to me, on my left side, because I'm left handed. And every task I do everything I do, I just jot it down. And it's not i'm not it's not like a super duper time tracking system. I don't know how long things take me. But it allows me to see what's grabbed my attention and when. So I can begin to delegate some things, I can start to take things out of rotation, or just be aware of what I'm doing.

Jennie Wright 12:42
Awareness is big when you're trying to get into action. So think about the things that are keeping you stuck where you are some of them Allison and I are not qualified to handle. These are things that you can seek out for, you know, from somebody perhaps in a therapy situation, or doing some doing some learning on how to get more into action. These are the things that Allison and I noticed with ourselves and with our clients. And this is how we sort of look at getting out of this particular mode. Allison and I both been in this mode. We've had clients be in this mode. Again, I've had clients be in this mode for months and months and months. And you know, oh, I wanted to do a summit for three years, or Oh, I've tried to do this. There's a couple takeaways for today that I think are going to help set deadlines and timeframes. limit the amount of time that you allow yourself to be in this learning mode. that's essential. If you don't do that you could be in learning mode for months for years. And you don't want that. I love what Alyson said about Justin time verse And just in case learning. I'd never looked at it that way. But it makes sense. Which one are you doing and why identify it, that'll help you understand that you don't need to be creating an automation with 365 steps at the moment, because you're not there yet. You're not at that step yet. And if you're not at that step, don't do it. Learn the thing that you're trying to do connect Active Campaign to clickfunnels, get it done. And then you can do more of the research on the fun stuff.

Alyson Lex 14:09
We do get inspired when we're doing things. So if you have ideas, get them out of your head onto a piece of paper into a Google Doc into an Evernote, whatever you need to do. Be aware of your activities. Because this is going to help you see how you're really spending your time and you can adjust awareness is key. And of course treat yourself with grace. Nothing's ever perfect and you're not going to get it all right and that's okay. As long as you're doing more than you were doing yesterday.

Jennie Wright 14:42
Yes, it's process. Some days is going to be great. Some days you're going to fall off the proverbial do it now train. That's okay, that happens. Just have the grace to understand where you're at and where you want to be. We promise this would be a short and sweet episode. We hope we kept it that way. We hope you got something helpful from this And then you'll be able to start doing some implementation on what it is that you want to do for your business. If you're also stuck in learning, and as opposed to actually the implementation and the start doing, take a look at one thing, we mentioned it twice. I'm going to mention it one last time, who can support you to make it happen? Who can get in there and help move you forward? As a coach, a va, podcast editor, a graphic designer who can help you move forward? Is your time worth six hours sitting in Canva? Trying to do a graphic? Or can you pay somebody 40 from you know, for 45 minutes of their time to do a better job. Just start moving forward. Thanks for listening to this episode. Please make sure you follow us where you listen to your podcasting, we would want to make sure that you don't miss any of the episodes that Allison and I do. If you need help getting things done, go to System to thrive.com. Check out the work with us tab and see if that makes sense for you. We'd love to connect and we'd love to help support you in your business to get stuff done. Allison and I are really good at it. Let us help you. And thanks so much for listening again to this episode. We really appreciate your time and everything that you put into actually listening to us. We really do appreciate it very much. And we'll be back again soon answering another big question.