Ep. 42 - Your Beginner Era Is the Key to Success: How to Set Goals & Actually Follow Through on Them With Confidence

In this episode of the Blissfully Bold Podcast, I share actionable steps to overcome perfectionism, avoid information overload, and build self-trust by taking small, intentional steps toward your goals. I discuss the importance of following through on promises to yourself, leveraging mentors, and embracing the role of both student and teacher. I also provide insights on handling setbacks and pivots, along with practical tips for organizing resources and maintaining focus. This episode is packed with advice for high achievers looking to balance life's chaos, achieve personal growth, and set effective boundaries.

00:00 Intro
01:42 Support the Podcast
03:06 Taking Action Despite Fear
08:31 Blissfully Bold Boundaries 
09:41 Embrace Being a Beginner
21:34 My Experience With Pivoting
24:31 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
27:25 Daily Planner for the High Achiever

Listen to these episodes to go deeper in today's conversation:

• Ep. 04 - Finding Confidence Through Imperfect Action: Coexisting with Anxiety and Ditching Perfectionism, Self Doubt, & Fears of Rejection for a More Balanced Life
• Ep. 33 - Ditch the Pressure for Perfectionism: Reframing Failures with Grace and Reflection
• Ep. 40 - The High Achiever’s Trap and Redefining Success: Why You’re Always Looking Ahead Instead of Celebrating Now

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Transcript

 The most important thing here is to protect your time and to keep your promises to yourself. It helps build the courage and confidence to the skill that you are learning, right? The more that you can trust yourself to do the things that you said you were gonna do, like the more confidence that you will build and practice that you will get under your belt from taking these like single steps to go towards your goal.

Instead of information overload and trying to be perfect at doing everything for what you're learning, uh, which brings me to my next point, make sure that you follow through. It's important not only for building the self-trust, but also, um, for making the goal bite sized. Hi, my name is Gavi ly, and I'm your boundary advocate to lead you to a more peaceful life.

Four years ago, I was stuck in a deep depression, a fog covered lake in the dead of night, with no idea of where to turn to get back to me or my own needs. After seeking professional guidance to lead me out of the darkness, advocating for myself, my boundaries and my overall wellbeing has become a daily practice of self-care.

Here on the Blissfully Bold Podcast, we'll chat about balancing life's chaos within ourselves and in everyday spaces, pumping the brakes on people, pleasing and understanding our personal needs to create the peace and happiness we so crave and deserve. Join me every Wednesday for a new episode and dare to be blissfully bold.

Welcome to the Blissfully Bold Podcast. Hey friend, if you are loving the podcast, please go show support by sharing with a friend, connecting with me and my dms over on Instagram at Gabby dot reely, and rating your reviewing on your favorite listening app. And there's another way you can support the show.

You can buy me a coffee. It's similar to Patreon in that it helps fund creator efforts to continue bringing value to you. That means releasing this show every week, so it means so much to me. If you could go and visit my page and buy me a coffee. Visit buy me a coffee.com/blissfully bold podcast. It's also linked in the show notes.

Hey friend, welcome back to the Blissfully Bold Podcast. And if you're new here, welcome. I'm so glad that you chose to come and listen and be a little part of my community. Uh, I hope that you enjoy this episode, but for those of you who are coming back. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And to give thanks back to you.

I'm going to read a review. So this week's review comes from Claire and she says, Gabby's energy is so contagious. I so vibe with the content she's creating. And also she presents in such a way. In such a fun and motivating way, so thankful for her messaging. Awesome. Well, thank you, Claire. I appreciate it.

I'm glad that you vibe with me and that you can see me as motivational. But today we're gonna be talking about taking action even when you're afraid to make mistakes. So if you're a high achieving go-getter, you're often looking ahead and wanting to be perfect. And to achieve things fast, which often means you go to the scary what ifs, wondering what could go wrong, which then leads to thought loops and anxiety spirals.

Not to mention, you've probably gone down the rabbit hole on how to do something the right way because perfectionism, right, which causes information overload. These are all topics I've already explored in past episodes, so if you wanna go and dig deeper into those, you can see the other episodes you might like list in the show notes below, but just for a quick reference here.

Those are episodes number four, number 33, and number 40. So recently with entrepreneurship, uh, solo entrepreneurship, to be specific, I got stuck in all like the to-dos of building and running a business by myself and being perfect and wanting it to unfold like very quickly and just me like naturally shine at it, right?

Because I feel like if you're a high achiever, you're often like. Good at things pretty quickly. Like you're, you're a fast learner, right? Well, I wanted to be a sales like all star, a marketing genius, and overall just like a perfect overnight success and I was totally fucking wrong. Knowing how to do something new and doing it well and doing it overnight is unrealistic.

So let's go ahead and unpack all of that in this episode and see how we can set up some realistic expectations for ourselves to keep learning and growing towards our goals without slipping into the never ending thought loops and making it mean something about your work ethic or your worth. So when you're learning something new, you probably like want to dive in, like go like completely down the rabbit hole and just find out all the information just.

'cause you're like a little sponge, soaking up everything. You may think that the more that you know about a topic, the more prepared you are. But really it's just like another way to put off doing this scary new thing that you're actually trying to learn. Because you don't want to mess up, you don't wanna fail.

You let the research become procrastination. Then there's like the fear of not knowing enough or being seen as a beginner, and you're used to being the go-to person who often leads others, um, and not always necessarily by choice. Like sometimes you're just the person who knows the most in your group, and so everyone has kind of just elected you.

As the leader, right? Um, so yeah, you're used to being the go-to person and you like that, but being a beginner means that you have to become a student again and ask other people for help instead of people going to you and asking you for help. And we all know that high achievers don't like to ask for help.

Because they believe that they can take on the world, which is why they're like carrying this weight of the world on them because they think that they can achieve so much, and they're just like adding, adding, adding, and then it gets heavy. But how beautiful and powerful is that like taking on the world because you truly.

Like believe that you can do anything like that's so fucking cool. The beauty of being a student and an explorer of life is that you're always learning lessons and collecting data to tweak your life to the way you really want to live. And that's what needs to be a parent here, is that you can hold and take on so much.

But at the end when you break down, because that like that always leads to breakdown and burnout like. Take the resting period that you have and turn it into lessons. Take all that data of you trying to be perfect and hold everything as like a lesson. What could be tweaked? So then how do you release all that information overload?

All of the, the stuff that you're holding in your head, right, to get out of like the perfectionist freeze of like, oh, I've collected enough data to know how to do something and not fail. How do you do, like, how do you take that and how do you build courage to embrace being a beginner? You gotta learn to integrate being a student and a mentor.

Hey friend. I got a question for you. When was the last time you said yes to something you didn't actually want to do? Maybe it was taking on one more thing at work when your plate was already overflowing or agreeing to your sister-in-law, baby, because of Tracy's baby shower, when all you really wanted was a quiet night in with Bridger.

If you're nodding along right now, it's time for a change. Blissfully Bold Boundaries has entered the chat. My four week program is designed for the high achiever who is done with people pleasing and perfectionism, and who is ready to prioritize themselves without guilt or the fear that they're the topic of someone's conversation.

In this program, we zero in on what your needs are right now, so you can feel that tenseness that's in your shoulders just melt away as you call back joy into your days with weekly video calls, micro journaling, and even a tarot reading. Yeah, it's like a mirror of yourself to help you see what's really going on.

You'll walk away with a custom boundary plan that fits your life and keeps you from repeating another burnout cycle. So if you're tired of Overexplaining, overcommitting, and over it all, let's fix that together. Head to my shop at buy me a coffee.com/blissfully bold podcast to grab your spot in.

Blissfully bold boundaries. You deserve your needs to be met unapologetically. Now let's get back to the show.

If you feel like you're trying to prove yourself by being the gold star employee or the Hermione Granger of the group, pause and ask yourself, am I doing this because I actually enjoy what I'm working on, or because I'm afraid of looking like I'm not doing enough? You don't need to take the lead all the time.

Sometimes the most powerful move is to allow yourself to be led by someone who knows more than you, like. Allow yourself to be coachable and constantly learning like that's growth. You have to become comfortable to know that you can be the student and the mentor. Think of it like the whole image of sending the elevator back down.

And if you're like from the corporate world, like you know enough and so you're like sending the elevator back down and you're bringing up someone that you can mentor, right? Um, when I was in a mastermind recently. There was actually someone in our group and she like embodied this so well. Like she offered so much like advice and just perspective on the topic that we were discussing, and she also really allowed herself to be coached and to learn and to take those lessons and to apply them into.

Strategy moving forward. Like it was just so cool. So when you're being hard on yourself, you gotta remember that your worth isn't how much you know. It's in your willingness to grow, both learning new skills and being able to teach the skills that you already have to others. And that means you have to be involved in your community.

If you truly wanna be a leader, then you have to learn to connect with others, share ideas, and invest in yourself and your growth, whether that's time or money. Build your community with those who can support you and who you can offer support back to. And when you're seeking a mentor, when you're new at something, it's really going to help you get where you want to go faster, because.

If your mentor has been in your shoes, she can give you advice on what to expect and how to solve problems like I do in Bliss labeled Boundaries. So if you skip through the ad earlier, just rewind it a little bit and give it another listen. You don't need everything figured out to start. You just start and you learn as you go.

So even while you're leaning on a mentor to kind of show you the ropes, the true learning comes in doing and taking action. Even if it's not perfect, like this whole experience of pursuing entrepreneurship has been kept afloat. By finding community, um, and being engaged in the entrepreneurial community confirms that this path is really fucking hard.

And it's super common to have shaky legs as you find your footing and building your business. Uh, I've kept going away with breaks along the way. I think this is like my third kind of break ish that I'm doing. I'm not taking a break from the podcast, but I have, um. Stepped a little bit away from my business just to kind of gain some clarity.

Um, but often, like those breaks felt like failures when I was in it, except for this time, like this time it absolute, this time it actually feels. Intentional and like I have decided to prioritize my mental health and myself and really like take a big, big like step back, like come up super high level and decide like, what am I doing?

And not feel like pressured by that information overload. Um, particularly like when it comes to marketing, uh, that is a whole new skillset that we are not even going to get into here. Um, but now like the breaks have felt like an evaluation period to kind of sit with the lessons that I've learned in the past, both when I was doing Tarot for Boundaries and then also, um, actually I guess I started with a tarot business then tarro for boundaries.

And now, um, blissfully bold boundaries, right? Every time I have taken like the break. As kind of, uh, a way to reflect and see what is working and what's not working, and I'm going to apply those as I move forward. So like the main point here is don't be afraid to ask for help and embrace and collaboration when you don't know something, like go out and ask.

Like how can I improve? And sometimes that is a financial investment. Sometimes that's just investment in time, both yours and theirs, because that transfer of like information like that is valuable. Don't be afraid to be a beginner. Own your beginner era with confidence by allowing yourself to make the fucking mistake without it meaning something about you, your self-worth or achieving success.

Like, don't take it as a personal attack on yourself. Like remember, that's you attacking yourself, right? You're your own worst critic. So normalize asking for help by seeking out mentors or guides or accountability partners. And here's another plug for blissfully bold boundaries where I can help you figure out what exactly needs to be tweaked in your stack day to day, and set a boundary with yourself to create the space for the change that you say you want.

So you don't have to prove yourself as the best 24 7 leaders aren't self-made, even though it looks like they do it all by themselves, they don't. They're usually supported by others. They have a team. And again, it's that whole elevator analogy that I said earlier about sending it back down. That's how you build community and teams to work together and.

To really thrive. Right? Which, which is a whole other episode of like creating community in teams. But the thing to remember is that being a beginner doesn't mean that you're failing. It just means that you're expanding your knowledge and that's exciting, right? So what actions can we talk about? Instead of like having the whole perfectionist freeze, like what do we do next?

Right? So the first thing is that you want to assess the resources that you already have, like in your Google Drive or your phone or wherever, before you go diving into new information or looking for mentors and risking information overload all over again. Think of the resources you already have. Books, audio books, courses, freebies, and go and organize them.

Get rid of the ones that aren't working for you and are just kind of contributing to digital clutter on your computer. And I'm gonna drop this side note for you, like don't procrastinate by decluttering your folders and your Google Drive. Just delete the relevant resources that you're not going to take action on and move along, decide where you want to focus your attention.

And implement one. Of the resources you're gonna wanna take small steps at a time. So it might be helpful to plan out how you're going to achieve this goal and a really good resource to help you plan. That would be the daily planner for the high achiever, and that is going to be. Linked in the show notes.

Um, so write down your steps. I even have a section on there that's like, what's the scary shit that I'm avoiding, which is AKA procrastination, and what's one step that I can do to move towards it? Think of your goal as like orchestrating this big symphony, right? One note at a time creates something super beautiful and that people pay.

To go watch. I dunno if you've ever been to the symphony, but I really enjoy going like the music sounds so powerful and it really is beautiful and it's pretty amazing that there's this one person that's orchestrating all of it to bring that beautiful sound to you. Okay, moving right along from the symphony, starting my podcast was kind of.

One of those orchestrating my own symphonies. It was an endeavor that I had to take action kind of as I planned or I ran like the serious risk of over-planning and then trying to be perfect and waiting for like the ideal time to just launch it, right? But instead, I planned out my first eight episodes for solo and four guests, and then I only sought out one.

Launch workbook. I looked on Etsy for a while to find like the most aligned workbook for me, and I used that to help me plan the rest and know what to do. For the podcast, and I feel like it was a really good resource. So instead of going down a bunch of podcasting rabbit holes, I just stuck to the one workbook.

Um, sometimes the mentor is someone you never meet, like for instance, the author of this workbook. Um, but there information is valuable and it cultivates a change within you, which, which to me still counts as like mentorship, right? Because you're learning something from someone. The most important thing here is to protect your time and to keep your promises to yourself.

It helps build the courage and confidence to the skill that you are learning, right? The more that you can trust yourself to do the things that you said you were gonna do, like the more confidence that you will build and practice that you will get under your belt from taking these like single steps to go towards your goal.

Instead of information overload and trying to be perfect at doing everything for what you're learning, uh, which brings me to my next point, make sure that you follow through. It's important not only for building the self-trust, but also um, for. Making the goal bite sized, be honest about what is and isn't working.

This is going back to the whole evaluation period, right? Like make sure you're taking a look at that. Embrace transformation by integrating one small step at a time to build the self trust. Um, and it matter. It really does matter a lot when you're experiencing the change, right? Because. That's what you fear most often is the unknown, and the more that you follow through on what you're saying and you're doing step by step, the more it becomes familiar and the less scary it is and the less unknown it is, right?

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but you have to stay grounded in trying to prove yourself and prove your success and not falling into that whole not enough. Spiral. Like that's critical. Um, and oftentimes no matter how much you try to control something by going step by step, um, it still doesn't work out the way that you had planned it to.

Right? Like for instance. When my family and I were moving to Houston back in 2021, like the whole process began to feel like real grim when the plan was just like, it was not going perfectly, like it was not going to my plan at all. The way that it had gone, like in my brain, it wasn't happening. My plan was to get pregnant, transfer like both of our jobs with our companies to Houston, buy a house and then live happily ever after.

With a nice little bow, but that's just, that's not how life is. So I did get pregnant pretty immediately and then shit began to like fall apart. Um, I was not going to transfer with my company. Uh, like I had planned, um, my husband's company suddenly like really close to the move, let him know like, oh, actually we don't have a position in Houston for you.

So that was really great. I'm like, awesome. We're both unemployed, moving to Houston. Yay. So we like transitioned with my mother-in-law who was so gracious to let us stay with her and. Then I decided I wanted to go back to work after my maternity leave with my, with my son. Uh, and I was like, I really want.

A position where I can work from home and have flexibility. And I actually made that happen. Like I manifested that and that felt really good. And then my husband got a job too, like way before me. This was like right. As soon as we got to Houston, he got a job. I kind of skipped over that. Sorry. But yeah.

And I got my job. It was super flexible and then we got the house, right? So. It didn't work out exactly the way that I had planned every step of the way, but I was able to kind of roll with the punches because I like had stayed focused on what our goal was. Move to Houston and buy a house, and we did that.

That was really great. Uh, the key takeaway here is to like reassess your goal often and pivot when you need to. Pivoting doesn't mean that you're failing, it just means that you're experimenting and taking notes. Remember to look at those notes and to use them as data to keep tweaking and moving forward.

Like I had learned after leaving my previous company. That I didn't wanna work in that environment anymore. So I used that information and I tweaked like my, my direction that I went. I decided I wanted to work from home, and that's what I found. So just because your initial idea had one detail this way and then the detail went this way, like, that's okay.

Pivoting is okay. So let's go ahead and bring it all in. These are the things. Take it easy on the research and falling down rabbit holes 'cause your anxious thought loops. Start right there in that rabbit hole in the spiral. Don't dwell on being a beginner because growth is happening even if you don't see it.

Like when you're in it, you can't see it. And then when you like take a zoom out when you take that break. That's when you can start to see. So organize your resources and really lean on mentors and community to help you in those times where. You're feeling eager to learn. That's the, the most, uh, the nicest way that I can say it.

Um, a little borderline obsessive to be perfect. Right. But that's another topic for another time. And if you actually do wanna talk about that, like. Hit me up on Instagram. You can DM me at G dot reely and just let me know if that is a topic that you would wanna talk about, is being a little obsessive about your passions or the path that you're on and how to like handle that so.

Going back to the list here. Um, the last thing is like, you're gonna wanna take one step at a time and do intentional action to build the self-trust, the courage and the confidence to really pursue what it is that your dream, right? Your vision, your goal, whatever it is that you wanna call it, that you're, you're like running towards.

Like take one little step at a time and I want you to ask yourself and actually write it out. You can use the daily planner. That would be super helpful here. Ask yourself, what have you learned in the past six months to a year that you didn't appreciate at the time? Right? I'm sure you can look back on a setback from six months to a year ago and really think about like what was the lesson that you took from that?

I. And finally, I want you to celebrate your progress no matter how small it is, especially with a mentor community who can help celebrate with you, right? Because a party's always fun. So again, go out and find your community. And on that note, I'm leaning on you, friend to help build this blissfully bold community.

I want you to share this episode with a friend who wants to take on the world and also go ahead and tag me on Instagram. Again, I'm at Gabby dot Ram and let me know what your biggest takeaway from this episode was. Alright, thanks for listening too. Old friend. This episode was brought to you by the Daily Planner for the high achiever because you and I both know you can take on the world, but a little guidance and planning never hurts.

You know that constant mental checklist running through your head work tasks, school drop offs, dinner plans, that one text you thought you responded to, but you never actually hit send on, and then somewhere in there you're supposed to practice self care. You may be thinking, who has time to sit and reflect when there's always another thing to do?

Well meet the daily planner for the high achiever, designed for go-getters like you, especially the powerhouse moms who juggle all the things but still crave a moment to breathe. This planner helps you organize your to-dos and priorities without the overwhelm. Create space to micro journal. And actually be kind to yourself and pinpoint boundaries that keep your peace intact.

And because we know real change happens in bite sized intentional steps, the five day Micro Journalling Challenge audio series is coming soon. In just a few minutes a day, you'll identify what's living rent free in your mind. Hello thought loops. Gain clarity and confidence to take bold action and show yourself the compassion you so freely give to everyone else.

So if you're ready to start prioritizing you rather than your to-do list, grab the Daily planner for the high achiever today and be the first to know when the five day Micro journaling Challenge audio series drops your future self will. Thank you. Thanks again for listening. Don't forget to check me out over at Buy Me a Coffee to support the show and peruse my shop to learn how to work together.

You can visit at buy me a coffee.com/blissfully bold podcast. It'll be linked in the show notes.