This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, what's up? Chris Guillebeau here. Welcome to the end of June. Today is the 29th of June, 2020. At least that's when this episode is going out.
I know we have people who listen at all different times and such, but we are effectively halfway through the year, actually more than halfway through the year now. And today I wanna talk about how to avoid getting stuck. We'll talk about what happens when you get stuck, why people are stuck in the first place, and perhaps what you can do proactively to avoid that situation. But as I said, we're more than halfway through the year. I'm gonna be making a couple of changes going forward.
For the second half of the year, this classroom series will appear twice a month instead of every week. So it will still be on Mondays, but it will be every other Monday. That's so I can continue to answer many of the questions that listeners have been sending in. I've got lots of questions and I wanna focus as much as possible on what you are doing. If you really miss having the classroom feature every week, well, just go to sidehustleschool.com/classroom, where you can access all the different lessons that we've had throughout the year for free.
Of course, you can access many other episodes there on the site also for free, 1276 and counting. Okay, but today let's talk about how to avoid getting stuck. I had a conversation with my publisher about this recently. We were just kind of brainstorming different ideas. And we kind of realized that there's a lot of information out there.
And even myself, like in my books and different resources, I've been putting forward different information about how to start a small business, how to navigate this process, how to think through different business ideas, how to start simply and quickly. I've been writing and sharing and podcasting about that for a long time. And there's still a lot of people out there who never really start, or if they do start, they don't get very far. Like they get a little bit of the way and then of course they get stuck. So I've been curious about how that happens.
Like I know that not every person who listens to this podcast is going to go and start a business tomorrow. I know not every person who reads one of my books is going to do that, but that's okay because over time, a number of them will. And sometimes it's just not the right season for you. Like I understand if you're really busy with a bunch of other stuff, you're like, I'm just listening now. I'm kind of absorbing because in the future, maybe it's the near future, whatever it's going to be at some point, there's going to be a time when you're going to apply this.
So I understand. But I also feel like there's this whole other group, like that's two groups. There's a third group of people who really do want to start, but they are stuck somehow. And that's the group that I'm wondering about. That's the group that I'm trying to figure out how to better reach, how to do a better job serving so that we can get more people, from that group into the group that's moving forward, making progress, no doubt encountering obstacles and such, but this time not being stopped by those obstacles.
Like that is the whole goal. So first, what does it mean to be stuck? Well, it means you've reached an impasse, an obstacle or a limitation that hinders your progress. And to avoid this, or to get out of it, either way, you need to be able to think differently. And of course you need to choose to take action.
So what I have seen over and over is that this is as much of a mental block as a practical one. And when I say I've seen it over and over, it's both in terms of our community and the thousands of people that I've talked to around the world who are trying to go through this process in their own way, and also in my own life, in different ways that I have struggled or encountered these obstacles and either found a way around them or it was just stuck for a while. So when you're stuck, you go into this feedback loop that reinforces any negative thoughts that you might have about yourself. And that's why it's not just, oh, I can't figure out how to get people to follow me on Instagram, or I can't figure out how to set up my website. Being stuck is usually more of an internal issue.
It's an internal obstacle and it's a powerful one. It holds a lot of people back. So if you're in that situation or if you're familiar with it at all, I want you to understand that a lot of people go through this in different ways. There are lots of different ways to get stuck or to be stuck, but a lot of people go through it one way or another. So after the break, I'm gonna give you five tips that might help how to see this off at the pass, at least somewhat, or at least to prepare yourself so that when that situation comes up, you are, well, I guess, prepared.
All right, so the message from our sponsor and then five ways to avoid getting stuck. [Music]
Five ways to avoid getting stuck or at least to deal with it when you find yourself stuck. All right, number one, identify problems in advance. I used this phrase a few moments ago about seeing something off at the pass. What do I mean by that?
I mean that a lot of problems are predictable. Like if you have made a list of every task that you need to complete to get your side hustle up and running, which is something I encourage people to do. I've written a lot about it in the side hustle book, in the money tree. Jake, the main character there goes through this process of identifying everything he needs to put his offer out in the world. So if you have done that, you can often look ahead and see, okay, I might actually run into a problem getting my website up, even though I said that ultimately the problem is not a practical one, it's a mental one.
There can be something practical that triggers that emotional or internal issue. So identify problems in advance. What will be difficult about this? Where have I struggled in the past? Might I encounter that again?
If so, is there anything I can do? If nothing else, just being aware of it is probably good. But if there's some way you can obviate that problem and say, oh, I've always struggled with getting my website up before this time, I wanna make sure I don't get stuck there. So I'm gonna try to get some help. I'm gonna talk to my friend who knows about websites, or I'm gonna spend a little bit of time looking to see if there's some way I can outsource this or perhaps hire someone to work on that part of the project for me.
Number one, identify problems in advance. Number two, always know your next step. So another thing I'm a big fan of is encouraging you to list out all of your steps. Not just the big components of like, I need a website, but what are all those steps to having a website? Well, you have to decide where that website will be hosted.
What kind of platform are you using? What is the navigation of the site? What are all the different sections? And then you need to write the content for those sections. These are just a few examples.
There's probably a lot of other steps as well, depending on what kind of website you're trying to make or whatever it is. But it's always helpful to just know the next step. If like having 100 steps in front of you seems overwhelming, just know the next step. Like what is the most simple basic one step that I could do to move forward? And then once you do that, what's the next one, right?
Just always know the next step. Having one thing to do that is practical, again, even though it can be an internal mental issue. Number three, impose an artificial deadline. Just say to yourself and maybe say to the world if outside accountability helps you, say to anybody you know that, hey, I'm gonna start this project in 21 days or seven days or 30 days or however many days it is, whatever timeframe you think you need. Even if that, as I said, is artificial, that artificial arbitrary deadline can be helpful because we like to stick to our commitments.
And so if we just make a commitment to start a side hustle at some point, then that's kind of a soft commitment. But if it's like, I'm gonna get my consulting, my coaching package up and running in the next month, I'm gonna have my first client within 30 days. Again, just for example, that kind of specificity can help, even though it may not matter in the grand scheme of life if your client comes on day 30 or day 31, but having the goal can help. So that was number three, impose an artificial deadline. Number four, look for an alternative way forward.
If you foresee getting stuck with something like that website example, do you even need a website? Maybe there's an alternative path, or maybe you can just sign up with Squarespace or a service like that and make a very simple quick website. Maybe that's all you need right now instead of going for custom programming routes and thinking through 25 pages on your site plus a daily blog plus whatever. Maybe it's just like a three page website. That might be all you need.
So look for an alternative way forward. And number five, try something totally different. Don't be afraid to try something different. Don't be afraid to abandon one strategy, try a different approach, try different tactics. If you've listened to this podcast for a while, if you've heard me talk otherwise, you know that I'm a big fan of encouraging people to regroup and do what's important to them.
And sometimes we find out as we go along the way that what we thought was most important actually isn't, or the project that we start leads us to another project that's going to actually be more successful. But if we just kind of keep working on that one thing without being able to look beyond, then we're never going to get that far. So I encourage you to number one, identify problems in advance. Number two, always know your next step. Number three, perhaps impose an artificial deadline.
Number four, look for an alternative way forward. And number five, if those things don't work, consider trying something totally different. We are now building out a series of groups for the third way as well as meeting online every other week. So something new I've been doing, it's really fun. Just talking with people on Zoom about their business idea, giving feedback and such.
And now we're going to be starting local groups for the third way, which is a concept I wrote about in the Money Tree. So if you want to be part of that, come to moneytreebook.com/groups. That is moneytreebook.com/groups. And your assignment for the week is to try to head off a problem at the pass. That's what I was thinking of in that concept, identify problems in advance, look ahead and identify something that might trip you up, that might cause you difficulty, and then consider what the answer for it might be now, ahead of time.
Avoid being stuck. You can read notes for this in every classroom episode this year at sidehustleschool.com/classroom. And this has been episode 1276, sidehustleschool.com/1276. Thank you so much, my friends. I'm excited to bring you another set of stories, questions and answers, and more this week.
And of course, much more to come. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Sidestylschool." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
