From Idea to Done: How Entrepreneurs Follow Through with Plans | 113

(Note: This is a formatted and slightly edited, AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through. Please excuse any spelling, grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

  If you have ever tried to pivot your business and felt completely overwhelmed going   from idea to execution, this is for you.

Hey, I am Lucy Reyes. Welcome to the podcast where we make productivity feel doable and aligned with practical tips to help you manage your task, streamline your systems, and stay consistent in a way that honors your energy, your faith, and your real life capacity.

If that sounds like something you need, then hit subscribe and let’s jump in.      

All right, so welcome back to the Cheerful Productive Chats podcast. In that last episode, we talked about business clarity, but clarity alone doesn’t change your business and making decisions doesn’t either.

These two things are incredibly important. However, what is actually going to change your business and change the future that you’re going into is execution, it’s actually doing something. It’s implementing something. And execution, implementation, all of this can get super messy, super fast without structure.

So one of the biggest struggles that I hear from my audience a lot is that they really struggle to follow through on things. They know what they need to do, but finishing the task or project or whatever is a completely different story. And I’m here to say that you are not alone in that. That is why this episode is here.

That is why we’re here because you’re not alone. I go through this too. Sometimes I need to follow my own advice because I forget to, Sometimes, it’s so easy to skip the things that we’re gonna talk about in this episode because I just wanna do the thing, and then I start doing the thing and it gets real messy, and then I get overwhelmed and I just completely, pause, stop. 

And that’s not what we want to do. So that’s what we’re going to talk about in this episode. But before we do that, if you are someone who is constantly feeling like your projects are way too big or you don’t even know where to start, that’s why I created my free workshop, 3 Steps to Say Goodbye to Task Overload.

It guides you through how to take something that feels overwhelming and break it down into clear manageable steps. So be sure to head to the show notes for that link. And now let’s go ahead and talk about why follow through feels so hard, and then I’ll show you what actually helps.

 All right, so let’s talk about why follow through is so hard. One, it makes you do so much emotional second guessing. Did I make the right decision? Am I trying to avoid letting something go because I’m scared for whatever reason? Am I attached to this product that I poured my heart into that is like, “No, maybe I shouldn’t.

Maybe I shouldn’t. I did so much work.” You’re remembering all of the hours that you put in to get it created, and now you’re second guessing even retiring the product. Yeah, that was me, literally me when I’ve been doing some retirement sales that I’ve been having to go through. And so you do a lot of emotional second guessing when, which makes it really hard for you to follow through on the decision that you had ultimately already decided on.

You also get overwhelmed. So like I said, if you are overwhelmed because a project feels too big and you don’t know where to start and everything feels urgent, then all of that together makes you feel overwhelmed. And when you’re overwhelmed, what happens? You stay stuck. You don’t move forward, or you move forward very slowly.

You procrastinate. So much goes on because you’re overwhelmed. Another thing that makes it hard to follow through is the fact that you’re literally just juggling so much. You are a busy, busy, busy entrepreneur who’s also trying to manage your personal life, your family, your kids, your job, your side hustle, your health challenges, all of these different things on top of client work, content and product creation and trying to sell everything that you have in your business.

So you are trying to do so much, which makes it really hard to even plan what you’re going to do. And of course, because of that, you don’t have a plan, it makes it hard to actually have a clear plan, so you’re kind of just making it up as you go.

You are fixing mistakes after the fact because you didn’t have the plan, you didn’t have it all laid out, so now you’re having to go back or you’re just forgetting to do things altogether. So yeah, follow through can be hard. It is naturally hard for the majority of us. However, there is a way to make follow through significantly easier, and for me it really comes down to two things.

The first thing that really helps me execute something, a decision that I already made without spiraling into chaos, is a visible system. This means that I am getting everything out of my head into one place. Come on! You should know this, right? If you’re following the podcast, strategic systems are where it’s at.

This is what’s really going to help you. This is part of the process that I really go through inside of my free workshop, and for me, this system is inside of Trello. For you, it could be a different tool. It could be whatever tool you’re already using but the point is that you need to have one centralized place that can help you map out these projects and these ideas and these decisions, or these changes that you’re going to make in your business.

So this is an incredibly important step because it avoids you from having to keep everything in your head like you’re not having to mentally track all of the tiny, little tedious tasks that you really don’t want to do. But now you see it visually on a checklist and you know that you have to do it. You no longer have scattered notes everywhere or sticky notes behind your screen.

You don’t have everything everywhere. It’s all in one place, which makes it easier for you to remember what you need to do because you’re no longer doing things from memory, right? So it is so, so important that these projects, these ideas, these changes that you want to make in your business, don’t live in your head because it definitely is bigger than what you think it is.

It is a much bigger project, or a much bigger change than it seems like on the surface, and you don’t realize that until you’re in it. You don’t realize it until you’re in it, until you forgot some steps, until you have to go back and fix something, until you’ve added more steps because you didn’t map out the initial steps.

Yeah. This is one of those situations where it’s like, ask me how I know. Okay? That is literally how I got to this place. It’s just recognizing the importance of actually needing to slow down to set up this visual system, even though I really don’t want to, because yeah, I am someone who likes to zoom through and really just get the things done.

And then it’s not until I realize like, “Oh yeah, I’m overwhelmed and procrastinating and not able to move forward because I don’t even know where to start.” And I don’t know where to start, why? Because I haven’t set up my system. This literally was my exact scenario this morning. So even I still go through this and even I need these reminders and need to follow my own advice. When you have your project and these big changes and these ideas living in a system, that thing, that task, that project, that change that you’re trying to accomplish actually becomes manageable.

Another example for me and this whole retirement process that I’ve been working through the past few weeks and lightly we’ll be going through some sort of iteration for the next few months into the foreseeable future. I don’t really know.

But this process, it included me creating one dedicated Trello board for this whole retirement. So everything related to this retirement decision lived inside of that Trello board. Yeah, we have like a Google document that is keeping track of some notes, but I link to everything in Trello. All I need to do is open up that Trello board and everything else.

Everything else related to that project is there. So this Trello board included things like, prepping task such as making some final edits in these products that I was retiring. So setting irrelevant lessons to draft mode, organizing the course platforms into a section, so moving them over into a different section inside of my course platform.

So there was task that needed to be done and before the retirements out even started. And honestly, I almost didn’t do that because I was like, “Oh, there’s not much that I need to do. I only need to do like three things.” And yet that task list ended up being like 10 to 15 tasks per course, and that’s because I broke down every single step into the tiniest, tiniest step that I could possibly could, and it was way more than I thought.

Another thing that this board included was the sale prep. So that included tasks like bundling the product, updating descriptions in the shop, setting up the new price points in the flash sale app, double checking the quality to make sure that the description, the listing, and the product were still good enough to sell.

That was all part of the sale prep. The sale prep alone also links over to a completely separate Trello board, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic because that is actually part of it. The flash sale process. So again, we need systems for everything, but this was my one central board that I could come to when I needed to look at something related to this project specifically.

And then lastly, there’s still things that we need to do post-retirement. So at this time, at the time of recording this, I have already gone through one set of retirement and now those courses are pending the next tasks that are coming. So that includes things like redirecting the links, actually archiving the products from the shop and cleaning up the backend system so that way we no longer need to worry about them.

So we’re going to set some Zaps into draft mode. We’re going to clean up my Kit so that way these tags and email sequences and automations no longer need to be active. We’re going to do all of this post-retirement, and we’re gonna do it for every single course. And I’m retiring dozens of products at the moment.

So you can imagine how incredibly hard it would be to keep track of all of this if it was just living in my head, and this is just one example. One big business change that I have made recently that really needed a system. So this, doing this, even though yes, it takes some time to set up. It does. But in the end it makes this what is and has truly been a huge project, a huge business change.

It still makes it feel manageable. My overwhelm decreases, procrastination decreases. I stopped avoiding it. I was able to break it down into those doable tasks that helped us stop forgetting steps and avoid making some preventable mistakes.

So again, if you struggle with breaking projects down into manageable steps, this is exactly what my free workshop guides you through in detail. And even with the system, there’s a second thing that can really make a big difference on whether you follow through with this big change or not. The system is by far the most important thing. You cannot move forward with ease and less overwhelm without it.

But the second thing is support. I really, really don’t recommend that you carry out any sort of execution alone, by yourself, and I’m not just really talking about having a team. Okay? Yes, that is one. One example, one idea of what support looks like. But it doesn’t have to be. So for me, this looks like I handle the decision making.

I handle CEO level planning, I handle setting up the systems, and then I am in charge of the clear task delegation. And yes, I do have a virtual assistant, a VA, who’s been working with me for many years, which is an incredible help. She’s my right hand lady, and she supports with the backend admin implementing these delegated tasks and running with the documented instructions that I sent over to her.

Sometimes they’re text based. Sometimes I just record a quick Loom SOP style video with very clear instructions, and that’s what she takes care of. But, even if you don’t have a VA, a virtual assistant, a team member who can help you in this way, support can also look like a one-off contractor for a very specific project.

It can look for just a tech virtual assistant, a tech VA, just to help you set up some of the tech stuff that you don’t wanna break. But it can also look like an accountability partner. It can look like a biz bestie, someone from a membership or a community that you’re part of. It can look like asking someone to just have regular check-ins with you during the project.

Someone who can help hold you accountable, who will help remind you to do this project that you really said you wanted to do and hopefully you have done some of it. But if you haven’t, well, you have someone checking in on you that you would have to tell them that you haven’t done anything with, and sometimes that alone can help you actually make progress because a lot of us don’t like to admit that like, “Oops! Nope, I haven’t done it.” 

And they check in again in a week. “Oh, nope. I still haven’t done it.” “Okay. Do you still want me to check up on you?” “Yes, yes, yes. I promise I wanna get this project done.” Like yeah, even an accountability partner can be so, so much support.

And then lastly, yourself. Setting protected CEO time for yourself is support that you are giving yourself. So this looks like blocking off dedicated time to work on the project, on your calendar, or your schedule, or your task board or your weekly planner. It looks like treating that time that you schedule to work on this very specific project as non-negotiable. 

Like,  you are doing that. You’re not going to change it for whatever reason. So this is really you supporting your future self with boundaries, and that in itself is still support. Okay. Whew. All right. So like we said, most unfinished projects are usually a capacity problem, and capacity is not built by you just trying to do more, trying to push harder, trying to get the things done, even though you’re super overwhelmed and don’t even know what to do, and oh, you’ll fix things later.

Like, no. It’s about really creating support and systems to help you with these business changes, these projects, these tasks, and whether your support really does come from another person or even just protected time, the goal is still to help you lighten the load so that you can actually follow through.

Remember, reflection gives you clarity. Clarity gives you direction. Systems make follow through possible. Systems and support. Big business changes, projects, tasks, they don’t need to be chaotic. They feel chaotic when they live in your head without systems and support, and I promise you, doing just these two things is going to make follow through so much easier.

All right. That’s what I have for you in this episode. I’m so excited that you stuck around. I am really, really looking forward to hear what you’re going to implement this so far, what big changes are on your radar. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you’re listening, so that way you know when the next podcast is released, and if this whole conversation really did make you realize that you don’t really struggle with clarity, but you do definitely struggle with follow through? 

No worry. We’ve all been there. I’m still there sometimes and have to follow this exact advice, but that’s why you should definitely check out my free workshop, 3 Steps to Say Goodbye to Task Overload. It is going to help you so, so, so, so much. The link is in the show notes. All right, I’ll talk to you in the next one.

Thank you so much for listening to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast with me, Lucy Reyes. To view the full transcript and all the links mentioned in today’s episode, visit cheerstoproductivity.com/podcast. And before you go up, make sure you follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening so that you know once the next productive chat is released. Talk soon and cheers to your productivity and success!