Katie McManus on why all-or-nothing thinking kills new habits. Start with the bare minimum: walk the dog instead of running a marathon, post imperfectly instead of a polished strategy. Early posts train the algorithm and build routine. Perfection comes later.
My toxic trait is that when I'm trying to change a habit or I'm trying to, like, get healthier, do something in my business, I make it all or nothing. I will say, cool, I'm gonna start running. I'm gonna. And then I, like, immediately commit to training for a marathon, even though I haven't run in years. I'll do this in my business too. You know, I'll be like, cool, I want to get more consistent, like posting to TikTok or Instagram or something. And I will make an elaborate plan that is a fuck ton of work. And then of course, like, I don't stick to it because it's too much work. I'm not gonna train for a marathon if I can barely run for like, I don't know, a hundred meters. I don't know why I just said meters. I'm American. We don't use meters. Anyway, moving on. I had this realization recently that when you're just starting something, you me, when I'm starting something, the most important first step is to just start doing it so that it's on your schedule. It doesn't matter if you schedule a run and you just end up walking your dog for 30 minutes. But the fact that you are carving out time in your day and you're getting into the habit of it, of changing your clothes, putting the running shoes on, hydrating before you go, picking music, and then setting the app RunKeeper or whatever, and then going on the outing, coming back, changing back into your clothes if you didn't sweat, showering and redoing your hair if you did, that is the critical first step. Right? And for my clients who are just starting to do stuff in their business, like posting to social media, maybe on LinkedIn, there's a tendency to try to make it a perfect marketing strategy right away. And one of the things that I try to instill in them is that especially if you're new on social media, if you haven't posted at all, people are not going to pay attention to the first few things that you see. They're not going to see it. The algorithm isn't used to you showing up, so the algorithm isn't going to show your stuff to a bunch of people. So it's okay in the beginning if you're just like sharing stuff about your life or about lessons learned in past jobs or why you started your business, Those first few posts aren't necessarily meant to get you clients. What they're meant to do is to build that schedule, that adherence to you showing up to get you to be consistent, right? And then over time, as you like train the algorithm that you're someone who shows up and creates content and as you build this relationship in this community, with people online, then you can start selling to them. And by the point you are selling to them, you have built this in. So it's just kind of like a thing that you do every single day. You don't have to think too hard about it. So I offer this to you because I know I have this tendency and I'm sure I'm going to have this aha moment, I'm going to be like, cool, I'm fixed, I, I'm perfect now. I'm never gonna do this again. Of course I'm gonna do it again. But if you're in that cycle of trying to change a habit or do something in your business and you're going all or nothing and then feeling like shit afterwards, I just wanna remind you, don't do that to yourself. It's not kind and it's also just not realistic. Do the bare minimum. When you start, do the bare minimum. Just show up, do the thing, do it badly, but make yourself like build it into your schedule, make the time for it. That is the most important part when you start anything. And yeah, if you guys could remind me of it later, like next week, month from now, few years from now, because I'm guaranteed to forget, I'd really appreciate it. Hi, I'm Katie, your practical business coach. And new business owners work with me so that they can leave their corporate 9 to 5, replace their 6 figure salaries by doing work that they love that actually help. Share this with someone who needs to see it and tell me in the comments, where do you do this in your life?
