Best-Selling Author Tanya Dalton On Making Intentional Progress & Living Life On Purpose

No matter where you are, you are in the right place. You may think because it doesn't fit what you have planned, but the plans are so much bigger. All you're getting is a tiny little snippet that you can see. So even if you're in a season right now, that feels like maybe it's bad or it's wrong, it's not. It's getting you to where you need to go. So just embrace that and know that that's okay.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the I'm so grateful for you. I'm so glad you're here. I just came back from one of the most, like, pinch me in my dreaming weekends of my life with some incredible humans who I actually never imagined being in a room like this. It's like, I guess part of me did, but I didn't know a room like this existed with 50 of my favorite influential people, authors, speakers, business owners. My God. The level of just even the personal work that I've done that had to be applied while in this room to make sure that I was just there and present and not in my head and not comparing, but instead absorbing and working hard to add value and listen and learn was really quite incredible. And I'm just so, so grateful. And today we have one more incredible person on. We have amazing people on this podcast all of the time. And this guest has been on the show before, and I loved it so much that I could not wait to have her back again, especially now that she has an incredible new book. And Tanya Dalton is my guest today. She's the bestselling author, speaker, and nationally recognized productivity expert, which really need in my life, one of my goals this year is to be more effective rather than just efficient, which means to be more productive. So she serves as a growth strategist for female leaders. And the second book is called On Purpose, which is the Busy Woman's Guide to an Extraordinary Life, Meaning, and Success. I'll take it, you guys. And she also wrote the Joy of Missing out. So Jomo and I had her on the podcast talking about that, which was such an amazing topic. It was one of the top 10 business books of the year by Fortune magazine. And today we talk all about making sure we get done what we want to get done and really prioritizing learning how to prioritize what is actually important.

And how do we still keep that.

Drive, but also make sure that we're getting the down time and all the family time that we want, you guys. So let's get started. We don't need to wait and waste time anymore. We need this podcast now.

Here we go. Tanya, I'm so excited to have you back on the show. This is your second time.

It is. I've been so looking forward to this. We had so much fun last time. I knew we were gonna have a lot of fun today, so.

Oh, I loved it. It was one of those podcasts where I was like, okay, she doesn't know, but she could totally be one of my besties. But we'll just. It's fine. We'll be long distance, and I'll. I'll stalk her for a while.

Now we're doing this again.

I love it. It's an official second date. This is so much fun. And you have been out in the world and writing and talking to women about living an extraordinary life. But also, what I love about you is not just living an extraordinary life, but having both. Like, I'm very motivated. I want to go after my goals. I want to feel very purposeful in my business, but also in my life. And I can tell you, I'm so excited for this conversation because I have had a couple of years where I think I got sidetracked about really making sure that the vessel in which is carrying out the business is doing well. So. So let's talk.

Yeah, tell me.

Tell me all the things you've been out teaching.

This is. The thing is, I think we get so focused on what we are doing, right? We find a lot of our value in the doing, and that includes how we're growing our business, how it looks to everybody else, what's the bottom line of the revenue and those kinds of things, and we get caught up in a lot of these false metrics a lot of times, and we forget about the real metric. How do I feel? Am I happy? Am I satisfied? And I think, really, one of the things that we lose sight of as we are growing a business especially, is we feel like we're working for the business, and we're constantly irritated. It's like another child, right? It's our worst child, the brattiest child, the loudest one. And it's constantly demanding our attention. And we're like, I got to do this for the business. And really, what I want people to do is shift that mindset. The business is here for you. The business is the vehicle to the life that you want. And if you lose sight of that life you're looking for, it's really easy just to get caught up in these, like, ridiculous work hours and constantly hustling and Grinding. What is the business doing for you? Let's really shift that and find a lot of happiness with. Yes. I want your business to be purposeful. I could not run a business that I didn't feel like, aligned with me. Like, I feel like I go to bed at night, my head hits the pillow, I got to reconcile the receipts. How do I feel? Am I putting good into the world? Am I making the impact I want to make? And then there's the other part of you. Am I happy? I mean, the podcast is earn. You're happy, right? That's. That's what we're here for. That's what we're on this planet to do, is be happy, be satisfied. And if we're so busy chasing success that we're not happy, then is that even success at all?

So tell me about the periods of time, because I feel like there's a lot of conversation between me, myself, and I and my friends. They get invited once in a while, but just about, like, do you have to go through these hustle seasons? Because there are some seasons where I'm like, man, I don't know a way around not necessarily feeling great, like, being so in the business. What do you say around that?

I think the thing is, we have times where we need to lean heavily into the business, and those times can feel more like a hustle. A perfect example of that is a book launch. You launch a book, you go, you do a bunch of podcasts, you're doing a lot of pr, you're doing all kinds of things to get the book out into the world, Right? But we can't maintain that long term. So it's like riding a bike. This is what I tell people about balance, because I truly don't believe in balance, and I don't think we even really want it. We think we're supposed to, but if we're perfectly balanced, we're going in the same direction, and we're not really moving in any direction we want to go to. If you want to ride a bike, you have to be balanced. But if you want to turn left, you have to lean to the left. You can't stay lean too long because you'll fall over, you'll scrape your knee, right? So then you have to counterbalance, and then maybe you go forward for a little bit, and maybe you shift to the right. And that's how life works. So with our businesses, sometimes we do need to lean into it, and we lean into that business part of our world, and we go for it. We're doing A launch. We have amazing things happening. We can't stay leaned over too far too long because we'll scrape our knees.

We'll hurt ourselves.

Right. Well, we'll all of a sudden wake up and be like, wait, what just happened? Why am I exhausted? Why am I unhappy? We have to counterbalance and then lean into another area of our world. Really. When I'm talking to entrepreneurs, I like to remind them that there's so many more aspects to you than just being that worker bee. You're more than just that identity of an entrepreneur. There's the emotional side of you, the relational side of you, who you have relationships with, the physical side of you, the spiritual side of you. All of these need nurturing and nourishing. And if you lean to the financial part of you, the status, the business, those things, we neglect all these other areas. So. And that's when we start to feel this dissatisfaction.

Oh, I love that example of riding the bike. I love it. It just. There are points in your life where there is no way to say, like, okay, well, if I'm going to completely change direction, it's going to take a lot of work. Because you've been going. You have the momentum going in the other direction. So there is that period where you're like, wow, you have to stop. Even though it's negative momentum or the momentum you don't want anymore, that momentum does have to pull back and go the other direction. I love that so much with the bike. So I'm just going to circle around because this is going to be a part of it that we're all going to scoop into having an extraordinary life. Let's talk about productivity for a minute. Because I can get so focused on feeling like if I don't feel productive in certain things, that I don't have a good day. Like, I can have so many days where my head hits the pill and I'm like, God, I just wasn't productive enough. But what I'm starting to discern and what I feel like you're the queen of discernment around is, what is productivity like? How do we define it? What does that even look like in our life? And how can we get clear on how we can actually get the fulfilling feeling of productivity?

Yeah, it's that feeling of slipping into bed and thinking, oh, I haven't done enough. Even though you're exhausted, even though you're, like, worn out because you were busy all day long. So even though you checked off 5,000 things off your to do list, you just don't feel like you've done enough. And I think that enough is key here, because first of all, we don't take time to define what enough is on the front end. We wait until at the end of the day, and we're like, I didn't do enough. Well, if we had decided at the beginning of the day what is enough for today, we actually know when we hit that finish line. So it's no surprise that we have this dissatisfaction, because that finish line keeps moving. It keeps moving further and further away, and then we feel like we're the worst ever, right? I'm the worst boss, I'm the worst business owner, the worst wife, the worst whatever, because I didn't do enough. But we're not taking the time to really figure out what that means. So I like to tell people productivity is not about doing more. It's doing what's most important. I think we get really caught up in the quantity. We think we want to check 50 things off of our list, and that's what's going to make us feel like we've done enough. So let's just think of it this way. If I were to say to the listeners, I want you to imagine that I say to you, I want you to take 50 steps. You can go anywhere you want. 50 steps, 50 steps. Forward, backwards, sideways, to the. If you keep moving in all these different directions, where are you going to end up? You're going to end up maybe in the same spot, maybe further behind, maybe God knows where, lost. But if instead we said, all right, I want you just to take five steps, five intentional steps, five steps that you choose in that same direction where you're going to end up closer to where you want to go. So it's not about the 50. It's really about the intentionality behind the choices we're making. We're better off, and we feel satisfaction when we do fewer things that are more aligned with that bigger purpose, that bigger calling, that bigger mission behind our business, behind ourselves and our personal lives. We are better off doing those five things rather than doing 50 things that leave us chasing our tail in 50 different directions.

A question people ask me a lot is like, well, how are you getting things done when you have all these different things going on? And I can honestly say that I have learned to let go of my to do list and look at it as, you know, I always pick, like, the top one to three. That's it. Like, needle moving activities. And I'm like, okay, I have so much grace for myself at this point in my journey, you guys. And I'm only saying this from a place of I never did this before until I was slamming my head against the wall going, why can't I get anything done? Like, why do I feel so exhausted? I'm doing all the things. But they weren't the important things, just like you said, because most likely they were harder or confrontational or conversations or emails I didn't want to have or send. And so let's chat about that. But that's the realization that I had is if I can just look at my day tomorrow and circle my one to three needle moving things, even if I suck at everything else, my business, everyone's like, wow, your business is moving forward or you do this. I'm like, because I'm just focusing on the needle moving things. But let's talk about that. Like trying to figure that out. And also the grace that it takes to let go of all the other things and let those fires burn.

It does take a lot of grace. It also takes a lot of letting go of other people's expectations. Right, let's talk about that. That's tough. It is. And sometimes it's the our own expectations, the things that we set up the bar, the bar so high that no one could ever achieve them. Right. And yet we set that bar for ourselves. So this is honestly why I don't believe to do lists work. I am a big advocate for throwing away your to do list because a to do list is too long, it's way too unorganized, and it takes you everywh about where you want to go. And so really doing a priority list, which is at the most five things and we rank them in order of what's most important, we start at the top with our escalate tasks, tasks that are urgent but also important. So needle moving. The second area that I like to focus in on is called cultivate. So the first one's elevate and then it's cultivate. And these are the tasks that really growth happens. These are the difficult conversations. This is spending time creating the marketing budget. This is the time that we're spending really, you know, sharpening our saw and becoming better at what we do. So we spend time there. And then our last area is the accommodate group, which is the tasks that aren't really important, but they're the urgent fires that are like pinging at us and yelling at us to get done. But if we focus mostly on those first two areas and do like you said, 1 to 3, 5 at the very Very most tasks in that area. Yes, it's only one to five tasks. But again, where are you going to end up closer to where you want to go. So throughout that to do list, it's taking you 5 million directions. And the chances are 99% of what's on that list is not really important. But we love to cross those things off because it feels really good to our brain. So we go and we do the things that are taking us everywhere else. Right? The easy task, but running to target, picking up the dry cleaning, doing all these other things things. Answering the quick emails, doing the things that maybe could be delegated to other people. We take on because we just like that check mark. Feels good. Feels really good to scratch something off.

Your to do list.

Yeah, we're all guilty. We are all guilty of that.

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Okay, so let's talk about. We're having the realization of, wow. We need a lot of help and conversations to make things happen. Like literally today even. I was telling you right before we hit record, I was talking to Tanya, you guys, before we started recording about like what it took to even get me to this podcast today because we have a new puppy and I've had to ask for a lot of outside help, which is not easy. Where I could have. I literally found myself, Tanya, in a moment where I was going, okay, I can just reschedule. And my brain was like, to what? Another day with the puppy? Like, you're, you're pushing, you're kicking this pain in the ass down the road. So I was like, no, you're going to deal. Like you're going to learn to deal with these things in this moment and ask for the help that you need. So I had to shoot off a few texts, ask for a little bit of help. Hey, can you come let this, you know, dog out at this time? Or would this work? And it all ended up working, but it wasn't easy. And I felt like I was putting other people out. And I also have to let that be okay. So it's really. It's like all of those moments where I find myself going, no, I can't do that. Oh, I don't want to bother that person. I don't want to have that tough conversation. Oh, I don't know if I should get on a schedule or, you know, have somebody come to the house. Like, you know, whether it's a mom who needs a babysitter, whether you're realizing you need a housekeeper, whether you're realizing you need someone to watch your kids, your dogs, or whatever that looks like, these are all the things that everyone is putting off. Can we talk about having these conversations? And how. How do we prioritize those things if we feel like we just can't put the energy into our business and our life? Like, the. Even the joyful parts that you're talking about that we can get to in a bit, but how do we start making room?

Yeah, I love this question. Because we need to talk about why is it so difficult for us as women to ask for help? There's something in our society that tells us that we should do it all, be it all, and we should look really damn good while we're doing it. Right? I mean, this is the thing, and we're fighting against that. And there's. There's this mentality that if I'm not doing it myself, it doesn't count, so I have to do it all. And the truth is, our. As a species, humans were designed to live in tribes. We are designed to ask for help and to work together. I mean, there's that whole saying, it takes a village, right? Because it does. It takes a village. And yet we feel so guilty asking for help. We think that that makes us look weak. And I think that there's this fear that if I look vulnerable, if I look weak, people are going to see that my mask has slipped, that I'm not really perfect. And the truth is, none of us are perfect. None of us do it all. At least we don't do it well if we try to do it. All right, But I want you to think of it this way. I want you to think of the last time that you had a friend who asked you for help. Maybe she reached out to you and said, hey, oh, my gosh, I'm not gonna be able to make it to carpool, pick up my kids, or, hey, I need you to look over the sales page. How did you feel when you helped your friend? I'm Betting when you helped your friend, you felt pretty amazing. It's like, gosh, I love that she asked for help. I love that she depends on me or that she looks to me as an expert in this. That feels really good. Isn't that a gift that we can give to other people to allow them to support us if we shift it from, I'm a burden on other people, or, oh, what are these people going to think of me? To instead saying, this is really nice. I'm letting people onto my team. I'm letting them see me as a real, authentic person who's struggling. Because the truth is, we are all struggling through life. All of us need help. We need support. And when we allow that support to come in, people are really happy to do it. It makes them feel good. And I'm talking about your friends. I'm talking about the people on your team that, for God's sake, you are paying and yet you feel guilty giving them more to do. And I'm talking about your team at home, your spouse, your friends, your kids. You don't have to be the one who does the laundry and the meal planning and the cleanup and the. You don't have to do all those things, Bring in other people, bring in support. Because that time that you're spending feeling exhausted, frustrated, and, let's be honest, irritated and angry that you're the one doing it, you're missing out on the points of joy in our day, right? The time that you're spending scrubbing the toilets instead of hiring somebody to come in and clean the house, you could be using that to get that sales page done. So then on Saturday, you're off running around with the kids and having fun with your spouse, right? I mean, you have to think of it. Every time that we spend time on something, we're taking away from something else. So do you want to spend your time scrubbing the toilets? Do you want to spend your time at the grocery store? If that's not a yes, then let's. Let's get support. Let's get help. Whether that's paid help, whether it's in trade. Gosh, I used to do a lot of trade. When I didn't have a successful business. I would trade with other moms so I could have time to work on things. And we would. We would trade time with kids, we would trade going to the grocery store. We. I mean, I would do trades for different kinds of things in my business when I needed to. So don't be afraid to look at the other things, because money Isn't the only obstacle, right? Like, let's take money out of the equation, but honestly, let's say that you are working on sales copy or, like, for a landing page. The money you're going to get in from that. That landing page far outseeds the cost of having someone clean your house for an hour. And a lot of times you can find college students who will come in and do it for really inexpensively. So think outside of the box. There's lots of ways. If you're telling yourself there's no way to get this done, I can promise you there's a way. You just need to step outside of it and get a different viewpoint and start to just brainstorm ideas.

I love that I was the exact same way. I traded like crazy. I was like, okay, what can I do? How can I trade? Like, I thought of the crazy, Literally the craziest things. In the beginning of my career, I remember just for. I used to be able to personal train people. Like, I would go and be like, hey, I have a gym membership here. Do you want to pay for your gym membership for the day? But I can train you if you help me write out my workout program. Like, I totally hustled and had people help me with that whole thing, which is amazing. And also, I am such a firm believer, too, Tanya, in the, like, raising your family and your whole life within a tribe, like, creating that tribe and really using each other. I'm taking applications for a cul de sac. Like, I just want to buy a cul de sac and fill it with, like, all my friends and family.

I love that.

Like, I mean, you got the kids, you got the dogs, you got this, you got that.

Great.

Okay, seriously, it's how it used to be.

It is how it used to be. And I think, to be honest with you, that whole, you know, I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan because I'm a woman. While it was a great rallying cry, we took that as a truth that we were supposed to do it all. And that's exhausting. And there's. First of all, I'm not good at everything. Can we just go ahead and acknowledge that we are not good at everything? We are not meant to be an expert in everything. I can tell you right now, I'm not good at cleaning toilets. I'm not good at cleaning. I'm not good at a lot of things. So why do I feel like I should do it? There is this feeling like I'm supposed to do it all, because that's who we are. So I want to really shift that thinking. To be a successful business owner, and especially to be a successful female business owner, means you cannot take no at face value ever. Because people are going to tell you no all the time, and you're going to tell yourself no all the time as well. I can't afford that. I can't spend the money on that. I can't find someone to come in and do these things. The truth is, no just means new opportunity. Let's look at this from a different perspective. Let's step outside of it, get a few different ideas of how we can make this happen, and then move forward.

It's so good. I actually remember. So I was raised in the Midwest, and that certainly is like a badge of honor to clean your own house and do all the chores and the yard work. And so I did that forever. But as I was starting my own business, I was like, oh, I am no longer like. My personality was becoming very terrible towards my husband because I was resentful, I was tired, I was exhausted. I was so afraid what other women would think of me. It was. It was literally just about what other women would think. Like, oh, well, that's how she can do it. Oh, well, that's how she stays fit. That's how she has that business. Yes. And we should share it and we should tell them how they can, too. Because I did not like who I was while I was doing it all. I did not like me. I was not nice. My relationship was really stressed.

Let's be honest. When you are tired, when you're exhausted, when you're overwhelmed, you're not the best wife, mother, friend, aunt, cousin, community member, whatever you are, you are not the best version of that. Because God knows we are snappy to the people that we love. That's not who we want to show up as. But when we're exhausted from doing it all, it's no surprise we're not showing up as the best version of us. And again, going back to that idea of your business is the vehicle for the life you want, your business is here to support you. If your business is making you irritable and crabby and not the best wife, mother, community member, aunt, friend, whatever you are, then let's take a good hard look at all those things that you're doing, because that's not bringing you your best life.

I love it so much too, that it's like when you really live more of, like, that tribal way of life, like bringing in people to help you. I Look at my incredible, like, housekeeper and house manager. Like, she's so amazing. I actually can't imagine my life now without her. And I get to see the impact of her loving her job and how we work together and how now it's like I can't imagine life without her and I can't imagine, like, if she didn't get to be with our family because we love, like, having this relationship and taking care of them in different ways because of how much they take care of us. So remembering the opportunity of somebody is waiting for you to need help. Like, that is someone's hustle, that is someone's business. And can you imagine being the person whose fund pays well, like, you know, doesn't leave their house, crazy disgusting whenever they come over. Like, imagine being that person that you get to be in that person's life and they're like they're waiting for you to need help.

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Yes. I think that's the thing is shifting it to really understand that this is a benefit to other people. This is a way of supporting. And if you, if you are into women owned businesses the way I am, I love to support other women owned businesses. I like to see that I'm allowing them to live a lifestyle they want to live. I think sometimes we think to ourselves, well, I hate cleaning my house. Or let's, let's take it to the business side. I hate spreadsheets. So giving spreadsheets to somebody else is, oh, this is terrible. That's not very nice. I can guarantee you there are people who love spreadsheets. Some of you right now are like, you hate spreadsheets. I love them. So really tapping into, I don't love this, but somebody else loves it. Other people do love cleaning houses. Other people love doing yard work. Other people love spreadsheets. Other people love running your taxes. There's industries because of this. So you're actually helping other people live a life that they want, letting their business be a vehicle for the lucrative life for them as well. Right. So it. It's really about spreading that to other people as well.

I love it. And it's. Once you're in it and you have it and you understand that you've been in it for a while, it's like a knowing that you forgot, like, this is how it's supposed to be. We're all supposed to work together and lean on each other. So, you guys, if you're not there yet, I promise you, it's waiting for you. It does happen. You might have to go through a few people, but it is out there waiting for you. Okay. Tanya, you talk a lot about. You say that an extraordinary life and being extraordinary is a choice. Okay, tell me. Tell me how that's a choice. When I feel tired and resentful and overworked.

Well, let's go back to some of those things we were talking about earlier with the to do list. Choosing, like, how you do the one to three things. That's a choice. You're choosing what you're working on now. That's not to say all those other things just fall off the face of the planet. Right. And you just don't worry about them. You still got to pay the bills. I'm sorry, you still have to. The house does still need to be clean. Laundry still has to be done. But not making that the focus of your day or outsourcing it, delegating it to other people. So right there, we're talking about choices, right? We're talking about choices when we talk about when we think we can't do something, shifting our perspective and looking at it from a different point of view and not just taking no at face value. Everything in life is a choice. How you wake up in the morning is a choice. You know, a perfect example, to be honest with you, that just happened between Christmas and New Year's. We didn't have water for five days. The water we had. Half of the city did not have water. It was terrible for Five days. And you think, okay, we got drinking water, but you gotta flush toilets. You have to, right? You have to wash dishes. So none of the restaurants could be open. It was a nightmare. I'm not gonna lie. And on day four, I woke up, and keep in mind, we are filling up jugs with our hot tub to go flush the toilets. So it's not so glamorous around here at that point. I wake up on day four of no water, and my husband and I are just in this terrible mood, and we're like, I can't believe the city hasn't done anything about this. And we're grumbling, grumbling, grumbling, going on and on and irritable. And then we looked at each other and, like, what are we doing? Why are we focusing on the fact that we don't have water? That's a choice. Can I instead choose to think about, okay, first of all, we have enough drinking water, so we're doing okay. Can I first be glad that it's not electricity that's out? Because it was like 10 degrees outside during that time. What are the things that are good in my world? And all of a sudden, I stopped being so grumpy and irritable, still didn't have water. But I made a choice of how I wanted to shift and look at my day. I could either choose to be grumpy, which would be really easy to do when you don't have water and can't flush your toilets, or I can choose to say, you know what? This is just the day for us to go do other things, right? Let's get outside of the house. Let's go outside. Let's do other things than what I had anticipated. So everything is a choice. It's just so hard sometimes to believe you have those choices, because we get so stuck in our thinking and, hey, I've been there. I know that you've been there, too, Lori. Where it's like, this is just the way things are. So if you ever think to yourself, this is just the way things are, or, this is just how it's supposed to be, that's a lie. That's a lie that we're telling ourselves. Step back and start to really get creative with how you choose to look at the day, the tasks that you're choosing to do. Instead of choosing, like we said, to clean the bathroom or do the yard work, choose to outsource it. And again, it's not about money here. We're doing the trades, doing all those other things, right? So there's plenty of opportunity. It's really about deciding how you want to spend your day. So for me, one of the things that I do is I choose a focus word for each day. So I have a focus word for the year, but I also have a focus word for the day. And this is incorporated in the Ink well Press Daily Planners. You can do this, though. I like to do it with a dry erase marker on my mirror. And in the morning I'm brushing my teeth and I think about what's my word of the day? So let's say that my. One of my kids has, you know, you know, a sports activity. I want to be present. Maybe present is my word of the day. Or it might be that I want to be prepared because I have a presentation coming up for a client. Or maybe it's, you know, something, you know, whatever it is that you want to feel at the end of the day, that's me deciding what enough is at the end of the day. I want to feel prepared. So then when I'm working on my list of what to work on, what's going to help me make me feel prepared at the end of the day? Well, then I know I'm going to be focused in on that client presentation. Right? Those are my three or four things I'm working on for the day. That's we defining enough at the start of the day. And then what I do is when I brush my teeth at the end of the day, I look at my focus word and I go, how did I do? Did I do well today or do I need to work on it? And then I erase it because the next day is a brand new blank slate and I write a fresh word the following day. So it's a real good opportunity to define enough for yourself. And it's a good way to say, okay, I'm choosing how I want to feel. This is my choice today. So some days it might be, I want to be full of grace. Today I want to give more people grace. I want to give myself grace. The word of the day for me might be, you know, I want to be really interacting with other people. So that's going to dictate how I feel about my day. But I choose that at the start of my day how I want my day to feel.

Oh, I love that. Okay, let's talk about attaching your fulfillment to achievement, because I've definitely done this and also a couple shifts around, like knowing that potentially, how do we look at knowing that? Also seeking joy for ourselves is also achievement if we have to think of it that way, does that make sense?

Okay, no, that makes total sense. And I think it comes down to, you know, how we're setting our goals, how we look at success. Because again, just like the word enough, we never really decide for ourselves what success means. So the way that we make our a lot of our choices is we look around and we go, oh, this woman over here is doing amazing things. I should do more of what she's doing. Or this company, this competitor of mine, they're doing these things, so we need to do these things, too. And we look around and we make these decisions about our goals or what success looks like based off what everybody else is doing. And in doing that, we lose sight of who we are and what we desire and what we want. And I think this is why so often we set the wrong goals and then we get this achievement, right? We're hustling, we're killing ourselves trying to get this achievement, and then we're like, okay, what? Okay, now what? And that's because we're not really aligning it to what we really want. So what I like to do, and I talk about this in my book, this is really how you define what you want, what you want to focus in on, what you want for your goals. Let's look 10 years down in the future. 10, maybe even 20 years down the future. That's your potential, okay? That's the potential of where you can go. And for each of us, it's going to be different. You might think to yourself, in 10 years, I want to sell my business, or in 10 years, I want to have somebody coming in and they're doing the main things that I'm just doing this aspect of the business, or in 10 years, I want to grow the business to, you know, X level of revenue. Okay? So that's your potential. Ten years down the road, that's really far away. And that can feel daunting and overwhelming. So let's back it up. Let's think of it as a timeline. If you are here and then you have a line just like in second grade when you made a timeline, at the very end of it is your potential in 10 years. That's a long ways away. Let's back that timeline up. Let's now look at what do I think is possible, what's possible in the next three to five years to get me to that potential. So we're backing up. We're getting a little bit closer. So let's say it's selling your business, right? While in three to five years, I want to make sure that I have all of my, you know, I want to have things buttoned up with my revenue. I want to make sure all the SOPs. I want to make sure. Right, all of those things. So that's what I'm looking at is what's possible three to five years still pretty far down the road. Let's back up the timeline even more. If this is my potential in 10 years, and I back it up to what is possible in three to five years, what's practical? What's practical that I could actually accomplish in 12 to 18 months? Okay, we're getting closer, right? So in the next 12 to 18 months, you think to yourself, well, I do want to have all those SOPs done. I want to have all my standard operating procedures done. I want to have onboarding buttoned up. I want to have those things done. Right. Okay, well, if that's what's practical, what do you need to prioritize? I need to prioritize getting those sops done. I need to prioritize, really formalizing the hiring process. I want to make sure. I prioritize making sure that we're doing financial statements on a regular basis. Right. Looking at our P&Ls and things like that, those things that we just said we wanted to prioritize, those are your goals. Those are aligned to that potential 10 years down the road. So as you accomplish each one, you get there and you're like, wow, okay, I'm onto the next step. And you have that little bit of a boost, that momentum to get to that life that you're looking for. If that's what you want out of your business, that you want to sell it in 10 years. Your goals are very different than your competitor who wants to grow the business to nine figures, or it's very different from your competitor who just wants to stay at six figures. Every one of us has different wants and needs and desires. There's not one thing that fits for every single person's business. So decide your potential, back it up, figure out what's possible three to five years, then what's practical in the next 12 to 18 months, and then what you need to prioritize in the next three months, the next six months, the next nine months. That's when you're going to start to feel like, okay, I'm actually moving forward, right? Fewer things, but get you that big life.

And I think that's. That's majority, I feel like, of the pain that I've experienced in businesses is what I feel like I'm not doing, if I'm being honest. Like, I have more pain over that than doing the hard stuff. It's like not having a clear schedule or a clear path can often feel a lot more challenging to me while just like, trying to figure it out. Because you waste a whole lot of energy when you don't have clear goals and a clear path. And I, you know, depending on what type of person I'm talking to, I'm more of a creative. So it's.

It.

It's been harder for me to get on a schedule and, like, get very linear, but it's changed my entire life. Like, being able to work in the pockets and do the things that I say I'm going to do that day and then allow myself to be free when I'm not doing those things. That is where. Let's go there next. Because your business is never going to tell you that you have free time to go enjoy yourself. So let's talk about how do we make sure that we. Especially if you work for yourself, you could do it all day long, all the time. You could. You can lie to yourself and tell yourself you can't put your phone away. You can tell yourself that lie and convince yourself, my husband and I have both done it. It's not the truth. So let's talk about that, about prioritizing downtime and how we actually mentally learn how to detach when we're in that downtime so when we can enjoy it.

Yeah, this is. It's definitely one of the challenges when you own your own business, especially because you do. You get into the business because you love it. First of all, you are passionate about who you're serving, and you're just like, we need to do more of this. And we get caught up in this mindset of more is more. It's amazing. And then we're like, why am I so tired? Why am I grumpy? And so it is. It is kind of peeling it back and then very intentionally choosing downtime. I like to say that in the past year, I've really been working on what I call repacing, figuring out what's the speed of work that works for me. Because I think so often we work at a speed that we think we're supposed to work at, or what we've been told we're supposed to work at rather than what really works for us. And when we have downtime, it can feel unsettling. And I think we have to acknowledge that and think about a time where Maybe you've checked the things off your to do list and you have like five minutes where you have a phone call or something and you're like, hold on, I got five minutes to myself. And you're like, what did I do wrong? Something has to be wrong. I want you to choose to lean into that a little bit more. I have five minutes. That's amazing. Let me give myself a break. Because the truth is your brain is just like your body, right? We go to the gym and we don't think twice about working out and doing a circuit. We do push ups and then we stop and we don't keep working on those same muscles. We go and we work our leg muscles and then we work our leg muscles for a little bit and then we work our back muscles because we're letting different areas rest. Your brain is the same way. We cannot get on that treadmill and go 90 miles an hour for three hours straight. Your brain can't do it either. And so really understanding that when we give our brain space to explore and play, it allows it to repair and it allows you to actually come back more productive. It is actually scientifically proven that you're more productive. I think your productivity doubles and you're more creative. So not only are you getting better work done, but it's also more creative. So it changes the way that you think. I mean, think about like if you were to just sit there and do push up after push up after pushup, eventually your arms are going to wear out, they're exhausted, your form is going to suck after a while. Probably not after too long for me because I'm not very good at push ups. But same thing with your brain. If you're just pushing and muscling through, you're not giving it time to recover so then it can come back and be really good. So a break only needs to be really 15 minutes to get those benefits. So what can you do in 15 minutes? You can read a chapter of your book, you can go outside and go for a walk, you can call a friend. I mean, there's a thousand things. I like to really encourage people to make a list of things to do. If you have a 10 minute break, what if something. Because a lot of times we're like, I don't know what to do. So we just default to scrolling on our phone, which for business owners a lot of times defaults to going into social media and responding to customers or looking at how well your posts are doing. So make a little list for yourself of what kinds of Things feel good to you could be doodling for 15 minutes. Especially if you're creative. Do something creative in these, like 10 to 15 minute little spurts. You're going to find that you come back and you're like, oh my gosh, that was amazing. I feel so much better. And then your work is going to be so much better. Better. So a break. I think this is the thing and this is one of the things I like to tell people that we think of rest as being a reward for great work. But rest is a requirement for great work to happen. It's not a negotiable, it's not something you can choose, oh, should I have a break or not? Our body needs breaks. So really embracing those.

Yes. Whenever I'm taking a break or I'm out on a walk or whatever that is, I'm immediately like, okay, this is where you rest, recharge and get new ideas. Because you don't get new ideas doing like in the integration. You just, you really don't when you're working in it, it's like, I have to go out into the world, recharge, try new things, you know, do a new activity, talk to new people. And that's how I bring new energy into my business. Which when we bring that new energy and when you're rested and when you're recharged, I really always think of it like, I cannot remember who said this, but we're all just in the game of selling energy. No matter what we're selling thing, we're just selling energy. And people are attracted to you because of your energy, because someone next to you could be saying the same thing. But if you're saying it in an energy where you believe it, you feel it, you believe it's great to have a business and it feels good because you know how to recharge, then you're gonna sell that. But if you're like, yep, it's great, I'm here again at my desk, you should have your own business. This is really awesome. I'm in a cubicle. Like, you're selling energy. So at the end of the day, you have to remember just, just everything that you teach is about, like, how can we restore energy into all parts of our life. So that's why I love it so much. So your first book, which had the best title ever, the Joy of Missing out, tell me a little bit about what that one was about. Just to this one, like, what was that journey? Because I know, like, they reflect your life and your journey, right? So like Tell me about the Joy of Missing out and where you were at, and then tell me about how this. This next step of on purpose started to form this message.

Yeah, well, I like this question because I wrote the Joy of Missing out because I had lived that life of hustle and really feeling like I was exhausted and worn out. And so I wanted to write a book that was for women that was really about, here's how we create some structure to your days. Because when we have that structure, we have more space to be creative. We have more space to play and actually enjoy life. So it's really about creating that structure in our days and our weeks. And so HarperCollins was really happy with the book. The book was named a best business book of the year by Fortune magazine, which is kind of crazy for, you know, somebody who I don't even have a business degree but just, you know, running my own business in 2008.

Results. You have results.

I have results. So they asked me to write a second book. And so I was like, sure, I can write another book will make it about goals. And I thought, yes, I'm going to write a book about goals. People love goals. I can teach goal setting all day long. So I sat down, mapped it all out, created this outline of what the book was going to be about, and that was in February of 2020. And I had a whole writing plan, like, oh, I'm going to write this many, you know, this many hours a day, and da, da, da. And then March of 2020 happened, right? And the pandemic happened. And all of a sudden, I'm homeschooling my kids, which I wasn't anticipating. And I'm trying to run my business, which has a fulfillment center within it, right? Because we're shipping products, trying to fill out PPP paperwork for the government, do all these things. And the book didn't happen. It just sat there. And there was no way I could do it, right? Because that was a time where I was leaning into all this other area. I couldn't work on a book, so that had to go away for a little bit. But what happened in this beautiful pause that I had, and this is what I think is a silver lining from post pandemic that we can see now, the benefit was during that pause that we all had, we all started to figure out, wait a minute, what am I really doing here? And there's this line in the Joy of Missing out that I talk about. It's hard to know what to throw overboard, what tasks to get rid of, right? Until our boat is sinking. And when our boat starts sinking, it's easy to just throw things overboard. All of a sudden, we start getting really clear on what's important. Well, when the pandemic happened, everybody's boat was sinking. Suddenly we were like, can't do this. Not doing these things, right? Gonna say no to all these things. And I started to notice these conversations that were happening amongst my friends, amongst my community, and even with myself, like, what have I been doing? What am I here to do? There's got to be something more than just what I've been doing. And so the book totally shifted. I took that outline, the beautiful outline that I created, tore it up, threw it away, and said, this is not a book about goal setting. This is a book about something so much bigger. This is about living on purpose. Living two ways, right? On purpose, with intention, but also to a higher purpose to what it is I desire for this big, bright, beautiful future of mine. So goals are a part of that. Goals help you get to that purpose. But the book is not about goals. Goals. It's really about living with intention. How do we do that? How do we stay mindful while we're running a business and we're running a house and we're trying to be a good friend to everybody and we're trying to do all these other things. How do I live on purpose? So it really shifted and evolved because of the pandemic. And I think that was. It was so amazing because it was a vastly different book than what I sat down to write when I made that outline in February. What I turned into my editor was. Is incredibly different, and I'm so much happier because of that. But that's. That's what we do. Like, when we talk about planning, it's creating that structure, but giving yourself the grace to shift and go off track, I think that's really important.

I'm so glad you shared that, because I. That is. That is a plan. I've never, like, found or done a good plan that doesn't completely shift or actually, sometimes it doesn't even end the same as it started. And. And I think that we are gifted with that initial idea just to get us started. That's how I look at it. Like, okay, this would be great if this turns out. But I think this initial idea is just the way to get me going and get me excited and be open to all the twists and turns that are coming while seeing how can I. Also, I love that you're planting this question in all of us. Is okay While I'm going for this thing, how can I also make sure I'm living a life that feels very purposeful to me and that I'm having those boundaries and having those conversations? So, all right, what's the last thing that you want to share? I know there's a million things to share, but is there something on your heart or something that you're just like, I just. This is what I want women to know or people to know.

Yeah. Well, let's just piggyback off that last idea where you're talking about the twists and the turns. Because the twists and the turns, those are the best parts. Those are the parts that we really figure out who we are or what we really want. I mean, the life that I have now is not anywhere that I anticipated I would be 20 years ago at all. Like, I'm not doing anything that I thought I would be doing, and yet I'm so happy that I am, I think. So often we get on the highway of life and we get really focused, and we're going 80 miles an hour, even though the speed limit's 65. Right? And we're just doing the thing. We're going. We're following all the other cars. And sometimes we look down and we realize, hold on, I'm not on that highway anymore. Where am I? And then we look around and we go, oh, I like this. I didn't even know there was a scenic route. There's these mountain views and this great diner over here. And all of a sudden, you need to ask yourself, do I even want to get back on that highway, or do I like where I am now? So life is 100% about grace. It is really about giving yourself the flexibility to grow and stretch into who you are meant to be. And I truly believe we don't stay there. If we stay really tight and tied to a plan, you're going to get off track. You're going to find yourself somewhere very different than you anticipated. Stop and ask yourself, do I like this? Do I want to go back to the highway? And maybe you do, and that's okay. But maybe you think, I really like where I am right now, and now I need to create a different plan for myself. That's what living on purpose is really about. It really is the best.

Had chills through that because I am just. I'm living in that right now. And it's. It's the craziest thing when you wind up somewhere that you're like, oh, my God, this is where I was supposed to be all along. And that was the path that I was supposed to take. That's interesting and also really cool.

Yes, it really. It really is. It's. It's a little bit. You have to learn how to surrender. Right? The universe will take care of you.

You.

No matter what, the universe always takes care of you. And so going into any situation and knowing that the universe has you covered, that no matter where you are, you are in the right place. You may think because it doesn't fit what you have planned, but the plans are so much bigger. All you're getting is a tiny little snippet that you can see. So even if you're in a season right now, that feels like maybe it's bad or it's wrong, it's not. Not. It's getting you to where you need to go. So just embrace that and know that that's okay. Yes.

So good. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for this. Always so much fun talking to you. Any last words or do you want to just say where in the heck we can get this book right now?

Well, you can get the book pretty much anywhere books are sold. You can go to my website, tanya dalton.com. that's a great place to find links to all the different retailers. Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, of course. And, you know, if you liked what I had to say today, a great thing to do is right after this ends, you can do a search for my name or the Intentional Advantage, my podcast, whatever platform you're listening to this on, if you found that what I talked about today really fit you, give me a listen. I'm on episode. I don't know, 300, 200 something. We've been doing the podcast for a long time, so there's a whole archive of all kinds of good tidbits and ideas and ways you can move forward that really add more meaning to your life, because that's really what I'm here to do. I want you to see that you have an incredible life. It's just making some choices to make that happen.

I love it. You guys, you. You have a little bit of homework. You're already on the app. Go check out her podcast. Go subscribe. So it comes up and you get to see all the things that she's talking about. Truly, every conversation I have with you. And whenever I've heard you on podcasts, I always get so many things. So you guys know you're going to get all of the gold within her podcast, because that's where you save it all up and you put it all on your show. So go check that out. And also, one of the biggest gifts we can give to our listeners is obviously to support them in these ways and grab their book. But also, it's so much fun to see who listened to this episode. Let us know what one of your takeaways was. You guys know that if you share the stories and tag us, I always reshare them. I love to see who's listening. And until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone. It.