Episode 15
How to do Great Work | UYGW15
Have you ever been listening to this podcast and thought “Yeah, OK, Great Work sounds, well, Great, but HOW? How do I actually get over my drama? How can I find the time to make progress on my Great Work? In this episode, we are going deep in the weeds and talking about exact tactics (#exactics).
Join me as we discuss:
- How to do Great Work in the weeks, days and moments of our lives.
- How to avoid feeling like every idea you have is either too small to make a difference, or so large it’s paralyzing.
- How to rebuild trust with yourself, so that will believe yourself when you set goals.
This week’s episode includes an excerpt from my book! If you loved what you heard, and want to hear it again—but this time with your eyes!—pre-order your copy today!
Link to Great Work Journal Page
About The Host:
Dr. Amanda Crowell is a cognitive psychologist, speaker, author and coach changing our perspective on the world of work. It IS possible to do Great Work-- launch a successful business, make a scientific discovery, raise a tight-knit family, or manage a global remote team-- without sacrificing your health, happiness and relationships.
Amanda is the Author of the forthcoming book, Great Work: Do What Matter Most Without Sacrificing Everything Else, and the creator of the Great Work Journals. Amanda's TEDx talk has received more than a million views and has been featured on TED's Ideas blog and Ted Shorts.
Her ideas have also been featured on NPR, Al Jazeera, The Wall Street Journal, Quartz, and Thrive Global.
Sponsored By The Aligned Time Journal
The Unleashing Your Great Work podcast is sponsored by the Aligned Time Journal! The Aligned Time Journal is here to answer the question "But HOW?" How can we figure out what our Great Work is? How can we get started, stay with it, and finish our Great Work so it can go out in the world and have an impact?
Click here to learn more, and try it out for yourself!
For more information about the Unleashing YOUR Great Work podcast or to learn more about Dr. Amanda Crowell, check out my website: amandacrowell.com
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Transcript
Hey, it's Amanda, the host of unleashing
Dr Amanda Crowell:your great work. I am excited to announce today that the great
Dr Amanda Crowell:work journals are now available on Amazon. This is the next
Dr Amanda Crowell:exciting iteration of the aligned time journal. And I'm
Dr Amanda Crowell:really excited to bring them into the great work family. If
Dr Amanda Crowell:you've ever wondered how to do great work, and whether the
Dr Amanda Crowell:journals can help you stay tuned, I'm sharing all of that
Dr Amanda Crowell:insight on today's episode. Welcome to unleashing your great
Dr Amanda Crowell:work, a podcast about doing the work that matters the most to
Dr Amanda Crowell:you. I'm your host, Dr. Amanda curl, a cognitive psychologist,
Dr Amanda Crowell:speaker, coach, and the creator of the aligned time journals.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Every week on this podcast, we are asking the big questions.
Dr Amanda Crowell:What is great work? And why does it matter so much to us? What
Dr Amanda Crowell:does it take to do more of your great work without sacrificing
Dr Amanda Crowell:everything else? And how does the world change when more
Dr Amanda Crowell:people are doing more of the work that matters the most to
Dr Amanda Crowell:them? Whether your great work is building your own small
Dr Amanda Crowell:business, or managing a remote team at a multinational company,
Dr Amanda Crowell:you'll find insight and answers here. Anna is a woman on a
Dr Amanda Crowell:mission. At least that's how she feels when she's talking about
Dr Amanda Crowell:her dream of starting a nonprofit organization that
Dr Amanda Crowell:provides art therapy for veterans. She began working at
Dr Amanda Crowell:the VA as a therapy provider in her late 20s. And she discovered
Dr Amanda Crowell:how powerful expressive art therapy was. When it was used by
Dr Amanda Crowell:veterans healing from the shock and trauma of war. It connects
Dr Amanda Crowell:them back to a part of themselves that got suppressed
Dr Amanda Crowell:during active duty. It's like watching a whole new version of
Dr Amanda Crowell:themselves emerge from our work together. When our therapy
Dr Amanda Crowell:works, it works. She said while Anna continued to work at the VA
Dr Amanda Crowell:full time, she wanted to lay groundwork for her nonprofit.
Dr Amanda Crowell:And his vision for her great work is rock solid. She has no
Dr Amanda Crowell:problem getting excited about the opportunities that she could
Dr Amanda Crowell:create for veterans. And for herself. What I really want is
Dr Amanda Crowell:to make art therapy free for veterans, any veteran no matter
Dr Amanda Crowell:where or when they did their service should be able to
Dr Amanda Crowell:explore that experience through art. And I went to have an art
Dr Amanda Crowell:gallery full of artwork from veterans. Because I think if
Dr Amanda Crowell:people see the art, they'll more deeply understand the sacrifices
Dr Amanda Crowell:our soldiers are making. And I would love to shape the national
Dr Amanda Crowell:conversation about war, honor service, and what it means to
Dr Amanda Crowell:support our veterans when they come home. Yet, despite her
Dr Amanda Crowell:outright enthusiasm and deep content knowledge, Anna was not
Dr Amanda Crowell:making progress on her dream. It's reached the point where I'm
Dr Amanda Crowell:almost embarrassed to talk about it with my family and friends.
Dr Amanda Crowell:They'll ask me how it's going and I just shrink. I don't know
Dr Amanda Crowell:what my problem is. She continued. I know I'm a hard
Dr Amanda Crowell:worker, I work all the time. And I get so excited by the idea of
Dr Amanda Crowell:creating my nonprofit. Why have I done so little? Every now and
Dr Amanda Crowell:then I searched the internet looking for names of veterans
Dr Amanda Crowell:groups to connect with. But that's it. That's everything
Dr Amanda Crowell:I've done in a year. This is very common. We hit on our great
Dr Amanda Crowell:idea, create a powerful vision, get super excited, and then
Dr Amanda Crowell:nothing really happens. Everything that comes to mind
Dr Amanda Crowell:either feels too small to make a difference or so large, it's
Dr Amanda Crowell:paralyzing. It's no wonder that we give up and decide to think
Dr Amanda Crowell:about it tomorrow. Confusing vision with goals is one of the
Dr Amanda Crowell:most common sources of frustration when people are
Dr Amanda Crowell:trying to make progress on their great work. That confusion is
Dr Amanda Crowell:frustrating by its nature. Let's just say that Anna has an hour
Dr Amanda Crowell:to work on her nonprofit after a long day providing therapy at
Dr Amanda Crowell:the VA. How could she use one hour to shape the national
Dr Amanda Crowell:conversation? She can't. At the core of a lot of this
Dr Amanda Crowell:frustration is a lack of clarity about ideas. A vision is an
Dr Amanda Crowell:idea. And so as a goal, but so as a task and a to do. And if
Dr Amanda Crowell:you're anything like Anna or me or 98% of my clients, you are
Dr Amanda Crowell:full of ideas. Ideas come in the shower, while you're out walking
Dr Amanda Crowell:the dog doing morning pages are simply out of nowhere. And this
Dr Amanda Crowell:is before we even get to the goals and tasks and to dues that
Dr Amanda Crowell:come rolling out of meetings and conversations, emails. Some of
Dr Amanda Crowell:these ideas will be small on the level of maybe Matt could help
Dr Amanda Crowell:me with my budget, and some will be a lot larger like I want to
Dr Amanda Crowell:write a best selling book. These are clearly not the same kind of
Dr Amanda Crowell:ideas. Right.
Dr Amanda Crowell:I like to categorize ideas into five different levels. Now I
Dr Amanda Crowell:like to visualize them as an upside down Triangle, at the
Dr Amanda Crowell:very top of the upside down triangle, the really broad part
Dr Amanda Crowell:is your vision. This is what we hope to achieve someday.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Underneath that is an understanding of what we're able
Dr Amanda Crowell:to do in the next year or two, which I call an accessible
Dr Amanda Crowell:aspiration. That's still not what you're working on, on the
Dr Amanda Crowell:regular. Instead, level three, one level down from that are the
Dr Amanda Crowell:90 day goals, I like to set 90 Day goals to which we are
Dr Amanda Crowell:actively striving, of course, they're aligned to your
Dr Amanda Crowell:accessible aspiration, which is in turn aligned to your vision.
Dr Amanda Crowell:But we're not working on the aspiration, we're not working on
Dr Amanda Crowell:the vision, we're working on the goal. And we know that if we
Dr Amanda Crowell:work on it for weeks, not years, but weeks, we can accomplish it.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Part of that is the weekly task. What can I do this week to get a
Dr Amanda Crowell:little bit more to get a little closer to my goal. And then what
Dr Amanda Crowell:I'm doing today, the to do is the tiny tip of the upside down
Dr Amanda Crowell:triangle. This is what this is the small thing that I'm going
Dr Amanda Crowell:to do today, that gets me closer to my task this week gets me
Dr Amanda Crowell:closer to my 90 Day goal, which in turn gets me closer to my
Dr Amanda Crowell:aspiration which gets me closer to my vision, it's helpful to
Dr Amanda Crowell:understand how your ideas fit into the structure, because the
Dr Amanda Crowell:best way to align your time to an idea depends on the level. If
Dr Amanda Crowell:your idea is something you can do today, like ask Matt for
Dr Amanda Crowell:help, then the best thing you can do is put it on a to do list
Dr Amanda Crowell:or in the daily pages of your great work journal, and then do
Dr Amanda Crowell:it. If your idea is on the level of a catalyzing vision like and
Dr Amanda Crowell:is world changing nonprofit, then you can do two things.
Dr Amanda Crowell:First, you want to activate it, which is so that you get super
Dr Amanda Crowell:excited and invigorated and imagine how it feels and think
Dr Amanda Crowell:about it, how it looks and you know really excited about it.
Dr Amanda Crowell:And then once you've done that and created that space, then you
Dr Amanda Crowell:need to translate that vision down into the lower levels of
Dr Amanda Crowell:the upside down triangle so that you can take concrete action. So
Dr Amanda Crowell:the accessible aspiration. So for Anna to move out of
Dr Amanda Crowell:paralysis and into action, the first thing she needed to do was
Dr Amanda Crowell:to translate that enormous vision, that enormous powerful
Dr Amanda Crowell:vision into an accessible aspiration. So accessible
Dr Amanda Crowell:aspirations are aptly named, they have to feel both
Dr Amanda Crowell:accessible, and doable, but also kind of far away. They will take
Dr Amanda Crowell:multiple 90 Day goals, cycles, and a lot of figuring out unlike
Dr Amanda Crowell:a vision, which has a nebulous someday feeling accessible
Dr Amanda Crowell:aspirations feel tied to your real calendar, usually, I think
Dr Amanda Crowell:of these ideas as on tap for the next year or two. And I realize
Dr Amanda Crowell:that if she was going to build a successful nonprofit, then she
Dr Amanda Crowell:needed to conquer fundraising. So she decided to start by
Dr Amanda Crowell:trying to fund a pilot program and a year or so this aspiration
Dr Amanda Crowell:begins to put Anna into the flow of concrete work, it helps her
Dr Amanda Crowell:to realize that she's going to need to make connections, hone
Dr Amanda Crowell:her pitch, find opportunities to collaborate. But even an
Dr Amanda Crowell:accessible aspiration can be overwhelming when you try to
Dr Amanda Crowell:decide what to do and what not to do in the next three months.
Dr Amanda Crowell:For this, we have to head down to 90 day goals. So why would we
Dr Amanda Crowell:set 90 Day goals. And you know, you may have noticed that 90 Day
Dr Amanda Crowell:goals are sort of all the rage. And if you're a somewhat of a
Dr Amanda Crowell:rebel like me, you probably want to know why you would set a 90
Dr Amanda Crowell:day goal before you blindly follow along. So I mean, first
Dr Amanda Crowell:let's acknowledge that 90 Day goals are somewhat arbitrary.
Dr Amanda Crowell:You could set a 10 week goal, and that would be fine. Or a
Dr Amanda Crowell:four month goal, which is what I actually recommend for people
Dr Amanda Crowell:who are still in school, if you're tied to a semester, then
Dr Amanda Crowell:you should go with the semester. But nonetheless, I do like 90
Dr Amanda Crowell:Day goals because they give us four chances a year to make
Dr Amanda Crowell:things happen. And with four cycles, we really can do a lot.
Dr Amanda Crowell:I also like it, because if you follow the fiscal quarters of
Dr Amanda Crowell:the year, starting your goals in January, April, July and
Dr Amanda Crowell:October, then it can help you make you feel like you're part
Dr Amanda Crowell:of something bigger, you can start saying things like oh,
Dr Amanda Crowell:these are my q2 goals and bemoan the end of the quarter along
Dr Amanda Crowell:with like all the other business people. And this is a very
Dr Amanda Crowell:powerful piece of identity building, if part of your great
Dr Amanda Crowell:work is building a business. So you can leverage that with 90
Dr Amanda Crowell:Day goals. Also, with 90 Day goals, you can roughly follow
Dr Amanda Crowell:the seasons. And if you live in a seasonal place, then your life
Dr Amanda Crowell:probably feels significantly different in January than it
Dr Amanda Crowell:does in July. And I'm not making the claim that January or July
Dr Amanda Crowell:is more productive, because that depends on you and the weather
Dr Amanda Crowell:in your part of the world. But instead I'm noting that some
Dr Amanda Crowell:goals will feel more appropriate and accessible based on the time
Dr Amanda Crowell:of the year that you set them in 90 day goals allow for that.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Also, we can kind of generally predict what we'll be doing in
Dr Amanda Crowell:the next 90 days in a way that we can't when we look much
Dr Amanda Crowell:further into the future For example, could you have dinner
Dr Amanda Crowell:with a friend on the second Tuesday and three months? Okay,
Dr Amanda Crowell:answer that same question. Could you have dinner with a friend on
Dr Amanda Crowell:the second Tuesday of the month in five months? Really go to
Dr Amanda Crowell:your calendar and try to answer that question. Do you notice the
Dr Amanda Crowell:difference? In 90 days, you could generally say, probably or
Dr Amanda Crowell:Probably not, because I know what my life is going to be
Dr Amanda Crowell:like, in five months, it starts to feel like yeah, maybe there's
Dr Amanda Crowell:no way to know just see if that's true for you. Finally,
Dr Amanda Crowell:the 90 day time frame is long enough that you will definitely
Dr Amanda Crowell:want to quit, but you won't, at least not until your 90 days are
Dr Amanda Crowell:up. And part of this is that we are reestablishing trust with
Dr Amanda Crowell:ourselves that we're going to stay with our goals long enough
Dr Amanda Crowell:to accomplish something significant. And you can't re
Dr Amanda Crowell:establish that trust with a goal so short that you never want to
Dr Amanda Crowell:quit. Okay, so how to pick your goals. Now, I think it's
Dr Amanda Crowell:important to follow the three s goal structure in part because
Dr Amanda Crowell:taking on more than three goals related to great work at any one
Dr Amanda Crowell:time can make most people feel overwhelmed and stretched in
Dr Amanda Crowell:every direction. And of those three goals, only one of them is
Dr Amanda Crowell:a stretch goal. The other two goals are a support goal, and a
Dr Amanda Crowell:sanity goal, which together provide a solid foundation from
Dr Amanda Crowell:which to achieve your stretch goal. Your stretch goal is the
Dr Amanda Crowell:beating heart of your great work. It usually requires
Dr Amanda Crowell:research help seeking the learning of new skills and a
Dr Amanda Crowell:whole lot of failure. Your stretch goal will also force you
Dr Amanda Crowell:to overcome hurry, worry, guilt overwhelmed hustle and
Dr Amanda Crowell:perfectionism. This is the piece you've chosen to get your hands
Dr Amanda Crowell:dirty with, you know, you'll make mistakes. And you're
Dr Amanda Crowell:confident that on the other side of those mistakes is victorious,
Dr Amanda Crowell:glorious progress. In short, stretch goals require the most
Dr Amanda Crowell:willpower. Willpower is our ability to focus on things when
Dr Amanda Crowell:we don't want to and to do complex tasks when we want to do
Dr Amanda Crowell:easy things instead. Willpower is a limited resource in humans
Dr Amanda Crowell:because it's housed in the newest part of our brain, the
Dr Amanda Crowell:prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is responsible
Dr Amanda Crowell:for helping us make hard decisions, focus on difficult
Dr Amanda Crowell:tasks and suppress our urge to quit.
Dr Amanda Crowell:The interesting thing about your prefrontal cortex is that it
Dr Amanda Crowell:gets tired. Other parts of your brain do not get tired. Your
Dr Amanda Crowell:limbic system, for example, doesn't ever get tired of
Dr Amanda Crowell:helping you breathe. But the pre for the prefrontal cortex on the
Dr Amanda Crowell:other hand does run out of juice. Just think about it. By
Dr Amanda Crowell:the end of the day, you are much more likely to eat a whole box
Dr Amanda Crowell:of cookies yell at one of the lucky people you live with and
Dr Amanda Crowell:cry right here also much more likely to put off making hard
Dr Amanda Crowell:decisions avoid new and novel problems like the plague. This
Dr Amanda Crowell:is what it looks like when your prefrontal cortex has lost its
Dr Amanda Crowell:mojo. And this is why I recommend only having one
Dr Amanda Crowell:stretch goal. These taxing goals drain our limited willpower and
Dr Amanda Crowell:make us tired. Great work is worth the drain, obviously, but
Dr Amanda Crowell:doing too many difficult projects at once leads to
Dr Amanda Crowell:burnout, unhappiness and sacrifice. That's against the
Dr Amanda Crowell:rules. One stretch goals enough. Anna decided that in the next 90
Dr Amanda Crowell:days she would have at least 12 conversations with fundraisers,
Dr Amanda Crowell:executive directors and program leaders at veteran focus
Dr Amanda Crowell:nonprofits. That's roughly one conversation a week she called
Dr Amanda Crowell:it her listening tour because she didn't want the pressure of
Dr Amanda Crowell:pretending to be an expert. The next goal and the three s goal
Dr Amanda Crowell:structure is the support goal. The support goal is designed to
Dr Amanda Crowell:make your stretch goal easier, more accomplishable and in some
Dr Amanda Crowell:cases possible. A support goal might provide the stability in a
Dr Amanda Crowell:related area or address an issue that tends to arise in
Dr Amanda Crowell:convenient times. Examples might include tracking your finances
Dr Amanda Crowell:better posting on social media more regularly if building a
Dr Amanda Crowell:social platform for your business important or automating
Dr Amanda Crowell:your calendar, scheduling and reminders. Support goals are
Dr Amanda Crowell:often though not always goals that focus on process instead of
Dr Amanda Crowell:projects. While stretch goals often have a clear
Dr Amanda Crowell:accomplishment associated with them. Support goals often
Dr Amanda Crowell:focused on getting better at something. Process goals are
Dr Amanda Crowell:critical. Because these habits form the foundation of our lives
Dr Amanda Crowell:but they can feel nebulous. You can always get better sleep
Dr Amanda Crowell:because you are always going to need sleep and your sleep is
Dr Amanda Crowell:never perfect. This can make process goals feel as satisfying
Dr Amanda Crowell:because they are never done. So it helps to give your process
Dr Amanda Crowell:goal a clear finish line for the sake of your 90 day goal.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Instead of get better sleep for example, choose go to bed by
Dr Amanda Crowell:10pm at least four nights a week. Instead of keep better
Dr Amanda Crowell:records choose file all claims within two weeks for example.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Anna's 90 Day support goal was to network more regularly. She
Dr Amanda Crowell:was regularly invited to conferences and events both at
Dr Amanda Crowell:the VA and in the larger DC region but she was so tired from
Dr Amanda Crowell:work that she skipped most of them. Her support goal then was
Dr Amanda Crowell:to change her ways and attend to More of these opportunities to
Dr Amanda Crowell:network, her support goal intersected with her stretch
Dr Amanda Crowell:goal directly. If I go to one of these networking events at least
Dr Amanda Crowell:every two weeks, I should meet enough people to find the 12
Dr Amanda Crowell:conversations for my listening tour. The final goal in the
Dr Amanda Crowell:three SQL structure is the sanity goal. This goal focuses
Dr Amanda Crowell:on something that makes you feel grounded, resourced, and
Dr Amanda Crowell:resilient. Resilience is the ability to bounce back, recover
Dr Amanda Crowell:from disappointment and continue despite failure. It's related to
Dr Amanda Crowell:willpower in the sense that we're more resilient earlier in
Dr Amanda Crowell:the day. And it's related to vision because vision creates
Dr Amanda Crowell:the motivation that keeps us invested when things get hard.
Dr Amanda Crowell:The nature of great work requires you to learn new
Dr Amanda Crowell:things, put yourself out into the world, to things that
Dr Amanda Crowell:activate all the drama, and drain your willpower. The sanity
Dr Amanda Crowell:goal is critical to the success of your stretch and support
Dr Amanda Crowell:goals, because it keeps you resilient enough to stay at it
Dr Amanda Crowell:when things get hard. As you consider your sanity goal,
Dr Amanda Crowell:please make sure that you're choosing something that would
Dr Amanda Crowell:make you feel good even before you accomplish it. For example,
Dr Amanda Crowell:if you choose going to yoga three times a week, make sure
Dr Amanda Crowell:that going to yoga even just once feels great. The point of
Dr Amanda Crowell:this goal is to give you the gift of groundedness support and
Dr Amanda Crowell:strength right away. And all along the way. You might have
Dr Amanda Crowell:already guessed Anna sanity goal, based on her support goal,
Dr Amanda Crowell:she was staying up late and getting up early trying to keep
Dr Amanda Crowell:everything going her sanity goal then was to be better rested. So
Dr Amanda Crowell:she could have the energy to make good connections while she
Dr Amanda Crowell:was networking. Now, once you've officially set your 90 day
Dr Amanda Crowell:goals, it's time to align your actual time to those goals. This
Dr Amanda Crowell:is where the rubber hits the road. It's one thing to have a
Dr Amanda Crowell:lot of understanding about our great work clear language to
Dr Amanda Crowell:describe our goals, and our heart full of good intentions.
Dr Amanda Crowell:But if we don't do something differently, and the hours and
Dr Amanda Crowell:the minutes of our weeks and days, we will not make any
Dr Amanda Crowell:progress. We must align the way we spend our time to our goals,
Dr Amanda Crowell:tasks and to dues. So how do we do that? Well, in your great
Dr Amanda Crowell:work journal, at the beginning of each week, you'll review your
Dr Amanda Crowell:90 day goal and ask how can I get a little closer to my goals
Dr Amanda Crowell:this week. This exercise will result in three weekly tasks.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Each of these tasks are concrete and substantive steps forward
Dr Amanda Crowell:and are likely to take some effort over a few days. In the
Dr Amanda Crowell:first week, one of the weekly tasks and a set for herself was
Dr Amanda Crowell:to reach out to a contact she had made at a conference. He was
Dr Amanda Crowell:quote someone high up at the Wounded Warrior Project. And she
Dr Amanda Crowell:planned to write him an email. When she set up her weekly task
Dr Amanda Crowell:in the great work journal,
Dr Amanda Crowell:she was prompted to consider what's likely to get in your
Dr Amanda Crowell:way. She realized that she wasn't sure what his name was,
Dr Amanda Crowell:nor was she sure where to find his email. And honestly, she
Dr Amanda Crowell:wasn't as up to date on the Wounded Warrior Project as she
Dr Amanda Crowell:probably should be. Now under normal circumstances, people do
Dr Amanda Crowell:not ask themselves these questions. Instead, they state
Dr Amanda Crowell:the task in its simplest form and hope for the best. For
Dr Amanda Crowell:example, annamite, right, I'll email my contact at Wounded
Dr Amanda Crowell:Warrior. And then she'll either does nothing, or she buys a
Dr Amanda Crowell:month long ticket for the struggle bus. Here's how that
Dr Amanda Crowell:could look without acknowledging it directly. And it feels weird
Dr Amanda Crowell:that she can't remember her contacts name. She questions
Dr Amanda Crowell:whether it's even okay to connect with someone she hasn't
Dr Amanda Crowell:kept up with. Of course, that weirdness falls apart when you
Dr Amanda Crowell:look at it directly. She could just find his name, and then
Dr Amanda Crowell:research his organization. And he wouldn't expect her to be an
Dr Amanda Crowell:expert on him anyway. In fact, wouldn't it be kind of weird if
Dr Amanda Crowell:she knew every detail of his work life when he'd only met her
Dr Amanda Crowell:once at a conference? Solutions are often very simple as my
Dr Amanda Crowell:point. And yet these unexamined difficulties cause a lot of
Dr Amanda Crowell:shame and a lot of delay when we set a goal and then pursue it
Dr Amanda Crowell:with a dogmatic commitment to positive thinking. We're shocked
Dr Amanda Crowell:and dismayed when the inevitable setbacks, mistakes and
Dr Amanda Crowell:roadblocks pop up. If instead, we set a goal and plan for the
Dr Amanda Crowell:setbacks, then we get the best of both worlds. Mental
Dr Amanda Crowell:contrasting is built into every level of the great work
Dr Amanda Crowell:journals. We do it when setting goals when setting weekly tasks.
Dr Amanda Crowell:And when setting daily to dues and Anna's case because she
Dr Amanda Crowell:didn't expect to email her contact in 15 minutes, she was
Dr Amanda Crowell:ready to do some digging. Even weekly tasks can be composed of
Dr Amanda Crowell:mostly good intentions, the real magic happens today. Right now.
Dr Amanda Crowell:The daily pages of the journal will prompt you. Given what
Dr Amanda Crowell:you've decided to do this week. What can you do today to get a
Dr Amanda Crowell:little closer? I'm sure that question sounds familiar. As
Dr Amanda Crowell:it's almost the same question that you asked in the weekly
Dr Amanda Crowell:task that's on purpose, I find that the idea of getting a
Dr Amanda Crowell:little closer is very accessible. Most people realize
Dr Amanda Crowell:that while they can't do it all today, they can get a little
Dr Amanda Crowell:closer. The same structure I described for setting weekly
Dr Amanda Crowell:tasks governs daily to dues in the great work journal as well.
Dr Amanda Crowell:And each of the daily pages of the great work journal you will
Dr Amanda Crowell:be asked, What can I do to get a little closer today? What's
Dr Amanda Crowell:likely to get in my way? And how will I get around it? Now
Dr Amanda Crowell:remember, Anna knows she's going to need to ramp up to writing
Dr Amanda Crowell:that email. So her phone is related to do wasn't write an
Dr Amanda Crowell:email to the Wounded Warrior guy. Instead, it was do a
Dr Amanda Crowell:forensic investigation of my email and notes from the
Dr Amanda Crowell:conference to figure out that guy's name and email. What's
Dr Amanda Crowell:likely to get in her way? I have a tendency to get impatient. She
Dr Amanda Crowell:says, How will she get around that? Well, I decided to keep at
Dr Amanda Crowell:it for two whole hours. And if I still couldn't find it, I would
Dr Amanda Crowell:start emailing other people from the conference to ask them.
Dr Amanda Crowell:When she reported back, she said, it only took an hour to
Dr Amanda Crowell:find it. It turned out that he was copied on an email from
Dr Amanda Crowell:someone else, I can do some research on Wounded Warrior
Dr Amanda Crowell:tomorrow, write the email the next day, it's happening. She
Dr Amanda Crowell:was so excited. Consider how differently it would have felt
Dr Amanda Crowell:if every setback was a surprise. I imagined that her report back
Dr Amanda Crowell:would be more like I tried to write the email, but I couldn't
Dr Amanda Crowell:find his email address anywhere. Finally, an hour later, I found
Dr Amanda Crowell:it copied on an unrelated email chain. And I was like, Finally,
Dr Amanda Crowell:now I can write the email. And then I realized I don't know
Dr Amanda Crowell:enough about their work. So I got delayed again, maybe later
Dr Amanda Crowell:this week, I'll finally get this email out. The email is going to
Dr Amanda Crowell:be done on the same day in both scenarios, but the experience of
Dr Amanda Crowell:it, and by association, the likelihood that the project
Dr Amanda Crowell:makes progress is entirely different. It turns out when you
Dr Amanda Crowell:manage your expectations, when you're expected to have
Dr Amanda Crowell:roadblocks, and you know, it's going to take a while to get
Dr Amanda Crowell:around them. You make much more progress on your great work. And
Dr Amanda Crowell:the thing about great work is that great work generates more
Dr Amanda Crowell:great work. Now Anna's email to her connection at Wounded
Dr Amanda Crowell:Warrior earned her virtual coffee. During their
Dr Amanda Crowell:conversation. Her contact suggested she reached out to
Dr Amanda Crowell:someone he knew at Operation second chance, her new friend
Dr Amanda Crowell:and operation Second Chance introduced her to someone she
Dr Amanda Crowell:didn't know and another division at the VA. And around six months
Dr Amanda Crowell:later, her new colleague at the VA offered Anna a promotion to
Dr Amanda Crowell:move into an integrative health clinic that includes art therapy
Dr Amanda Crowell:among its offerings. And I was intrigued surprised and not at
Dr Amanda Crowell:all sure what to do. If she took the new role, her dream of
Dr Amanda Crowell:starting her own nonprofit would be delayed at best and derailed
Dr Amanda Crowell:at worst. But the new role involves learning fundraising,
Dr Amanda Crowell:and her new co workers were passionate and interesting
Dr Amanda Crowell:practitioners who saw the benefits of alternative
Dr Amanda Crowell:treatment just like she did, what to do. Listen, these are
Dr Amanda Crowell:good problems to have. And they are without a doubt the kinds of
Dr Amanda Crowell:problems you encounter when you get into the flow of your great
Dr Amanda Crowell:work. It's messy, exciting, and nonlinear, involving unexpected
Dr Amanda Crowell:opportunities and chances to change direction. In fact, part
Dr Amanda Crowell:of the fun is the unpredictable and emerging nature of it. That
Dr Amanda Crowell:didn't make any decision any easier. But it was gratifying to
Dr Amanda Crowell:know that whichever choice she made, she would still be doing
Dr Amanda Crowell:her great work. Anna opted to take the role in the Integrative
Dr Amanda Crowell:Health Clinic at the VA. And she's glad she did. She says
Dr Amanda Crowell:I've learned a lot about fundraising. And I've had my
Dr Amanda Crowell:eyes open to a lot of other therapies like acupuncture and
Dr Amanda Crowell:hypnosis that are also really powerful for veterans. When I do
Dr Amanda Crowell:start my nonprofit, which I'm still planning to do, I think it
Dr Amanda Crowell:will be even better. This is how it feels to do great work. You
Dr Amanda Crowell:have a vision, you realize you can get a little closer in the
Dr Amanda Crowell:next year, you realize you can get a little closer in the next
Dr Amanda Crowell:90 days, you realize you can get a little closer this week. And
Dr Amanda Crowell:now you know what to do today. One day after another. As you
Dr Amanda Crowell:get a little closer and a little closer, you will be shocked to
Dr Amanda Crowell:discover that you are now knee deep in your great work. The
Dr Amanda Crowell:great work journal can help you the great work journals can help
Dr Amanda Crowell:you on the one hand, they give you a place to document your
Dr Amanda Crowell:great work. So if you ever start to feel like I'm working and
Dr Amanda Crowell:working and working and nothing is happening, you can look back
Dr Amanda Crowell:through the pages of your great work journal. And you'll see
Dr Amanda Crowell:that that's not true. On the other hand, it reminds you of
Dr Amanda Crowell:how great work unfolds in the real world. It will ask you to
Dr Amanda Crowell:plan your way around mistakes. It will prompt you to remember
Dr Amanda Crowell:your great memories and what you're grateful for. And over
Dr Amanda Crowell:time you'll discover as you chip away at your great work every
Dr Amanda Crowell:day that you have unleashed it out into the world where it
Dr Amanda Crowell:belongs. Today's episode is an excerpt from my book, great
Dr Amanda Crowell:work, do what matters most without sacrificing everything
Dr Amanda Crowell:else which is releasing on June 7. If you've enjoyed what you
Dr Amanda Crowell:heard, and you want to hear it again, but this time with your
Dr Amanda Crowell:eyes. preorder a copy today. The link is in the show notes
