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You’re Not Behind: Redefining Momentum For Hard Seasons · Plan Like A Boss | Planning, Productivity, and Strategy for Entrepreneurs

• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Plan Like a Boss.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Tanya Lawson.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And before we start today, I want you to know this episode touches on illness and recovery.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing graphic, nothing heavy-handed, but if you're in a tender place, listen when it feels supportive to you.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Don't listen because you think you should right now.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: If your life has slowed you down in a way that you didn't choose, then this episode is for you.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're navigating health issues, burnout, you're going through a period of grief, you're a caregiver, you're mentally exhausted, or maybe you're just in a season where your capacity is just different.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want you to know something.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're not behind.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're not broken.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're adapting because you have to.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And today, I want to talk to you about momentum.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not the kind that demands more from you, but the kind of momentum that meets you where you are.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, traditional momentum advice, it just doesn't work in these situations because most advice about momentum assumes that your energy is predictable.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: It assumes that your body is cooperative.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: It assumes that your focus is going to be reliable.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: But if that were true for you right now, you probably wouldn't need this episode.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: When life hits hard, the usual advice is just be consistent, just show up every day.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're really going through something, that can feel so invalidating.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because some days showing up simply looks like survival.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Showing up means that you got out of bed and you got in the shower.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So let's name this very clearly.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: If your momentum keeps collapsing, it's not because you're failing.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's because the version of momentum you were taught just doesn't fit your life anymore.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, momentum isn't speed, it's continuity.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: You don't lose momentum just because you slow down.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: You stop losing momentum when you start believing that your efforts don't count at all.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, momentum, it's not big progress.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not those big visible wins.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not constant output.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, momentum is staying connected to yourself.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's taking one step instead of disappearing completely.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Refusing the I'll restart later trap.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Momentum is quiet and it's deeply personal.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So for you, that momentum might be today, I am going to reply to one Instagram DM.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: It might be today, I am going to read one chapter of this business book.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: It might be today, I'm going to go see my therapist or take my medicine.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: All of those are small steps that are going to lead you to bigger momentum.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So here is the question that matters the most in those hard seasons.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: What is the smallest action that you can take right now that will let you stay in motion without hurting yourself?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about what you should do.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to should ourselves here.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about what past you could do, not what the Instagram productivity gurus say you can do, what you can do on a low capacity day.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: That action is your momentum floor.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So some examples might be I wrote one sentence of an email, or I sent one message on Instagram.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had one boundary that I kept in place, or I made the choice to rest without guilt.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: One task that protects your future self is going to help you build that momentum.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you hit the floor, the day still counts as long as you got that one task done, even if that's all you did.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, recovery weeks, they still count as momentum and they always have.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because some weeks just aren't for growth.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Some weeks you need a week where you can just maintain.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can spend some time healing.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can reacalibrate your business.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can look at what really is going to move the needle.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we need those self-discovery weeks where we just sit down and we look at our business.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: We know it's not working and we just dig in and say, what is one thing that is going to work?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's a great book called The One Thing.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's by Darren Hardy.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I will link that down in the show notes.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great book.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all about focusing on one thing that's going to produce momentum.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in one of those weeks right now, I want you to hear this.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Recovery is not the opposite of momentum, it's what makes momentum possible again.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when you honor recovery instead of fighting it, you preserve trust in yourself.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And self-trust is the foundation for true momentum.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to share this part briefly because it matters for you, not for me.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was a season in my life where my body decided the pace, not me.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was this summer when I was going through chemotherapy.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And what I learned very quickly was that pushing harder did not build momentum.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the very beginning, I tried to get out and walk every single day during my chemo treatments.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And all it did was make me feel worse.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Pretending that I had more capacity than I actually did was not helpful for me.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing that really helped was honoring my reality.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: On some days, when my video editor text and said, your next video is ready for you to check out, I would just text back and say, I'm having a bad day.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I trust you.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Having a team you trust is important.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I did not have the capacity to even watch a video that day.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's where this whole framework came from.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: It did not come from theory, it did not come from productivity culture.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: It came from my very own lived experience.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if this approach feels a little gentler than what you've tried before, well, that's intentional.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Planning's only job is to protect you.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Planning, when you're going through a hard season, has only one purpose, and that is to reduce decision fatigue and protect your energy.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not to maximize your output.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not to keep you on track.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Planning should answer just a few questions.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: What matters right now?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: What can wait for later?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And what helps me feel safe continuing?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, to go back to my example, what mattered at the moment for me was staying in bed and sleeping and resting because my body was being poisoned and I just had to survive it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: What could wait till later?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even have to watch that video at all.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that my editor was a good editor and I could trust her to just put up what she did.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't need to micromanage her.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it helped me feel safe continuing because I knew that.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if your plan makes you feel like a failure by Wednesday, it's not supportive enough.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: A good plan is going to make it easier for you to keep going.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're in the middle of it right now, if today feels heavy, I want you to hear this very clearly.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to catch up.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to start over, and you don't need a new system because you're not behind.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: You are a work in progress.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Momentum for you right now might look like staying where you are or choosing softness.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Doing less, but on purpose to give yourself time to recover and trusting that this still counts because it does.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe instead of doing your three big goals for the quarter like I do, you you only do two like I'm doing this quarter, or maybe you only do one, and that's okay.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: This season of the podcast is all about building a business that's going to work with your real life, not against it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want support in creating systems that honor your capacity and protect momentum during those hard seasons, that's what I focus on with my clients.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: But for today, here is your only takeaway.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to move fast.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to stay where you are right now.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, next week, we're going to be talking about how that you can stay seen without showing up every single day, which is perfect if you're going through a hard season at the moment.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I will talk to you then.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And until next week, keep planning like a boss.