Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the Further your Lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I am your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you Now episode 171 today, and I want to ask you a question when was the last time you caught yourself saying I wish I could do that, and then it usually follows with but I don't have this or I don't have that, or I need this or I don't have the time, or whatever number of excuses that comes after it. If that sounds like you, this is the perfect episode for you, because I've got something that I want to talk about. I struggle with this as well, but I want to go through basically a few different points, a few different structures and a few different areas that we can delve into to see if you can not actually change this and understand why you do this and how can you stop this going forward. Let's roll the intro and let's get into it. I guess the first big question we have to ask ourselves is when we do start saying I wish I could do that. There's probably a couple of things that we need to validate, and number one is why can't you right, let's start with that simple question why can't you do that? What is actually stopping you? And I think a lot of the time we box ourselves into these caves or in these cages, we're actually the only ones stopping us from actually getting what we want. Now, it's nice to say, I wish I could do it like you. Or when we compare to other people, I wish I could be like him. If we were to compare themselves to where we are now and when they were where we are now, what were they doing differently? Were they doing the work? Were they actually doing other things? That gets them closer to that.

I've spoken about this before on the podcast, where I've had a number of conversations with people, and one that really look and it really just frustrated me is because I was actually interviewing someone. It was actually back at my previous job and I was interviewing them and they wanted to join the team. Anyway, we won't get into those specifics, but I said where do you see yourself in five years? And they said it's like oh, I want to be a business owner. And it's like, oh, okay, that's great, what do you want to do? I don't know, and there's two parts of this. What concerned me was okay, there's the component of I'm trying to hire you to come into my workforce under my team, but you want to be actually doing something else. And I said have you actually started doing anything? And they said no, have no idea. So then, on that contrary, it's hang on like you want to do all these things, but you're not actually working towards that. So how are you even going to get to that position in the first place? And then the other thought about this is I know for me, when I was asked the same question when I was younger, what do I want to be when I grow up, I said I want to be a business owner. I don't know what that looks like, though All I know.

When we strip that away, there's these common excuses that we get stuck on. We create these barriers for ourselves, like not having enough time, resources or skills, but there's a reality check here. Are these barriers actually real? Are they just convenient excuses to avoid stepping out of our comfort zones? I think that's the fact of the matter Now for me.

I took a chance on myself four years ago. I started this podcast. Fact of the matter Now for me. I took a chance on myself. Four years ago. I started this podcast and I started a business. I sell full-time on eBay clothing majority and other things as well. But the fact of the matter is I got to the point is, I wanted to have a business, but I also wanted to have the podcast and I knew if I don't spend the time to build that, it's never going to happen. It's not going to happen on the one hour on the weekend where I've actually got a little bit of energy. It would, but it was going to take 15 years. I don't want it to take 15 years. So I left and I took control of it myself and I did it myself and I built the business.

And the same thing for the business is if you want to get to where you want to be, we set these levels, we set these goals, we set these baselines. If you want to get there, you have to understand what it's actually going to take. But that aside, we actually understand why can't I get there? Is it because you are struck for time? If you are, how do you change that? If you don't have the motivation to do it or you don't have the space to be able to do it, how do you solve those problems. A lot of the time, the reason why we don't do something is because there's something blocking us. If we can remove that barrier to entry or that barrier to execute, then we can make it work. It's been something that I've been dealing with in the business and even with running as well.

If I want to do something, it's like when I started buying. I purchased bales of clothing. I just recently purchased 500 kilos. We have to wash all that and I remember when I first started washing I couldn't find a quick way to do it. I was doing it at home and that's horrible. But I'm thinking surely there must be people doing this at this scale, if not bigger. How are they doing it? So I knew it's possible and I didn't want to be saying I can't do that because it's not realistic. I have to find the way to make it realistic for my model, for my process, what works for me, and that's what I'm telling you.

If you want something, don't ask yourself why can't you Ask yourself, what do I need to do to get this happening? And I think that's super important. But if you can't get to that point, it's probably because you don't really want to be doing it. You're using those excuses to not do it. I'm being very frank here. That's the reality of it. Number two are you doing anything that actually gets you there?

Now, I did touch on this already, but we're talking about action versus inaction. Wishing and dreaming are great, but what actions are you taking to actually get to where you want to be, or where are you taking the actions that's going to make this a reality? It's that simple, like it really is, and I think we do get overwhelmed by and I've been speaking to a few people. I've been documenting my journey of my business this year, like in real detail, just taking you along with the camera for a whole week, sharing what that experience looks like, and I've gone from doing $40,000 every 90 days to I'm about to hit nearly $67,000 every 90 days. That's a huge jump, but the thing is I haven't changed anything. All I've been doing is being very consistent, taking daily steps, being consistent every day and working towards that progress of something that I want, figuring out the problems, making the decisions, doing the work, taking action, taking risks as well, but it's the small steps that really do matter.

I think something practical and I know it's a bit of a cliche, but when you have your bigger goals, you've got to break them down into more manageable tasks and start with the easiest one. What can you do now to make this start happening right? People say to me it's like, oh, I don't want to do clothing in my business I'm talking about reselling, because it's just a quick example. But people say, oh, I don't do clothing because you have to wash them, you have to prep them, you have to. I don't know how to do that, it's no kidding. Neither did I a year and a half ago, two years ago, but I figured that's going to get me the best result. So, in order to do it, I have to solve that problem. How do I do it? Get a hundred items of clothing, wash them, prep them, measure them, list them, photo them, figure it out, and now I know how to do it. That's how it works, which is a good segue for, actually, point number three, which is did you forget about the hard work required? And it's not about saying, oh, you've got to do hard work. I think the message is you've got to do work, you've got to do action, you've got to execute, and that's the key right, if you want to open the door. You have to put the key in the door and turn it and then open it.

Success doesn't happen overnight and it really does require that dedication, effort and a lot of hard work, sweat, blood, tears, and I understand that's very cliche, but if you look between now and the next four weeks, or the next 10 weeks or the next six months, right, if you don't do anything, your life won't necessarily be any better. It might not be any worse either, but if you do one thing every day, I guarantee you for 15, 20, 30 minutes that gets you to where you want to be. Maybe you want to start a podcast. Maybe you want to have a YouTube channel. Maybe you want to build a business. Maybe you want to start a brand. Maybe you just want to upskill and get a promotion at work. What are you doing daily to get you towards those things? Right, and you do have to brace some level of a grind.

Right it comes down to instead of shying away from the hard work, embrace it as a necessary part of the journey. I think a good example of this for me at the moment is firstly, I'll just say I think any successful person that you admire they've probably got a big behind the scenes story of all this hard work that you didn't see. But to me, like at the moment, I've got an injury while running and I have to weigh up as what are my priorities? Do I want to really push, work super, super, duper hard to get myself back on track so I can go do a 50K this year, or do I want to focus on just getting myself in a position so that I can then leverage that situation for next year and do it a lot easier? Regardless, I love running. I just want to get out and run and clear my head and just have that fun. I hate doing the. I just want to get out and run and clear my head and just have that fun. I hate doing the by-product work to enable you to be able to run better. But that's the hard work of it. You can't have your cake and eat it too right, and what I mean by that is you can't get to keep it and not have any eaten, but you don't also get to eat it all either, because if you eat it all, then you don't get to keep it, so you don't get to have it both ways. It's that simple. You either do the work or you don't.

I think the next point, number four this can come sometimes become a little misunderstood, but it's relevant to ourselves and our own perspectives and ideas. Anyone can give it a go. You don't have to be perfect to start. I've come into building a podcast with no knowledge no, it's not the top rated podcast in the world, hey but I've got 100 of you listening every week and I appreciate it. I really do appreciate it. And that's 100 people. That's a lot of people. When was the last time you spoke in front of 100 people? So anyone can give this a go and it doesn't have to be perfect to start. You're just continuously working on making that progress. That's a perfect example.

Building my business the first year I did my business, I think I did $54,000. Second year was like 86. Third year was I. Third year was, I think, was 126. I'm on track to do like 200 000 this year. This is top line revenue, not profits. But the reality is I started from zero, like anyone else. You'll start from zero.

But if you're not doing anything, if you're not scratching the surface, if you're not digging away, then nothing will happen. And I guess the only way to truly fail is to never try at all. It's that simple. Look, I've shared a lot of my own experiences. There's heaps of moments where I doubt myself. I still doubt myself with so many different things. Is this action going to get me the result? If I buy all this stock, will that help? What if we don't sell enough? Or what if this doesn't work out? A lot of it we don't know until we give it a go. We don't know what we don't know.

And then, when we do hit an obstacle, it's about figuring out how do we continue to make progress and get over that. And I know I talk about progress so much. It's not the sense of you have to be hustling, you have to be doing this. It's more around that. I'm trying to keep you accountable.

If you want to be able to do something, then you need to do something towards it. If you want to walk 5k, you have to walk 5k. You can't do 4k to get 5k done. It doesn't work right. So understand that you will have challenges, you will have pressures, you will have doubts, concerns, situations where you're worried sick concerns, situations where you're worried sick. Find ways to deal with that when you ask yourself how do we solve this versus I can't do it because there's an issue in the way. I think that's what changes the mindset, and it really does help you determine. Do you even really want this or are you happy you've got an excuse, so therefore you don't have to go do it. That's just the reality I'm talking.

Look, I appreciate being here. If you resonated with this and maybe you have a story of your own, chuck it down below in the comments here on the YouTube version. If you're listening, you can jump over to the YouTube and share it with me. I would love to continue the conversation Now. If you think someone could learn from this, send it to them, share this podcast with them and say, hey, you need to listen to this because you need to take action, let them know. I appreciate that because it does help the podcast grow.

If you're here listening and you haven't subscribed or you haven't given a like, do all those things. It does help the podcast, but at the end of the day, there's lots of people that just need to hear it in a new, raw and different way, and I'm here to tell you that if you're not taking the action, if you're not doing the thing that you want to be doing. If you're not working towards the thing that you want to be doing, then you really need to start to understand is it really what you want? And if you're making just too many excuses, I think you need to get your priorities right, because maybe that's not what you should be doing. That's the reality of it. I'm going to leave it there. Appreciate you being here. You have a wonderful day. Cheers.