Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction 00:02:01: The reward of hard work 00:03:57: The idea of "bore out" 00:07:53: Coach-yourself questions 00:09:39: Ideas for action … 00:09:52: … 1: stretch your strengths in a new direction 00:13:03: … 2: increase your experiments 00:18:19: … 3: find a challenger(s) 00:21:45: … 4: redesign your defaults 00:29:13: … 5: go after a goal 00:33:52: Summary of actions 00:00:00: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen. Sarah Ellis: And, I'm Sarah. Helen Tupper: And this is a Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we talk about a different topic to do with work and share some ideas for action that we hope will help you to navigate your Squiggly Career with more confidence, clarity and control than you might have started out with when you first listened to this episode.  Hopefully, we can do that for you by the end of the 30 minutes that we talk about today's topic. Before we let you know what that topic is, we wanted to share some news that we're really excited about, which is that the Squiggly Careers podcast has now reached 2 million downloads.  That's exciting, where's your whoop? Sarah Ellis: "Whoop!" Helen Tupper: That's a delayed reaction!  For context, everyone, we're recording this quite late at night and it's been a busy week, including a You Coach You launch event, which was delayed by two months because of the pandemic, so we're a little bit tired.  So, if there are some long pauses tonight, it's because Sarah's brain is catching up with my mouth! Sarah Ellis: That is definitely true. Helen Tupper: But we did, to celebrate that moment, as exciting as 2 million downloads are, we have a value of "useful", so we wanted to turn it into something that could be useful for our listeners; so, we looked at the top ten episodes since we started the podcast, and then we have curated all of the PodSheets for each of those episodes. So, it's a PDF, it's got the list of the ten episodes, and ten PodSheets, ten practical PodSheets that you can use to help you to take action, and you can get the link to that in the notes of this show.  And if you can't find the notes of this show, because you might be listening on a platform and you're scrolling around and you can't find it, just email us.  We are helen&sarah@squigglycareers.com.  In the links as well, you'll also find out how you can be part of the Squiggly Careers community outside of just listening, by signing up to PodMail, and also joining PodPlus, our weekly live session, where we bring everyone together and dive a bit deeper into the topic. Sarah Ellis: So, today's topic is How to Create, Not Wait, for Challenge at Work.  And we thought we'd start with why this feels important, why we should bother creating this challenge for ourselves. Helen Tupper: My gosh, Squiggly Careers are hard enough, without having to create more challenge! Sarah Ellis: I did think that, and I think that's a fair comment that we'll come back to.  But what we do know is that when we work hard at something that stretches us and that feels difficult, it's really rewarding.  It's where we find motivation and meaning, and it's good for us and it is good for our brains.  The more you do read about this, you do realise it will also probably feel, at times at least, uncomfortable and hard too, and almost I think that's a clue that you're getting it right, because it's probably not challenging enough if it never feels a bit difficult, or a bit tough at some moments, when you're thinking about what that challenge might look like for you. Helen Tupper: I guess it takes you to flow, doesn't it, which we cover in the book, which is that you're in a state of flow, not when work is easy, but actually when work has some challenge; and you're so enjoying and engaged in that challenge that you're not conscious of time.  So actually, for us to find our flow to be in the zone, it has to be challenging for that to be possible. Sarah Ellis: And I was reading a bit of brain science, I won't profess to being anything like an expert, but some of the research was saying that your brain really only changes, so you know we talk about neuroplasticity, that our brains all have the ability to continually learn and grow, it doesn't matter how old we are, but it only makes those changes when you really challenge it, and that's the really important part, that your brain needs to feel like it's learning something to have impact. So, they describe it as "cognitive tasks that feel difficult".  So, simply playing a game that might take a bit of brain power, almost might be fun, and you might enjoy it or it might feel a bit difficult, but it's probably not quite doing that stretching your brain, or growing your brain.  I almost imagine my brain getting bigger, which I do appreciate, from a scientific perspective, doesn't actually happen, but I like to think that's what's happening, that we're intentionally giving ourselves the opportunity to explore new potential to feel more meaning and motivated at work. Helen Tupper: So, I guess what Sarah's talked about there is, why bother generally, but there is an additional build on this which is, why bother now, which I think is quite interesting.  I was reading an article that said that the pandemic, you know we talk about burnout, you're doing so much work and you're not getting the chance to rest and reset, but this article talked about the idea of "bore out". It said that because the pandemic, there were quite a lot of repetitive days in a pandemic, and the way that people are working now is often feeling quite repetitive, so back-to-back meetings, a bit less stimulation, maybe a bit less randomness, like when you were in the office, things would just happen, though thankfully some people are getting back to some of that in the office now, but this idea of bore out has been seen, and they have started to spot links to when work is very samey and a bit boring without the stimulation, that there could actually be links towards mental health, so depression within a work context as well. So, what we're really looking for here is the challenge to bring back some of that stimulation, some of that difference in our days, that we can counteract potentially the risk of bore out.  What do you think of the concept of bore out, Sarah? Sarah Ellis: Well, I don't like it much, because it's not very motivating, is it?  But I think probably we can all recognise it at some point over the past couple of years, or certainly within our careers.  And I also think, contrasting to that, I was reflecting when we were researching this and we were looking at the ideas for action, what has stopped me from doing this in the past? Probably, it's been less bore out, and it's been more about being so busy being busy, just that delivering on day-to-day tasks that need to get done, making the work happen, that you've got to deliver in an average week, personally I can recognise lots of times where it's felt really hard to find the space for that challenge, to think about that challenge, to find that challenge, to make that challenge happen. I sometimes think, you almost have to recognise that it does take capacity, and I think sometimes, we feel like we haven't got that capacity, because I'm just so head down at the moment.  You know when your like, I've not come up for air in a while, and I can see also examples over the last two years, where it's almost gone from one extreme to the other, either incredibly busy, or perhaps you're more in that repetitive bore out that Helen just described.  But I don't think either of those states help us to find and create the challenge that we know is going to be really motivating in our careers. Helen Tupper: It's like there's a difference, when you were talking and you mentioned working hard, and I was thinking, I think there might be a difference between working hard and creating challenge for yourself.  Working hard means, "I'm doing quite a lot and I'm fitting a lot into my days", but that doesn't mean that I'm consciously creating challenge.  I think this is you having a bit more ownership over what that challenge looks like and where it's coming from, not just working hard at your day-to-day job, which may have challenge in it, but it's not you really taking ownership for that challenge. On that ownership point, there's often a trap that we see, which is where we make our development dependent on other people; we look to our manager to give us that challenge.  So, even if you've got to this mindset of, "Well, I would actually like to have more challenge in my job, I don't just want to work hard at what I'm already doing, I want some of that stretch in my work", and then you get into this waiting mode where you're like, "I'm just going to wait, wait for my manager to give me that challenging opportunity or that challenging project that's going to help me with my growth". The problem when we are waiting is that we can also fall into stagnating; we're just sat there waiting for that gift to be given to us for our growth, and then we start to get a bit bored, we get a bit demotivated, and that's not great for our development.  So, the more we can create rather than wait, the more that we can take control of that situation.  We've got a few coach-yourself questions for you to think through where you might be right now in terms of challenge at work. So, the first one is, on a scale of one to ten, how challenging is your work at the moment?  The second question is, what does challenge at work look like for you?  The third question is, what is a new challenge that you're excited by?  We've put those coach-yourself questions in the PodSheet that goes along with this episode as well.  Again, that's in our show notes, and on our website for you. Sarah Ellis: One other trap that I think lots of our listeners might recognise is, sometimes we get into that waiting mode, and that might mean that nothing happens.  I think the other thing that can sometimes happen is, you know that conversation where your manager comes to you and says, "I've got a brilliant development opportunity for you", and you're thinking, "Oh, no!" because you're already really busy and you're like, "Does this just mean more work?" Perhaps that person is actually creating challenge for you, but then my question is, "Is that the right challenge?  Is that the challenge that you want to be taking?  Is that the space you want to be developing in?" so that's the other risk.  I think if we wait, either nothing will happen, or the wrong things could come your way. I think I've actually done that before, as a manager thought, "I feel like this person might want a bit more challenge and has got the potential to explore some new and interesting things".  I probably perhaps would have avoided saying that "development opportunity" sentence, but you actually say, "There's an opportunity to do something really interesting", and you're assuming that is what that person wants to do, and it absolutely might not be.  That might not be the direction they want their career to go in, that might not be building on the skills and the strengths that that person has got.  So, you want to be in control of this challenge, rather than waiting for it, or letting somebody else tell you what your challenge should look like. So, we've now got five ideas for action for you on how you can create challenge.  So, if you buy our logic of creating rather than waiting, what can then you go and do; what might this look like?  Our idea for action one is about stretching your strengths in a new direction.  With strengths, we know two things are true: the more you use your strengths, the stronger they get, which makes sense; and also, the more we use our strengths in different situations, they get even stronger again. So, let's say you're a brilliant problem-solver, maybe you use those problem-solving skills in your job already.  Brilliant, and the more you frequently use them, the stronger they will get.  But where else could you use those problem-solving skills?  Maybe that's across your team.  If you've got a collective problem where you could volunteer your problem-solving skills, is there anything else across your organisation; is there anything in your industries or your communities or your networks, or things that you volunteer for or that you're passionate about? When Helen and I were both thinking about our examples of this one, we both actually went outside of Amazing If, and we hadn't talked about our examples beforehand, but I was thinking about one of the things that I think I'm good at, which sounds like a bizarre thing to be good at, but I'm good at not being the expert in the room and leading and facilitating conversations, where everybody else pretty much knows more than I do.  So, one of the things that I do outside of Amazing If is coach a board all about workspace, affordable and accessible workspace. That stretches my strength of not being an expert in the room and facilitating good, quality conversations in a very different way to how I use that skill and that strength in Amazing If, or perhaps working with some of our clients.  And so, I can see, every time I have one of those meetings, if feels stretchy, I can feel that challenge, because maybe I always get a bit more nervous, it's always on my mind that I want those meetings to go really well, and I'm so in it. So, Helen talked about that idea of flow; I think I'm always very focused and incredibly present, because it is right at the edges probably of my capability and my challenge.  And probably, each time it gets a bit more comfortable, but I've been doing it for at least two or three years now, and it still feels challenging. Helen Tupper: Mine is a similar context, like Sarah says, something I do outside of work.  So, I'm a trustee for a charity called Working Families, and one of my strengths is, I'm a good catalyst.  So, if there's an opportunity of an idea, or something in progress that's just got started, I am really good at moving it forward fast and growing it very quickly.  So, I can take an idea and I can be like, "Let's test and learn and prototype and do something with it". Often, in the charity, we will have meetings and I get to take some things that I'm not that familiar with, some things that the charity is working on, because it's not my day-to-day work, but I can take that strength and I can use it to support them.  For me, that's with different people on different projects, different topics that I would do ordinarily, but it really helps me to stretch that strength in a different way than I do in my day-to-day.  And I enjoy it, because that's the thing about your strengths, it gives you energy when you use it.  So, yes, it is challenging and a bit hard, but it also energises me at the same time as I get better.  So, it is a real win/win for yourself, I think, when you start stretching your strengths. So, the second idea for action is all about increasing your experiments, and we've talked about experiments before in an episode of the podcast, because it is such an important part of learning at work.  I think that it's not one that I see as much as I would like to.  I don't see people talking about, "What experiments are we doing?"  I'm trying to put it more into my language, like I was talking to someone in our team, the lovely Vivi, who will be listening to this, because Vivi creates the PodSheets.  I was talking to her today about running a few experiments with some things that we're going to put out on Instagram to see what works, and I was talking about, "We should have a hypothesis, because my assumption is that it will work better if…, and let's just see whether that's true". The idea with experiments is not for it always to be successful.  The idea of experiments is that you're doing it to actively learn.  What that does is, it gives you permission to do things that might fail, and that can be challenging.  I mean, just doing something that you might fail at is challenge in itself, as well as maybe pushing boundaries of what you're doing today.  I think experiments are a brilliant way for you to find challenge. I have done one very recently, which I think could bring to life the benefits of this, but also what makes it hard to do.  Part of Sarah's and my day job is running career development sessions and programmes for organisations, and one of our clients is Vodafone; we've worked with them for a long time doing lots of different programmes for their people.  And, I decided that I would run an experiment to do a session differently.  So, it was all around career conversations, and I redesigned it, and it was the first time I had trialled it, and I did it in a session and some things worked well and some things didn't, and that was fine, because it was an experiment and it was for learning. I say that was fine; I still thought, "Oh, no, this isn't as good as it could be", because it probably won't be, because you're not trying to make it perfect, or you'd do what you were already doing.  You're trying to do something different, and that inevitably means that some things will work and some things won't.  So, it does feel hard and you get used to that the more you do experiments, but what I learned personally, if you're trying to do something for the first time that you've never done before, is as well as just saying, "It doesn't have to be brilliant", as well as saying that to yourself, also signalling to other people that it's an experiment is really helpful, because I find that that takes the pressure off. If you think they think it should be perfect, then that suddenly creates quite a lot of pressure.  But if I'm signalling to Sarah, for example, "Oh, Sarah, just so that you know, over the next week we're going to try out some new content on Instagram and it's mainly to see whether it works, we don't quite know how it's going to go, but that's why I'm doing it", then Sarah suddenly knows, "Okay, that's why she's doing something different, she's doing it to learn", and therefore will be more supportive of that, and potentially give me some useful feedback to support that as well, rather than being like, "Helen, what are you doing?  That's not the normal thing that you do.  You've gone rogue!"  This isn't about going rogue, this is about learning through experiments, increasing your challenge by experiments. Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I think one of the things that I've observed that I've found hard about experiments, so over the last year, we've run something called our Squiggly Career Advocates programme, and we always called that an experiment from day one.  We've got a hypothesis about what we were trying to achieve, and it definitely gave us that freedom and the permission to do something that did feel uncomfortable and challenging. It was an uncomfortable timeline that we had to launch that programme; it felt challenging, because we'd not done it before, we weren't really sure if it was going to work; and, even knowing all of that, the thing that I think I found really hard, as we've started to do more and more experiments in Amazing If, is because I'm naturally critical, I can see all of the time, all of the things that are not working, and that are not as good.  I've got a real "even better if" mindset and mentality, which is definitely useful, but can also get in your own way if you don't remember that mantra of "progress over perfection".  You've almost got to redefine what success looks like, you've got to be really clear. I think with experiments, what success looks like is learning lots and being really clear about what are you learning, what would you then maybe do differently next time, what has failed and why?  It's almost loads of those questions that unlock learning, "If you're doing that really well, that is success", and it's letting go of perhaps what success feels like elsewhere in your job. One of the other things that makes it challenging is the change of mindset, because your experiment mindset is different, I think, probably to your day-to-day mindset for some other things that you'll probably be working on.  So, that also adds a level of challenge, that change of mindset.  So, I think you get challenged from all directions when you're experimenting, so it's a brilliant thing to do, but it can feel hard. The other thing I would encourage people listening to think about is, can you experiment with someone else?  I think doing this by yourself, in particular, can feel quite hard.  But if there's two of you on a team doing something, or we've been experimenting with Squiggly Career Stories, and that's been myself and brilliant lady called Candace, who've been working on that together; I feel like we've been just a little team creating our own experiment, and I think that would have felt really different if I'd been doing that by myself.  So also, who can you find to run these experiments with. Idea for action number three is about finding a challenger or challengers.  So, if you want to have more challenge generally in the work that you're doing, spending time with a group of people, or individuals, who make you feel uncomfortable, who ask you those hard questions, who maybe make you stop and just rethink, or unlearn and relearn some of the things that you thought were true, will create challenge for you. I would be asking yourself a question now about, "How often do I spend time with someone where I feel like I'm really challenged, maybe because I disagree with them, maybe because they've just got such a different point of view to me, maybe just because I'm really challenged, because their experiences and their expertise are just so far away from my understanding, and they spend time in a very different world to my world?" So, one of the things that I'm actually doing later this year is going to something called DO Lectures, which is a two- or three-day event in Wales.  And part of the reason that I have tried for three years to go to that event, and this year I feel that I finally might make it, is that I know people who've been before, and I know the intent of that event is really to bring together people who are, I think, natural either game-changers, you could call them, or challengers; people who challenge the status quo, who've maybe done things differently, who have just got a really interesting point of view. I find the idea of that event, because obviously on my mind, it's not until July and we're recording this in March, I find it quite nerve-racking and quite scary, partly as an introvert having to meet a lot of new people, always quite scary for me; but I also think the idea of people who probably will ask you hard questions, who might look at the work that you're doing and not automatically go, "Oh, yeah, that sounds great" or, "What a brilliant thing to be doing", because I think we are very fortunate in the work that we do, that we have a lot of cheerleaders and champions.  I think you need those cheerleaders and champions; but I think just as importantly, you need those challengers. So, perhaps just think about, within your informal mentoring group, have you got a real challenger in there?  When was the last time you had a conversation with someone you really disagreed with, or who just made you think really differently?  If that's a bit of a gap you've got, start to look for those people.  Where do they hang out in your organisation, in your team?  Maybe they're people, if I'm being really honest, I think previously these have been people that I would have avoided, certainly in organisations.  I would have been like, "Absolutely not".  But then, having spent time with some of those people, in hindsight I think it does challenge you and it does make you feel uncomfortable. So, maybe lean into that challenge rather than, if you're like me, avoiding it and leaning away from it, and just see what happens.  See what you notice, and see what you learn. Helen Tupper: I think, thinking about people that you've worked with previously that you have avoided actively is actually a really good way, because if you're just trying to name some names, I mean you'll definitely get to some names from that, then thinking from those people and who you are choosing now to put in the role of challenger of that, however long your list is of people, who would I choose to use first, and it's really good.  Yeah, it definitely gives you some practical thoughts about who I could go to.  You don't have to tell them that they were on the avoiding list for begin with; keep that to yourself! The fourth idea for action is, redesign your defaults.  So, we all have default modes of working and ways of working and ways of learning.  So, maybe you always learn by listening to podcasts; maybe you always learn on your own, rather than doing it in groups of people; maybe you always get up in the morning and the first thing that you do is spend an hour in your inbox.  We all have these defaults, because it feels quite comfortable and familiar for us, and often it's us operating on autopilot.  What we're trying to do by redesigning our defaults, is shake ourselves up a bit, find a new challenge, do something that isn't us on autopilot. So, it's quite useful to think about what is you on autopilot; on an average day, what do you do by default?  What do you do without even thinking?  Literally from the moment that you wake up, which normally starts with me sometimes checking my emails in bed; that's awful!  "What's happened in the last six hours I've been asleep?"  I know it should be longer, but it's been a busy week.  Then obviously, I don't need to do that, but that's a bit of a default, a bit of a habit, and it's not necessarily a healthy one. Then, I have other habits, like I'll have breakfast and I always check out this app called Feedly.  That's the main way I scan through the latest news around career developments.  That's how geeky that I am!  I'll send Sarah a few WhatsApps about 6.30am.  This is all literally by about 7.00am, stuff that I do on default.  So, it is useful to start with, "What do I do by default; on an average working day, what do I essentially do without even thinking about it first?" Then it's thinking about, how could you redesign some of those things?  So, it could be your ways of working, what you're working on, who you work with, how you learn, all those sorts of things could be part of your defaults.  So, a very specific one of mine, one of my defaults, and I think we've talked about it on the podcast, is about how I respond when work needs to get done. So, I have a default response when work needs to get done, particularly if it needs to get done fast.  My default response to that is always, "I'll do it, I'll do it".  Where there's any, "I've got quite a lot on" or, "I'm not sure I could fit it in", I'll be like, "Don't worry, I'll do it".  I just say that all the time! Sarah Ellis: Yeah, you really do. Helen Tupper: Now I'm aware of it, it's going to really irritate me, when I think about how many times in the day do I say, "I'll do it".  And it's not really a helpful default, for all kinds of reasons that you can probably imagine.  I get overworked, but don't help other people to take ownership; loads of reasons.  It's not helpful, but it's a default. But what I could do is redesign that default.  And when I say, "What I could do", I am trying to do this, I'm actually challenging myself to do this, everyone!  Instead of my default, "I'll do it" response, I'm trying to say things like, "Okay, well how could we do it differently?" or, "Well, how could we make it work together?  What help do you need to move it forward?" rather than just go, "I'll do it". So, I'm trying to have a few more default responses than just, "I'll do it", but that is a challenge for me, because you're effectively going from being consciously competent, is where I am now, because I'm like, "Oh no, I know I say that", to really trying to become ultimately unconsciously competent, trying to make this shift of where I'm doing something different without even thinking about it, and making that shift is a challenge.  But that's where we grow, and that's one of the things you can create for yourself.  Sarah, have you got any defaults that you'd like to redesign? Sarah Ellis: No, I'm perfect in every way, just like Mary Poppins! Helen Tupper: Would you like some feedback, is that one of yours, "I'm going to ask for some feedback"? Sarah Ellis: No.  So, I was thinking about this very specifically, and I think one of my defaults, and we're talking about redesigning defaults, is some of the things that I don't do.  So, very specifically, I don't do any kind of content for our business that essentially is short and quick turnaround, that maybe needs to get done, you know, there's a time pressure related to it.  So, if it's like, "Oh, we just need --" Helen Tupper: Quick post for Mother's Day, Sarah.  Fact! Sarah Ellis: Yeah, so my reaction is, "No"! Helen Tupper: Some might say it's fixed mindset! Sarah Ellis: Some might say that. Helen Tupper: Or tired mindset. Sarah Ellis: However, if you said to me in a year's time, I'll be, "Yeah"; by that point, I'll have done something.  But I think my default is, because I'm a thinker/sometimes overthinker, and because I like to have time to reflect, I know I'm not at my best when I do things quickly and under pressure; so therefore, my default is basically to not do things.  There are times where that's not helpful and that's not practical, and also I'm not challenging myself.  It's definitely not stretching a strength. I think sometimes these things, you get challenged from different places.  This would be almost like being more of a beginner, almost getting the challenge from being a beginner from something you know you either don't do well, or you do very infrequently, and it's a bit of a have-a-go mindset.  If you were going to redesign my default, it would be, "How could Sarah have a go at some of that quick turnaround content that matters and is important and is part of what we do?"  At the moment, that 100% relies on you essentially to make those things happen, or it just doesn't happen.  We were even talking about this before the podcast/having an argument about it. Helen Tupper: Debate. Sarah Ellis: Sorry, debate!  Constructive conservation, we were having.  You were like, "I'm going to set you a challenge", I was like, "Oh God, do you have to?" Helen Tupper: She nearly swore at me, everyone.  She was like, "Let's just record this podcast now"! Sarah Ellis: But I do think the only way I would ever challenge myself and change my behaviour is to do that, is to set a week, to set a very specific task and go, "Right, you're going to do it every day at this time, and it's going to work in this way", and it's almost non-negotiable.  I think I would have to make it a non-negotiable, and almost the first thing I did in my day.  So, Helen says she's going to come up with some sort of task I have to do for a week or something. Helen Tupper: I don't know if I am.  I'd like you to come up with that task, because I'm not going to do it, remember?  How can we do it differently? Sarah Ellis: And also, I'm meant to be creating my own challenges, aren't I?  So, we're going to get stuck in a weird loop of me really not wanting to, but knowing I should. Helen Tupper: I hope our listeners are proud of me for not taking that on! Sarah Ellis: Okay, well you'll have to tell me what's useful for social, and I will create my own challenge and have a go at doing it. Helen Tupper: Okay. Sarah Ellis: Maybe I could do, you know when they get cool people to do Instagram takeovers?  Maybe I could do a takeover of our own account? Helen Tupper: Sarah's takeover, I love that idea! Sarah Ellis: I'm good at ideas, you see; that's the bit I'm good at! Helen Tupper: I like the Sarah takeover, even just for a day. Sarah Ellis: So, maybe that's what we should do.  I love the fact you went straight to, "Not for a week though, absolutely not!" Helen Tupper: I was thinking, maybe an Instagram post and a story and something on LinkedIn, and then you can experiment with some different things in a day. Sarah Ellis: You won't even let me do it for more than -- okay, so I will do a Sarah's social takeover for one day, there you go.  I've created my own challenge and committed to it out loud. Helen Tupper: Yes!  And I didn't take it on; it's a win! Sarah Ellis: I will let you know soon what day that might be. Helen Tupper: Okay, brilliant.  2023, you actually thought about it! Sarah Ellis: 1 September!  So, idea for action number five, and it links actually to where we got to there with that Instagram challenge, go after about a 30-day goal.  So, try and think of something, set yourself a target of something that is difficult and doable in the next 30 days.  So, to be honest, it feels both difficult and doable for me to do a Sarah Instagram social takeover.  Some of you might be like, "How can she not just do that?" but I definitely couldn't.  It already worries me just thinking about it.  Or, perhaps there's a project you've wanted to just get started or get underway. I think by setting yourself that 30-day goal, make it really visible, so that you can see it every day.  Almost mark the moment of being, "Right, this is the thing that I think would create challenge for me, and that I know I could do essentially in the next month", and then what you can start to do is think, "Okay, what are all the actions that get me closer to that challenge?  How do I start to make progress?"  By seeing it every day, by making it really visible, by being very specific, you just keep reminding yourself to essentially create that challenge to make some progress, and to prioritise it. So, back to that point I said about, "Sometimes we're just so busy being busy", I think once you've got a clear target in mind, somehow it feels easier to create the space, or to think, "I'm going to start my day doing that thing, because that's me getting one step closer to that challenge, that website I want to build for the first time", the fitness challenge you might have in mind.  So, just have something like that and keep it really short and specific.  I think something within a 30-day window that you know would create a challenge for you, that you've chosen, that you've taken ownership for.  Keep it somewhere you can see it, and then keep coming back to it and keep going through it. I think often, the more progress and momentum you get, the more optimistic you feel, and therefore you keep going.  Again, if you want to do this with someone, I suspect this would work even better.  So, if you know someone else who listens to the podcast, or someone else in your organisation, where maybe you've both got a 30-day goal, where you can swap your goals, swap and share them, and then almost hold each other to account a little bit. I think an accountability partner on any of these things, you want to create your own challenges, but then exactly as Helen and I have just done, Helen can sort of hold me to account to that challenge a bit.  She's heard me articulate that, she's heard me go through that thinking process of creating it, and then she can give me that nudge, she can give me that support, she can celebrate when I'm absolutely incredible on Instagram, and everyone just wonders why I've not done it before! Helen Tupper: And don't forget that it's an experiment, so it doesn't have to be absolutely amazing, it's more about learning, just to bring that point back in! Sarah Ellis: What, are you just managing everyone's expectations, who follows us on Instagram?! Helen Tupper: I'm trying to take the perfectionism away.  But no, just listening to you actually talk that through, it makes me think about the previous one, redesigning your defaults, and that whole, my default start to the day is quite phone-heavy, checking my email very early in the morning, going on Feedly, and I think redesigning for 30 days, thinking about, "Could I redesign the way that I start my day?  And, if I didn't pick up my phone for the first 60 minutes, what could I do differently?" that feels like, imagine if over a month, I redesigned that first hour of a day, that actually feels difficult, but doable to me. If you said, "Don't look at your phone until 4.00pm", I'd be, "That's never going to happen".  But for the first hour, I think I just have to break a habit, redesign my defaults.  So, maybe that's probably as challenging for me as a day of you doing Instagram and social media, Sarah. Sarah Ellis: I'd absolutely love you to have a day without your phone, I'd find it so funny! Helen Tupper: If I do that, I'm going to set you a really hard challenge in return! Sarah Ellis: That's just causing each other pain! Helen Tupper: Why would we do that to each other? Sarah Ellis: I don't know, because it's late probably. Helen Tupper: As well, just on the goal, it just made me think about a TED Talk that I rewatched recently, which is slightly different, but it's about how you can learn something new over 30 days, so it is more about learning and it is more about every day, moving something towards a goal that you're trying to get to.  But it's a really short TED Talk, it's four minutes long. Sarah Ellis: Wow, really? Helen Tupper: Yeah, it's really short and it's really good, and the speaker, who's name I've forgotten, but we'll put this as one of the links on the PodSheet for you -- Sarah Ellis: Is it Matt, Matt Cutts? Helen Tupper: Yes, it is Matt, and he talks about how he wrote a book in a month.  And he said it wasn't a very good book, but he basically divided up a 60,000 word count into how much he needed to do every day, which is what, 2,000 words; and then, as long as he wrote 2,000 words a day, he'd written a 60,000-word book.  Obviously, it needed editing, and I don't think anyone published it, but still, he said for the rest of his life, he could call himself an author. So, let's just summarise those five ideas for action to help you create challenge.  So, number one: stretch your strengths; number two, increase your experiments; number three, find a challenge or a challenger; number four, redesign your defaults; and number five, go after a goal. Sarah Ellis: Do you want to talk about what we're going to do on the podcast next week, Helen? Helen Tupper: Yes, I do, because I can't wait! Sarah Ellis: If this week has been bad, wait until next week! Helen Tupper: So, I can't wait for next week for two reasons.  Next week, we're talking about manifestation.  Number one, I've got quite into it; I'm really collecting images for my vision boards, I've written statements down in my phone.  You can't see Sarah, but she's looking in pain, which is the second reason why I'm looking forward to talking about this, because I think manifesting is not an immediate thing she'd rush into, but we're going to talk about it. Sarah Ellis: Obviously, I'm in a really great mindset about it though. Helen Tupper: Of course.  And actually, the podcast is not, "We think manifestation is brilliant, we should all do it", the podcast we are going to record is, "Let's get really practical about manifestation", and even if you don't buy into the full thing, what bits of the manifesting process could work for you.  And so, I've got the manifesting equation that we're going to work through, Sarah, and you can be the practical cynic, and I will be the optimistic enthusiast, how about that? Sarah Ellis: I read a Guardian article about it, which is a very good article, and I wanted to WhatsApp you and say, "Let's not do it"!  So, the fact that we're still doing it is your influence and persuasion, and also I felt like you've gone quite far, because you keep sending me these pictures, and I was just like, "What are all these pictures?" and she's like, "I'm doing the manifestation thing!"  I was like, "Right, okay".  I was just reading it going, "Okay, I'm even more sceptical than I was before I'd done any research.  I'm now going to read a book. Helen Tupper: Look how much joy it's bringing me; I've already manifested happiness; this is amazing! Sarah Ellis: Right. Helen Tupper: Sarah's like, "I'm just tired". Sarah Ellis: I'm also reading a book now called Toxic Positivity, which I'm absolutely loving. Helen Tupper: I'm sure you are.  Why are we friends, everybody?  Somewhere we meet in the middle, with my overenthusiasm and Sarah's cynicism; it just makes us a normal person. Sarah Ellis: Between us.  We eventually net out at someone vaguely normal. Helen Tupper: Hopefully, that comes across in some way, shape or form in this podcast, but more than anything, we hope that this has been useful.  We hope that you've got some ideas for action that you want to try out that you want to download that PodSheet and learn a bit further, share it with other people to help them.  That's what this podcast is all about. Sarah Ellis: So, thank you all so much for listening.  As always, we really appreciate all of your ratings, reviews, subscribing and sharing with other people.  We'll be back next week to talk about manifestations.  Bye for now. Helen Tupper: Bye for now.