Episode 007: Five Powerful Hacks for Transforming Inspiration into Action

Welcome to Limitless with Lisa Z. A podcast about how to move from inspiration to action and bring our dreams to life. I'm Lisa Zahiya, and each week I'll release two podcasts, one where I walk you through action steps about how to make your dreams a reality with another podcast in which I interview amazing change-makers from all over the world. This podcast isn't just for listening. Take notes and take action. Let's ignite and change the world together.

Hey, y'all, it's Lisa Zahiya, and this is week four in our first installment of “How to Go from your dreams to Reality,” “How to Go from Inspiration into actually putting those things into the World.” So today, I'm talking about hacks, and I'm gonna go over 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 hacks that are going to accelerate this process. 

So hack number one, grab your pens, friends, is start at the end. So I wanna talk about a GPS for a second. I live in Manhattan. It's a very populated place, the biggest city in the United States. And if I use a GPS, if I'm gonna drive from lower Manhattan, where I live to Central Park, an address near Central Park, the GPS, when it calculates it, doesn't start at my address. It starts at where you're ending and then goes backwards. Because if you think about if you hit a roadblock in your life moving forward or when you're driving, it is easier to keep you in the most efficient way if you start at the end. 

So from business owners out there, my goal is to make $10,000 a month, and right now, you're at $2,000. I start at $10,000 and think, what do I need to do to be at $10,000? I need to sell ten one thousand dollars products a month, and then I go backwards from that. Okay? So to go backwards from that, I go to do that. Then let's start at eight. If I want to run a mile, I start at what do I need to do to run a mile. Then what do I need to do three quarters? So start backwards. What do I need to do to do the ultimate goal looking at it? And then start to build a plan working backwards from the end. So it goes back to that old adage of like start with the end in mind. 

So my action steps for you for this is you have your goals of what you wanna create in the next X period of time. I encourage three months or six months. I think a year is a lot and but your year could be your end. So you could start at a year and then break it down into, I do 13-week segments, which is a quarter or three months. So I start, and then I go backwards. So you write your goal down, and then what is the amount of effort I need to expend, which we talked about last week, expending effort to get to the end goal. And then I compare that to where I am right now. And then I think, okay, what's the step before that? Before that, before that, before that. So I want you to write the steps to make it happen, but instead of going one to 10, I want you to go from 10 to one. So I do that anytime I set a goal, which is to start at the end. 

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My second hack is three at a time. A lot of you have heard me talk about the big three, which is at any point, every quarter, I do three goals. Every month I do three goals. Every week I do three goals every day I do; what are the three things I need to accomplish? This is borrowed from a lot of different sources, including the United States Military, that they do things in threes because beyond that, the human brain can't hold all that information. So we just go into overwhelm, and when we go into overwhelm, but we just cut it off. So, three at a time, three goals at a time. I also think it's useful to go three actions at a time, even if you're sitting down for the next hour. What are the three things I need to do? I think a great question to ask yourself today is, what are the three most impactful things I can do to move towards my goal, and then I time block it? 

Hack number three is measure effort, not progress. Let me say that again. Measure effort, not progress. So while I do actually measure progress in this is how much more I need to make, how many more clients I have to get, whatever it is, I'm measuring progress. But day-to-day, it's not about the amount. Like, did I write ten pages? It's did I sit down for the half an hour and write. So I want you to measure your effort because that we can control and that we can celebrate. And then, I start to understand how much of my effort produces how much of a result, and then I calibrate that so that I might need to change my goals after I see that because I might not have enough measurable effort to do that. So your effort, day-to-day, not your progress, and then celebrate that and then ask yourself this math question, there's no guilt in this of what do I need to do? How much effort do I need to create the progress I want as opposed to just like blindly running for progress? And that's gonna feel really bad, and you're not gonna love it. 

My fourth tip, my fourth hack, is who else has done what I wanna do? No matter what it is, if it is parenting, if it is dressing a certain way, if it is meeting a certain goal for your business, you find someone else who has done it. And we do not ever copy content, but we sure can copy structure. So if you wanna be more consistent on Instagram, go to the people in your area of expertise who are killing it on Instagram who are winning. And then I say, okay, so they're posting three reels a week and a story every day. And it's mostly educational. They do their call to actions in the comments, or they do it via dm. I'm gonna try the same thing. So I'm mimicking the structure and, within that, do informational interviews with these people if they're available. But we can always look at how did somebody else create this cuz that is gonna accelerate my progress and mimic structure. Again, we're not gonna copy content, although we can take our own spin on content that we see a lot of people putting out, but we can copy structure. So we always wanna be modeling someone. So instead of feeling jealous, this was a big one for me; get curious. Instead of being jealous, get curious. That's huge. 

And then my final hack for you, surprise, surprise, is get some help. Now, I was able to hit goals very quickly with my business because I had a coach. If you were able to afford coaching, I think it is the easiest way to move you very quickly in the direction of your dreams. I currently have a life coach. I work very specifically now on like areas I wanna work on in business coaching. I just worked with a speaking coach, and then I also have a personal trainer because they accelerate what I do by showing me blind spots, by encouraging me, by providing me accountability, by bringing me strategy, and by just being a guiding light. And I'm not walking alone. If you can't afford a coach, get into a coaching program, perhaps a mastermind, where you could be with other entrepreneurs. Highly, highly recommend. Now in selecting a coach, do not go to somebody who hasn't done what you wanna do. I like people with hands-on experience and who hasn't shown you that they can help other people do the same thing. 

So my hacks to get this done faster are start at the end. Do everything in threes. Measure your effort, not your progress. And use that to figure out how much effort you need to expend to get the progress you want. Understand who else is doing what you want, and look very clearly at what they're doing and learn from them. Perhaps even, you know, respectfully befriend them, talk to them about it, help them, pay them to do it for you. And finally, in that vein, get a coach and get help. It is imperative, it is. We'll get you there. Stronger, better, faster. 

That's it, folks. Another amazing episode of Limitless with Lisa Z. I am inspired and wanna give you the homework. Take some notes, take action. Do one thing today that can move you towards your dreams—got feedback. Let us know. You can write to us at lisa@lisazahiya.com or visit us at www.lisazahiya.com.