234: Learning How to Finish

Hey guys, this is my leak. This is the podcast and today I am popping in to answer a listener letter or to brainstorm on a listener letter. If you'd like to write me a letter to be answered on the podcast, that will be kept anonymous. Please do so at [email protected]. You got to make sure you get those ease and eyes correct because I will not get it otherwise. Hey @myleik.com. This letter has been edited for clarity. Let's get to it. Hey my leak. I listened to the New Year's Eve podcast episode, was it the New Year's podcast episode, and felt compelled to write in. I really connect it with your suggestion about breaking things down into small manageable steps. That idea made me realize something important about myself. One of my biggest struggles in life is that I don't naturally think in small steps. Growing up, my mom will constantly start things and never finish them. I hated how that made me feel as a child. Now as an adult, I see that I've been overcompensating because I'm afraid of never reaching my dreams or becoming successful. I'm married now and I notice some of those patterns in my husband. He tends to start things and not finish them. We started a business together in 2024 and it's been triggering for me. I often feel like I have to pick up the pieces or just do everything myself. Can you share any advice on how to work through this without burning myself out? First things first. Thank you for listening and then taking the time to write in. Now when I read your letter, lots of things stood out for me and I'm going to state the obvious, you guys know I'm always going to do this. I do believe it is worth your time to find a therapist. If you don't have one who can help you unpack and process the connections you're making between your childhood, your mother, your parent caregiver, and your husband. Why I love therapy so much is that I know there is someone out there who will be able to help you figure out what is yours in all of this and that is what I think therapy helped me really distill is like there's all this stuff going on. There's my childhood, there's my history, there's my future, there's what's in front of me. There are the people that I'm engaging with and you wrote in about like how do I, right? You're wanting to know how do you move forward with all of this stuff kind of in the pot with you. And so you know there is a therapy term that I learned back when I first started that literally split my brain open and I've shared it multiple times and I'll share it here again. It was the term repetition compulsion and I'll never forget I can literally see myself in the office when my therapist mentioned this to me several years ago and so I'm just going to read the definition directly from the inner webs. The definition is an unconscious tendency described by Sigmund Freud, Freud, to repeat past traumatic or distressing experiences, patterns or situations, often in relationships or behaviors as a way to try and master or resolve the original trauma even if it's harmful. It's like a compulsion to reenact early wounds, seeking resolution or connection even if it leads to familiar pain and it can manifest as repeatedly choosing unfulfilling partners which was my problem or recreating dysfunctional family dynamics which was also what I was doing. I was in a loop of repeatedly choosing unfulfilling partners and recreating dysfunctional family dynamics and this definition coupled with the work I did with my therapist helped me kind of crack this nut. I do not know what is happening here but I found it so interesting and fascinating how we unconsciously like we are not we don't know that we are doing this but we are unconsciously trying to sort of solve our past in the present and future and so I want you to hold on to that. Another resource I'll throw out is an online therapist I enjoy named Terry Reel and he says we all marry our unfinished business and when he says unfinished business he means old relational wounds that usually come from childhood experiences like inconsistency, emotional unavailability, chaos or unpredictability, feeling unseen, unsupported or over-responsible. What he says is that we partner up with our histories and when our partners do something it rarely feels like just the present moment. It is layered with today's disappointment plus years of stored disappointment plus a younger version of you who didn't have power. So all of this stuff is deeper than wrap it is very complex and so I just want it to maybe help you scratch the surface of some directions that you can go in some clues, something you can take somewhere and so that's what this letter made me think of initially if you aren't seeing someone consider this your nudge and if you are seeing someone tell them you heard about this on a podcast. I'm sure they'll love that. Laughs in sarcasm sorry therapist that I know listen to me but I'm just sharing all right but let's get back to you. Now that you have come to this revelation you know your revelation is I didn't learn how to do things in small steps you have to take responsibility for this and now hold yourself accountable and just to say this out loud because I believe in what I do this is the exact kind of work that I do inside my life coaching group it's called bring your work and it's a space where we slow things down like this and get honest about what's actually happening and then we build the real do-a-pool steps and you have support and accountability I'll link it in the show notes but now that you have sort of if we just distill your email we know about mom we know about husband but now we're talking about you and what you know to be true about yourself you have to learn how to do this so what would you do you would get on the internet and you would search for a book and podcast that teach how to take small steps I did it for you there were things that came up but I'm just going to recommend atomic habits by James clear I also recommend the workbook that he made recently because it is incredible follow him on Instagram sign up for his newsletter search for his podcast interviews there are others that may resonate with you more because I feel like we are shoved you know most of what is shoved down our throats is from white men but I know there has to be more people who are doing this work who can help you self-included but this is a really strong resource for you and just to read a quote from his book all big things come from small beginnings the seed of every habit is a single tiny decision but as that decision is repeated a habit sprouts and grows stronger roots in trench themselves and branches grow the task of breaking a habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us and the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time now there's one more thing because I can like I just dropped a bunch of clues on you there's one more thing that I want to say before I get out of here is that I have been and you know what I'm realizing that I wrote the last thing I was going to say and this ain't the last thing I'm going to say because I kept writing the last thing I want to say is not the last thing is that I have this major aha in the last few weeks around this tango I've been having in my work between time and burnout I'm on the internet I'm I'm living the same life you guys are and burnout is real I'm not even going to say that it isn't that's not what I'm here to do but as I'm with this work and I'm really sitting in strategizing right I'm sitting in strategizing with people and I am learning that people are not dedicating enough time to the things that they say they want to do and so it's like this kind of time dysmorphia burnout sort of like infinity loop right where you're kind of swinging through this figure eight on on both sides of like not getting enough time but I don't know what the heck people are doing there's a lot of stuff people are doing that ain't what they're supposed to be doing looping back out to burnout and so when I really sit and look at the schedule and time being put into the thing is not enough. I'm just gonna say it. Do not be mad at me. Like Kim Kardashian, and for real, tell people, you got to work. I'm not that's not what I'm saying. But I am saying, there is not enough time being dedicated to the thing that you want to do, right? Your goal. I'm not talking about it. It's the job. It's the job because you want to get promoted. But if there's something that you want to do, you really have to put more time into it. So we, the first thing we have to do is be honest around the amount of time we're putting in. And a lot of times the progress or success and whatever it is has not had enough time dedicated to it because you think touching it once or twice a day is the work and it's really not. And what I'm learning is that people are sitting down with their desks and they're not even really touching the thing because you sat down or you thought about it or you watched a video connected to it, you log it as time spent. And we really got to clarify what that is. I need to do another magic hour workshop. You have to get serious about your time. And I know that we don't want to burn out. So we fill our schedule with I put in quotes, self-care things. But sometimes you're going to have to sacrifice something to get to the goal you want. So if you want to do daily massages and Pilates, you are going to have to strike a balance between how often you're moving moving that way. So if you are in a season where you are wanting to recover, even in our recovery, there is a level of work involved, right? But I think we have started to get like really deep in this like, you know, I want a life of ease. And so the schedule is giving daddy. Daddy's very relaxed. Nervous systems is intact. And I can just tell you from what I've seen, what I've seen, you probably are going to feel great with that either because you are going to write me and say you're not feeling good because you are worried that you're not going to become successful. And so you we've got to strike a balance. Okay. I have what I have called sacrificial seasons. Seasons where I don't get my nails done as often or my hair done as often. And I'm not going to the fancy places. It's giving roll. It's giving she's doing what she's got to do. And the reason why I have these seasons is that I'm trying to log my time in bulk. So I can get over to the diamond lane and coast and move faster. And so I feel like we have convinced ourselves that if we kind of do one of these bulk runs, we are going to burn out. And I can tell you that like that's not always the case because you know, you know, what you're doing and why you're doing it. And you know that you will have a period of time where you can go faster. You can get in the diamond lane. I think where we have some trouble is that we are in the diamond lane. We don't realize we're in the diamond lane. And we are doing too much when we don't have to. But if you are in the far right. And you are driving like you are where you're trying to go. I need you to push your blinker on. And I need you to start getting over. And that is what that might be a sacrificial season. And so my sacrificial season is like my blinker is on. I'm looking over my shoulder. I'm getting over in a lane. And I my coast for a minute knowing that I'm not in the diamond lane yet. But I know that I can take a break. But then I'm going to have to put my blinker back on and I'm going to have to get over in another lane. And you just have to think of it like this. You know. And so I get I've given you a lot to consider as you attempt to make sense of your history and the impact that it's having on your president, your future. But there's another big idea that I also want to to talk about because I've also seen this. And this is the last thing. I wanted to add that some people start things and what we view as quote unquote unfinished is actually complete. We are all wired for different level of finished. Some of us are wired to initiate to start something quickly. And then a team swoops in and comes and finishes it. That team is likely made up of people who are wired for completion or you know they are people who are wired for iteration. They evolve something. These are our learners. These are our people who were like if you bring an idea to me, I can push them push it forward. I can push it over the finish line. We don't make room for all the types of people who make up a team. And I'm just going to tell you that as someone who has started a company that had a ton of team members, I did not know what the hell I was doing. I knew I was very strong for the type of person that I am, you know, I am wired to initiate. I am wired for ideas. But I do have to put together a team of people who can push things over the finish line. And my big aha is not required them to be like me. We learn these things. We live and we learn, right? So we often assume that there is one correct definition of done, but there isn't. And what looks like unfinished to you may be finished to someone else. Maybe mom wasn't stopping and starting a bunch of things. Maybe mom got all the information she needed after she started it. Maybe it satisfied her curiosity. Maybe mom realized it wasn't for her anymore. Maybe the experiment served its purpose. And so completion does not always look like a polished final product. Sometimes it looks like I tried this. I learned from this. I'm done with this. Let me know how this lands with you guys. Okay. If you have something you'd like to chat with me about in an email, hey at mylead.com. If you want to learn more about me, mylead.com, I'm on the substacks. I'm on the Instagrams. I'm on the threads. Let's work. Bye y'all.