Do Less, Do Better: Why I Am Taking A Break From The “I Did It Series”

Amber B 0:00  

Hey guys, this is gonna be a quick episode. But usually, on Fridays I have at least since the beginning of the year, I've been posting an “I Did It Series” episode. This has been a series where we interview past Macros 101 clients, we talk about their journey, we talk about the aha moments that they've had and the transformation that has occurred, and allowed them to share some of the lessons that they've learned along, you know, alongside the journey and be able to share those with you. And it's been a super, super fun series. And we're going to take a break from it. So we are taking a break from the “I Did It Series” and I thought I would hop on here really quick, just to let you know a little bit about why and about that thought process because I think it can be helpful for you as you are choosing to, you know, what you direct your energy to and what you're letting go of. So when I introduced the“I Did It Series”, we actually introduced it sometime last year. And we only did it for a short period of time, I don't know, maybe like six weeks or something. And it was really popular. And so as we rolled into the new year, I thought, “Hey, that was a really popular series, it was really fun to do. Let's add it on this year, let's add another podcast episode on Fridays, give more content out there, allow people to be able to share their stories.” And honestly, it was a little bit selfish, because I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed interviewing the women that came on the podcast. As a program creator, I don't get to have individual conversations with every single person who goes to the program. And I don't get to hear the intricacies of every person's story. And so it was, you know, again, on a selfish level, it was really gratifying for me to be able to hop on the phone with these women and be able to hear the difference that I've been able to help create in their lives. And you know, I'm under no impression that I changed them. But I had a front-row seat to it. I was a part of that process. And that's really dang cool. And it was really gratifying for me to be able to hear those women's stories. And then I heard from you guys that you loved hearing real women, their stories, they're also different. And I think that was one of the things I really wanted to highlight is that sometimes we get in our head that like, “This process only works for one body type or one age group or one situation.” And one of the goals of that series was to showcase many women from many walks of life, some that are moms, some that aren't, some that are older, some that are younger, some who work, some that don't, some are vegetarian, some who aren't like any kind of variable that you can think of, that sometimes we use as an excuse of why we can't be successful. I wanted to showcase that to give you somebody to look up to, to give you someone to realize, “Oh my gosh, if they can do it, I can do it too.” And so that was the intention. And hopefully, that was fulfilled. However, as we, you know, rolled through the summer, and we're rolling into the fall, actually, this goes back to January. So let me back up a little bit in January. I even recorded a podcast episode on this, we talked about my goals for the year. And when Carly, who's my integrator, and I sat down and thought about our goals for 2022, we created a theme for the year. And that theme was Do Less, Do Better. And what we had noticed was that we had gotten caught up sometimes in this idea that like, more is better. You know, if one podcast episode is good, two are going to be better. As an example of that, if one post a day on Instagram is gonna be good, two, or three are going to be better. And we gotten caught up in this like more is a better idea. And we really wanted to simplify and really focus on the things that were the biggest needle movers, the thing that gave us the biggest bang for our buck. And so our goal was to do less and to do it better. Right, when you create the space, we're able to do things better. So let's fast forward and you know, the last couple of months, it's been crazy, and it's been hectic, and I just have kind of started to return to that theme of do less do better. And had this inkling that one of the things that maybe it was time to take a break from the Friday episodes. And, you know, I sat with that and thought a lot about it. And I came to the conclusion that yeah, you know, it was time that we had done what we set out to do, that we had accomplished a lot of my goals with having that series, and that I was ready to let that go for at least a little while. And when I kind of made that decision. One of the reasons I knew it was the right decision was that I

 

Amber B 4:39  

really breathed the sigh of relief of realizing, “Oh my gosh, what if I only had to record one podcast episode a week?” And that felt like to me, it felt like a sigh of relief. And that was how I knew, “Yep. Okay, it's time.” This is a good move for me to make. So

 

Amber B 5:00  

But that's hard, it's hard to let things go.

 

Amber B 5:04  

And I don't know if you've had this experience. But even sometimes when we know things are right, it doesn't necessarily make it easy to let something go. And you know, as we've gotten closer and closer, and I recorded my last Friday interview, there's still part of me, it's like, “Oh, but you could do it, you could totally do it ever. You've done it this whole time like you do it, it's fun, you do like it like you could totally make it work, you could totally do it.” And I've had to come back again, to my like, Guiding Light. And this is why I think goals and visions are so important. Because we can really convince ourselves that like, “Oh, you can do everything, you can just do it all.” But when we come back to like, “What is our guiding light? What is the guiding principle that we are following? And does it align with that?” It's a really good gut check. And every time I came back to like, the do less do better. That was our goal at the beginning of the year.

 

Amber B 5:55  

You know, does this decision align with that? And it was like, “Yeah, it does.” It's the right choice, even if it's a hard choice. And even if you know, I don't always want to make it. It is the right choice. Now, let me talk to you about this part of it as well, because I think this will resonate for a lot of you. At the beginning of the year, I set a goal. And our goal was to double our podcast downloads, and that so we ended last year with I think it was 1.7 million downloads. And so I wanted to double our podcast downloads in one year, to 3.4 million. And that was felt like a really crazy, audacious goal. And so if I'm being honest, part of the reason of introducing the idea, that series was we have an extra podcast download. Right? So it's like, instead of people downloading one podcast episode a week now there are two podcasts episodes a week. And that made our downloads go up. And it made that number of total downloads tick up a little bit faster. And you know, that was awesome, because that was part of our goals. So you know, it filled a couple of checkboxes for us, but one of them was, “I wanted to hit this goal.” And so I knew we had to do something different to be able to hit, you know, to get to double our podcast episodes. Sorry, to double our podcast downloads in one year, when it took us three years to get there.

 

Amber B 7:17  

I knew something had to be different on one of those things as we introduced the Friday episodes. So when I came to making this decision that was also in the back of my mind of like, “Oh, gosh, are we going to? Are we going to hit the goal?”, you know, is making this decision of dropping the Friday episodes, at least for a little while, is that going to impact us hitting our goal. And actually, before I recorded this episode, I went back and kind of like saw where we've been and saw what our downloads had been. And if I'm being honest, it may impact me not hitting the goal. But it still is not worth it to me to do that. So I'm okay. And maybe we'll hit the goal. But if we don't, I'm okay with it. And sometimes we realize that like, two goals that you set, running conflict with each other. And I think the ability to be able to sit with both of those and decide which one is more important to us is a really important moment. And so yeah, that's a goal, I have hitting 3.4 million downloads, that was a goal.

 

Amber B 8:21  

And I know that this do less do better, is more important to me right now. And so if that means not hitting that goal, I'm okay with that. And I want you to think about it in your life. If there has ever been a time or if maybe you're in the middle of making a decision right now where you know what needs to be done.

 

Amber B 8:40  

And you haven't pulled the trigger yet. I think it can be really valuable to think in terms of like, “What is more important to me? What if two goals feel like they're running in conflict with each other? What is more important to me?” And that's not to say that you can't have both, because that's something I'm really, really, really push back against is this idea that was like, the example I always give is, sometimes people think I can either be a good mom or I can have a business, I can't be both. And I push back really hard against that. No, like you can have both. It's both hands. It's a bold kind of world. It's not an either-or kind of world or both worlds. And so I haven't let go of that goal. I mean, we're still going to try to hit 3.4 million downloads, but I'm not going to make the decision of whether or not we stop the Friday episodes solely based on the fear that we may not hit that goal. And that's what I think is really, really important to remember.

 

Amber B 9:37  

So that's a little bit of the background for that“I Did It Series”. For now, we're wrapping it up. I reserve the right to bring it back at any point that I decide that it's something that I want to dive back into. But for right now, just having one podcast episode a week feels really good to me. And that's kind of what I need right now.

 

Amber B  10:00  

especially as we're rolling into Macros 101 a lot of my time and attention and effort over the last next couple of months, really goes to serving and pouring into my macros one on one clients. 

Hey, if you're listening, Hi, so excited to coach you. And that's where I really want to pour my energy and attention to so moving forward. This will be the last Friday episode for a while. There's lots of “I Did It Series” episodes to go back and listen to, so if you just started joining us, and you haven't listened to those episodes, and you want an extra episode to listen to a week, go back and listen to the“I Did It Series”. They're fantastic, fantastic, fantastic women and I hope that their stories have inspired and influenced you and motivated you to be able to reach towards your goals.

 

Amber B  10:46  

Okay, that's it. We're not even gonna like have an outro, we're just gonna say yay for the “I Did It” that series. I hope you enjoyed it. This will be the last one and I'll see you next Tuesday.