If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in a rut, wondering why your once skyrocketing career or business has hit a plateau, you’re not alone. Many of us face this crossroad, questioning why our efforts are no longer yielding the same stellar results. This week’s episode of “Own Your Awesome” with host Miranda Von Frickin dives into a crucial yet overlooked aspect of growth: getting back to the basics. Let’s break down this enlightening discussion into actionable insights you can implement today.

The Power of Foundational Habits

There’s a common saying that “what got you here won’t get you there.” While there is truth to this, it’s not the whole story. Miranda argues that we often overlook the value of the foundational habits that got us to where we are today.

Consistency, Routine, and Perseverance

In the early stages of any career or venture, we employ small but impactful habits: getting to work early, staying late, working through lunch, networking tirelessly, and even doing things pro bono. These actions might seem insignificant, but they collectively contribute to a solid foundation of consistent effort and perseverance.

Mind, Body, Spirit Balance

It’s not just about hard work; it’s also about holistic well-being. Having good routines that cater to your mental, physical, and spiritual health played an enormous role in your initial success. From regular workouts to drinking ample water, these seemingly minor activities significantly benefit your overall effectiveness and resilience.

Re-evaluating What You’re Not Doing

As we progress, we often delegate, outsource, or even forget the simple practices that helped us grow initially. Miranda asks us an essential question: Are you still doing those little things?

Outsourcing vs. Neglect

While delegating tasks is crucial for scaling, completely disengaging from fundamental practices can be detrimental. Miranda emphasizes the need to strike a balance, ensuring that while we hand off certain responsibilities, we don’t neglect the core activities that contributed to our initial success.

Rekindling Forgotten Habits

If you’ve stopped networking just because you now have an established client base or audience, rethink that strategy. Remember how those early networking events boosted your visibility and credibility? Perhaps it’s time to revisit them.

Real-Life Examples: The Coffee Metaphor

Miranda uses a coffee-making analogy to illustrate her point. Think of your foundational habits as the coffee grounds in a filter—essential elements that, combined with water, create a beautiful cup of coffee. While the end product is what we enjoy, it couldn’t exist without the ‘messy’ basics left in the filter.

Your Past Office to Present Office

In practical terms, Miranda talks about her office transition. From a makeshift office in a playroom to a dedicated space, the journey wasn’t just about the physical move but also about expanding her business and rearranging priorities. This evolution serves as a testament to maintaining a strong foundation while growing.

Actionable Steps to Get Back to Basics

Miranda encourages us to reflect on the early days of our careers and ventures. Here’s how you can start:

List Your Foundational Habits

Take some time to list down the specific practices that contributed to your early success. Whether it’s more face-to-face interactions or particular routines, be detailed.

Reintegrate Old Habits

Once identified, find ways to reintegrate these habits into your current workflow. Maybe it means attending one networking event per month or reintroducing morning exercise routines.

Reflect & Adjust

Constantly evaluate the effectiveness of these reintroduced habits. Are they benefiting you as much as they did in the early days? Adjust as necessary to ensure they align with your current goals and circumstances.

Long-term Benefits: Solidifying Your Foundation for Future Success

Getting back to basics isn’t just about revisiting old practices—it’s about reinforcing the foundation that will support your future growth.

Sustainability and Scalability

Foundational habits are timeless; they provide stability, making your efforts sustainable and scalable. Whether you’re looking to get promoted or scale your business, these basic principles remain invaluable.

Enhanced Awareness and Adaptability

Revisiting old habits makes you more aware of areas needing improvement, enhancing your adaptability. As you grow, having a stable yet flexible foundation will help you navigate challenges more effectively.

In conclusion, re-embracing the foundational habits that got you to where you are today can rejuvenate your personal and professional journey. As Miranda aptly puts it, focus less on what others are doing and more on what you’re not doing. The path to your next level of success is rooted in the basics that built your current foundation. So, take a moment to reflect, reintegrate, and continue to own your awesome!

Transcript:

Miranda [00:00:00]:
Hello. Hello, and welcome to another episode of own your awesome. I’m your host, Miranda Von Frickin. I’m so pumped for this conversation today because it it’s sort of a part 2, if you will, or a precursor to last week’s episode. So if you didn’t listen to last week’s, that’s okay. You can go back and listen to it at your leisure. Today, however, is kinda gonna be part build off, but also part what I missed. So last week, I talked about the one strategy that helps me to really get massive results in my business, and it was doing what they’re not doing.

Miranda [00:00:45]:
It’s a really cool episode. It’s a beautiful concept. Go take a listen. But today, I really wanna dive into something that is a little more personal. It is not what they’re doing, but it’s what you’re not doing. Hear me out. We often hear the phrase, what got you here isn’t what’s gonna get you there. And I’ve said it many times on other podcasts and trainings and coachings.

Miranda [00:01:15]:
What got you here? All the the small things that got us here are not are more than likely not gonna get us to wherever there is. Right? That next level, that next step, that higher version of ourselves in life, business, or career. Those little things may not necessarily get to the big things. Right? Or is it? A lot of us fail to understand the value that foundation brought us that we built while on the path to where we are today. Little things like our routines, having really good habits for mind, body, spirit, things like being consistent even when we don’t feel like it. And my favorite is outshining the competition. Think about when we were first on the scene, whether it was in a new job, whether you started your business, you entered a new team, like a sports team, perhaps you don’t play sports or you’re a sports mom. You totally get what I’m saying.

Miranda [00:02:19]:
You really wanted to outshine the the competition, but we didn’t really have all of the resources yet. Right? Like, if if we were starting a new job, we didn’t have all of the product knowledge. Right? We didn’t understand fully how the organization ran or the people and players that were a part of it. Same with, say, we’re getting buff. Right? Like, we all wanna get buff. We wanna have some abs. Right? We don’t right away do one workout and think we’re gonna get get abs. Let’s be honest.

Miranda [00:02:52]:
The the biggest part, though, is when we’re new at something, we have to do the little things to produce the big things. In the beginning of our job or of our business or whatever activity we were part of, we did all those little things that nobody else was doing. All those people who were already achieved the goal or were already doing the thing, they weren’t doing these things anymore, but we were. Why? Well, mainly because we wanted to stand out. We wanted to build that muscle. We wanted to build the reputation. We wanted to build the brand. We wanted to build our presence.

Miranda [00:03:35]:
So we got to the job early. Maybe we stayed late. Maybe we ate lunch at our desk and worked through lunch. In business, maybe we went to networking events. We did things for free. Do you remember that? We used to do things for free all the time when we were newbies in business. We connected people to each other just because we thought they needed to know each other. It didn’t have a strategic or ROI attached to it.

Miranda [00:04:05]:
We just did it because we wanted to, and it felt good, and we wanted to help other people. Think about when working out. Right? Maybe we do one extra squat or your trainer’s pushing you to run on the incline instead of just running on that straightaway treadmill. Maybe we drank all the water. You hear that often. Friends drink your water. But in the beginning stages, we did all these little basic things that provided us above average results because that’s all we really had. Right? We didn’t have especially in business.

Miranda [00:04:40]:
Right? Like, we didn’t have the CRM. We didn’t have the funnel. We didn’t have the courses. We didn’t have the podcast. We didn’t have those resources in order to really stand out. So what we had to do was get back to basics. We didn’t have the money. We didn’t have the job title.

Miranda [00:04:59]:
We didn’t have the abs. We had to do just a little bit more to be seen. Well, now, a few years in, we’re looking to get bigger, we’re looking to expand, we’re looking to elevate, but yet, are we still doing those little things that got us to where we were? We say what got us here isn’t gonna get us there, but perhaps not doing what got us here is gonna stop us from getting there. So are you still doing those little things? Probably not We’re delegating. We’re outsourcing. Maybe we’re slacking off. Oh, I don’t know. That one hurts.

Miranda [00:05:47]:
We forgot what got us here in the first place. Yes. Some of it can absolutely be handed off, given to our assistant, or delegated, outsourced, but a lot of it, we neglect and we wonder why we’re not growing. We wonder why we’re not getting that promotion. We wonder why it’s no longer working, whatever it is. What is the thing that got you to where you are today? The level of success you’re at. Even if you are not at that level you wanna be, you’re not the manager, you’re not the director, you don’t have the huge team, you’re not making the 6 plus figures in your career or even in your business, You don’t have tons of followings. You don’t have lots of clients.

Miranda [00:06:36]:
You’re not on a wait list. But what got you to where you are today that got you to the point to say, I’m ready to expand? I wanna get to the next level. The fact that you’re ready to get to the next level tells me that you’re at a level you were not at before. So what were the little things you did back in the day to get you to the level you’re at today? If you were an assistant, and now you are a specialist or whatever the next type of title would be in corporate, what are the things you did to get to that next level? Same with business. You were a side hustler. Now you’re full time. What did you do to step into that new full time? The little the things we forget along the way are the things that crack me up. It’s almost like when we’re filtering something, like, say, we’re, you know, filtering a coffee pot and all the good stuff comes out, but all that junk is left in the in the coffee filter.

Miranda [00:07:39]:
Of course, we don’t want that junk, so we toss it. But if you can look at it in life and business and career, like, we all the good stuff’s getting filtered out and that’s us looking to be elevated, that stuff in the top, that’s the stuff that actually made the good stuff. Right? Can you picture it? Like, an old school coffee pot with the little white filters. Or I think that that’s so funny, man. Like, I have this old coffee pot, and here I’m gonna go on a tangent because I just created the visual for myself. But you got the old coffee pot. You pull out the thing, and you put the coffee filter in, and you combined the the the seeds. Oh my god.

Miranda [00:08:17]:
What am I making in my head? You put in the coffee grounds and you put in the water, and those two basic things combined made this beautiful cup of coffee. Now I gotta go make a cup of coffee. But what was left was this mushy junk. Right? It was like, like, actually, it’s probably really good for exfoliation. I I have coffee grounds that I use as exfoliants. Anyway, tangent. Okay. I’m back.

Miranda [00:08:43]:
I’m back, people. Alright. So you’ve got the filter and everything that’s left in it was the basic stuff that made the beautiful coffee. Let’s not forget the basic stuff that got you to where you are today. So think about if whatever your whatever is happening in your mind, in your life, in your business, in your career, we always wanna expand and grow and get better. That’s just who we are. It’s human nature. And often, we forget the little things that got us to where we are today.

Miranda [00:09:14]:
So the biggest question for you today is if you’ve been struggling to produce results lately, perhaps what you really need is to remember what made you a success in the 1st place. What got you to this level today? What brought you to the place you are now? Because we weren’t always where we are today. Currently, I’m sitting in my beautiful office in my home. And before I had this beautiful office, I had a little baby office down in my second living room. It’s, like, one of those living rooms that, like, the kids play in. I had a little makeshift office there, and I used my kids’ gymnastics mat as a wall to keep the quote, unquote noise out. I used my earbuds, I put up the gymnastics mat, and I would get to work. That’s where I my office was before it was today.

Miranda [00:10:07]:
So what did I do to get from that little office in the playroom up to have my own office? Well, I had to expand my business. I had to make more money. Obviously, I had to rearrange some stuff in the house, but I would have never have gotten to this level without doing certain things to get me here. So sometimes we have to go back to basics, reflect on what got us to where we are today, take with us the things that are actually going to work, and then, of course, delegate or leave behind the things that no longer serve us. So get back to basics, my friends. Do what works. Focus less on what they’re doing. See what I’m doing there? I’m calling in that previous podcast.

Miranda [00:10:52]:
As much as I love to do what they’re not doing, I want us to focus on what we stopped doing because only then are we able to continue to solidify the foundation that we had already built to get us here today in order to hold all the awesomeness we’re gonna have tomorrow. Thank you so much for staying with me, friends. I hope you, enjoyed my tangent. Now we’re all gonna go get coffee. DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn and tell me if you you have to go get coffee now. But I’d also love to hear from you. What are the things that you have taken off your plate or stopped doing because they were maybe considered basic that you need to kinda bring back in order to continue to solidify the foundation for where you’re going tomorrow. Friends, is it time for you to get back to basics? I think it is for me.

Miranda [00:11:52]:
I can’t wait to hear from you. Thank you so much for spending your time with me and for continuing to own your awesome. Until next week, go do you. Be awesome.