I was so proud of what I had built.

Which is why it stung a bit every Friday when I ignored most of it.

Each week, I set aside time for a weekly review process, and a while back I took the time to create my ultimate weekly review.

Since I built it in Notion, it allowed me to pull in views of projects, tasks, notes, and resources. I could do everything on this one page.

And in the past two years, I’ve never completed a full weekly review.

Turns out, I designed an overly ambitious weekly review perfect for a highly motivated, idealized version of myself. But that was rarely the version of myself opening the weekly review template on Fridays.

I made the mistake of ignoring the relationship between motivation and ability.

In today’s podcast episode, I explain why ambitious plans can backfire and how a simpler design increases your odds of taking regular action.

Prefer to listen instead of watch? I created a podcast page with links to major podcast players.

A note about email reminders...

I want to give you the choice of whether or not to get reminders for my livestreams. Specifically, you can opt-in to live reminders by letting me know you want an email reminder a couple of hours before I go live. If you don't opt-in by the end of September, you won't get a reminder.

Alternatively, I created a public calendar you can subscribe to so the stream shows up in your calendar. As soon as I schedule the livestream, you'll see the event show up including the link.

What took so long?

Truthfully, I’ve known for two years that my weekly review was expecting too much. But instead of fixing it, I held on to the template.

I don’t know if it was an effort to cling to a future ideal me or if it simply felt like too much effort to properly update the template. Probably a combination of both.

But every week did leave me feeling a little bad about myself.

Knowing I would share about it this week was enough motivation to re-work the template (ahem, external accountability at work). I removed a lot of steps, updated others, and re-ordered the sections since I would almost never get to the final Reflection step.

I also created a section called Feeling Ambitious? specifically designed for the days I might have the extra motivation and feel like tackling some additional tasks. It’s intentionally worded to remind me it’s not an expectation—it’s a bonus.
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What would it look like if it were easy?

If there’s a plan in your life that’s overly ambitious or complicated, and you aren’t taking action because of this, ask yourself, “What would it look like if it were easy?”

Often we know the answer.

Perhaps we cling to the idea that we should keep the ambitious plans, as if letting go is a failure. But if the complexity means you aren’t taking regular action, the high expectations are failing you. Adjusting your plans to suit your current reality is a sign of self-respect.

So what can you change today?

Cheers,

Cat

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P.S. I'm going to be opening up a few 1:1 coaching spots in the coming weeks. If you might be interested in working together using the Momentum Formula framework, reply and let me know you are curious to hear more details.

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