#102 Baby steps are for babies, not for you

Rachel Denning (00:00.718)
Hello my friends, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Today's gonna be a bit of a rant, but actually I'm gonna do it with a gentle soft voice, if I can. Some of you are like, yeah right. Now I'm gonna try to do it, because I just wanna share some thoughts that I feel really strongly about, but I wanna gently persuade you to do it. And I just finished a coaching session, I have another one.

really soon. So this is going to be short and sweet to the point. It's interesting, you know, in my own life and working with so many people, we often convince ourselves that we need to take baby steps. That for some reason, I don't even know why for some reason, we just consistently tell ourselves and we tell each other, like, Oh, just take baby steps, you know, don't worry about going too fast and

And we don't want you to feel overwhelmed. We don't want it to be too hard. And I get it. And in fact, I've been a part of that conversation. I've told that to myself. I've told it to others. I've used it with you guys. I've used it in coaching. And I get it. There are some occasions to do that. But I think more often than not, we might be doing ourselves a great disservice.

by constantly thinking about and taking baby steps. Because in a lot of ways, and roll with me here, roll with me here, like I get it. I've done all the research, all the reading, I get it. Like the slight edge and atomic habits and just taking a little bit of action, the 1%. I've shared all those same things in this podcast. Right, and I teach them, I get it. And there's times like when you have a new baby, like.

You just do what you can look those little people they are so demanding on your body and your sleep and fatigue and they're up and they're I get it and When you you know, there's certain well, maybe a health condition or something. I'm just thinking you all these scenarios I get it. There are exceptions So please I don't want to be misunderstood that I'm just mr. Hardcore like there's no exceptions there are but my warning here is I

Rachel Denning (02:23.789)
that I think you and I, can I just be lovingly straightforward with you in blunt? I think you and I will use that more often than we should. You get what I'm saying? Like there's a time, there is a time for exceptions. There are exceptions to the rule, but when we make the exception our own rule, when we keep telling ourselves that,

to make it a little more comfortable, a little easier. We don't want to disrupt too many things. We don't want to stir things up too much, right? We're afraid of offending ourselves, ironically, or offending others. We're afraid of too much. And so the exception then becomes the rule. And here's the problem. There are times, lots of times, lots and lots of times when we've got to step it.

up and take massive action. Massive action. Now at the point of this recording, they just a couple of days ago announced the new unemployment numbers, which for last week were 6 .6 million new unemployment claims. That's on top of the 3 .3 from the previous week, which was the new record.

And so we're just shy of 10 million new people just in the United States who claimed unemployment. And that was before the president of the United States came out and said, yeah, you know, we probably need to continue a social distancing for at least another four weeks, maybe more. And so with the continuation of this, the spread of the virus and the...

And I'm more concerned, honestly, far, far more concerned with the economic impact. That's serious. And if that continues at that pace, even if it drops back down this week, you know, into the millions, but if it even stays in the millions and kind of goes on for the next four weeks, wow, the economic impact just on numbers. Now, obviously the conditions and situations very, very different from the Great Depression.

Rachel Denning (04:44.942)
very different, but it will blow past the economic situation we had in 2008 and it will get to, in some ways, not always obviously, it's a very different situation scenario, but in some ways statistically gets down to Great Depression levels and a crisis on the level of World War II type stuff. This is a big deal.

And a lot of things, I already talked about this, a lot of things are going to change in our world. We're going to have to come up with some new normals, right? We're going to have to shift things around, which is exciting. That part is very exciting where you see it as a huge opportunity to make shifts and changes. And that's where my message comes into play. This is not a time for baby steps. This is not a time where we're like, you know, it's not that big of a deal. Let's just kind of roll with it.

And so many of us, we want to just keep doing things like we've always done them. And we want to keep rolling along. And I think for all of us, this is a wonderful thing because it's a huge wake up call. Like, Hey, we need to take things seriously because my friends, when we are casual, it leads to casualty and a casualty is by definition, you know, somebody who gets injured or injured, hurt.

maimed or dies right but in in this in this kind of theoretical you know term like it casuals leads to a casualty like the casualty in these situations might be broken relationships a marriage that falls apart which i just had a friend their marriage just fell apart i was doing some coaching this week so sad or an addiction or

Just a mental or emotional meltdown.

Rachel Denning (06:42.189)
Missing out on an opportunity is that, or even, you know, the greatest casualty is failing to reach your full potential. It's leaving all this potential and greatness on the table. Just sitting there. Casualty is giving away your powers, playing the blame game. It's making excuses. It's living in victim -ville. That's a casualty. And our children can be some kind of casualty to our own baby steps. And we miss out on an opportunity.

you know, economic opportunities and employment opportunities and business opportunities and the chance to make a positive difference in somebody else's life. If you and I fail, I feel so strongly about this. If you and I fail to make a positive difference in somebody else's life because we're concerned about our own little baby steps, that to me is a casualty and a tragedy.

because there's so much we can do. So my message is, you guys, baby steps produce baby results. I'm not interested in baby results. Are you? And so I want to kind of call us all out and say, hey, stop telling yourself that you need to take baby steps all the time. That's just a mindset. It's an optional belief. You're an adult now. It's time to get some big results by taking some big steps.

Why are all these adults taking baby steps? When are we going to be adults? And especially when it comes to getting our life together. Like it's, it is time. Oh, Tom, you guys, I'm trying to keep a cool hair, trying to keep the low voice. You know how much I love you and I genuinely, genuinely love you. And I just want to help. And after working with so many people over so many years,

And in my own experience, when I am telling myself, oh, take some baby steps, Greg, you make little adjustments. Don't go. Don't take massive action here. You know, you don't want to overwhelm yourself or get tired or exhausted. And and I get it. I understand the principle. So those of you right now are like, but it is overwhelming and you can go faster than you're able and you're not supposed to. And you're supposed to take it easy. And I get it. I understand all of that. I really do.

Rachel Denning (09:05.677)
And I realized there's there are some of you who go too far too fast. And to you I'd say, hey, slow it down, slow it down. You're you're you're you are overwhelming yourself. But my greatest concern is that most of you are underwhelming yourselves. I believe wholeheartedly in you that you are capable, far more capable than you think you are. You're more capable than you believe you are.

And so you're underwhelming yourself and you might be saying to me, but I feel overwhelmed. I feel exhausted. And you know, it's ironic. Sometimes we feel exhausted and tired and burnout literally because of underwhelmed.

Let that sink in. Many of us burn out, are exhausted, blah, we don't want to do anything. We just feel busy, busy, busy, stressed out because we are underwhelmed because we're taking these baby steps. Think about it. Even just literally think about it. If you're trying to get somewhere and you're just taking baby steps, lots and lots of baby steps, that would be exhausting and frustrating and so

irritating even in your soul because you know and your body knows it's capable of far more. Your mind knows it's capable of far more that you could be sprinting down the road and you're taking baby steps and you're telling yourself, no, I just take baby steps. I can, there's just too much. Just take baby steps. And as an adult, right for,

For a baby to take baby steps is normal, it's natural. Their body's like figuring this out. But for an adult, I mean, just picture it right now. Picture, I'm outside, I'm sitting in my car, because I love sitting out here to record you guys. And so I'm sitting here watching the sidewalk and the road. And picture yourself as an adult walking down the sidewalk, just taking baby steps and walking around the neighborhood. You'd go crazy. And I'd go crazy watching you like, hey, lengthen that stride, will you? What's going on here?

Rachel Denning (11:21.229)
What are you taking baby steps for? You're not a baby. And literally we're doing that in life. We keep telling, no baby steps, baby steps, just do these little things.

I want to invite you to take massive action. Turn it on. Turn it up. It's go time people. And even if it weren't a crisis right now, and even if the economy were not in a free fall, it's time to turn it on. It's time to step into your greatness. Do it for you and for your family. Do it for your marriage.

Do it for your home life. Do it for your extraordinary family life. Do it for the people you can affect and influence.

Right now, isn't that exciting? This is exciting to me. So I don't, I don't want to see this episode as like, as a reproof. I want you to see it as a call to action, like a reminder of like, Oh yeah, wait a minute. I have the ability, I have the capacity, the capability to sprint to at least speed walk, but to take some big old strides. And so can I invite you and challenge you with love to say,

In what area of your life have you been taking baby steps and telling yourself you need to take baby steps when in all reality it's time to just start taking some big strides because you're an adult now. It's time to just step up emotionally. Step it up mentally. Step it up. It's time to get into the big books. It's time to learn another language. It's time to get a hold of your thoughts. A lot of us are dealing with little baby thoughts. It's time to do it socially.

Rachel Denning (13:09.389)
to get, just stop hiding behind our, our little fears and insecurities and what will others think of me? And I'm so afraid of what will they, you know, of rejection or what will they say or think? Let's, that's just, it feels like little kids back in, you know, on the playground or in middle school. And at some point we've got to be like, you know what? No, come on, I'm an adult. I don't care what other people think. And not in a rude way, but like, I'm going to, I'm going to do what I think is absolute best. And I'm not going to live my life.

in this guessing game of what other people might think of what I decide to do. So that's socially. What about spiritually? Some of you have been still like Paul says in the New Testament, you're still on milk, man. Spiritually, you're on breast milk and taking baby steps. When are you going to really grow up spiritually?

When you're going to take those huge strides. Ooh, I like it. How about physically? Some of you are taking these teeny little baby steps. And so you're getting baby results. You want to lose weight. You want to get in fantastic shape, but you're so obsessed with taking baby steps that you're getting baby results. You're maybe losing a pound a month and you've got 30 pounds to drop.

You can drop 30 pounds in 30 days in a healthy way. Totally doable. Right. But even if it was 10 or 15, then then you're making marked progress and like, yeah, this is great. And getting results. It's time to push it hard when you're working out. It's time to push it hard to get rid of sugar. And if you like, if you're still on the if you're still on the fence about that.

You got to do the doctor. Look up Dr. Daniel Amon's research on sugar. Holy guacamole. It is literally damaging our brains and our family's brains. So there's one where massive action takes place. We just get sugar out of our lives. You don't need it. It's just a silly addiction and it's hurting us. It's keeping us from where we need to be. So you take a big step there, right? Maybe it's with media and entertainment and bread and circuses. We're just we try to take these little baby steps. And and because we're taking baby steps, we get baby results.

Rachel Denning (15:32.077)
And so a lot of you and your children are addicted to media and pornography and other kinds of ridiculousness. And it's literally holding you back from your greatness and their greatness.

So this, again, I'm not, I don't want this to be like this negative, like, Oh, this big heavy weight. I want it to be exciting. You've like, wait a minute. Holy cow. All this time. We've been taking these baby steps when I can walk and I can even run like that's exciting. I've been holding myself back. I've been living way below my potential because I'm afraid of, you know, going with the literal comparison here. We're afraid of some sore muscles.

and afraid of taking a spill while we're sprinting. Yeah, we're going to fall down a couple of times. There's going to be some learning lessons there as we're learning how to walk fast and run, how to get results, how to be bold. And if you can see your whole neighborhood baby stepping down the road and you're like, I'm done with this, and you start speed walking or running, you're going to run into some people. And some people aren't going to like it. You're going to run past them and they're going to...

Oh man, the herd is gonna bellow because they don't like it when you're trying. What are you doing? Who do you think you are? Right, they don't like that. And a lot of them will feel threatened by your actions. Please my friends, let's stop, all of us, myself included here. Let's stop with the baby steps. It's time for massive action across the board, every part of your life.

Examine your life. Where have you been convincing yourself you need baby steps? And it's time to buckle up. Put on those big boy pants. Get off the porch to play at the big dogs. And let's go. It's go time. Love you guys. Reach upward.