Hey Reader,

I’ve realized that I keep making plans for a woman who sleeps well, wakes up with plenty of energy, has no appointments, feels completely comfortable in her body, and can concentrate without interruption.

She seems lovely.

I’m just not her every day (or most days).😂

At this stage of pregnancy, my energy can look very different from one day to the next.

Some mornings, I feel focused and ready to write, work, exercise, prepare for the baby, and make progress on every idea I’ve been carrying around.

Other days, I feel uncomfortable in my body, I don’t sleep as well, my brain feels slower, and simply completing what absolutely needs to be done takes most of what I have.

But for some reason, I keep making plans as if every day will be one of the good, high-energy days.

• I create the schedule.
• I decide how much I should accomplish.
• I picture myself following the routine perfectly.

Then an ordinary, imperfect day arrives, and instead of adjusting the plan, I start believing I’ve failed at it.

Maybe you’ve done this too.

You decide you’re going to exercise four times a week.

Write for an hour every morning.

Spend two hours a day building your business.

Post consistently.

Complete the course.

Finally make progress on the project you’ve been postponing.

The plan sounds completely reasonable when you’re feeling motivated.

But then you sleep badly.

Work becomes demanding.

Someone needs something from you.

Your energy disappears.

You miss the time you set aside for your projects.

And because you can’t complete the version you originally planned, you do nothing instead.

Last week, in my birthday email, I asked you to think about the thing you don’t want to keep calling “someday”, and to choose one action you could take within 72 hours.

But what happens after that first action?

What happens when the motivation that helped you make the decision isn’t available the next day?

I think this is where so many meaningful goals quietly fall apart.

Not because we don’t care about them.

Not because we’re incapable of following through.

But because we’ve created plans that only work for the most energetic, focused, and motivated versions of ourselves.

And when we can’t meet that standard, we interpret a smaller effort as not being worth doing.

I’m starting to believe that a sustainable plan needs more than one acceptable version.

It needs:

• For the coaching and media business I’m building, the ideal version might be spending two uninterrupted hours creating a new resource or new content.
• The real-life version might be outlining one section for 30 minutes.
• And the minimum version might be opening the document and writing three useful bullet points or next steps.

Three bullet points won’t complete an entire resource.

But they keep me connected to it.

They make it easier to return tomorrow.

And most importantly, they prevent one low-energy day from becoming another month when the idea exists only in my head.

The minimum version isn’t meant to become the ceiling.

It’s the floor that keeps everything from falling to zero.

Because consistency doesn’t always mean doing the same amount, in the same way, at the same time. Sometimes consistency means refusing to disappear from your own goal simply because you can’t give it everything today.

It means asking:

• What is the opportunity here?
• What is still available to me?
• What would count today?
• How can I maintain contact with this goal instead of abandoning it until conditions improve?

That smaller action may not feel impressive.

But it provides important evidence:

• I can adjust without quitting.
• I can have an imperfect day without losing the direction I’m moving in.
• I can keep a promise to myself without requiring every version of that promise to look the same.

So, think about the goal or idea you’ve been wanting to make real.

What would its three versions look like?

My ideal version is…

My real-life version is…

My five- or ten-minute minimum version is…

Be honest about the life you actually have; not the imaginary week when nothing unexpected happens and you suddenly become endlessly motivated. That one right there is the one that keeps holding us back.

Then, the next time you can’t complete the ideal version, choose another one instead of choosing nothing.

This is one of the principles I’m building into Make Your Idea Real, the experience I’m creating to help women move a business or meaningful creative idea out of their heads and into the world.

Because the goal isn’t to depend on one perfect burst of motivation.

It’s to create a way of working that helps you return to the idea through real days, unpredictable energy, imperfect schedules, and different seasons of your life.

And I’d love to hear what this looks like for you.

​Hit reply here with the word MINIMUM and tell me this:

I read every response, and what you share will also help me build Make Your Idea Real around what women are actually navigating, not an imaginary life with unlimited time and energy.

The smallest version of your goal isn’t proof that you aren’t serious about it.

It may be what helps you stay connected to it long enough to make it real.

P.S. You don’t have to lower the goal. You may simply need to create a smaller way to keep moving towards it today.

Love creating your mind one day at a time? Forward this to a friend so they can get in on the action and sign up below. Subscribe to The Created Mind Thank you for reading and sharing, Jenny ​​​​

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