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Building a life you love takes a boatload of courage. But you don’t have to do it alone.
The Daily Pep! is the rebel-rousing, daily podcast for couragemakers, creative, multi-passionate and unconventional women.
If you’re surrounded by people who don’t get who you are or what you do, if you want reminders you’re on the right path (no matter how scary it feels), or you’re sick of being your very own worst enemy, this is the podcast for you.
Join your host, writer, coach and professional rebel-rouser Meg Kissack every weekday as helps you build a creative and wholehearted life, one day at a time. Through short and snappy insights, reminders and stories, The Daily Pep! is here to remind you you’re not alone, and that everything changes when you believe you matter.
Each episode is short and snappy, designed to fit in with (or help you start) your habits and routines.
The Daily Pep! is a sister podcast of The Couragemakers Podcast.
New episodes air every Monday - Friday 6AM GMT.
For more information, show-notes and to join a community of like-minded Couragemakers, visit: therebelrousers.com/dailypep
Good morning Daily Peppers and a very happy Thursday to you. This week, we are celebrating into over 500 episodes of the daily pep. And today, we are diving into everything related to getting better at things and improving at things. So if you feel like you are slugging your guts out and not much is happening or you're not seeing a huge amount of improvement or you're not feeling hugely motivated, this one is for you. Now back when I started the daily pep, I had this vision of just being able to sit down at my microphone and being able to shoot the ship. I remembered, daily personal development podcast I used to listen to when I was about fifteen, and how I loved that he was just able to tell stories, and it all just felt so natural. I remember thinking that that is exactly where I want to get to with the daily pep. I want to get to the fact that I can just walk in, get myself sorted, and just shoot the shit straight away. No edits, and it would roll off my tongue easily. Now yesterday, we really started to pull the curtain back. Today, the curtain is fully open. because I wanna share with you what is actually being like behind the scenes.
So I would say that I started off maybe the first 30 episodes of the daily pep. Completely and utterly scripted. I pretty much wrote down what I would say word for word, And there were still so many takes and so many stops and starts. I would trip over words regularly, I would get completely befuddled on so many different words, but to the outside ear, it probably wasn't even noticeable. A bit like you probably haven't noticed as you listen to this, that just for this episode, I've just stopped and counted, we are already on 13 separate bits. where I've had to break or I've had to redo because my list has come out in full force, or I rambled, and there was no point or the bus pulled up outside and got really loud. So I had this idea that one day I would just be able to record in one continuous take And my dream was that one day I could get to a point where I wasn't scripted because let me tell you doing a daily podcast where you write everything that you're gonna say out beforehand takes no enough three times the amount of time. especially if like me, you are prone to stumbling over your words, or you start reading something that doesn't make sense and you have to go back, and how long that took. Now I would say it was a couple of months in that I was able to record an episode where I'd got a bit of a looser struck in terms of I have maybe a couple of paragraphs and some bullet points to expand on, and that felt pretty fucking good And then fast forward to nearly 2 years later, I can have one word written down in a piece of paper. And I can turn the microphone on, and I can pretty much go for it But there will still be lots of stops and start, so it would definitely time to go off on a tangent and redo. But, generally, I'm happy with my process. But the reason I'm really laboring this point is that I think when it comes to making progress on things, We expect that when we get to the next level, there's almost gonna be fanfare or there will be this really obvious point where we realize we have leveled up or we've got to the next checkpoint in the game, but it doesn't happen. Instead, what happens is that one day you wake up and realize it wasn't as hard as it was a couple of months ago. It all happens very, very quietly. I imagine if you're a runner, which I'm absolutely not, so I may, well, butcher this, Maybe one day you realize that you can run a longer distance without getting out of breath. Or maybe one day you realize that you're actually looking forward to your run rather than forcing yourself to do it. But I think what with school and how we've grown up and how we see other people accomplish things, We assume that there will be telltale signs we have made massive progress, and we wait for those things and they don't happen, and it can be really heartening. And like I was just saying about going for run or how I was sharing about me, being able to do this totally unscripted, It wasn't a case of the first day I did it. I was like, holy shit. I've made it. Holy shit. I've done it. I didn't even notice. It took quite a long time after to figure out that that was even a thing.
And also by time, it was less of a celebration and more of a, oh, that's cool. So if you're not feeling particularly motivated by habit you've been building on, or some area in your life, which you feel like you should be further ahead, or you don't feel like you're making as much progress as you'd to be. Maybe consider the fact that you have upleveled, but you haven't even noticed. And going back to the goal or the vision you had when you started it, sometimes it takes doing the thing to realize that the gold or the vision you had beforehand wasn't even necessarily relevant, or it doesn't apply for you. For example, for me, I don't think that there's ever gonna be a time where I can just come in here, sit down with you, and record an entire episode in one take. No matter how hard I work at this, there is always going to be some kind of interruption, I'm always gonna get lost on some kind of tangent or stumble over my words or say something that doesn't make sense. or say something that sounds really cringy that I immediately take out, but that's okay. Is there part of me that would still absolutely love to do that? Back. Yes. Of course, there is. But it doesn't feel half as important as I thought it was when I started.
What means absolutely the world to me now is that I can come in and record an episode and not worry too much about it. not have to script everything, not have to censor myself. And just that it's become something that I can rock up at and do it as easily as I do a lot of other things like tie my shoelaces. And believe me, I never ever, ever would have believed that would be the case. And don't get me wrong, there are still times where It feels like I'm putting on the world's tightest pair of shoes and the laces are all knotted, and it's a bit of a shit show. and embrace the fact that shit shows happen, and that's okay.
What you start off thinking is really important may become a whole lot less important further down the line. And when you've been doing something for a while or when something starts to feel more integrated into your life, the things that you will recognize as really important and hold dear to your heart often the things that you didn't even really think about before you got started because you didn't have that contact and you didn't have that understanding and that practice when you were first starting out because how could you? So if you are feeling demotivated, a bit disheartened on something that you've been working at for a while, or you're wondering why you're not further ahead. Consider the fact that you might actually be far far further ahead than you think you are. And remember that your priorities and what's important might change, your vision might change, And you absolutely reserve the right to change your mind to give up to whatever at any time. So here's to knowing that practice does not make perfect. Here's to knowing that milestones often don't come with a fanfare.
And here's to know in the often the reward for doing something, often comes in the form of doing it itself. I will see you tomorrow.
Episode transcript automatically produced by Castmagic.io