Momentum by Design: Diagnose Your Stuckness and Build a Business That Moves with You

The missing part in a lot of traditional advice, in my opinion, is that they only focus on the why and they don't focus on the why not.

What if the reason you're stuck isn't a mindset issue? What if it's not resistance or procrastination or impostor syndrome? What if you've just been solving the wrong problem? Today, we're solving for calm. One KPI, one bottleneck, one business at a time.

You already know the feeling. You want to make progress, launch the next product, show up online, dial in your systems, but somehow you're not. You keep getting stuck and you can't quite explain why. You start to wonder if it's laziness or fear or maybe you just don't want it enough. But what if that's not it?

Today's guest is Kat Mulvihill, a creator and strategist who developed the Momentum Framework, a diagnostic tool that helps you understand why you're stalled and how to start moving again. Whether your stuckness is coming from a skills gap, an energy mismatch, or an internal fear, CATS framework gives you the tools to diagnose the bottleneck and design momentum without relying on hype, force, or pressure. In this episode, we're pulling on two different levers from the calmer framework, business design and people and values. First, business design. Because when you use Kat's momentum framework to identify why you're stuck, stuck, you can redesign your process to actually work with your brain.

Not in spite of it, not by muscling through, but by customizing your work to match your mode, your mindset, or your missing method. And second, we're pulling the people and values lever because this approach is rooted in compassion. It's about building systems that make sense for you, that honor your energy, that reflect your values, that don't rely on external pressure or shame to be effective, and helps you calibrate this lever from moving from exploitative to empathetic. When we design for momentum instead of demanding it, we end up building businesses that are more sustainable, more humane, and more honest about what actually helps us move forward. So you have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about how to design work in a way that creates momentum.

So tell me about that.

Yeah, I have been interested for years on productivity and attention and where we spend our time and I've also specifically been really interested in why sometimes we can't change even when we sincerely mean to and for a very long time I sort of thought it was binary that you either had a technical problem or an adaptive problem where you either needed to figure out something new to do or you needed to change your mindset. But it was recently in the past year where I was finally diagnosed with ADHD in my 40s and I had this moment of hold on, maybe it's not just that you need a new skill set or you need a new mindset, maybe there's something in the middle and I just realized that we're all wired differently. So while in my case it's ADHD, I realized that it's not just about neurodiversity and brain chemistry. It's also when we get our energy, how we like to work, just our preferences, what are we drawn towards, what do we gravitate away from. Oftentimes we ignore this information when we are making changes and when we're trying to design systems for our life.

So I started to think of it in three buckets, and this is where I came up with this idea of the momentum framework of how do we clear these different types of roadblocks because in my opinion there are three roadblocks. And in order to do that, we want to have a method, a mode, and mindset. So all three of those things come together for us to have momentum.

So tell me about each bucket here and how they all interact.

Yeah. So the I guess the first place to start would be understanding three different roadblocks. So the first I call a logical roadblock where you cannot move forward because you are missing information. Maybe you are missing key details about how to do something. Let's say you download ClickUp for the first time ever.

You have a skill gap right now. You do not know how to use it. You have to learn how to use something new. Once we solve that gap and we have the information, maybe we watch a tutorial, we start using it, we start to build those skills. Well, then we want to start using it.

That is a logical challenge. And so in order to solve a logical challenge, I call it a method. You want to have some sort of plan in place where you've got the right information, the right skills, and then implementation. So when do you use it? Where do you use it?

And what are all the tools involved? So that's a method. Now the second type of roadblock that we might face is the biological roadblock, where we are working against our own nature. I like to think of the idea of you're swimming against the current. It's not that you're not capable of it.

It's just that it's exhausting because we're working against ourselves. And that is where we want to address the mode. And the mode is about what modifications can I make so that this feels more natural, so this fits, so that it's sustainable? And that's where we need to reflect on things like, what is my biology? When do I have the most energy?

Do I have ADHD or autism that is impacting how I show up, how I work, my style, but also my environment that I work in? There are also things like how we respond to expectations. So me personally, if I say I'm going do it, maybe I'll put it in my calendar, it's very quick to get ignored. But if I have a buddy system, if I've got a coach, if I have accountability, then I'll rise to the occasion. And then finally just paying attention to what we like.

So if something we just don't like it, don't ignore that. And so that's what I call mode is really asking, well, how do we like to work? What's the style that suits us? And what feels natural so we could keep repeating it? And then finally the last roadblock is a psychological roadblock where we usually have a fear of if I actually take action, what bad thing might happen?

Maybe I'll find out I'm not as talented as I thought I was. Or maybe this is I'm in over my head. The mindset piece is just figuring out why are we holding ourselves back? It's like the why not? Why am I not taking action?

There's a reason for it. And our brains are very sophisticated. So we want to try and adopt a mindset that allows us to take action.

All of that, at least for me, like, really resonates with how I think about designing my own work. I'm curious about how you actually apply this, either in your own work or work you're doing with other folks.

Yeah. Let's use an example. I was talking to an entrepreneur not long ago who said, I'm trying to be more present on LinkedIn, and you could just tell there was the I know I should and I'm struggling with it. So let's look at the three different types of roadblocks. So one is if we look at method, if you are just logging into LinkedIn posts and then you just start scrolling the feed, can be soul sucking because maybe you are not seeing quality content, you're not seeing the people you wish you could see.

So an example of method, maybe missing information, is that you don't realize you can save a custom search. And that is a feature that is available on LinkedIn where you can go into search and actually customize it so that you see specific accounts, you see specific keywords so that you can save that search and just return to that. And then that way you're dictating how you spend your time. So you will actually be more efficient if you use some of the tools, but you need to know they exist. And so that's an example of an information gap where you need to adjust the method of how you show up.

Now, when it comes to mode, this could be time of day. So I knew that when I was trying to be on LinkedIn early in the morning, because that's when everybody else was on according to all the pros, I would then walk away from LinkedIn and my dopamine was all over the place. I could not focus on my deep work. My brain felt scattered. And so I was starting my day on the wrong foot.

So that's an example of modes. And the other thing too with content creation with mode is if you dread the idea of creating videos but someone says you should create videos, let go of that. Maybe try something else that suits you better so that it actually feels natural for creating content. And then finally, the mindset. If we look at why someone might not be posting regularly on LinkedIn, it's that they might have the belief that people are going to think I'm weird if I start posting regularly.

With LinkedIn, it's often, I have people that I used to work with fifteen years ago that are connected with me on LinkedIn. They're going start seeing my weird content about this business I'm running, and maybe they'll judge me, or maybe we don't want to be that annoying person or the person that people just, they feel like they want to mute our account. So we can really get in our head and stop ourselves from posting regularly on LinkedIn because that is something that we have a fear around it of how are people gonna see me? Am I gonna find myself annoying? And so we need to push back against those.

Okay. That example makes sense. But what if we don't know what the problem is? What if we are at the point where I know I want to do something, something you and I have talked about multiple times, is that, you know, I haven't set up my studio. It's something I want to do.

It's important to me, but I'm not taking action. So how do I go about figuring out which of the buckets I need to pay attention to and what's actually causing the problem?

Yeah. I love that example, actually, because I've worked with a lot of people on their studio setup. I like to start in order, starting with the method, then the mode, and then the mindset. So an example for your studio is I like to ask, is there a skills or information gap? So with a studio, you might have watched some tutorials, you've ordered some gear.

So let's say you have a great camera, you have a great microphone, but then you stop. So maybe an example would be, what are some things that you think are missing? Does it feel like there's just a genuine gap where you can't move forward yet because there's some piece or part of the studio missing?

Yeah. For me, I do have both a great microphone and a great camera. And my camera is so great that it's super intimidating to try and figure out how to actually use it. So I default to using my webcam, which is four k. It's not bad.

But the microphone I was already comfortable with from having set up the podcast. So, like, I got halfway there. I'm very comfortable with the audio part of the setup, but getting the video part of the setup and getting comfortable with a camera that is very nice but also very complex is super overwhelming.

Okay. So there is an information or skills gap. You have a camera and you do not necessarily know settings. So an example of how do we close that information gap, solving that logical problem is maybe you need to go onto a reputable YouTube channel, someone who knows cameras and explains, here are the setup for a home studio with this camera. I have watched those videos.

That's how I set up my settings. And then once I had them set, I left it. So that would be an example of method. But let's say that you watch the video, but you still don't touch the camera.

So things that I have done to solve this problem, purchased a course specific to my camera to walk me through the settings, worked with a consultant to help me set it up, and I ran out of time because I got busy and bought a second course to help me set it up. I watched some of the camera specific content. And to be honest, I got overwhelmed. I think I just need a simpler camera.

So that is possible. I actually really like the idea of what is sort of this minimum viable method that is going to work for me. It's not that you are not capable of figuring out this camera. It might be too much camera right now. It's like when someone buys the Cadillac of something the first time they're starting a new hobby and then get, they spend all the money on the fanciest thing.

I do that.

That is very, very common because you have this desire for quality. Now, when I hear you talking about it, I think, yes, it's possible there's just not the right camera for you, but also there might be some mindset stuff. So I think with tech, lot of people are worried that they can't manage the thing that they bought. So this might be about challenging it. And so a way to challenge it might be to say, okay, I'm going to allocate one hour, put it in your calendar, and just say, I'm going to give myself one hour to try these settings because what happens when we imagine taking action on the thing we've been avoiding, we can often tap into discomfort that we feel of maybe I'm in over my head, Maybe this will somehow prove that I'm incompetent or I'm not capable of doing that, and those are very strong feelings that we don't want to experience, so we'll stop ourselves from doing it, and even if you say it out loud and logically you think that's silly.

Of course, I can figure out a camera. We tend to try to reduce it, but in actual fact, it's having an impact on us because it's stopping us from taking action. So being able to gently push back on it, and that might be, I'm going to give myself a chance. And if it works, great. If it doesn't work, maybe I try something new.

But a lot of us aren't willing to try because we don't wanna find out that we're bad or that we can't figure it out or feel stupid. And those are legitimate concerns that people have. But if you had to learn a new language or learn an instrument, do you ever expect to be perfect the first time?

Yes. I do. I'm an Enneagram three. I am perfect at everything the first time.

So the example would be, though, that for most of us we realize that it's not going to be perfect the first time out, but we want it. So it makes total sense then. You say you have this quality expectation and so you're afraid that maybe I can't meet it, and by actually going through with it, by finishing the course, by actually doing the thing, what if I realize that I can't and I'm not capable? Now you have a stack of experience from the past of all these times where you overcame things, you figured them out, and you were able to make progress. Just that we're kind of holding ourselves back.

What's interesting for me is that, like, there are places where I'm totally fine being a novice. Right? So, like, digital technology, I will go down the rabbit hole, and I will have the most fun figuring out new digital technology. And this is one where even though it is technological, it's like physical technology to me. And I think that's a whole different bucket in my brain.

The part that I'm interested in is doing the content, not getting to that point. It's been interesting for me because normally, I'm actually excited about learning new things. And I think this is because I'm not interested in learning how to set up a camera. It's something I have to do to do the part that I am interested in learning, which is the actual video production piece. I just want it to be done.

I think there can be multiple layers to it, though. I also believe we can start to get comfortable with not taking action, and then start to sort of back it up. Sometimes we can protect ourselves by not taking action because we know exactly why we're not getting the result we want.

When I started the podcast, I was really interested in the content and developing my interview skills and how I, like, craft crafted the episodes and, like, writing the scripts. That part was really interesting. And I was completely uninterested in learning how to edit the podcast. It's all very, like, detailed. Yes.

And that's why I always worked with an editor because it was just one of those where this is just something that's not interesting to me. It doesn't work in my like, how I like to work and the type of work that I like to do. I'm so relieved that I made that decision very early on and said, you know what? If I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna focus on getting good at the piece that I'm interested in, and I'm going to let go of learning the other piece because the part that I'm interested in is hard enough. I feel the same way about my camera settings.

I really just want the camera to be set so I can just go do the part that I'm interested in. It's much harder to solve that problem when you live in a very remote area in the mountains. I can't just call somebody and be like, hey, can you come set up my camera?

It sounds a lot of, like, the reflection that you're making is on that mode. When we ask about our preferences, what we're good at, what we gravitate towards and away from, is that you might actually wanna write yourself a permission slip of just selling the camera.

I think that's what I've come to two years after I bought the damn thing. In terms of, like, my environmental work, I need to be able to hit a button Yes. And just record.

So we can have a lot of pressure on ourselves. And there is pressure in the creator space, especially of having the fancy gear and having all of this stuff because to us it exemplifies a level of quality and how seriously we take it, etc. But when you reflect on what is most important and getting the content out there is the most important thing, it doesn't have to be perfectly polished And there are actually great examples of people who do not have fancy setups. And because the content is good, that's all that you need. When it comes to content, my YouTube videos are almost all one take.

And that to me, that's my mode. I know that this is the way for me to have that natural fit where it feels sustainable. You want a method and a mode that work together so that you can imagine repeating it. And so when you have those together, a good method with a mode that works with you, that's where it's sustainable system. It's something you can keep doing over and over again.

That's for me, what I've come back to is I just always have to be returning to what works for me. I like your bucket system because it does what is blocking, what's the challenge here. And I do that weekly, actually, as part of my review, but I tend not to do it in a big picture thing. At the end of the week on Friday, when I do my weekly reflection process, I look at what tasks did I schedule for this week that didn't get done and try and deconstruct why didn't this get done. Is it something that I didn't know how to do, something I wasn't interested in doing, something that I honestly just got too busy and didn't have time to tackle?

But I've never really done it on a more big picture scale, which I think this is a really good approach for.

I think those reflections are so important. And the other thing with starting with method is really nice because there might be some small tweaks we could make that will actually empower us to take the action. So if we look at the example that you just shared of each week looking back, what didn't work? And something I experienced recently is just changing the language that I use for the task or the action I have to take can be really powerful. And in an example, I would put something in my daily calendar of just workout and I would just skip it.

But I knew it was important to me. And so I started to change language. So at the start of the year, I'm a Peloton member and they have this one hundred day streak challenge. So I decided instead of just saying do a workout or something like that, I said keep your one hundred day streak going. That's the actual language I see when it comes up in front of me.

That's a way of changing the method because I am making a slight switch to how I phrase something. And that is tapping into me in a way that works. So then it started working. So when you're looking at your tasks of the week, if you keep pushing it back, looking at the time of day that you're expecting yourself to do it or when you had scheduled it, the clarity that you use or how you actually talk about the thing you have to do, sometimes even making some of those tweaks to the method can really help. And then if you keep on neglecting to do those things, I think then it's worth looking at mode and how do I like to work.

And then finally, if I keep on not doing certain tasks each week when I look at that list, is there some sort of fear? Is there something I'm avoiding? And I need to adjust my mindset.

I think the other piece I would add is that oftentimes when I'm not doing something, it's because I say it's important, but it's not actually important to me. It's something I feel like I should be doing. So trying to really dig deeply into the why is this important to me to try and evaluate, is it actually important to me? For example, we've been talking about setting up my studio. Yes.

It's important to me, but it's not as important to me as all of the other things on my list.

Yeah. Mindset is two parts. So mindset is why? Why do I care? Why does this matter to me?

So it's that looking forward. It's that vision. It's that target we have, and that's the fuel. That's the thing that's going to actually get us into action. If we don't care, well why would we put any effort into it anyway?

But the missing part in a lot of traditional advice in my opinion is that they only focus on the why and they don't focus on the why not, and that is where we can tap into why am I holding myself back from doing it, and that's where we get into the fear, this dreaded image, this dreaded identity of the person we don't want to be. And so when we can look at both, what's my why? Do I have one? Is it strong? Because if it's really not strong then we're just dragging this expectation along with us and it's really doing us no good, but if it is a strong why, but we're stuck, it's always worth asking, what am I afraid is going to happen if I start committing time to this?

So how are you taking this big conceptual framework and applying it on the tactical level?

I know a lot of service based entrepreneurs or many entrepreneurs who just say, I know I need systems, and they are going to help with my business. They have a very strong why for the systems. There is no shortage of reasons why I should design systems, but they're not doing it. And that is so, so common. So if we take that example of I know I should have systems, but I'm not doing it, this is the type of thing where anytime you feel stuck on something that genuinely matters to you and you just can't seem to get traction, either you're totally frozen or you kind of start stop.

So if we take that example of I want to build a system. This is where I think there's an example of the method is asking what information or skills, what's the gap? And for many people, it's a daunting task of what is the right system? And you might need to break it up. The method, there might be two parts where you have to do a little bit of research.

So maybe giving yourself a time frame and saying, Okay, over the next two weeks, I'm going to commit a couple of hours a week to doing some research, reaching out to an expert. Maybe it's taking a course and also give yourself a hard stop. But then there's also the, Okay, I need to construct the system. And that's the other place where a lot of people, maybe they have actually done the research, they already know the system that they should be building. They might have ideas of how to do it, but they're not doing it.

And so you need to have that implementation. So it's a combination of, do you have the skills? Do you have the information? But also when is it happening? When are you building your systems?

And where are you doing that? So are you setting aside maybe one hour every morning over the next two weeks? Or are you setting aside a day? Maybe you're protecting a Friday. Actually, being so clear on the implementation that there is no confusion when it's time to work, you actually know what you're doing.

And so that's part of the method is do I have all the information I need? Am I able to do this? Do I have the skills? And when is it happening? Where is it happening?

And what are the tools that I need in order to implement this? So it's having that plan and it needs to be clear and hopefully not overly complicated. I think we have a tendency to overcomplicate things because we want the most sophisticated system when in reality just what is enough for us to make forward progress. Then when it comes to mode, this is the example of what is going to work for me. So when it comes to systems, that's both a combination of, from an implementation standpoint, does it work better for me to sit on a call with Susan and work through exactly what has to happen or actually do an implementation call?

So mode is really how will this fit me? How will this work? Even things like how am I capturing information? So if I'm setting up as part of my system, I want to capture some standard operating procedures. Are you someone where it's just so much easier for you to just record a screen recording with your microphone and walk through what you're doing?

Or are you someone who's more methodical and wants to sit down and write step by step instructions of how you would do it? So there are lots of different ways to approach it, and there's not one perfect way necessarily. I do think when it comes to mode, though, you have to consider some constraints. You might be on a team where you have to do certain things. So then you can just start to say, is there a way that I can make this feel a little bit more fun or enjoyable for me to actually get through this?

And then when it comes to mindset, there are a lot of people who are nervous about implementing a system because what if they choose the wrong system? What if they invest all this time into setting up a system and nobody uses it? And I start to feel like maybe I'm not cut out for this or maybe I'm in over my head or maybe this business isn't what I thought I was. It's like we're almost like we're afraid to start going through the business because we don't necessarily want to confront what we're going to find. So it's just easier to not go there.

Yeah. Every entrepreneur I've ever talked to, for the most part, points towards their therapist as the best investment in their business. Because there's so much head trash that we all carry around with us that really does prevent us from moving forward or even doing something that is seemingly simple, like setting up a system. But if it was actually that simple, I would not be a mistress.

Exactly. Even if we go back to the start with implementation. So I know that both you and I have worked with people to set up systems before. And in my case, when we would sit down together, we would go through what changes have to be made. We would talk about it.

We even start making changes, but then the actual follow through. There's the stuff you get done on the call and then there's the homework and then the next time you get on a call none of the homework's done. And part of that is as simple as there was no dedicated time when it was going to happen, how you were going to get it done, and so when it came time to actually do the homework, they're not doing the homework, and often that is a failure of I'll find a time. It's too vague, and so you really need to go back to do you actually have a plan that's complete and that's clear enough so that you know what you're working on when it's time to do the work?

So I am curious how this can work and stay flexible. For example, those of us with chronic illnesses don't necessarily have access to energy at the time we think we're going to have energy. It's super unpredictable. So if we're looking at creating a plan and we want the plan to be detailed enough, enough, but it still needs to stay flexible enough to be able to be responsive to when and how we have energy. Likewise, if you're a parent, your kid gets sick and throws off your whole week.

How do you approach the planning phase where it's detailed enough but still flexible enough to be responsive?

I mean, the beauty of it is that it's personalized. So one person's method could look different than another person's method or they could look similar. And so the beauty of it is that it's customized to your context and to what is going to work for you. I can't prescribe a method to someone. I actually want people to do some research and to, based on your context and your goals and what you want, what are the things you have to do?

What sort of that minimum viable method that's going to move you forward? You want it to be simple enough, but not so simple that it's incomplete or that things are missing. So you do want to still have some of those things like the implementation. When is it happening? Because something can happen at any time often happens at no time.

So for me, setting something towards a day I think I can do it is a really good way that that works for me. I might say, Okay, I'm recording on Wednesday afternoon. That doesn't feel super restrictive to me, and I also know that if I had to move it, I can. We also go through seasons of our lives. Sometimes you might need a simpler method to get you through a really tough season where you maybe don't have the capacity that you normally have.

If you have health complications you need to consider, those need to be factored into your method and so you as an individual knows what's best for you. You can look outside for inspiration from other people on what's the method that will help me drive this forward, but ultimately you have to decide what is going to work for you. So let's use a health example. When I learned in the last year, so it's not a formal diagnosis, but suspected diagnosis on the hypermobility spectrum disorder causes a ton of chronic pain and issues, joint stability. Spent twenty five years in physiotherapy and chiropractor and all that stuff.

And I didn't know until this past year that that was even a thing. I knew I was hypermobile. I had no idea, though, the impact it can have on all sorts of aspects of your life. When it comes to health, my method was traditional strength training, but it would always land me back in physio. It would always land me with injuries.

Once I actually had more information about me and how I'm wired, I was able to go back to the drawing board and say, I got to change methods. I need a different method that's still effective, that is going to help me with my health and my fitness and my strength, that isn't going to land me with injury. So, for example, Pilates can work really well for me. It's a different method that is based on what I know about myself. So when it comes to business, there are multiple ways to run your business.

There are multiple ways to manage your time, multiple ways to set up systems. So maybe someone with chronic health problems needs more margin. Maybe if you are kind of overcapacity, peel things back. You also probably have to tap into some mindset work on our method. Maybe we're expecting too much from ourselves.

And so we have to right size our expectations. So and I would say it's also dynamic. Dynamic. It's not like you just do this once and say, is my method, this is my mode, this is my mindset. Because we keep changing, our experiences change, our context changes, and so we have to be able to go back and say, okay, can I make some adjustments where I still have a complete method but maybe it looks a little different?

What is your own favorite way to make your work calmer?

It's funny that you say that because I have a propensity to fall into these traps over and over, and an example this year is that I have had some uncertainty in my personal life. And so I have wanted to go full force because I have this new framework and I'm so excited to talk about it and I want everything to be done. And then I recognize, woah, woah, woah, you are expecting way too much right now. There's some uncertainty, and you cannot predict everything that's going to happen. So this is a season of my life where I had to slow the pace down.

And so I did that. But then I start to ramp up again. And then I'll delay a project and say, oh, I can breathe. It feels good. It feels aligned.

And then once I have that free time, I say, okay, now I need to jam all this free time. So I'm constantly doing this back and forth. And so something that really well for me is journaling every morning. But the what works for me to be sustainable, it's only one page. I do not have to write more than one page, and in fact, I try to just contain it to one page.

I can do that in a normal amount of time, usually while I'm drinking coffee, and that will often help me right size because I can start to tell if things are starting to get away for me, and it can pull me back. It's a it's a work in progress.

You know, one of the reasons I like to use the word calmer instead of the word calm is because it is. It's always a work in progress. Nothing is ever gonna be ideally perfectly calm. It's an ethos to always strive to be getting just a little bit just take tiny actions a little bit calmer, but being realistic about the fact that nothing is ever going to be calm.

We live in a world Exactly.

Humans and chaos, and stuff is gonna happen. Approaching it as something experimental or iterative. The more you learn about yourself, the better you are going to be able to find the right method, the right mode, the right mindset.

I actually love that you said that because there are a couple of things. One is that it's really important to understand that no matter which one you're working on, each one requires that you take some action. You will not know if it works until you try it. So if you make a change to your method, try it. Does that work?

Then you can make a tweak. If you're making a change to your mode, you have to actually try it. So maybe you're switching up the time of day, You have to try it in order to know if it works. And same with mindset, in order to push back and challenge a belief that might be keeping us stuck, you have to take action and pay attention what happens when I take action, even though I feel a little bit afraid of something happening. All of them require action.

And as you mentioned, we can often wait. We want it to be perfect. So we have to work on our mindset around taking imperfect action. Just have enough information to start moving forward, make enough of a change because they will never be perfect before you get started. So we need to push back on that belief.

I also, I think the other thing that I really want to stress is that it can be extremely overwhelming if I say it's completely personal, you can figure out your own method. I just want to follow exactly what to do. However, I think that sometimes we are, we don't trust ourselves enough. And so I think if you can tap in and trust yourself, that you can figure out what works for you. You can be inspired by other people.

You can take ideas from other people, but your context is different, how you're wired is different, all of that. Look for that inspiration, but look inward for guidance because ultimately we're going to know what is going to suit us, what is going to fit us. And as we take action and experiment with things, we can make those course corrections and those adjustments.

Yeah, I love that. That's how it's worked is finding people who think similarly, their brain works similarly, they have similar situations, maybe they're a parent, maybe they're also chronically ill. Everybody has all of these overlapping identities and ways that you interact in the world. And so, you know, a 25 year old cis het white dude with a spouse who does everything and no kids, his productivity advice is not gonna work for me. It's just gonna make me angry.

We don't all have the same twenty four hours and we're not all coming into the world in the same And so being able to look to examples of folks who are dealing with the same challenges and see how they might approach this and getting a variety of different ideas to be able to pick and choose from. That was the point behind starting this podcast was just to give myself ideas of ways that people are going about the world and their business to be able to pick and choose what might work for me or what might work for somebody else.

And I think you could also look to your past because there is a very good chance that you have stumbled upon something that works for you in one area of your life that could translate into other areas of your life. So I wish I was not a person who needed accountability. I wish it there were times where I just so badly wanted to be a person who could just say, I'm going to do the thing and do the thing and to the point where I was just causing struggle. So now that I've embraced it and I realize that the times when I have maybe been the most consistent or most successful is often when I have some form of accountability. And that can look totally different.

Sometimes it's actually hiring someone as, say, a trainer or something. But it can also look like I've been using the Reminders app that has recurring reminders and I'm playing with the language so that when I see that reminder, like, keep your streak going. It's just these little things that we can do. And if you learn from other areas of your life, how can I implement that into this new project or goal or habit that I'm trying to develop? What do I already know about myself?

Because odds are you've actually learned some really valuable information about how you're wired, how you work, what works, and you can also translate that.

Yeah. As somebody who cannot do accountability, like accountability in no way works for me, and I am deviant avoidance. But it took me a really long time to realize that. Like, at one point in my business, I actually hired essentially an accountability service where like you have a call at the beginning of the week and you tell them what you're gonna do. And then at the end of the week, they call to check and make sure that you did those things.

And I would specifically not do any of the things that I told them I was doing at the beginning of the week and then lie to them about having done those things at the end of the week. I got a lot of things done, just never the things that I said I was gonna do. I didn't last

very But

as kind of a counterpoint example, really paying attention to, is this something that works for me? Or is this something that's actually almost counterproductive?

I call it the friction principle, but the idea is anytime you experience friction. So if you see that list and you suddenly you do not want to do it, you want to do anything but that, that is a sign something needs to be adjusted. So in your example, having an accountability partner that just did not work. So that friction is a sign that you need to investigate. So get curious and say, what is going on?

Why am I doing this? And I think friction can be so informative because it's showing us that something probably needs to change.

Yep. And for me, I had to think about how do I build more autonomy in all of my processes? I ended up instead of having like really specific project plans, I had to go to basically a project vault of, like, here's a list of things I would like to get done. I'm gonna do one of these things. Which of these things feels like the thing I would like to do today?

Yeah. Having that freedom. Most people who are resistant to external expectations, as soon as someone says to do it, you suddenly don't want to do it. They tend to value freedom. Now, one of the mindset things, to work on, if you feel that doing the opposite of what someone expects is actually not freedom either.

So true freedom is when you pay attention to what you really want, and you do it whether or not someone else expects it of you. So sometimes if it's just our gut instinct to resist and rebel against what someone expects, I think it's worth doing that little check of, oh, wait, I value freedom, but am I actually feeling free? Or am I just being directed by doing the opposite of what people expect? Because that's not actually freedom. So I think that can also be a helpful thing to check-in with too.

Now for me, I also value freedom in a slightly different way where I actually resist structure. I don't want my week, my day, my minute, my minute to feel like it is overpowered just outside my control. So I want that freedom and flexibility. But when I have some structure, I actually have more freedom because the absence of structure is chaos. If I don't have any kind of structure, it's not freedom either.

So for me, freedom means having some structure that I can play with and have flexibility, but not be complete wild wild west. Okay. It was a real mindset thing of what does freedom actually look like.

There's something really powerful about naming your friction. Not to pathologize it, but to understand it. That's what I love about CATS Momentum Framework. It doesn't assume you're the problem. It invites you to zoom in and ask what kind of stuck is this and what would make movement feel easier.

That kind of clarity is the power that helps us pull two key levers from the calmer framework. The business design, because when you can see why something isn't working, you can start designing systems that move with your brain, not against it. And the second lever is people and values because the way you work should honor who you are. Your energy, your fears, your rhythms. Progress doesn't have to come from pressure.

So if you're navigating friction right now, whether that is in your content, your systems, your visibility, your client delivery, here's one tiny action you can take to start moving towards calm. Just name your stuckness. Bring one stalled out task to mind and then ask, am I frozen because of mindset? Fear, doubt, or uncertainty. Is this a method gap?

Am I missing steps, or am I unclear about the next move? Or is it about mode? Do you have the wrong context, the wrong energy, or the wrong timing? Just naming it can shift something. It gives you direction, not just to act, but to design from.

And that's the real win, forward motion that fits you. If you want to know more about CAT or the Momentum formula, you can click the link in the show notes. If this conversation helped you rethink how you approach momentum in your business and you are ready to design a business that actually works with your brain, not against it, I have more where this came from. Each week, I send a newsletter focused on tiny, actionable ways to build a business that supports your energy, your goals, and your margins. Or if you're ready for hands on support, you can check out how we can work together at beyondmargins.com.

Either way, I'll be right here helping you solve for calm. One KPI, one bottleneck, one business at a time.