Kate (00:02.136)
Hey, welcome in to Kate McCauley Unplugged. Thank you for deciding to hang out with me today. Today, I went back into the archives through all of the different notes of the people I have gotten to love. I looked at notes from my one -to -one clients from our first calls. These included people who are in business, who are looking to become more successful, less stressed, happier, healthier.
These are calls from parents who initially reached out to me for their teenager who I then got to work with as a one -to -one client. These are one -to -one calls who I actually, most cases, these are one -to -one coaching on demand calls that I usually met the person.
These were initial calls with people where I went into workshops or created a program for their organization. The first call where I talk with them and I say, why did you set up this call today? What is going on with you? How do you think you and I can work together so that you, your group, your organization can show up to be better? So that you, why did you set up the call today?
Where are you now and where do you want to go? It was interesting for me to find out what these clients were saying. In some cases, it was event planners. In many cases, it was the person that I ended up working with as either the athletic coach, the one -to -one client, maybe it was the principal or the teacher, the director of the program for the nonprofit, whatever.
Kate (01:49.824)
In many cases, the person who was on that initial call was somehow involved in the program that I was facilitating. And when I went back and looked at these things, it was very interesting. Although they were unique in many ways because each person has their own unique journey, life would be boring if we were all the same. There was a theme that was running through many
these conversations and I furiously take notes to make sure I understand each client because as I said, we're all uniquely on our own journey. So I want to share with you some of those things. And then I started to consider what are some secrets that I can share with you in this season two that have been helpful for my clients, for the people who are successful, the ones who are in my workshops and take the tools and go out and walk.
the walk. They don't just sit there and say, this is great. We're going to do this and feel all inspired in the moment. But they actually take action. They do it. They do the thing. So I want to share those with you. And I came up with 10 different things. I'm going to tell you that within the 10, there might be an ABC within that. So there's probably really more than 10 things. I also do want to say to you,
Do not try to do all of these things today. One of the things you're going to notice is setting goals and we get to those numbers and I say start small. Start with one thing. So please remember that as we get to the list of 10 things, the secrets that I'm sharing with you today, you will not be successful if you try to do all of these things. So here's what my clients were initially saying. Connect it with your own personal journey. Some of them are
Here's some of the things that maybe you can relate to. Think about where you are now and where you want to go if any of this resonates with you. I can't. Maybe. I don't really have time. I avoid trying new things because I fear embarrassing myself. I constantly feel pressure to live up to unrealistic standards set by others. I struggle to trust my instincts during games,
Kate (04:13.91)
or work situations. I wish I could stop comparing my body to others. I feel invisible and overlooked by my coaches and teammates. I'm afraid of being judged for not fitting into that ideal mom stereotype. I often feel overwhelmed by the intensity of everything.
I beat myself up mentally after every loss or mistake. I'm hesitant to speak up about any issue or concern because I don't want to look weak. I find it difficult to balance it all. With all of the responsibilities and self -care, it's overwhelming. I've been debating all week and I still have no clue what I'm going to do. I'll admit it, I had an attitude. I'm probably part of the problem.
I know I shouldn't be defensive about this, but I am. I'm livid. I never usually call and complain. I'm tired of all of this. I also know I probably won't do anything about it. I'm not one to complain, but I might need to. I think it makes people weirdly upset when you're happy and calm. They want you to be mad. I worry too much. I wish I was better at doing this.
because I want to do it with my own kids, not just myself. Now, you need to insert maybe some areas of your life. You may have heard in there, there were some sports things thrown in, that's for my athletes that I worked with. There's some moms. Insert your work life, your personal life, your goals, and see if you connect with any of those things. If you need to, pause this and go back, listen again to that list.
Do you connect with any of that when you're thinking about maybe your top two goals that you would like to do in your life? And it can be anything, personal, professionally, athletically, whatever it is, where you are now and where you want to go. Now I want you to listen to these 10 things that I really do think that my most successful and happiest clients are doing on a regular basis. Are they doing all 10 of these things perfectly every single day? No.
Kate (06:34.926)
If you've been around for any period of time, you listen to the podcast, you're following on social media, you've been with me in person workshop. If this is not your first time hanging out with me, you know, I do not ride a unicorn anywhere. It is not sunshine and rainbows all of the time. So these things are not perfect for my clients every day. So please again, remember it is not all 10 and you are not going to turn this podcast off and try to do all 10. Pick one.
pick one of these 10 things. The first one, and I really do think that if you're going to pick one, go with this one. It is why I put it at number one. Practice gratitude. All of my clients who are the most successful, and I don't care if they're an athlete, a business woman, somebody who is starting a fitness journey, a new mom, every single one of those successful clients has leaned into
some sort of practice with gratitude. They have a regular way to express being thankful for what they have and they focus on the positive in their life. A simple way for you to do this is to keep a gratitude journal. Write down three things that you are grateful for every day and it can be small things like a sunny day or a kind gesture. It can be a sip of coffee or it can go a little bit deeper.
Put it next to something that you see every morning. If you turn your phone alarm off, have that gratitude journal and it can be a cheap little notebook that you got at the dollar store with a pen ready to go right next to your phone if you're turning that alarm off. Next to the coffee, whatever you do every day, put that journal there so you see it. Stack a habit, make it easy for yourself. I told you sometimes some of these number one, two, three to 10.
are going to have a little bit more tips than just one in there. So you got a couple bonus tips there. Number two is they set goals. You cannot just say, I want to do the thing and think it is magically going to happen. Whatever it is you were thinking in the beginning, this is where I am and this is where I want to go. You need to have a goal set and written out. It needs to be in the SMART goal technique. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Kate (08:59.668)
Relevant and a timeframe. You need to be very specific so you know what you're doing. It has to be measurable. So if you're doing something three times a week, you know if you did it or not. Attainable. Whatever this goal is, if you've never climbed a mountain, you're not going to climb Everest tomorrow. I'm sorry, but you're not. You can eventually, but you have to make it attainable. Set it smaller and then you can make a new goal. Relevant means why do you want to do
Stop doing things that you are doing because somebody else is telling you, even if they're not verbally saying, you better go do this. society, people in general around you, you have the shoulds and the supposed tos floating through your brains. Stop doing that. It needs to be relevant. Why do you want to do it? Because when you are listening to that list of things that I was saying and you don't connect with one of those things, that's not relevant for you. So that would not
a goal for you to do. And the last one, the T for your SMART goal is a timeframe. You need to have a timeframe. Don't just put this goal out there and think, okay, hopefully this will happen at some point. Are you working on this in the next week, a month, six months from now? You need to have a timeframe. So get smart with your goals and you need a goal. Every single one of my clients who are successful have goals. And guess what? You can change them. You don't have to keep it the same goal the whole time.
When you smash those goals, should celebrate yourself. Along the way, you're going to have things that happen where you decide, I need to change this goal. That's OK. Allow that to happen. All right. Number three, stay positive. This is where we go back to that unicorn. We're not going to ride unicorns every day. Some days are going to be just terrible. Things are going to happen. There's going to be tragedy in your life. You're going to have a bad day where spill the coffee.
You're going to lose the game. Things are going to happen, but you need to maintain that optimistic outlook on life, even in those challenging situations, and avoid dwelling on the negativity. Have you ever been around someone who is just negative all the time? It's exhausting to even stand next to that person and listen to them talk. You need to practice reframing those negative thoughts into more constructive ones.
Kate (11:24.682)
Every single one of my clients who are successful learn how to do this. So you have to notice those thoughts and then challenge yourself to find that silver lining in those situations. Number four is they take initiative. They are actually making a conscious effort to take action. It's with small tasks. They've maybe been putting things off initially when they come to me and they start, what have I been putting off?
And what is one thing I can start with today? Because taking action builds momentum and it will boost your confidence when you can check those things off the list and then you can go tackle the bigger challenges. So if that's your one thing you're doing today, start small and start taking things off the list. You're going to feel great about it. Keep the momentum going and then you will see that you're doing bigger and better challenges along the
Number five, some people fight me on this one, but I am telling you the most successful and happiest people, they move their body. They exercise on a regular basis. Now, before you push stop and end this podcast, this does not mean you have to do what everybody else is doing. We talked about that before, the shoulds and the supposed tos. If you don't like the gym,
If you don't want to walk on a treadmill, you don't want to do a certain type of exercise, don't do that. I want you to move in some capacity. Go take a walk. If you can't think of something that you like to do, take a
Kate (13:11.49)
Cough
Kate (13:15.118)
Every single one of my clients who is successful and the happiest ones prioritize their physical health and their wellbeing through regular exercise. They schedule it into their life. As a matter of fact, the clients who are local to me, I highly recommend that when we work one to one that we go out and do what I call a walk and talk. So if we are close enough within 15 minutes or so we meet.
and we walk and talk when we are going through our coaching session. And if they are not close enough to me, I do have some international clients who are in different countries. I do have some clients who are in different countries, different states. So obviously I'm from outside of Philly. I'm not going to be able to go to Florida, for example. However, she can definitely get on her phone and go for a walk or I have one client who hops on her treadmill.
She puts her phone on, her earbuds in, and we chat while she walks on the treadmill. So she's getting her exercise in and we're talking. If you don't work with me as a coaching client, that's not the only way to get exercise, right? Go take a walk. Go sign up for something new, some sort of movement. There are so many things right there, probably on the phone, where you're listening to this podcast, where you could look up some sort of exercise activity and follow the video.
Do something to put exercise into your life and try new things. You might discover something that you've never tried before that you actually really like to do. Number six, building relationships. And I know as you get older, this is harder to do, especially if you are in a work environment or work from home. This can get more difficult. Even when you're one of my athletes or at the high school or college level, this gets harder when you're with the same group of people all the time.
Trying to create new friendships and build relationships. I get it. It gets difficult. Nobody's setting up play dates for you like when you were little. By the way, I always thought they were strange. I never set up play dates for my kids. Maybe I was a bad mom in some eyes. I just thought they were strange. I let it happen organically in many ways. Maybe people didn't like that, but I always thought it was odd. It just happened when we were at the park or at games, sports, sidelines. Let's go play after the game.
Kate (15:39.982)
Anyway, build relationships. When you invest your time and effort into building a relationship and you don't have to go out and get best friend charms with somebody right away, but just start to talk with people. And it could be maybe somebody in your neighborhood wants to take a walk, go back to number five, find a walking friend, right? Maybe it's someone at work who you don't normally talk to. Maybe they wanna walk during your lunch break. Eat your lunch and then take a 10 minute
Maybe it's somebody within your family that you want to nurture that relationship a little bit more, a colleague, networking with someone that who knows maybe you see at different events. The more people get to know you and trust you, the more they believe in you, trust your talents, more opportunities you'll see for all kinds of different things in your life, not just professional, but just having fun and enjoying the journey. So surround yourself with new and different people, invest in these things.
You know, I heard, I think it was somewhere, I heard someone recently talking about candlelight.
Remember that you are the average of the five people you are with most often.
So choose widely. Remember that you are the average of the people you surround yourself with. Remember that you are the average of the five people that you are with most often. So build the relationships that are going to build you up. Take some time to maybe consider who are you with all of the time. My most successful and happiest people focus on building those relationships that bring
Kate (17:25.134)
positivity and happiness. can't get rid of all the negative people. get it. But invest time and effort into those ones that make you happy. It will bring you more happiness. Number seven, my happiest and most successful clients always figure out a way to manage their stress. And this is different for each one of them, but they have stress management techniques. Sometimes it's meditation and that can be as quickly as
A five minute session, some like to do it longer. It can be a hobby, some way where they can manage stress, deep breathing, some sort of activity when stress happens, they have a plan. They're not just figuring it out on the fly. So you need to make sure that you have this in your back pocket, ready to go. If you need one,
Let's steal box breathing. It is very simple. Steal this from one of my most successful clients. Picture a box in your brain. We'll go with a square, starting on the left side, inhaling up, exhale at the top of the box, inhale on this side down, exhale on the bottom of the box. So you're going around the four sides of the box, inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling, box breathing.
Pull out that box breathing to manage your stress. You need to have a plan if you want to be successful and happy. Number eight, they're always learning. The most successful, happiest people, my clients and really I think people in general, they love to learn and they seek opportunities to learn new things. And this doesn't mean that what you know now isn't good enough. They just enjoy this. are reading.
always on that growth mindset journey. They don't think that they are the smartest person in the room. And quite honestly, some of my clients really are probably the most informed in their field where they may be the strongest athlete, you know, but they're not necessarily the one that even sees themselves as that. And I like that quality in them. But they are always willing
Kate (19:43.978)
learn something new or learn from someone else by reading or skill development, some sort of either formal or informal education and that growth mindset willingness to try something new and grow and learn from it. So be open to that learning something new. Number nine, they are willing to adapt and be flexible.
So I would encourage you here to embrace change as opportunity for growth. We're talking about that growth mindset again. Really growth mindset is woven through all of the journey of my clients, but you need to focus here on this flexibility and adaptability in that you will focus on what you can control and what you cannot control. So my strongest clients here are willing to make a list of things that is in their control.
and what we call the uncontrollables. And then you have to let go of the uncontrollables. You can't get rid of them, but the things you can control, that's what you focus on and you make plans accordingly. So if this is in a sports journey, your work journey, your personal goals, you need to look at the controllables and figure out what can I do to improve in this list of things that I have control over, right? And when I'm talking about control,
You have control over your own effort. You have control on time. How much time you give to something, what time you show up, early, late, those things. You have control on the things you're saying to yourself, what you're saying to other people. Those are things that you have control over. You don't have control over of things you don't have control of are other people's behaviors, the weather, something getting canceled. You don't have control over.
a lot of things, but there are many things you do have control over. So when you're looking at where you are, where you want to go, what do you have control of in this situation and start working on those things and be flexible, be willing to be flexible. That is huge. If you want to be successful and number 10, I wish I had a different term from this. Number 10 is self -care. I really want to create a different term for self -care because I think people don't like it. I might
Kate (22:04.748)
done some sort of Instagram post about this a long time ago. And I don't know what the term is, but you really just need to focus on
