Angela Gargano (00:00)
Hey there and welcome back to What If It All Goes Right, the podcast where we redefine what is possible, push past the living beliefs and create a life that actually feels good to live. Today we're diving into part five of the What If It All Goes Right series and this is a big one. If you haven't listened to the other parts of the series, I highly suggest going back. It's really a repeatable framework that you can use to get to the best version of yourself. So we've done.
the deep mindset work already, right? We've recognized and felt the emotions. We visualize the possibilities of success. We've shaken it off that self doubt and stepped into our power. And now we need to create a game plan, right? Because before we can take action, before we can build momentum, before we can start seeing results, we need a roadmap. And I don't mean an overwhelming 50 step blueprint that makes you feel exhausted just looking at it. I mean something simple, something realistic and aligned.
with who you are and what you actually want. Because without clarity, we freeze.
Without clarity, we stay stuck in the I don't know what to do next mode. So today, we're not talking about doing the thing just yet. We're talking about getting everything out of our heads, onto paper, and making sense of it. And trust me, this process is a game changer. So let's get into it. So let me take you back in a little flashback. I was on my morning run today, me and my dog. We did one mile. And honestly, I didn't want to go.
It was really gloomy. It was kind of foggy. And one of those mornings where I woke up and I immediately started making excuses in my head, but I decided, you know, I promised myself I was going to do this. So I laced up and I went anyway, because I know that movement really does clear my mind. I always feel better in some way. And as I was running, this memory hit me out of nowhere. And it was a flashback to being a kid in New Jersey, sitting at home, doing my homework and hearing this loud kind of belting coming from outside.
And I remember looking out the window and there she was. It was my mom. She was power walking down our hilly street. We a really hilly street we were living on. Full CD player her pocket. You know, the non-skip ones. Giant headphones, screaming out loud the lyrics to whatever song she was listening to. I believe it was like some kind of like Disco's 80 music. I remember being so embarrassed. Like, mom, what are you doing? People can hear you. And here's what I realized now.
She didn't care. She was in her own world, in her own flow, and completely unbothered. And honestly, that's what we need more of, right? Because how many times do we not do something just because we think too much about what other people will think? How many times do we stay stuck because we're trying to do it perfectly instead of letting it just be a little bit messy? That's why today's episode is about getting everything out of your head so you can actually make sense of it.
Because if your brain is crowded with the to-dos, the worries, the scatter thoughts, and the big overwhelming goals, there's no way you can really build a game plan that will actually work. So thanks so much for letting me share that story about my mom. feel like it's so interesting that that random story, you know when sometimes you're just like, wait, I kind of forgot. about that moment. And I also have been really reflecting on lately why I'm struggling so hard in my business. I feel like I've been just struggle-busting on
understanding what to do with inside my business right now and why was it easier for me to move past, not easier, but still it hard to get these world-class titles like Miss Fitness America and Ninja Warrior. I think the reason behind that was because one, I had an actual date, like a deadline for that thing and I really did reverse engineer it to build it up. Whereas what's interesting is sometimes with my business, I'm like, everything's kind of open-ended.
But I think a piece of it being open-ended is the fact that there's a lot of stuff going on in my brain, right? So that's why this brain dump is a game changer. And Mel Robbins just did a podcast on brain dump. And I was so happy when she did this because I was like, pardon me for a while. was like, am I crazy that I do this every week? just do a full, there's so much stuff in my brain and I just dump it out on the piece of paper. So this is what we're going to start doing. We're going to start with a 15 minute brain dump. And obviously, you can pause this episode and do it. don't need to sit here in silence for 15 minutes.
Before you over roll your eyes and you think Angela, I've done this before and it doesn't work. I want you to trust me. I'm to do it a little bit differently this time. You're going to set your timer for 15 minutes. You're going to grab a notebook or an open blank document on your phone and you're going to write down every single thing that's on your mind. And I mean everything. I mean your goal, your random task that you need to do, everything you should be doing, every worry, every random thing you've been putting off. No filter, no organization, no judgment.
I just want you to write because your brain isn't meant to hold on to all this information. It's meant to process it. It's kind of like when you're on your computer and every single tab is open. I was thinking the other day, like, why is my energy so drained? Why am I feeling so drained like I'm getting nowhere? It's because there's so many tabs open and I can't actually like focus on any of these tabs. They're just open and they're just in my brain. And when we get it all out, we can actually start to see patterns. What's important? What's urgent?
What's just noise? What do we actually not actually need to do? Or can we like delegate that and get somebody else? So feel free to pause this, put some music on and do a brain dump. Number two, find the things that matter. It's okay. Now that you've had that brain dump, it's all on the piece of paper, right? The next step is going through what you wrote and highlighting anything that actually has to do with you. You might be like, what? Let me explain. Not chores, not obligations.
not things other people need from you, but you. I mean, your workouts, your nutrition, your energy, your mental clarity, your confidence, your goals. Because if you don't prioritize these things first, everything else falls apart. And I know you might think that's counterintuitive. You might be like, well, Angela, like, no, I need to get my tasks done if I don't get my notes. If you don't prioritize you first, everything else is going to fall apart.
We so often wanna go to the main to-do list, but are you actually doing stuff for you? Because that's gonna help you give you energy. That's gonna help you light you up. It's gonna help you show up for those other tasks that are really annoying. How annoying is it to do taxes? How annoying is it to do the adulting task? But if you take care of you first and you prioritize that first and then you do those tasks, it's gonna be much easier to do them. Because you're like, well, I already did something for me. And now I gotta do some of this adulting stuff. It's kind of annoying. I always say this,
You can't build a strong life on a shaky foundation. We say this in pole revolution and I'm saying this right now even with, you know, when I teach, leaders with what if it all goes right. The reason why it all goes right is so powerful is because it's going to help you build that strong mental foundation. It's going to help you build that strong foundation for yourself so that you can take on the weight of all these things and challenges and everything that's coming your way.
So you have to build a strong foundation and it starts with you. You are the foundation, you are the base. So when you're doing that brain dump.
Let's focus on you first. So pick one thing from your list that is for you. And it could be as simple as drinking water first thing in the morning, moving your body for five minutes, setting a timer for deep work without but starting with you. Okay? And again, do not make it over complicated, especially if it's like movement or workouts. If you're not doing like five workouts a week right now and you're gonna be like, I'm gonna do five workouts at 5 a.m. every day, maybe not do that.
You say, I'm going to do three workouts. I'm going to pick a realistic time and I'm going to see how that goes this week. I'm still prioritizing yourself and we can slowly do it. So this becomes kind of second nature. You always become first. You should always be first. It's like that saying, like you've got to put the mask on yourself first on the airplane before you put it on somebody else. Cause you're not going to be able to help them if you're not taking care of you.
The third step is reverse engineering your goal. Okay, let's talk about the actual game plan now, like actually putting down the game plan. So most people set a big goal and they immediately get overwhelmed. It's so overwhelming to think of things and I do this all the time because I want things yesterday. Anyone else on here? Like I want things yesterday. So I just think about the big goal and I'm like, I wanna go get that big goal right now. I'm like, okay, cool. My goal is to pay off every kind of debt that I have tomorrow. And it's like, tomorrow.
That's overwhelming, okay, but how can we break it out down instead, right? So instead of thinking about the end results, I want you to work backwards. So let's say your goal is, and again, I'm just gonna use the pull-up, because it's just easy to think about. I wanna get my first pull-up. Instead of focusing on the pull-up bar itself, I want you to break it down. What are the smallest, simplest steps that will get you there? So for pull-up revolution, we phase process. So I have the women attempt their pull-up.
They take look at where they're at right now. They set their baseline. They're like, cool, this is my base is where I'm at now. And if they're on phase one, which is just hanging on the bar phase two, it's like, I just want to get like a little bend in my elbow, not the chin all the way up. So breaking down your goal into those little pieces and really setting those goals. And then you could like check off those goals as you go. And eventually you actually make it to your goal faster because you broke it up into those little pieces. So reverse engineered the little pieces that you have to do if it's paying off debt.
Maybe it's, okay, cool, maybe you've got 20K credit card debt. You're not gonna be like, I'm gonna pay 20K all at once. You're gonna be like, okay, cool, I'm gonna look at what exactly I can do every single month to break this down. Cool, that's gonna take this long, awesome. Any leftover, I'll put into it. Again, breaking it down, making it much more manageable so that you're not sitting there every day being like, I'm failing, right? Because if you have this, if you're only thinking about the end goal every single day, you're sitting there beating yourself up mentally being like, I'm failing, failing, failing. But are you failing?
So seeing this makes it feel more possible. Now take your goal, whatever it is, and break it up into those five micro steps, maybe even more, and this is gonna be your game plan. And I had to do this for American Ninja Warrior, right? I hit the challenge of tearing my ACL, And then had to get out of my mental state, Then I set my deadline, I'm like, okay, I wanna come back in 11 months. Okay, call me a reverse engineer, what I really, like what goals I really need to hit?
in order to come back from that? And also, how can I come back from that stronger and do it smarter, which is exactly what we're doing here right now, right? Because the right method is about using those challenges that we can become an even better version of ourselves, breaking it down in a little different way than before, right? Because typically, we always think about the big, dramatic things. But breaking up into these little pieces, creating that strong foundation, is going to allow you to, again, do this and make it repeatable, for all other areas of your life.
Make it repeatable for fitness. Make it repeatable for when the challenge comes up and a budget's getting cut and you're trying to figure out all this stuff. You're be able to use this system every single time, which is super, super powerful.
And number four, build your success environment. So your environment makes or breaks your success. So if you're trying to create a game plan, but you're surrounded by distractions, you're surrounded by negative self-talk from other people, maybe even yourself, maybe you don't have any accountability at all, it's gonna really feel impossible. So take a second to think about this. Where do you feel the most focused? Who in your life supports you and your goals? And what habits can set you up for success to set yourself up for when? To win.
So again, distractions. Maybe it's like, I know sometimes I can sit here at this desk right now. I've got like, I got a standing desk even though I'm never gonna stand. I don't like standing and working. But I realize that sometimes I get super distracted working at home. So I have to go to a cafe. Okay. I realize sometimes I have negative self-talk, which is like, okay, cool. I gotta go outside. Luckily I have amazing people around me. No one's giving me some negative self-talks. Sometimes I get that from like,
my mom, like she's not doing it on purpose. It's more of her just like trying to protect me from So just being around those people with that kind of like delusional confidence in you, which is really great, calling you that rock star saying, you got this. You're going to take over the world. Man, that's going to feel good. And you're to start to really like be able to take that in. And accountability, maybe finding somebody who's either in a similar place as you or somebody who's just a friend who you can just talk to to help hold you accountable. I try to surround myself with awesome business.
leaders. luckily, there are just amazing women here in Austin who I can hang out with who are amazing business leaders with that. And that really helps to, you know, hold me accountable to what I said I was going to do. And they even tell me when I'm not doing the things I'm supposed to do. Like I had one friend one day, I'd be like, you say you want this, but you're not doing that. And it was like exactly what I needed. So make sure you're surrounding yourself by with that environment that's going to really help support you on this journey. When I was coming back from Ninja Warrior,
I surrounded myself with the best of the best in Enjoyer. I was waking up like super early in the morning with who were doing incredible things. And I just surrounded myself with that energy and that vibe. And that's another reason why I was able to push through and make coming back a reality. So again, it's so cool that you could use the same process for so many different areas of your life.
It truly is the right mindset that's gonna get you there. So here's what we are doing. So you're gonna brain dump everything. You're gonna identify what actually matters and make sure you have that foundation, that personal goals for yourself. You're gonna reverse engineer your goals into those little micro steps. And you're gonna start setting up an environment that supports you. And now you have a game plan. And that's huge because when you have clarity,
you can move forward with confidence. Okay. So your challenge today, the 15 minute brain dump, the pick one thing that's just for things for you, focusing on the you stuff, highlighting all that, breaking down your big goals into five macro steps. And keep asking yourself as you're going through, as you're walking through these goals you have or challenge that you're going through that you're trying to break up different micro steps for, ask yourself, what if it actually goes right?
What if this is exactly what I needed? What if it's already going right? So if this episode resonated with you, I want you to share it. Tag me at Angela underscore Gargano and tell me what is in your game plan. yes, we have another part after this. We're gonna continue with this series. I feel like this is gonna be such a game changer. Thank you so much for sharing all your experience with going through this. And yeah, I'm excited to take you through the next piece of the series. If you have someone, if you're a corporate event,
planner or whatever it might be and you want me to come in to speak to your community and to help really teach you this amazing method, a method that is really tangible and that you could actually do and it's digestible and it's fun and come in with storytelling and all these different things. I would love to come in to speak at your next event. You can head over to my speaking page for me to speak. See you later.
