April 16, 2025 • 18 mins
In this episode of Measure Twice, Cut Once, I explore the process of learning new skills and capabilities, both in quilting and in business. I share personal stories about taking on challenging projects—from creating a quilt from vintage blocks to building an online course business—and break down the four stages of growth: courage, commitment, capability, and confidence. This episode offers practical insights for anyone looking to expand their creative skills or transform their passion into a profession.
Note: Some links below are affiliate links, which means that if you use them to purchase the product, I'll earn a small commission at no extra charge to you!
Key Points
- My experience with the "Ava" quilt challenge and how it prepared me for bigger challenges
- The Four C's Formula by Dan Sullivan: Courage, Commitment, Capability, and Confidence
- The importance of giving yourself permission to be a beginner and take time to learn
- Why celebrating small gains and progress is essential for growth
Resources Mentioned
- The Four C's Formula by Dan Sullivan: Link to booklet
- The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Susan's Free Motion Quilting Masterclass, an on-demand comprehensive course for mastering freehand quilting skills and design decisions. Learn more at stitchedbysusaon.com/learn.
Questions for Reflection
- What vision are you holding that's bigger than your current skills?
- What would taking the first step of courage into something new look like for you today?
- How can you better celebrate your small gains and progress?
Want to try free motion quilting but don't know where to start? Here's 3 simple steps to get going.
------------------------
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Resources:
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FREEHAND QUILTING MASTERCLASS, an on-demand comprehensive course
ALL-OVER FEATHER, sign-up for a FREE quilting class
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Pinterest - photo galleries and tutorials
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Susan (00:04):
Welcome to season five of Measure Twice.
Cut Once.
This whole season is anexploration into behind the
scenes of not just quilting, butbuilding a creative business
that truly lights you up.
As someone who's navigated theexciting and sometimes bumpy
world of turning a passion intoa profession, I'm excited to
pull back the curtain and sharemy own experiences.
(00:26):
So some episodes will be just medelving into my own personal
journey.
While others will feature guestswho are also navigating the
world of creativeentrepreneurship.
We'll explore the nitty grittyof building a creative business,
the lessons learned and theunexpected challenges that come
with transforming your craftinto a thriving enterprise.
And don't worry, I'm not leavingstorytelling behind.
(00:49):
Instead, I'll be weaving theminto the conversations about
what it takes to grow a businesswhile staying true to your
creative spirit.
So whether you're dreaming ofstarting your own business, or
you just love hearing aboutcreative entrepreneurship, this
season is for you.
(01:11):
This episode is sponsored by myfree motion quilting
masterclass.
This online on-demand course isa comprehensive training for
mastering freehand quiltingskills and navigating design
decisions.
It not only teaches over 25specific quilt designs
demonstrated both at the longarm and at a domestic sewing
(01:31):
machine.
But also it teaches the practicemethods that advance your skill
level and thought processes thatenable you to create your own
original designs withconfidence.
For more information, I provideda link in the show notes, or you
can head to my website stitchedby susan.com.
And from there, click on thelearn tab.
(01:51):
Registration for a group ofquilters opens twice per year.
But you're welcome to join thewait list at any time, and
you'll be the first to know whenthe doors open.
So once again, the link is inthe show notes or the learn tab
on my website.
I've been looking back a little,reflecting a little lately and
(02:13):
thinking back over.
Learning new things, and I'mthinking about this from several
angles.
One of them is thinking I'm 55and it's really good for me to
be learning new things and Ineed to keep on challenging
myself to learn new things.
And another is looking back atsome of the fairly large new
(02:33):
things that I've done in thelast four or five years and
thinking.
How did I do that process?
How can I replicate that processagain and again?
So here are my thoughts onlearning new stuff.
I bet you've had a moment as Ihave where you've been
enthusiastic about something andyou decided, I'm gonna go for
(02:54):
it.
When you kind of lookuncertainty or maybe self-doubt
or maybe lack of know-how in theface and say, but I'm gonna move
forward anyway, that's what Icall in biblical terms, taking
the land.
To me, that's claiming territorythat feels and looks and seems
at this moment beyond my reach,but I decide.
(03:16):
I'm gonna take that land.
few years ago, I've spoken toyou before about, our local
machine quilting guild having anannual challenge that we call a
treasure challenge.
And many times it has involvedeach, contestant, each
challenger receiving anunfinished vintage quilt top.
But this particular year, eachof us received.
(03:36):
A little box of vintage quiltblocks that had never been
finished into a quilt.
And here's the key thing though,you don't get to know what your
blocks are till after you'vecommitted.
So in other words, you join thechallenge, you sign your name
up, and then you're given thisbox in a blind draw, and then
you find out what your actualchallenge is, which is kind of
(03:57):
fun.
Anyway, the way that this worksis.
Each of us were to take thoseblocks, we could add to them any
fabrics that we wanted.
We needed to create an originalquilt from them, and of course,
do the machine quilting.
This is after all a machinequilting guild.
So that's kind of what it'sabout.
And then.
Create a storyboard that hassome photographs and some, um,
(04:21):
pictures and writeups about theprocess, right?
So shows the transformation andbring finished quilt and
storyboard and enter it in ourlocal quilt show.
So it's, it's key.
there's this deadline thatpushes you to get finished and
this concrete, okay, here's whatI have to work with.
Here's where I am today.
(04:42):
And here's where I wanna be innine months.
That's how much time, um, I hadto put into this.
So I'm a little bit sentimentalabout vintage sewing in general.
I always love to imagine theperson, usually a woman who had
first pieced these quilts thatI'm handling.
You know, they've been made withlittle scraps left over from
aprons or maybe the good partsthat are left of a worn out
(05:05):
apron and little boy shorts andlittle girls' play dresses.
And all of that means so much tome.
So this isn't just a challenge,but it's also a responsibility
to honor her work.
So it felt weighty when I firstbegan and I spread out these
blocks, I had 26 of them.
They were quite small, and I'msitting crosslegged on my sewing
(05:26):
room floor, arranging andrearranging these blocks, and it
feels weighty.
But I persisted in that moment.
Lay them out this way, lay themout that way.
Try this, try that.
And gradually an idea emerged.
I could visualize these blocksarranged in a kind of diagonal
sweep on a gorgeous, I picturedan iris colored background.
(05:50):
There were snippets of that, midpurple, that gorgeous iris color
throughout these blocks.
And they caught my eye and Ithought, oh, that would be
gorgeous, with a sweep of theblocks across that.
And I could also visualizediagonal quilting too.
And I thought, oh, all thatnegative space.
It could be intricate andgorgeous.
(06:11):
But I could also see a real gapbetween this wonderful picture
that I was envisioning and myquilting skills at that moment.
So what to do?
The one thing I did have on myside was time.
I had nine months to level upand I had a deadline of the
quilt show date.
So that concrete target reallynudged me to get serious about
(06:34):
bridging the skills gap.
I've told a lot of this story inother episodes, so I won't go
into it at length here, butsummed up.
I finished that quilt.
I named her Ava, and she hung inthe quilt show and even won a
ribbon.
That whole experience changedme.
It was such a clear progressionfrom I don't know what the heck
(06:55):
I'm doing to, I did it, and myfaith in my ability to do that
again grew.
Let me give you another example.
Five years ago.
I knew nothing and I meannothing about producing a
digital on demand course.
I didn't know what an opt-in wasor a CRM or a lead magnet, and
(07:16):
you might not know what thosethings are either, and that's
okay.
That's not really what thestory's about.
But what I did know was that Iwas passionate about quilting
stuff entirely freehand.
We call this free motionquilting, and I was pretty sure
I could teach others to do itand love it too.
But how I was just starting toexplore the idea of perhaps
(07:37):
traveling and teaching maybe atquilt shows, maybe in stores and
quilt shops when bam, spring2020 and the pandemic arrived,
travel was no longer an option.
And at the same time, myhusband's job disappeared in
about a minute.
A little like with the AVAQuilt, I could see a possibility
recording the classes so they'dbe available to all quilters,
(08:00):
even at home in the pandemic,and maybe I could even make a
living at it.
But also like Ava, there was ahuge gap between where I stood
and having a profitable onlinebusiness.
So there I was with a big idea.
But I could see the things Ineeded to do.
One, write the course.
(08:21):
Two, film it at a long arm.
No easy task, right?
Three, edit it.
That's a whole nother skill set,which happily my husband, Mr.
Producer, took on.
Four.
Find a platform on which to hostit and have students be able to
access it and five, market it.
So quilters knew it, and Iexisted and saw its value.
(08:44):
That's a lot of new stuff that Ididn't know and what I didn't
know at the time was that wholeexperience with Ava was the
first small exercise for me inand think capital letters here,
how to learn new capabilities.
And that success set me up forthis new and much larger
(09:04):
challenge.
Not surprisingly, I'm not thefirst person to come to some of
these realizations about theprocess of learning new things.
Business Coach Dan Sullivanwrote a booklet called The Four
Cs Formula.
Which I highly recommend, andI've dropped a link in the show
notes for you in case you'd likea copy for yourself.
And he talks about the fourstages of growth, which I had
(09:26):
felt, but Dan puts into words sovery well.
Those four stages are.
Courage, commitment, capability,and confidence.
When I look back at my Ava quiltjourney, I can see this cycle so
clearly.
First came the courage, thedecision to say yes and enter my
name in the challenge, despitefeeling completely unqualified.
(09:50):
Courage isn't the absence ofcourse, of the unknown.
It's taking action.
Even though next was thecommitment showing up at my
sewing machine or sittingcross-legged on my studio floor.
Even when I was making mistakes,even when I felt discouraged,
even when I felt overwhelmedwith the quilting, I just kept
going because commitment meanscontinuing even when it gets
(10:13):
hard.
Through that commitment, throughthe repetition, through the
pushing, through the boundaries.
That produced increasedcapability, and I actually
learned those skills that Ineeded.
My hands got steadier at thelong arm quilting machine.
My eye for design grew.
As I pursued that, my knowledgegot deeper.
(10:35):
And finally, after completingthe project, I found that I had
gained real confidence.
Not the fake it till you make itkind, but the earned kind that
comes from actual achievement.
And that confidence of knowingthat I had pressed through,
learned the things I wanted tolearn, felt so good that
(10:55):
produced confidence.
And the beautiful thing aboutthis cycle is that it begins to
feed itself.
The confidence from onechallenge gives you the courage
to take on the next one.
And the cycle starts again.
Much like the confidence fromAva set me up for the much
greater challenge ofestablishing a business with
online courses.
May I suggest that for you too?
(11:17):
Knowing these four steps canreally keep you steady through
the process of learning.
You're sewers and quilters,right?
You know that feeling of perhapsa new and unfamiliar machine, it
feels overwhelming.
Like where is that thing in themenu?
Why is the thread shredding?
Why can't I get good tension?
But think through those foursteps.
You've already demonstrated thecourage to start now you need a
(11:39):
little commitment to stay withit, keep using it, keep adding
to your knowledge, and graduallyyou find yourself not feeling so
overwhelmed.
Your capability is growing asyou persist in learning those
menus, getting the threadingpath correct, knowing how to get
great bobbin tension, et cetera.
And this becomes confidence.
(12:02):
There's something else that I'vefound to be pretty essential.
In the process of learning a newthing, let's call them
permission slips, not the kindyour parents sign for your field
trips, but really the ones thatyou need to write for yourself
first.
You need to give yourself somepermission for time.
Those nine months that I hadwith Ava were crucial.
(12:22):
Learning does take time.
Sometimes it takes sleeping onit.
Sometimes it takes conversationswith a friend or looking up new
ideas on Pinterest, but it doestake time.
It's not immediate.
We often, it feels like we livein an overnight success culture,
but real skill development doeshappen more slowly.
It's layer by layer built uponwhat came before.
(12:45):
When was the last time you gaveyourself permission to be a
beginner?
To take the full time, needed tolearn something new, a new
language, a new craft.
A new sport, whatever it may be.
It can be difficult as adults togive ourselves permission to be
a beginner, to feel like abeginner, to perhaps produce the
results.
(13:05):
Of a beginner, but that's okay.
That's all part of the learningprocess.
And one last thing I want toleave with you, and believe me,
I'm preaching to myself heretoo, but that is to celebrate
the gains.
Not only the wins, not only thebig goals accomplished, but
literally the gains, the steps,the progress that we make.
(13:30):
I find myself.
And I think many self-startersare like this, but I find
myself, as soon as I'm finishingone thing, immediately my head
has gone into the next thingthat I need to be doing.
And what happens is I start tolive in that feeling of there's
more to do.
I've got to do the next thing.
I've got to move on.
(13:50):
I'm never finished.
Right?
And I have to take myself inhand and say.
Take a minute to celebrate, toacknowledge to pat myself on the
back, to write down, to tell afriend about the thing that I
have done, that I haveaccomplished, that I have
learned the barrier that I didbreak through today, the video
(14:11):
editing that I did figure out,whatever the case may be.
I think for the growth of ourconfidence, it's essential that
we take a moment to acknowledgethe progress that we've made.
The difference betweenmeasuring, looking forward at
where you want to be, that endresult, or looking back over
(14:32):
your shoulder at what you'veaccomplished today, this week,
this month, this year isremarkable.
If you've never read the book,the Gap and the Gain, also by
Dan Sullivan and Dr.
Benjamin Hardy, um, I stronglyrecommend, strongly recommend
that book.
It is a life changer just in howyou view.
(14:52):
Your progress and learning newthings is all about progress and
it's challenging progress, butit's so, so good and the rewards
are so great.
So this really does all tie backagain to the capability and the
confidence pieces that we talkedabout in Dan Sullivan's book
about the four C's, and it's sointeresting.
(15:13):
I love that he calls it the fourC's formula.
Because the word formula says tome, if you do this and add that,
followed by this, you'll getthis result.
Right?
And I think that's true.
If you start with the courage,you make the commitment and stay
committed, you grow gradually,the capabilities.
(15:36):
The confidence comes from that.
Those things are always true.
They always happen, and thatreally does hold us steady in
the difficult parts of learningnew things.
So I'm curious, what's your nextchallenge?
What vision are you holdingthat's bigger than your current
skills?
(15:57):
Maybe in your craft studio,you're thinking of, um, fully
using that fancy embroiderymachine that's under a dust
cover or indeed, the long armthat currently is kind of a
clothing rack, or maybe you'rethinking about venturing into
free motion quilting on yourdomestic machine.
These are all big learningcurves, but very doable and so
(16:18):
rewarding.
Maybe you are a little like meand you're thinking about
creating a digital course orstarting a podcast like this
one.
Maybe you're thinking aboutpublishing patterns or going out
and teaching in-personworkshops.
These may be well outside ofyour current skillset, but how
can you set about.
(16:40):
Taking that first step ofcourage into the new thing, what
would that first step look liketoday?
Thanks so much for joining metoday.
If this episode resonated, I'dlove if you would leave a review
on any app that you're listeningon.
Share this with a friend thatyou think needs to hear it.
I'd love to hear too about yournew adventure.
If you share on social media,tag me at Stitched by Susan.
(17:03):
I'd love to rejoice with you.
Well my friend, until next time,may your sorrows be patched and
your joys be quilted.
Welcome to season five of Measure Twice.
Cut Once.
This whole season is anexploration into behind the
scenes of not just quilting, butbuilding a creative business
that truly lights you up.
As someone who's navigated theexciting and sometimes bumpy
world of turning a passion intoa profession, I'm excited to
pull back the curtain and sharemy own experiences.
(00:26):
So some episodes will be just medelving into my own personal
journey.
While others will feature guestswho are also navigating the
world of creativeentrepreneurship.
We'll explore the nitty grittyof building a creative business,
the lessons learned and theunexpected challenges that come
with transforming your craftinto a thriving enterprise.
And don't worry, I'm not leavingstorytelling behind.
(00:49):
Instead, I'll be weaving theminto the conversations about
what it takes to grow a businesswhile staying true to your
creative spirit.
So whether you're dreaming ofstarting your own business, or
you just love hearing aboutcreative entrepreneurship, this
season is for you.
(01:11):
This episode is sponsored by myfree motion quilting
masterclass.
This online on-demand course isa comprehensive training for
mastering freehand quiltingskills and navigating design
decisions.
It not only teaches over 25specific quilt designs
demonstrated both at the longarm and at a domestic sewing
(01:31):
machine.
But also it teaches the practicemethods that advance your skill
level and thought processes thatenable you to create your own
original designs withconfidence.
For more information, I provideda link in the show notes, or you
can head to my website stitchedby susan.com.
And from there, click on thelearn tab.
(01:51):
Registration for a group ofquilters opens twice per year.
But you're welcome to join thewait list at any time, and
you'll be the first to know whenthe doors open.
So once again, the link is inthe show notes or the learn tab
on my website.
I've been looking back a little,reflecting a little lately and
(02:13):
thinking back over.
Learning new things, and I'mthinking about this from several
angles.
One of them is thinking I'm 55and it's really good for me to
be learning new things and Ineed to keep on challenging
myself to learn new things.
And another is looking back atsome of the fairly large new
(02:33):
things that I've done in thelast four or five years and
thinking.
How did I do that process?
How can I replicate that processagain and again?
So here are my thoughts onlearning new stuff.
I bet you've had a moment as Ihave where you've been
enthusiastic about something andyou decided, I'm gonna go for
(02:54):
it.
When you kind of lookuncertainty or maybe self-doubt
or maybe lack of know-how in theface and say, but I'm gonna move
forward anyway, that's what Icall in biblical terms, taking
the land.
To me, that's claiming territorythat feels and looks and seems
at this moment beyond my reach,but I decide.
(03:16):
I'm gonna take that land.
few years ago, I've spoken toyou before about, our local
machine quilting guild having anannual challenge that we call a
treasure challenge.
And many times it has involvedeach, contestant, each
challenger receiving anunfinished vintage quilt top.
But this particular year, eachof us received.
(03:36):
A little box of vintage quiltblocks that had never been
finished into a quilt.
And here's the key thing though,you don't get to know what your
blocks are till after you'vecommitted.
So in other words, you join thechallenge, you sign your name
up, and then you're given thisbox in a blind draw, and then
you find out what your actualchallenge is, which is kind of
(03:57):
fun.
Anyway, the way that this worksis.
Each of us were to take thoseblocks, we could add to them any
fabrics that we wanted.
We needed to create an originalquilt from them, and of course,
do the machine quilting.
This is after all a machinequilting guild.
So that's kind of what it'sabout.
And then.
Create a storyboard that hassome photographs and some, um,
(04:21):
pictures and writeups about theprocess, right?
So shows the transformation andbring finished quilt and
storyboard and enter it in ourlocal quilt show.
So it's, it's key.
there's this deadline thatpushes you to get finished and
this concrete, okay, here's whatI have to work with.
Here's where I am today.
(04:42):
And here's where I wanna be innine months.
That's how much time, um, I hadto put into this.
So I'm a little bit sentimentalabout vintage sewing in general.
I always love to imagine theperson, usually a woman who had
first pieced these quilts thatI'm handling.
You know, they've been made withlittle scraps left over from
aprons or maybe the good partsthat are left of a worn out
(05:05):
apron and little boy shorts andlittle girls' play dresses.
And all of that means so much tome.
So this isn't just a challenge,but it's also a responsibility
to honor her work.
So it felt weighty when I firstbegan and I spread out these
blocks, I had 26 of them.
They were quite small, and I'msitting crosslegged on my sewing
(05:26):
room floor, arranging andrearranging these blocks, and it
feels weighty.
But I persisted in that moment.
Lay them out this way, lay themout that way.
Try this, try that.
And gradually an idea emerged.
I could visualize these blocksarranged in a kind of diagonal
sweep on a gorgeous, I picturedan iris colored background.
(05:50):
There were snippets of that, midpurple, that gorgeous iris color
throughout these blocks.
And they caught my eye and Ithought, oh, that would be
gorgeous, with a sweep of theblocks across that.
And I could also visualizediagonal quilting too.
And I thought, oh, all thatnegative space.
It could be intricate andgorgeous.
(06:11):
But I could also see a real gapbetween this wonderful picture
that I was envisioning and myquilting skills at that moment.
So what to do?
The one thing I did have on myside was time.
I had nine months to level upand I had a deadline of the
quilt show date.
So that concrete target reallynudged me to get serious about
(06:34):
bridging the skills gap.
I've told a lot of this story inother episodes, so I won't go
into it at length here, butsummed up.
I finished that quilt.
I named her Ava, and she hung inthe quilt show and even won a
ribbon.
That whole experience changedme.
It was such a clear progressionfrom I don't know what the heck
(06:55):
I'm doing to, I did it, and myfaith in my ability to do that
again grew.
Let me give you another example.
Five years ago.
I knew nothing and I meannothing about producing a
digital on demand course.
I didn't know what an opt-in wasor a CRM or a lead magnet, and
(07:16):
you might not know what thosethings are either, and that's
okay.
That's not really what thestory's about.
But what I did know was that Iwas passionate about quilting
stuff entirely freehand.
We call this free motionquilting, and I was pretty sure
I could teach others to do itand love it too.
But how I was just starting toexplore the idea of perhaps
(07:37):
traveling and teaching maybe atquilt shows, maybe in stores and
quilt shops when bam, spring2020 and the pandemic arrived,
travel was no longer an option.
And at the same time, myhusband's job disappeared in
about a minute.
A little like with the AVAQuilt, I could see a possibility
recording the classes so they'dbe available to all quilters,
(08:00):
even at home in the pandemic,and maybe I could even make a
living at it.
But also like Ava, there was ahuge gap between where I stood
and having a profitable onlinebusiness.
So there I was with a big idea.
But I could see the things Ineeded to do.
One, write the course.
(08:21):
Two, film it at a long arm.
No easy task, right?
Three, edit it.
That's a whole nother skill set,which happily my husband, Mr.
Producer, took on.
Four.
Find a platform on which to hostit and have students be able to
access it and five, market it.
So quilters knew it, and Iexisted and saw its value.
(08:44):
That's a lot of new stuff that Ididn't know and what I didn't
know at the time was that wholeexperience with Ava was the
first small exercise for me inand think capital letters here,
how to learn new capabilities.
And that success set me up forthis new and much larger
(09:04):
challenge.
Not surprisingly, I'm not thefirst person to come to some of
these realizations about theprocess of learning new things.
Business Coach Dan Sullivanwrote a booklet called The Four
Cs Formula.
Which I highly recommend, andI've dropped a link in the show
notes for you in case you'd likea copy for yourself.
And he talks about the fourstages of growth, which I had
(09:26):
felt, but Dan puts into words sovery well.
Those four stages are.
Courage, commitment, capability,and confidence.
When I look back at my Ava quiltjourney, I can see this cycle so
clearly.
First came the courage, thedecision to say yes and enter my
name in the challenge, despitefeeling completely unqualified.
(09:50):
Courage isn't the absence ofcourse, of the unknown.
It's taking action.
Even though next was thecommitment showing up at my
sewing machine or sittingcross-legged on my studio floor.
Even when I was making mistakes,even when I felt discouraged,
even when I felt overwhelmedwith the quilting, I just kept
going because commitment meanscontinuing even when it gets
(10:13):
hard.
Through that commitment, throughthe repetition, through the
pushing, through the boundaries.
That produced increasedcapability, and I actually
learned those skills that Ineeded.
My hands got steadier at thelong arm quilting machine.
My eye for design grew.
As I pursued that, my knowledgegot deeper.
(10:35):
And finally, after completingthe project, I found that I had
gained real confidence.
Not the fake it till you make itkind, but the earned kind that
comes from actual achievement.
And that confidence of knowingthat I had pressed through,
learned the things I wanted tolearn, felt so good that
(10:55):
produced confidence.
And the beautiful thing aboutthis cycle is that it begins to
feed itself.
The confidence from onechallenge gives you the courage
to take on the next one.
And the cycle starts again.
Much like the confidence fromAva set me up for the much
greater challenge ofestablishing a business with
online courses.
May I suggest that for you too?
(11:17):
Knowing these four steps canreally keep you steady through
the process of learning.
You're sewers and quilters,right?
You know that feeling of perhapsa new and unfamiliar machine, it
feels overwhelming.
Like where is that thing in themenu?
Why is the thread shredding?
Why can't I get good tension?
But think through those foursteps.
You've already demonstrated thecourage to start now you need a
(11:39):
little commitment to stay withit, keep using it, keep adding
to your knowledge, and graduallyyou find yourself not feeling so
overwhelmed.
Your capability is growing asyou persist in learning those
menus, getting the threadingpath correct, knowing how to get
great bobbin tension, et cetera.
And this becomes confidence.
(12:02):
There's something else that I'vefound to be pretty essential.
In the process of learning a newthing, let's call them
permission slips, not the kindyour parents sign for your field
trips, but really the ones thatyou need to write for yourself
first.
You need to give yourself somepermission for time.
Those nine months that I hadwith Ava were crucial.
(12:22):
Learning does take time.
Sometimes it takes sleeping onit.
Sometimes it takes conversationswith a friend or looking up new
ideas on Pinterest, but it doestake time.
It's not immediate.
We often, it feels like we livein an overnight success culture,
but real skill development doeshappen more slowly.
It's layer by layer built uponwhat came before.
(12:45):
When was the last time you gaveyourself permission to be a
beginner?
To take the full time, needed tolearn something new, a new
language, a new craft.
A new sport, whatever it may be.
It can be difficult as adults togive ourselves permission to be
a beginner, to feel like abeginner, to perhaps produce the
results.
(13:05):
Of a beginner, but that's okay.
That's all part of the learningprocess.
And one last thing I want toleave with you, and believe me,
I'm preaching to myself heretoo, but that is to celebrate
the gains.
Not only the wins, not only thebig goals accomplished, but
literally the gains, the steps,the progress that we make.
(13:30):
I find myself.
And I think many self-startersare like this, but I find
myself, as soon as I'm finishingone thing, immediately my head
has gone into the next thingthat I need to be doing.
And what happens is I start tolive in that feeling of there's
more to do.
I've got to do the next thing.
I've got to move on.
(13:50):
I'm never finished.
Right?
And I have to take myself inhand and say.
Take a minute to celebrate, toacknowledge to pat myself on the
back, to write down, to tell afriend about the thing that I
have done, that I haveaccomplished, that I have
learned the barrier that I didbreak through today, the video
(14:11):
editing that I did figure out,whatever the case may be.
I think for the growth of ourconfidence, it's essential that
we take a moment to acknowledgethe progress that we've made.
The difference betweenmeasuring, looking forward at
where you want to be, that endresult, or looking back over
(14:32):
your shoulder at what you'veaccomplished today, this week,
this month, this year isremarkable.
If you've never read the book,the Gap and the Gain, also by
Dan Sullivan and Dr.
Benjamin Hardy, um, I stronglyrecommend, strongly recommend
that book.
It is a life changer just in howyou view.
(14:52):
Your progress and learning newthings is all about progress and
it's challenging progress, butit's so, so good and the rewards
are so great.
So this really does all tie backagain to the capability and the
confidence pieces that we talkedabout in Dan Sullivan's book
about the four C's, and it's sointeresting.
(15:13):
I love that he calls it the fourC's formula.
Because the word formula says tome, if you do this and add that,
followed by this, you'll getthis result.
Right?
And I think that's true.
If you start with the courage,you make the commitment and stay
committed, you grow gradually,the capabilities.
(15:36):
The confidence comes from that.
Those things are always true.
They always happen, and thatreally does hold us steady in
the difficult parts of learningnew things.
So I'm curious, what's your nextchallenge?
What vision are you holdingthat's bigger than your current
skills?
(15:57):
Maybe in your craft studio,you're thinking of, um, fully
using that fancy embroiderymachine that's under a dust
cover or indeed, the long armthat currently is kind of a
clothing rack, or maybe you'rethinking about venturing into
free motion quilting on yourdomestic machine.
These are all big learningcurves, but very doable and so
(16:18):
rewarding.
Maybe you are a little like meand you're thinking about
creating a digital course orstarting a podcast like this
one.
Maybe you're thinking aboutpublishing patterns or going out
and teaching in-personworkshops.
These may be well outside ofyour current skillset, but how
can you set about.
(16:40):
Taking that first step ofcourage into the new thing, what
would that first step look liketoday?
Thanks so much for joining metoday.
If this episode resonated, I'dlove if you would leave a review
on any app that you're listeningon.
Share this with a friend thatyou think needs to hear it.
I'd love to hear too about yournew adventure.
If you share on social media,tag me at Stitched by Susan.
(17:03):
I'd love to rejoice with you.
Well my friend, until next time,may your sorrows be patched and
your joys be quilted.
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