stewing, perfectionism, and cheetahs

Welp - it’s finally done.

The course that I’ve poured my brainpower, my energy, my heart, and my time into these past few months is done.

As in done, dusted, and delivered.

A few weeks ago, I shared it with a team of trusted early adopters to get some feedback. I’m not a mother, but sheesh, it felt like I was sending my baby off to daycare for the first time. My heart felt cracked wide open, my vulnerability felt exposed on my sleeve, and I felt slightly on edge while waiting for feedback.

So, to distract me from feeling all the feels, I reflected on the top three lessons that I learned while creating my first online course!

Lesson #1:  Get out of your head.

I’ve had this course idea in my head and on my heart for over a year (it’s more like 496 days, but who’s counting…). And I was stuck in the land of “stew, not do” for at least 374 days because it felt so overwhelming. 

I took a course on how to create a course and it shined a light on the steps that I needed to take, but the more I worked on it, the more I realized that this was a BIG FREAKING COURSE with a lot of moving parts. 

While it was tempting to word-vomit everything that I knew about workplace investigations, I knew that would be overwhelming and alienating to the learner…and so, I got stuck in my head, and I did everything, except work on creating the course. 

It wasn’t until someone asked me if creating a course was really what I wanted (spoiler alert - I did!) that I started to ask myself what was holding me back. And the truth is that I wanted this to be a good course. A great course. And having never done it before, I realized that I needed help from someone who did this for a living. I needed a course creation fairy godmother!

I knew I had value to share related to workplace investigations, but I also knew that I needed someone whose zone of genius was to guide me through the process, plug the holes for me along the way, and ensure that learners got the transformation they were seeking.

Cue anticipatory music.

That’s why I partnered with the “dream team” (@dreamprocourses) to make my course creation dreams come true. And they did not disappoint. This is a team filled with hard-working, heart-centred, soul-inspired strategists, instructional designers, project managers, graphic designers, and technical wizards.

Look, I’m not going to lie.

This was a big course, and I’m A LOT of client to deal with 😂.

I had a strong vision for what I wanted this course to be (and how I wanted it to look), I’m a bit of a control freak (for someone who doesn’t drive, I sure like to be in the driver’s seat!) and I had high expectations (coupled with mad appreciation)!

And they delivered.

They treated me with kindness, understanding, and respect. They worked tirelessly, were super dedicated, and they “got me” (for all my quirks and weird bits). The client experience was unparalleled. I can’t say enough good things about them…if you need help in creating a killer course, run (don’t walk!) towards this team (and tell them I sent you!)

Lesson #2:  Perfection is the enemy of…everything.

Wooo weee this course creation process unveiled, unearthed, and uncovered the cold, hard, ugly truth.

I’m a perfectionist. And it sucks.

Perfectionism.

It’s the thief of joy.

It’s the inhibitor of action.

It’s the killer of confidence.

And it’s the enemy of…everything.

A classic example of this was recording week. It’s something that I had been dreading since I decided to create a course. And sure enough, right on cue, the mindset gremlins arrived (and they brought friends with water guns 😂).

Truthfully, the first few days were too bad, but by the last day, I was physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually depleted. I was struggling. In a big way.

On my last day of recording, I had 8 videos to record (on camera - ugh) and by 1:00 p.m., I still hadn’t recorded even one. I also had a 5:30 p.m. reservation with the hubs at a new restaurant that I’d been dying to try, and I was ready to celebrate the end of this crazy, hard week. But if the work wasn’t done, I’d have little to celebrate, and I’d have to spend a sunshiney weekend finishing recording instead of adventuring in the mountains. Not fun.  

And that’s when it dawned on me. Recording (especially on camera) is an area for improvement for me. No matter how many takes I took, and no matter how much time or energy I spent, the quality of the videos wasn’t going to improve much, because it’s a skill that I need to develop. And try and I might, this is NOT a skill that anyone can master in a week (or in four hours). So, I dried my tears (yes, there were tears and many expletive-filled rants) and repeated the mantra “done is better than perfect” to myself.

And then I just freaking did it!

• 6 modules

• 33 videos

• Hours of takes.

• A shit ton of stress.

Was I sick of the sound of my own voice? Totally.

Was it perfect? Hell no.

At times, did I sound like a robot? Yep, because you can’t eradicate a lifetime of video awkwardness in a week, try as you might 😂

I finished recording the last video at 4:56 p.m. Since these were on-camera recordings, my hair and makeup were done, and hubs and I were out the door at 5:11 p.m. 

And celebrate we did.

Taco in one hand.

Margarita in the other.

Lesson #3: We can do hard things.

In the wise words of Glennon Doyle, “we can do hard things”. 

And hard things we did. 

Creating this course filled me up and kicked my ass at the same time.

It stretched me so far out of my comfort zone.

That I darned well broke it.

And I’m not mad about it. 

I learned a lot about courses, about marketing, but mostly, about myself.

I have a course that I’m proud of!

It’s a course that looks like a course!

And I can’t wait to share it with you!

Though honestly, the tech in delivering the course might just kill me. 

But I just keep muttering to myself: “I can do hard things. Hard things are hard. You’re a freaking cheetah.”

And that seems to help 🐆

October 25, 2021

p.s. I’ve now received some feedback from my awesome team of early adopters, and it literally has me dancing in my home office 🎉

Check out some of the love notes below:

I’m launching The Workplace Investigation Bootcamp next month so if you want to be the first to know alllll the details (including early access, special waitlist-only discounts, and a chance to win a prize), join the waitlist!