Karen Shorey is a new user of the Key2Success Planning system and shared her experience how to start digital planning. In this special guest column, she shares how to adapt to new habits! (Thanks, Karen!)

“I have been using an incredible planning system for over 10 years, but it’s bulky and a lot of my clients are going totally digital,” she said. “So I am looking to replicate what I am currently doing well, but digitally.”

She added that having an effective planning system has taken her life from “stress, frazzle and frustration to being someone who has balance and achieves the goals I set…It’s the difference of mediocre to optimum.  I’m a mom, wife and owner of a company and in every role, planning is key!”

How To Adapt to New Habits  

Being stretched? It hurts!

This is hard.

I am learning a new system and after day one, I wanted to quit.

I messaged the company and asked for my money back because it wasn’t working for me. I was really struggling and wanting to revert to my habits because they were easier.

Creating new habits is not easy.

I am so thankful the owner of the company personally responded and simply said, “would you be willing to jump on a call for 10 minutes to see if there is something i can do to help you?”. That was a pivotal phone call.

I’m pretty sure when i was learning to walk, i wasn’t very good. I most likely stumbled and fell. But in the failure, I learned how to find my balance and now I’m pretty good at walking- a very helpful life skill! I recently heard a client say, you cant learn if you can’t fail!. It’s so true.

I also wasn’t good at sign language when i first started. I remember in the beginning when I began interpreting at my church, I thought I signed the word devil and instead signed the word donkey. There is quite a difference in context. The deaf people laughed, and one even attempted to make the sound so I knew I was off track! I didn’t quit though and eventually became very good at it.

My first loaf of bread, my mother used for a doorstop. It was horrible. But now, I am known for my homemade bread. As I write this, I am thumbing through the memories in my head of all the times I failed, learned and became better. I embraced the stretch.

My tenacity was modeled by my father. He is someone I admire because he taught me the art of stretching myself and to be consistent. At 79, he is still active at his local crossfit and could give most of the people in the gym a run for their money. Why? Because he stretches himself. He knows he could at the age of 79 retire, but why when he loves what he does? He knows at 79, it’s normal to have aches and pains and move slower, but why have that when stretching oneself gives you mobility? Stretching hurts. But when we do it consistently, we find strength we didn’t have the day before.

So my question to you, is where do you recognize you need strength? Are you stretching yourself? Who are you surrounding yourself with that make you want to be better, try more and reach your potential?

Effort, focus, belief and training make a huge difference with time. I remind myself this as I try- on day 3, to learn this new system. If I keep that positive mental attitude, stay goal-oriented and continue to push myself past the pain, I will be rewarded! Keep stretching! 

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Karen Shorey is the president of LMI Central IL and Slight Edge Coaching. She is a certified professional coach with over 25 years of leadership experience and is nationally certified with lmi. Her enthusiasm for mentoring and developing leaders is evident to all she works with.

Karen was born in Connecticut, raised in Maine and even lived in Canada for 10 years. In 2011, she was introduced to LMI while living in Canada. Through that process she found her passion facilitating and developing leaders to their full potential. In 2016, after moving back to the US, she became a partner with LMI and formed her own company, LMI-Central IL.

Karen and her husband Darin have 3 daughters and an adorable dog named piper. She loves volunteering with women in her church and leads a small group in a celebrate recovery program in her community.