Objects at rest stay at rest. In the final episode of the What Do You Really Want mini-series, Lori closes the loop on Embrace and Act with the step where a clarified, specific want either becomes an actual life, or quietly stays a nice idea you had once.
Momentum isn’t a mindset, it’s basic physics: one small step is what breaks the cycle, not a massive perfect plan. Lori walks through how she named who else her boundaries would affect, what was really stopping her (and it wasn’t logistics), and the single small step, blocking one Friday before she told a single client, that turned into a standing, non-negotiable part of her week.
This is the last of three episodes built around the What Do You Really Want workbook. If you’ve worked through all ten questions across this series, you’ve done something most people never do: figured out what you actually want, instead of chasing someday.
3 Main Takeaways:
- Momentum is physics, not motivation. Objects at rest stay at rest, objects in motion stay in motion. Waiting for the perfect plan keeps you stuck. One small, doable step is what actually breaks the cycle.
- Name what’s really stopping you, logistics and mindset both. For Lori, the real obstacle wasn’t scheduling, it was her own mindset around always being available. She had to walk her own walk on boundaries before she could coach anyone else on theirs.
- You don’t need the whole staircase, just the next step. Lori’s whole shift started with blocking one Friday, before telling a single client. That one small step became the pattern the rest of the change was built on.
This Week’s Action:
Finish pages 6 through 10 of the workbook. Name who else is affected by getting what you want. Name what’s actually stopping you, both logistics and mindset. Take stock of the resources you already have. Then pick one small, specific step you can take in the next few days, not someday.
Resources Mentioned:
- The What Do You Really Want workbook
- Part 1 of this mini-series: Episode 353 (Embrace)
- Part 2 of this mini-series: Episode 354 (Act)
- Book a Dream Business Design Session
Schedule a call to discuss personalized coaching at TalkWithLori.com
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Resources:
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Chapters and Transcript
Chapter titles
- Objects at Rest Stay at Rest
- Welcome Back: From Embrace and Act to Momentum
- How Will This Affect Other People?
- What’s Stopping You?
- The Real Obstacle: My Own Mindset
- What Resources Do You Already Have?
- Your First Step
- Embrace, Act, Momentum: Bringing It Together
- Your Assignment to Finish the Workbook
- Closing: Book a Dream Business Design Session
Objects at Rest Stay at Rest
Objects at rest stay at rest. Momentum isn’t a motivational mindset. It’s basic physics. See? You are using what you learned in high school physics class. Most of us get stuck waiting for some massive, perfect plan before we take action, when all we need is one ridiculously small step to break that cycle. Today, in the final part of our mini-series, we’re turning your boundaries into real momentum and taking the next step that moves your life and your business forward. Let’s get started.
Objects at rest, stay at rest. Objects in motion, keep moving. Momentum is not a mindset, it’s physics. And it works for your business too.
Welcome Back: From Embrace and Act to Momentum
I’m Lori Lyons, and welcome to the Midlife Business Academy. If you’ve ever felt like your business is running your life instead of supporting it, you’re in the right place. Around here, I believe a dream business isn’t measured by its size. It’s measured by the freedom and the life it makes possible.
So we’ve come a long way in this little three-part mini-series. We started with Embrace, you named what you wanted and what you didn’t, unedited. Then we went to Act last week, you got specific: the so that, the five senses, the real trade-off and the real benefits. For me, that turned into two protected blocks of time on my calendar, Fridays for the garden and anything else, and a separate afternoon totally for my mother. And I let go of the 40-hour work week I really never wanted to be working in the first place. That’s why we become business owners, right?
So today is the last step. We’re going to talk about momentum, because this is where a want that’s been clarified and gotten specific either turns into an actual life, or it quietly goes back into a nice idea you had once. And that’s okay too.
If you haven’t grabbed the workbook, grab it now, the link’s in the show notes: themidlifebusinessacademy.com/whatdoyouwant. Today we’re working through pages six through ten.
How Will This Affect Other People?
So how will getting it affect other people in your life? Because blocking my calendar didn’t just affect me. It affected clients who were used to reaching me any day of the week, any time of day, and weekends. It affected how my team scheduled around me. Getting what I wanted meant other people had to adjust to it.
So the question asks you to think through that ahead of time, instead of being surprised by it later. Who else does what you want touch? Your clients, your team, your family, your pets? Because naming it now means you can handle it on purpose, instead of scrambling when somebody pushes back.
What’s Stopping You?
So what’s stopping us? What’s stopping you? Here’s the question people expect to be the heavy, dig-into-your-fears, “what’s holding you back” question. I want to keep this one honest instead, because for me, it really wasn’t one big obstacle. It was a slow morph, and it didn’t happen overnight, especially the mom-time afternoon one. That one was harder, believe it or not, than blocking an entire Friday.
The Real Obstacle: My Own Mindset
That one took some time, some planning, and some of it was simple logistics. I’d ask a client if we could move to a different day. I didn’t over-explain it, I didn’t need to justify it. If they couldn’t move, it was fine, I left it alone and adjusted around them for the time being. I just quietly blocked out that time on my calendar going forward, so they could no longer schedule for that time. If somebody asked, I would explain. If they didn’t understand I wanted to spend an afternoon with my 93-year-old mom, they weren’t the client for me. Not one person pushed back on that.
I knew it was going to take some time for this to fully land with me, and to come to peace with that instead of expecting it to just happen overnight, because it did take some time. I had to work around some promises, and I had to slowly make it happen. It only took a couple of weeks in real time, but it seemed bigger than that, because the bigger thing that wasn’t stopping me wasn’t the logistics at all. It was my own mindset around boundaries, and always being available, and always being there for my clients. That’s the part that really took work.
My phone goes on do not disturb in the evenings. If it’s my family, my mother, or my son, those calls always get through. Do not disturb goes on at seven o’clock, and it’s on for the weekends too. I don’t answer client calls unless it’s a website down, because that always takes precedence. I mean, that’s business, your website has to go back up. So that I will look into and take care of.
But here’s the part that took the most retraining. My existing clients had to learn this new version of me. I coach people on building dream businesses, I couldn’t keep telling them to set boundaries while I was answering texts at 9:00 at night myself. I had to walk my own walk before I could ask them to walk theirs.
What Resources Do You Already Have?
Now, let’s take stock of the exact resources you already have in front of you. Name what’s actually stopping you, as plainly as you can, logistics and mindset. Most of the time, once you name it clearly, it turns out to be a lot more manageable than it felt while it was still vague and looming, even if it takes time to morph into and settle into. And that’s okay.
You can develop a plan for how this is going to happen, but you have to come up with the plan, you have to act, you have to be specific, and you have to start working on it. If you put it off for “oh, I’ve got clients scheduled on Wednesday,” then you’re going to have clients scheduled the next Wednesday, and the next Wednesday, and the next Wednesday. Know you’re going to have clients for the next couple of Wednesdays, but that third Wednesday, go ahead and block it off on your calendar. And if you don’t have a calendar, that’s a whole other conversation we need to have.
So what resources do you already have, and what do you still need? Because those two questions work together. Once you start answering the first one, you’ll probably start answering the second one without meaning to, because that’s normal. Your brain naturally starts problem-solving the minute you start seeing the problem and seeing the gap.
For me, the resource I already had was a business built around one-to-one clients, which meant I actually had more control over my own schedule than I was used to. I didn’t need to hire anyone or restructure my whole offer. I just needed to use the flexibility that was already sitting there. What I needed was simpler than I expected it to be, I just needed to make the decision and create a new calendar template. That was a piece of cake. So take stock of what you already have working in your favor before you assume you need something new. A lot of the time, the resource is already there, it’s just not being used toward the thing you actually want yet.
Your First Step
So what’s the first step you’re going to take right now? Because this is the one that turns the whole exercise from “oh, that’s nice” and a reflection, into actual change. You don’t have to do the whole plan today, just the next step.
For me, that first step was stupid small. I blocked one Friday in my calendar. I had one open, and I went ahead and blocked it out. Just one, before I even told anybody what I was doing. That’s it. It was one Friday. It wasn’t dramatic. But it was one Friday. It was motion. I was putting a plan into action, and I was starting to go.
And then I went and blocked it out on the rest of my calendar to say, this is my time. It’s blocked out. It is self-care, it is maintenance. There’s a lot of things that go on that Friday besides gardening, but that’s my Friday. I don’t want to spend my weekend doing that, I want that to be my time. And once it was blocked out, now it’s done, I don’t have to worry about it. The afternoons are taking a little longer, and I’m almost there. I have one more afternoon appointment on that day, and the rest of the time is blocked. But it took a couple of weeks, it took a while.
Because remember, objects at rest tend to stay at rest, objects in motion tend to stay in motion. And that’s not something I made up, we learned that in physics in high school, or college if you really wanted to go there. And it’s true, and it really applies here as well, because once you start doing something and take that first small step, the rest of it becomes easier. Then you start moving and going toward those goals. It’s that very first small step that gets everything started and everything in motion.
So what is your small step? One Friday for me became a pattern. One protected afternoon with my mother became, is becoming, a standing non-negotiable part of my week. It hasn’t happened overnight. And none of it happened because I had some big master plan with five steps. It happened because I took one small step, I blocked off one Friday and one afternoon, and I adjusted as I went. And the next step got a little easier the next time, and the next time.
Nobody has still asked me why I’m not seeing clients on this particular afternoon. Nobody’s noticed, because they’re finding the time that they need. I had one client say, well, what if clients want to book me during that afternoon? They won’t. They will move to the time you’re available, because that’s when you are. It’s non-negotiable.
Embrace, Act, Momentum: Bringing It Together
So Embrace gave you what you want, named honestly. Act gave you the specifics, what it actually looks like, what it costs, and what it gives you. And Momentum is where you stop reflecting and start moving, one small doable step at a time. You don’t need the whole staircase. You just need one little step.
Your Assignment to Finish the Workbook
So finish pages six through ten this week. Name who else is affected. Name what’s actually stopping you, logistics and mindset both. Take stock of what you already have, and then pick one small, specific step, something you could do in the next few days, not someday. Do that one thing.
Closing: Book a Dream Business Design Session
So that wraps up our little series, Embrace, Act, Momentum. It’s What Do You Really Want. If you’ve worked through all ten questions in the workbook over these three episodes, you’ve done something a lot of people never really do. You’ve stopped and figured out what you really want, instead of just saying someday, or chasing whatever definition of success you thought you wanted.
Grab the What Do You Really Want workbook if you haven’t already, the link’s in the show notes. And if you want help turning what you’ve uncovered here into an actual part of your business, that’s exactly what we can work through on a Dream Business Design Session. Head to talkwithlori.com and let’s see if we’re a fit to work together. I’m Lori Lyons, remember, it’s never too late to build the business of your dreams.
Flagged for your review:
- Cut a full false-start take at the open (“I thought this thunderstorm was over,” “God! Long day. I will start over.”) and kept her second, clean take of the “objects at rest” cold open, plus cut a stray “I was itching again.”
- Cut the subscribe/notification-bell paragraph, consistent with prior episodes.
- Corrected a few likely mis-transcriptions: “met other people had to adjust to” → “meant,” “just to half an overnight” → “just happen overnight,” “took the most for training” → “took the most retraining.”
- Lightly smoothed a garbled sentence about the “what’s holding you back” question for readability, similar to the light touch-ups on prior episodes.
- Standardized the workbook URL to themidlifebusinessacademy.com/whatdoyouwant.
- The closing uses “if you want help turning what you’ve uncovered” — kept verbatim since it’s her actual spoken words, but flagging since it’s the word your style notes usually avoid in CTAs.