How to get good at anything (with an easy 5-step plan)

Or how I made it through a talk while my pants (quite literally) fell down

It’s weird that this outfit was problematic… 😂

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself on stage in front of about 50 people when my pants started to fall down.

And I’m not talking like a little slip because I bent over or something. I’m talking a rapid descent where if I didn’t take action within seconds, I was gonna give them a show they definitely didn’t come for.

It called for a hip jut / prayer combination I didn’t see coming. 😂

So, I did the only thing possible - I set my mic and phone down and said, “Sorry, but I have to pause to zip my pants back up because they seem to making a break for it.”

Everybody laughed, and I kept going, pretty much unfazed.

Wanna know how I didn’t melt into the floor like someone had just thrown water on me while I chased their little dog? I’ve practiced. A LOT.

I’m not saying that when I rehearse I practice my pants falling down, but I have been on stage now, numerous times, where I’ve been totally caught out.

Oh, you’d like examples, would ya?

🙄 Times when I should have died of embarrassment on stage:

• One time, I put the cordless mic on over a bunch of purses I was wearing for a branding talk and when I tried to take them off got stuck with one arm in the air and someone had to come free me

• Another time, I bent over to pick up a pen and my necklace got caught in my tights so I was stuck in a crab position for over a minute (I kept talking!) while untangling my necklace

• I was almost decapitated by a falling light

• The worst was when I’d forgotten my notes and couldn’t remember what I was saying so I just stared into the audience with a knowing look on my face for what felt like my entire life

• Or the time I had to ad lib an entire speech because they couldn’t get the wifi to work so I didn’t have my powerpoint or notes

In short, there’s not a whole lot that could happen to me on stage that I haven’t been through (NOT A CHALLENGE, UNIVERSE!). I also have been on stage a huge amount of times where nothing dramatic has happened so I also know what it feels like when things go smoothly.

Is it embarrassing? Yes, of course! Is it going to stop me from moving forward and getting on stage again? HELL NO.

👉 Because this is the big secret that I think is too easy to forget: You can get good at ANYTHING.

Here are a few things I used to really suck at, but now am very good at:

• laughing at myself

• getting up in the morning

• talking to people I don’t know

• going to networking events

• getting out of the house without yelling at my kids

• not feeling like I have to fix everyone’s problems

• putting things away

• saving money

• feeling content

None of them happened overnight and it was work! I had to consciously notice when I started to fall back into my old patterns, stop, and then try something new. Over time, though, you get better and better until you can’t even remember what it felt like to do it the old way.

One of the things that helped me the most was a trick my therapist taught me. When you notice you’re having the same recurring thought, you imagine a Stop Sign in your brain. There’s something about seeing a literal “STOP!” that buys you a moment to reassess.

🎉 Want to give it a go? Here’s how I do it.

1. Pick the thing you want to work on. (Stop yelling at my kids when they’re being slow in the morning and we need to get moving.)

2. Decide what success would look like. (We get out of the house without yelling and on time.)

3. Ask: Are there things I can put in place that will make hitting my goal easier? (Buy them a timer, get ready the night before, remind them once and only once, ask Chris to tell me to breathe if he sees me getting riled, go outside and sit in the car to wait for them, envision my stop sign)

4. PRACTICE, MESS UP, PRACTICE. (Baby steps! You’re going to fall back into old patterns, yell, get riled up, and then you try again.)

5. Apologize, reassess, make tweaks. (You are not a robot so some things will work and some won’t. When we were working on this, the kids and I would debrief several times a week in the car with what we could improve.)

6. Repeat.

It’s going to be hard at the beginning because you’re changing the way you’ve been doing things. But, as you go, it will get easier and you’ll catch yourself earlier.

I still occasionally will get annoyed with the kids in the morning, but it happens so rarely now, they usually ask if I’m okay, which snaps me out of it.

I swear, this system works for anything you want to get better at, even when your pants are quite literally falling down. 😜

Is there anything you want to work on? Let me know in the comments and let’s do it together!

Have a wonderful week and here’s to you!

xx. Kara