Welcome to 7-Minute Sunday on the Switch, Crivet, or Quit podcast. I'm your host, Ayana Angel, and we are going to spend the next 7 minutes together getting you filled up with inspiration and goodness to get your mind primed to achieve greatness as you enter the week ahead. Now, get ready because although it's 7-Minute Sunday, we are closing out the Plot Twist Planner 3-part series, so it will be a little bit longer than 7 minutes. So like I said, we've reached our final episode of the Plot Twist Planner 3-part series, and thank you all so much for listening and sharing, and your responses to this series have been amazing, really.
I feel the love. Absolutely, I feel the love. I feel the excitement. I feel the yearning for change.
I know that you guys are sharing with your friends and your like-minded counterparts, and colleagues and all that good stuff, and I absolutely love that because there is no point in holding good information and things that inspire you close to your vest. Why not share? Why not allow other people to share in the goodness that you're sharing in? Whatever is pushing you and motivating you, why not?
So like I said, if you've enjoyed and you haven't been sharing, definitely feel free to do that. Don't keep it to yourself. Share with a like-minded friend because you never know who needs to hear something at this right time, and you might be the right person to send it to them at that time. So do your part if you can.
You can share via a simple email with some links attached to the 3-part series, or you can just send them to the SwitchPivotRquick.com website. Simple as that. Whatever way feels best and easiest for you. So before we get into this week, as I announced last week, I'm releasing a special Plot Twist Journal for you guys to get you prepared for the official Plot Twist Planner.
So this journal was not initially on the agenda, but I know that you guys are excited about getting started with stuff, and I know that you're excited about taking action, so I wanted to create something for you guys to get you going. The Plot Twist Planner itself will require a bit more out of you, so you can think of the Plot Twist Journal as like the appetizer to the main course, which will be the Plot Twist Planner, a SwitchPivotRquick guide to personal change for a professional game. That is the full name. So to assist you in your process, I've created this Plot Twist Planner to ultimately walk you through the steps that I took to make my own SPQ, as well as give you tools to take action moving forward that will serve you and your ultimate happiness, because that's what we're all looking for, right?
We're all looking for that happy place, that point in life where we feel like, okay, things are great, I'm feeling this, I'm making the right moves, I'm making the right choices and decisions, I'm going somewhere, I'm headed somewhere, and I like where this is going. But, you know, I know that you guys are ready for change and eager to get to work, so you can see some movement in your life, and now you can go ahead and head to the SwitchPivotRquick.com website, get your hands on that Plot Twist Journal, a.k.a. the appetizer, and it'll be available for you guys to download. So now let's go ahead and get into it.
So this week in part three of the Plot Twist Planner three-part series, we're talking about the third pillar in the Switch, Pivot, or Quit concept, and that is act, or taking action, okay? So you have to remember, the Plot Twist is like a cousin to the quarter-life crisis, and it's something that most of us ambitious people go through every three to five years. The idea of Switch, Pivot, or Quit has three pillars, three things that it takes to make an effective Switch, Pivot, or Quit, with those being acknowledge, assess, and act. And this week we are on act.
We are on the pillar of taking action. So last week in the second episode of the special three-part Plot Twist series, we talked all about pillar two, and that's assessing yourself, and self-knowledge, and that's assessment. It all comes down to assessment. Then the week prior, in part one, we talked about you getting real with you via self-awareness, and that is in line with the first pillar of making a Switch, Pivot, or Quit, which is acknowledgement, okay?
So when I was going through my Plot Twist and desperately looking for change, I didn't really know about nor had I thought about any of this in a formal way. I just had. I just knew that I wanted out of my reality. That's the real.
That's the best way that I could keep it real for you guys. It's just I didn't know what was coming ahead of me. I didn't know what work I really needed to do. I just knew that I wanted out of where I currently was.
So just as many of you, I was endlessly applying for jobs, making an attempt at a smooth pivot. I was applying for jobs within the same field of PR. I was dedicating the hours to researching companies. I was putting my best foot forward with cover letters, but I was continuously being disappointed.
So I was doing all of this, but continuously walking away disappointed. And I wasn't getting the job offers that I wanted. I wasn't seeing the kind of traction and results that I wanted. And that was also new to me because I was a person that was used to getting the jobs that I would apply for.
My success rate was pretty high at that point. So not only was I astonished by the fact that some of these things weren't working out how I thought they would, I was also taking a blow to my ego too. Like, whoa, what is happening here? So I wasn't seeing the contraction that I wanted.
I was really confused too because I was taking initiative and I felt like I was taking action. So I just didn't really understand what the problem was. And then I got to a point where I realized that the problem was that I was taking action, but I hadn't bothered to take the time and do the real work, the deep personal work first. I hadn't bothered with the first two pillars of switch paper or quit, acknowledging or assessing.
I had not bothered with that at all. I hadn't bothered with self-awareness or self-knowledge. I was simply out there trying to move on to the next thing and check yet another box for myself. But with no real purpose or direction and without like intention, I had come to realize that all of us, we will forever be unhappily checking boxes and on a constant search looking for the next thing that we think will make us happy or fulfilled if we just keep going at that space and not really doing the work of acknowledging and assessing before we move on to the action phase.
And we may get what we think we want at the time or a sliver of what we think we want, but trust me, it'll be temporary. That fulfillment will be temporary. That happiness will be temporary. So in this third pillar of ACT, it's time for us to put all the pieces from what we've learned about ourselves in the acknowledge and assess phases.
It's time for us to put those pieces into actionable items for our growth and ultimately for change. So for many of us, this tackling of the third pillar of taking action, it will require change. Internal change, personal change, mindset change, external changes as well. And one of the key things that I realized that I had to do for myself first was become accountable for myself and to myself.
No more excuses. No more. I looked in the mirror one day and I said to myself, you have the power to change all of this. Everything that you are no longer satisfied with about your reality, you have the power to change it.
It's time out for, you know, drawing on to my friends about what I don't like, what I'm unhappy with, what I can't stand. It's time out for, you know, complaining and whining to my parents and significant others. It's time out for making this everyone else's problem, but my own. Okay.
So I had already done some of the personal development work, but at this point where it was time for the act phase, I now had to be willing to take action, to put things into motion and to potentially get uncomfortable, which many of us hate doing, but that's what you got to do. So many of you by now have read the Black Enterprise magazine article online on blackenterprise.com where I was featured alongside the Switch, Pivot, or Quit podcast. And so you know that I went from being a sports entertainment publicist at the NBA to landing a traditional book publishing deal with the imprint of pretty much a New York Times bestselling author, right? So none of that was accidental though.
That's what I really want to stress. Some people read my story and a lot of people have been reaching out and sharing their stories as well as saying how inspiring they have been about my story and how they are ready to take action for themselves. But the main thing that I want to just really drill home is that none of that was accidental. It was intentional because once I did the acknowledgement and assessment work, I knew what I wanted and I understood my strengths on another level.
I knew where I needed to go. I pushed myself to get up hours before work to write in the mornings. Even though I knew that I wasn't a morning person at the time, I was ready to take intentional action. This was what I felt like I needed to do to get ahead and to push myself closer to that ultimate goal that I had.
I was ready for change. I knew that by my very specific actions toward a very specific goal, I can make the impact that I was looking for. But remember, like I said last week and the week before, this is a process. Going through the stages of the Plot Twist Planner or facing a switch, pivot, or quit, it's a process.
This is something that will likely creep up on you multiple times during the course of your life. These Plot Twist feelings, these feelings of uneasiness, unsettled, all of that. But if you're committed to being the best of you, then you'll get this Plot Twist Journal to start with. You'll get that now.
And then you'll get the Plot Twist Planner when it drops. And you'll be equipped with the skills to navigate the Plot Twist each and every time they arise in the future. I don't want this to be some temporary thing that helps you out right now, in the minute, and in this time period of your life. I want this to be a resource that you can continue to pull from at different points in your life.
And once you go through the Plot Twist Planner, when you go back and revisit it, you'll know what you need. You'll know exactly what you need. Because Plot Twists, they arise in the future. They just do.
It just happens. And it's inevitable that you'll just keep getting better and better as the years pass, because you'll have the tools and the understanding of self to do the work that you need to do and to take the action that you need to take to be the best you and to get the kind of results that you really want. So thank you so much for spending time with me again on this amazing Sunday. And I hope that this Plot Twist Planner series has been useful for you.
It's been helpful for you. It's given you some things to think about. It's inspired you to get your mind right to go ahead and start taking that action. And if you are new to our Encouragement and Inspiration Party, be sure to pop over to Instagram and follow along at SwitchPivotOrQuit.
We like to chat over there, hang out. You can feel free to DM me as well. And make sure you just join the party on Instagram. And as always, I want you guys to keep killing it.
And I hope that you have an amazing week.