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July 25, 2025 16 mins

It’s not the big leaps that get you there—it’s the tiny, consistent steps that make your vision real. In this episode, Marie shares how the most successful creators, entrepreneurs, and change-makers all play the game of inches. Hear stories from the creation of the Bloom Room, from a client starting their first brick and mortar business, and from the world of parenting that show just how the game of inches is so much more effective than the goal of taking big leaps. You'll learn why steady progress beats big bursts, how small problems scale if left unsolved, and how every challenge you face is preparing you for the next level.

Tune in to hear:

  • Why consistency trumps intensity (with real stories from Marie + Bloom Room participants)
  • How setbacks reveal where your support systems need strengthening
    What small problems you should solve now before they grow with your success
  • 3 reflection questions to help you lean into your next inch of growth

If you’ve been waiting for the perfect moment or a clear runway—this is your reminder that inches are where the magic happens.

How to connect with Marie:

JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Bloom your Mind podcast, where we take
all of your ideas for what youwant and we turn them into real
things.
I'm your host, certified coachMarie McDonald.
Let's Well.
Hello everybody, and welcome toepisode 137 of the Bloom your

(00:33):
Mind podcast.
I have been in so much waterlately.
I told you the story of the yesTrip.
We're in rivers and lakes allover the Pacific Northwest and
then over to montana and wyoming, and then, as soon as we got
back, it was like time for mykids to find their friends and

(00:53):
reconnect with their friends andwhere we live.
And so we've been at the beach,we have been camping with a
couple people, a lot of peopleactually, for a couple of nights
, floating down rivers in SanDiego and just swimming and
swimming, and swimming.
The summer is so full of waterfor us and it has been so much

(01:14):
fun.
I have said yes to a lot ofadventure and people keep
telling me how do you have allthe energy to do this?
But to tell you the truth, Ithink with kids, for me it takes
the same amount of energy to doeverything for them at home.
It's just like having anadventure, is just like putting
the energy into somethingdifferent.

(01:34):
So to me it just keeps it freshand keeps it fun.
But I'm not at home doingdishes and cooking.
So there you go.
That's what's going on with me,and we are having a blast about
halfway through the summer formy kids because they go back in
September.
And today I'm going to talk alittle bit about something that
I call the game of inches.

(01:55):
So on the Bloom your Mindpodcast, we take those glimmers
of possibility that are livingin everybody's minds, whether
you see them as a glimmer ofpossibility or not, and we start
to like have you recognizethose glimmers?
And we teach you how to makethem real.
So today we're talking about animportant idea that I teach my
clients and that I find to betrue in my own life.

(02:18):
Every single time it's calledthe game of inches, and I've
been wanting to make thisepisode for you since the fall,
when I saw a football game andthey were like oh, it truly is a
game of inches, and I startedtalking to my bloom room clients
about that.
I remember hearing that as akid, when my family watched

(02:41):
football, the game of inches,and how we just experienced that
as true in the bloom room.
So often it's not the people whocome out of the gate blazing
with energy and big declarationsthat actually get the farthest.
I see this in my coachingcolleagues as well.
It's not the people who try tolike, take giant leaps and skip

(03:03):
over parts, the people who maketheir ideas real, the ones who
actually build the creativeprojects and launch the
businesses, heal relationshipseven, and just live lives that
feel super authentic.
They all have this one thing incommon they play this game of

(03:23):
inches.
Whether they call it this ornot, they take tiny, consistent
steps.
Sometimes those steps feellight and fun, sometimes they
feel decadent and celebratoryand sometimes they feel gritty
and hard.
But they're tiny steps that areconsistently made.

(03:43):
They celebrate the small winslike they just got an Oscar.
They show up on the days whenit's hard.
They're gentle with themselveswhen they fail.
They recognize that failure isin the game of inches.
They practice this rhythm ofsetting intentional goals a

(04:04):
little bit at a time,celebrating them, failing,
getting off track and gettingright back on track, because
every shiny example of successthat you've seen, every book
that's published that you see,that's like how do they do that?
How did they get that out there?
Every business that is launchedwith the most beautiful.

(04:24):
I just went out to dinner theother night at this new
restaurant called Lila in SanDiego and it is epic.
It's part of the ConsortiumHoldings project.
In San Diego they have lots ofbeautiful restaurants and this
one is beautiful, mediterraneanvibe.
There's little rivers flowinginside the restaurant, with
trees hanging with lanternsincredible service.

(04:45):
The menu is just amazing anddecadent and the decor around
the outside is like just solayered and specific and
detailed.
We experience these ideas afterthey've come to fruition.
But all of those things that wesee, every song that is
released, every movement thatwe're a part of, is a beautiful

(05:09):
mosaic made up of a thousandtiny tiles of effort, trial,
failure, retros and iteration.
So that's what we're talkingabout today.
Three perspectives on the gameof inches.
Let's go Perspective one.
The first perspective is thatsmall steps beat big bursts.

(05:32):
Small steps beat big burstsevery single time.
So let me give you an examplefrom my own life.
When I first started creatingcontent for the Bloom Room, I
had all the ideas at once.
I was going to block off awhole week to create all this
content and I just thought youknow, I just need uninterrupted

(05:53):
time to get into the zone.
So I cleared my calendar.
And then life Clients needed me, my kids got sick.
I got behind.
Life Clients needed me, my kidsgot sick, I got behind.
That full week turned into mynext iteration, which was
creating a few days that wereset aside.
And then life happened againand I did not make any progress

(06:18):
when I stopped waiting for thisperfect condition of the whole
week and I just turned my goalinto committing to 90 minutes
every single week, no matterwhat, to record content and
create each module for the BloomRoom.
The 90 minutes stacked, theycompounded and they became

(06:39):
dozens of hours of contentWorkbooks, video lessons,
program structure, all built byplaying the game of inches.
It was so much more successfulthan when I tried to do a big
burst.
And now people ask me how in theworld do you have this much
content?
And I always say it's fromconsistency, it's from doing it

(07:02):
in inches.
And I see the same thing timeand again with bloom room
participants.
The ones who are growing thefastest are the ones who make
some progress every week.
Not massive dramatic leaps,just steady forward motion.
And the other thing about thisis that when they fall off track
it's not that big a deal.
They missed a single step, notan entire production that they

(07:27):
were trying to do right.
So, like when I missed that bigweek, it felt big, it felt hard
.
If I missed a 90-minuterecording session, it was much
easier to reset a different daythat same week to get back on
track.
So when we break things downinto smaller steps, we can get
back on track when we fall off.

(07:47):
So progress never feels like ithas to be all or nothing.
So that's the first takeaway.
Number one consistency beatsbig bursts every single time.
Okay, perspective.
Number two the game of inchesprepares you for the next level.
So let me tell you about aclient of mine who's building a

(08:09):
brick and mortar storefront.
I am obsessed with this.
It's so much fun to support herin doing this.
And one week she came into asession feeling kind of defeated
.
She just made a big move towardher dream that she's had.
We've been working on it forlike a year and we're really
starting it the actual brick andmortar.
She said yes to a lease, startedworking on inventory and then,

(08:33):
boom, life gave her someunexpected big challenges, major
ones, and she came to coachingwith this problem.
Every time I go after somethingbig that I want, the world just
throws all these hard things atme.
Something breaks down everytime I go for it.
So we sat with the belief andwe unpacked it, and what we

(08:56):
discovered together is that lifeactually always is throwing
stuff at us.
It's not just when somethingbig is happening, it's just
consistent reality that problemsare always hitting us,
challenges that we don't expectare always there.
So what was actually happeningis that she was being shown that

(09:18):
she hadn't built theinfrastructure yet to hold the
big dream and life's chaos atthe same time.
It wasn't a sign to stop.
It was a sign to strengthen,because if the big problems
happened three months later,when the doors were open and
customers were waiting, it wouldhave been a much bigger problem
.
So having these problems happennow actually was just showing

(09:44):
us that we weren't quite readyfor the next level, and it
reminded me, right of like, howpets prepare you for babies and
babies prepare you for teenagers.
Every stage gives you a littlemore chaos, a little more
challenge and a chance to expandour capacity.
Little more challenge and achance to expand our capacity.

(10:07):
Having a little toddler that'sall cute, with little like baby
talk and the big cute cheeks.
That's like throwing a tantrum,saying no, gets us ready for
later, when we have a teenager,that's not so cuddly and cute
and is not speaking to us in themost respectful way.
We've had some rounds ofpractice to get there.
Giving up our needs, notputting ourselves first when we
have a pet, gets us ready forpregnancy, where we have to

(10:30):
adjust a lot of things, whichgets us ready for having a baby,
where we give up more and morecontrol.
We are attached less and lessto our own needs.
Every stage prepares usincrementally for the next.
So the game of inches is notjust about progress, it's about,
like readiness, right.
So that's perspective numbertwo Every inch that you take is

(10:54):
preparing you for what's next.
And then our last perspective,and then I'll share three
questions with you that you canuse to reflect for yourself.
Perspective three is that yourproblems scale with you.
So this one's connected to thesecond, but it's a little bit
different and it deserves itsown spotlight.

(11:14):
So here's the truth.
Your problems don't disappearwhen you grow or when your life
gets more complicated or changesor when you reach goals.
The problems get bigger andmore complicated as you do, as
your life does.
So let's say you run a coffeeshop and your espresso machine
takes forever to steam the milk.
It's mildly annoying.

(11:35):
Right Now, imagine there's aline of 20 people waiting for
their lattes and whatever else.
That's not mildly annoyinganymore, it's sort of a meltdown
moment.
Or let's say you're an onlinebusiness owner with a broken
link in your sales page.
No big deal when 10 people arevisiting, but what happens when
2,000 people are signing up foryour launch?
That same little issue becomesa total bottleneck.

(11:58):
And then there's like 200people needing customer service
emails.
Or you've got a communicationbreakdown with your partner or
your sister.
It's irritating on a good day,but once you actually have a
life problem that's unexpected,that comes up like a financial
crisis or a family emergency,that communication problem gets

(12:20):
a lot more painful.
So that's why the game of inchesmatters.
We can talk about a hundredother examples, but solving
these small problems createsmore ease later.
It avoids the problems beingbig and unwieldy crashes later.
So ignoring the small problemsmeans that we're going to scale

(12:44):
the mess.
Means that we're going to scalethe mess.
So that's perspective numberthree.
Solving the inch-sized problemsnow helps us before they become
mile-long headaches.
Right.
It helps us really avoid theproblems that scale with us
become more complicated as lifedoes.

(13:04):
So let's just finish this with afew questions for your
beautiful brain so you can thinkabout this as it applies to
your idea that you're makingreal All right.
Number one where can youembrace the game of inches today
?
How can you recognize andcelebrate small progress in
yourself and in the peoplearound you?
Number two how is the challengethat you're facing right now

(13:29):
actually preparing you forwhat's next?
What capacity is being built?
What systems are being revealedthat are or are not ready for
where you're going?
Next?
And remember, this doesn't haveto be scale in like related to
literal bigness, right, literalsize and complication of a

(13:52):
business or a project.
It can also be a relationship,like we talked about.
How are you communicating?
How are you valuing each other?
It can be health habits.
We talk about home and awaygames.
How good are you at maintainingyour health habits at home
before you scale thecomplication of that by

(14:12):
traveling?
Okay, third question when isthere a small problem that you
can solve now, before it getsbigger?
Maybe just what would like?
A single inch of relief looklike All right, my friend.
Three questions around the gameof inches.
I hope this episode gave you alittle perspective shift, a

(14:35):
little breath of encouragement,a little reminder that every
inch matters and when youcelebrate them, they build up to
become way more progress thanany single leap or series of
leaps can give you.
Just take one next step and ifyou need help building that

(14:56):
rhythm of one foot in front ofthe other, one inch by the next,
come join us in the bloom room.
That is what we do.
All right, my friends, that'swhat I've got for you today, and
I will see you next week.
If you like what you're hearingon the podcast, you got to come

(15:21):
and join us in the Bloom Room.
This is a year-round membershipwhere we take all of these
concepts and we apply them toreal life in a community where
we have each other's backs andwe bring out the best in each
other.
We're all there to make ourideas real, one idea at a time.
I'll see you in the Bloom Room.

(15:42):
You.
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