BIRD BY BIRD
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, we’re diving into one of my favorite concepts from Anne Lamott's best-selling book, Bird by Bird.
This simple, but life-changing strategy has been wicked helpful not only for me, but for my mentoring clients, too!
It’s one of the key ways that I’ve learned to approach and tackle overwhelming to-do lists without totally losing my mind.
The core idea comes from a story that Anne wrote of in her book about a challenge her brother was facing as a kid, and how her father encouraged him with these now infamous words, “Bird by bird, buddy.”
I share how this concept can be a total game-changer for you too, especially when you’re facing an intimidating project – which can be anything from cleaning out a newly deceased parent's house to helping your kid apply to college, or learning a new skill or trying to start a podcast, etc.
Whether you're an entrepreneur struggling with some fancy fandangled tech stuff or someone feeling frozen in their tracks by a complex task, the "Bird by Bird" method is your secret weapon against overwhelm and procrastination.
The key is to stop looking at the entire mountain of work ahead and instead to simply focus on just the next teeny-tiny step you can take.
Print out that PDF form, open the website, take a deep breath, type one sentence, do just one small thing to get you moving forward and gaining momentum.
I'm all about keeping our nervous system calm and not letting fear and anxiety hijack our progress.
Sometimes that means we’ve gotta’ break things down to the absolute smallest action or even calling in help from someone who finds that “daunting to you” task easy.
My biggest takeaway?
We're capable of so much more when we're not in fight-or-flight mode. So please don't beat yourself up or get stuck in a shame spiral, and remember: you can handle anything by taking it “bird by bird.”
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Breaking big projects into tiny steps helps reduce overwhelm.
• Try to focus on one small task at a time.
• Avoid time traveling / future-tripping.
• Your nervous system might respond better to incremental progress.
• Ask for help from a smarty-pants when a task feels too complicated.
• Don't shame yourself when you’re feeling stuck or frustrated.
• Most overwhelming projects become manageable when approached step-by-step.
• Recognize when you're entering a habitual stress response and hit pause.
• Remember that many tasks seem harder in anticipation than in execution.
• Repeat the mantra "Bird by Bird" when feeling overwhelmed.
• The Nest - Group Mentoring Program
BIO:
Karen Kenney is a certified Spiritual Mentor, Writer, Integrative Change Worker, Coach and Hypnotist. She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent, and her no-BS, down-to-earth approach to Spirituality and transformational work.
KK is a wicked curious human being, a life-long learner, and has been an entrepreneur for over 20 years! She’s also a yoga teacher of 24+ years, a Certified Gateless Writing Instructor, and an author, speaker, retreat leader, and the host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.
She coaches both the conscious + unconscious mind using practical Neuroscience, Subconscious Reprogramming, Integrative Hypnosis/Change Work, and Spiritual Mentorship. These tools help clients to regulate their nervous systems, remove blocks, rewrite stories, rewire beliefs, and reimagine what’s possible in their lives and business!
Karen encourages people to deepen their connection to Self, Source and Spirit in down-to-earth and actionable ways and wants them to have their own lived experience with spirituality and to not just “take her word for it”.
She helps people to shift their minds from fear to Love - using compassion, storytelling and humor. Her work is effective, efficient, memorable, and fun
KK’s been a student of A Course in Miracles for close to 30 years, has been vegan for over 20 years, and believes that a little kindness can make a big difference.
KK WEBSITE: www.karenkenney.com
Transcript
Hey, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super duper excited to be here, because today we're going to be talking about very briefly, like one of my
Karen Kenney:favorite books, an idea from this book that has been life changing, not only for me, but also for my clients. And now I want to pass it on to you, because if memory serves me
Karen Kenney:well, and God bless. I hope it does. I don't think I've ever mentioned this before to you. Now, some of you, if you are any of my listeners, if you are a writer, you may have
Karen Kenney:heard of this writer in this book, in this concept, before, so I'll tell you a little bit about it, but first, I'm going to tell you what inspired me to talk about it. So a
Karen Kenney:friend of mine in a former client, and somebody I just adore, I check with, check in with them from time to time. And I was asking him recently. I said, Hey, man, you
Karen Kenney:know, how you doing? What's going on, what's shaking. And he was telling me, sharing me some stuff, like, you know, confidentially, whatever. And then at the end, he just said
Karen Kenney:he's like, as you taught me, as you taught me. KK, I'm just taking it Bird by Bird. And I was like, man, dude, that that has saved my ass so many times. And I don't think
Karen Kenney:we've ever talked about that concept, Bird by Bird, so I want to share it with you now. So it originates from one of my favorite books of all time, called Bird by Bird by
Karen Kenney:Annie Lamont. So Anne Lamott wrote this. I want to say it came out in like 1994 now, I've had my paperback copy. You can't tell in this lighting, but the edges of this
Karen Kenney:thing are kind of like yellowed, right? It's like I I've had this book for a wicked long time. I got it in California. It's been with me ever since, since. So it's called Bird by
Karen Kenney:Bird, and then the subtitle is some instructions on writing and life. So the concept of Bird by Bird comes from a story that she tells in this book. And Annie
Karen Kenney:Lamont, if you don't know her, she has, she is literally just an incredible writer. She tends to write on more kind of, like spiritual themes, but she's very down to
Karen Kenney:earth. She's soba. She's got a lot of really super smarty pants things to say. So I'm a big fan of her books. I have, like pretty much all her books, but this is the one I
Karen Kenney:wanted to talk to you about. Now, this little excerpt from page 18 and 19, where she's telling a story. So I'm going to read this to you first and then get into why,
Karen Kenney:Bird by Bird, I think can be wicked helpful for you, especially if you find yourself getting overwhelmed by something, whether that's a project or, you know, something
Karen Kenney:that you need to take care of, whatever it is, it's so easy to become overwhelmed. So let me read this little snippet for you, and then we'll dive into why I find it so so
Karen Kenney:helpful. She's talking about in is, this is in the chapter called short assignments, and she talks about, so any like has this concept, and it's a concept that's very
Karen Kenney:helpful in writing. You know, if you go to try and write a whole book, it can be completely overwhelming. You can get frozen in your tracks. Did you just think, oh my
Karen Kenney:god. Like, this project is so big. There is so much here. Like, how the am I possibly going to be able to write a whole I write memoir, but write a memoir, a novel, or
Karen Kenney:whatever book, you know, it can be, feel really scary. So there's a concept that she talks about, kind of like, she calls it the one inch frame. And she says, you know, all
Karen Kenney:I have to do is how to tell, like, this one inch piece of my story. I don't have to even write a whole chapter or a whole page. I just need to capture this little one inch
Karen Kenney:pot, and you're going to see how it applies in in a second. So she talks about this. She says, 30 years ago, my older brother, who was 10 years old at the time, was trying to
Karen Kenney:get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. So obviously, this kid is a professional, professional procrastinator,
Karen Kenney:right? She says we were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table, close to Tia's, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on
Karen Kenney:birds immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, Bird by Bird, buddy,
Karen Kenney:just take it, Bird by Bird, and I will never forget reading that story. Obviously, it is the hot beat, right? It's like one of the hot beats of this book, Bird by Bird. Word,
Karen Kenney:some instructions on writing in life, and it's the life piece. Now, some of you might be writers, and you'll find that helpful in other ways as well. Go by the book if you
Karen Kenney:want that, but let me just talk to you, just to all humans, how I think that this concept can be wicked helpful. As I was saying, it can be so easy to get completely
Karen Kenney:overwhelmed. And whether that's in your personal life, your professional life, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're somebody, anything from like, Oh my God, my parents
Karen Kenney:just died, or my mom just died, and I need to clean out my mother's house, or, oh my God, I've just been made, you know, the executive of so and so's will, and there's
Karen Kenney:so many papers to go through. Or, you know, I have friends whose kids have been applying to college, and it's like, oh my god, between the essays and the the applications
Karen Kenney:and the student loans are trying to get federal aid, or whatever it is, it can just feel so overwhelming and so often, especially if you have, you know, a big
Karen Kenney:dream or something, or even if you are trying to do something like learning SEO for your website, it can feel really daunting. And again, when you try to look at the whole
Karen Kenney:scope of a project, or the whole scope, like the 10,000 steps that you have to take, it's like shit, man, you and your nervous system will just start to short wire, start to
Karen Kenney:freak out a little bit, start to shut down. I can only speak about myself, but when I get overwhelmed, I tend to get frozen a little bit, right? I tend to get a little
Karen Kenney:stuck. And it's not so much that I procrastinate, because I'm the type of kid that used to come home from school and I would do my homework right away so that I
Karen Kenney:could go play unencumbered. I never like anything hanging over my head. It's why I don't like, owing people money. It's why I don't like, you know, I'm like, if I like,
Karen Kenney:to just get shit done so that I can be unencumbered without something looming, you know what I mean. So it's not that I'm I'm not really a procrastinator, unless, right,
Karen Kenney:I kind of get frozen in my tracks by overwhelm, and especially if it's something I don't know how to do. And that especially in business, right? And we'll talk about
Karen Kenney:that in a second. Well, no, we'll talk about that first. So in business, there are just going to be times when you find, like, let's say, like, okay, you know how to do the
Karen Kenney:practitioner stuff, right? Whatever you're whatever you're doing, like, let's say you're a coach, right? And you might be like, Oh my God, I know how to coach the
Karen Kenney:shit out of people. Like, I have all these tools. I know how to help people. I know how to mentor people. I know how to guide people through a process, whatever the thing is.
Karen Kenney:But me trying to get, like, a website set up, like, Oh my God, no, right? It feels too overwhelming that tech piece for a lot of people, and this is where it can be wicked
Karen Kenney:helpful to have one of your steps, one of your birds, in this Bird by Bird process be to hire somebody who actually knows what the they're doing,
Karen Kenney:rather than you trying to figure out the plate you know, doing the Things that you know that's not an area of strength for you. It's like, I'm just going to call up my
Karen Kenney:smarty pants nephew, or I'm going to call, call in my friend, call my friend and see if I can borrow her VA her virtual assistants for this piece. Now it's really important to
Karen Kenney:know, like, the pots are going to start to feel like too hard. So let's say there is something on your docket. Let's say there is something on your list, and it just feels
Karen Kenney:like, Oh, my God, there's so many moving parts. I don't know where to begin. And this is when we can just break it down, piece by piece, bit by bit, tiny step by tiny step,
Karen Kenney:like Bird by Bird, right? Because otherwise it can get completely overwhelming to your nervous system. And when your amygdala gets fired, when you start to get triggered by
Karen Kenney:like that, that's that fear, and that's what it really is, right? The body experiences, I don't know what to do, that confusion, that that pressure, it's like, it can just, like,
Karen Kenney:knock you right off a track. It can just, like, cut you off at the knees and just disable you, and you just find yourself doing nothing. So a lot of resistance will
Karen Kenney:come up, a lot of procrastination, like double Amen hands, if you know what I'm talking about. Maybe there's something it could be like, Oh, cleaning out your
Karen Kenney:basement, cleaning out your garage, cleaning out your attic, you know, like, or having to again, like, learning something new. Like, you know, whether, whether it, I don't even
Karen Kenney:like to talk about AI, but maybe there's some fancy new process, or whatever. Or you're like, Okay, I just bought like, I see all, here's a great example. I see all these
Karen Kenney:videos now. Days, which I love of seeing women working with like power tools, women who building right alongside their brother and their brothers, right? And I just love
Karen Kenney:it. And when I I love the creativity part of it. But when I think of myself trying to do that, I immediately start to think about measuring that, I start to go like, Oh my
Karen Kenney:God. Like, if I wanted to build a new deck, or if I wanted to do something, I immediately start to go, like, because it's a couple of projects like around our house,
Karen Kenney:and I'm like, we're going to have to replace that and do that. And then I start to laugh, and I'm like, maybe I could learn to do it myself, and when I start to think of all the
Karen Kenney:steps, like, first of all, don't know what I'm doing. Number two, don't have the power tools. Number three words are my thing. I mean, I'm not a total dummy when it comes to
Karen Kenney:math, but like measuring and like making sure the cuts are right, and making sure you is it pressure treated wood, or should I get the other stuff? And like, where do you
Karen Kenney:begin? And do you rip out this? And what nails and hammering and like, oh, and then I have to pressure wash it, and then I'm gonna have to stain it, or whatever. And I just
Karen Kenney:go, like, I'm melting. I'm melting. If you're not watching this, if you just listen to me, I'm like, grabbing my face and making it melt. And I can get really overwhelmed
Karen Kenney:and no, it will happen. Nothing, nothing will happen. Or I'll call my uncle, or I'll call somebody else and say, hey, you know somebody who can help me with this project,
Karen Kenney:right? But there are going to be times when nobody's coming to rescue us. Nobody's coming to save us. And the fact of the matter is, we just have to sit our ass down
Karen Kenney:and do the thing, and whether it's like, like, I said, learning how to do something new, like paying your taxes online or filing for like, okay, perfect example. I recently
Karen Kenney:found a an old link that I had set aside about like. So my mother was adopted when she was a baby, and back then, back then, a lot of the adoptions were done through the
Karen Kenney:local doctor and the church. They weren't even done at the hospitals and stuff like that. And so there's not a lot of records. Somebody in my life knew. Somebody online
Karen Kenney:read that I had was talking about my mother being adopted, and how my sister and I were kind of trying to find her people. And they said, you know, you can get an after birth,
Karen Kenney:you know, certificate data. So I found the one for the state of Massachusetts. And when I went in and I started looking at all the information I would need to provide them to
Karen Kenney:try and figure it out, I immediately started to get that melty feeling. And what it is is I know this about myself. I'm very self aware at this point in my life. And I'm
Karen Kenney:like, Ooh, you're starting to get a little overwhelmed, because you're starting to feel like you don't know the answers to question six and question nine, and you don't know
Karen Kenney:how to fill this thing out. And then, like you'd see right now, even talking about it, I'm like, rubbing my forehead. That was really just automatic, like, I do that
Karen Kenney:because I'm like, oh my god, this is getting too much. But what I would have to simply do is sit down and Bird by Bird myself, and say, Okay, let's just go to the website.
Karen Kenney:Step one. Step two, let's just open it. Click on the link. Okay, we did that so far. Okay, open it up. Great. Okay, hey, you know that you do better with paper in hand,
Karen Kenney:rather than looking at something on a screen. Print it out. Okay. Step three, I'm burning the like. I'm going like Sparrow, Cardinal, Blue Jay, you know what I'm
Karen Kenney:saying, like dove, seagull. I'm just gonna go down the line and take it like Linda Ty, our friend Linda Ty says, sip, sip, right? I'm not gonna fire hose myself. I'm just
Karen Kenney:gonna Bird by mother fucking bird, that thing. And this can be so helpful. And I wanted to pass it off to you too. It's like how they say in like, 12 step programs, one
Karen Kenney:day at a time. For me, sometimes it's like one breath at a time, one moment at a time, right? Just, just pace yourself. Just that little one inch window that Andy talks
Karen Kenney:about, right? Just like, Don't overwhelm yourself with all the details. And part of what happens is we we time travel, we future travel, we start to look at step 19 and get
Karen Kenney:completely like, Oh my God. And I'm like, no, no, no, let's keep the focus right here. Let's just take a breath right there's lots of little tools we can use when we start to
Karen Kenney:get anxious. We can use a little breath work, a little bilateral. We can do a little tapping. We can do like, all these little peripheral vision there's all these little
Karen Kenney:tools that we can use to help our nervous system. Not like, as I would call it, jokingly, not go offline, right? It's like, stay in the room. Stay in your body. Stay
Karen Kenney:with your breath. You can do it. And if. Just slow down and just remind yourself the next time, the next time you have to do something, and it seems like it's a lot, and
Karen Kenney:it seems like you're you're starting to, like, start to have some sort of a trauma response when you're about to get triggered, just stop, take a big breath in through your
Karen Kenney:nose, exhale it out twice as long through your mouth and repeat to yourself like a little mantra, Bird by Bird. I'm telling you, this helps so much, you know, and
Karen Kenney:there's so many things that it's interesting. You know, for a lot of kids who have PTSD or complicated CPTSD trauma, all these, all these things that that happened
Karen Kenney:to us when we're younger. You know, if we didn't have, like, a lot of help in place as we continue to grow into adults, we've a lot of kids have become, like, hyper independent
Karen Kenney:and hyper vigilant and hyper, like, not like hyper, not good at asking for help, right? And so there's always this pressure of, like, I've got to figure this out on my own.
Karen Kenney:And I just want to remind anybody who's listening out there, you know, there are people now, some, yes, you have to pay to help you, but there are other people out
Karen Kenney:there, your friends, maybe, or a family member or a cousin, or somebody you took a class with, or somebody that you know, you know people like to help. People like to
Karen Kenney:feel needed, and people like to be able to help and sometimes share their expertise. Now keep in mind, if somebody makes their living off of that expertise, they might not
Karen Kenney:want to, like, give it away for free, right? There might be some sort of energy exchange, whether it's Hey, I'll do this for you. Maybe you can bada or swap or whatever the
Karen Kenney:thing is, right? I think usually getting paid for your service is really good, because then everybody understands the assignment. There's going to be no hurt
Karen Kenney:feelings, whatever. But there are lots of people who do want to help, and who might be able something that you find so taxing and so overwhelming to them. It's a walk in the
Karen Kenney:pack, man. It is so easy for them. And, you know, I have somebody, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs talk about their team like they have this team. Like, yeah, I'm my
Karen Kenney:team. Mean, God, maybe, maybe Priscilla and Bob, Ross, Mister Rogers, right? My mother, whatever. So I've got my spiritual team, and then I actually have a physical team. And
Karen Kenney:this really is just me and one other person, and I only call her once in a while, and I'll just say, Hey, I just can't, I just can't with this. And I know that this tech
Karen Kenney:stuff is like your love language, and it is not mine, you know, I know, like, a little bit, like, I know, a little bit enough to be dangerous. I just noticed. I think I got it.
Karen Kenney:I think I just got, I think I got bit by a mosquito on my head, you guys. And we're back.
Karen Kenney:So, yeah, I'll call her, because I can literally feel myself like I'll get wicked excited about a project, like an idea, and I'll be like, I'm gonna do all this. And
Karen Kenney:then when it comes to, like, the back end and actually getting it up, like, I can usually put things on my website and but there's certain things that just, like, I
Karen Kenney:go, No, no. Like, I just want to jab this pen right in my eye. Like, no, again, double A man hands, if you know what I'm talking about. So call in help if you need it. But
Karen Kenney:the first thing to do is you will often surprise yourself at how smart you actually are. What you are capable are when you are not going into fight or flight, when you're
Karen Kenney:not going into freeze, when you're not going into Fauci, when you're not going into flop when you're not going into all those trauma responses because you're like, Oh my God, I
Karen Kenney:don't know how to do this. And for me, one of the main things that I feel when I don't know how to do something is I get really frustrated, and then I will sometimes start
Karen Kenney:to cry. Oh my god, can anybody else relate? Or am I just the big weirdo? But I try not to do that like I try not to take it all too seriously. I'm like, Look, it's all, it's
Karen Kenney:all, you know. It can all be figured out. It can all be worked out. And there are people who are way smarter than me that that know how to do some of these things, you know. So
Karen Kenney:that's just my little love note from my hat to yours this week. You guys like, Don't stress yourself out. Don't freak out about things. If you can help it, use some of your
Karen Kenney:tools. And if you're like, hey, I don't have any tools. These tools of which you speak, if I do not know what they are, then come join the nest. Karen kenney.com/nest come
Karen Kenney:work with me, one to one. Karen kenney.com/quest and I will help you out. But this Bird by Bird concept is something that I share with my clients. I know it has
Karen Kenney:been incredibly helpful for people that I know who tend to lean a little bit more towards the. Anxiety side, who can start to shut down very quick, quickly, and then they
Karen Kenney:will just procrastinate, and then they put themselves in this loop of shame and regret and blame and in like, just like, then the inner critic comes on because, like, You're
Karen Kenney:so stupid. Why can't you just do this thing? Look at you, you're so lazy. Oh my god, you put it. It just creates this whole spiral, this whole pattern, and we don't have to
Karen Kenney:keep doing that to ourselves. So Bird by Bird, my friends, thank you. Like I said, Anne Lamott, is the is just so fantastic. This her book, Bird by Bird, some
Karen Kenney:instructions on writing in life. I highly recommend you reading it, even if you're not a writer, it is so, so fantastic even, and it stands the test of time. I mean, 1994
Karen Kenney:this sucker. And you know, in 2025 it still stands the test of time. It's so great. So thank you so much for tuning in. I hope that's been helpful. I hope this, this
Karen Kenney:episode, has been helpful to you, and I super appreciate you taking the time to spend a little time with me. It is always a happy honor to share my thoughts, my ideas,
Karen Kenney:the tools, a little story like what, whatever you know, what I mean. And I would love to know if you already have read the book. I would love to know if you love the
Karen Kenney:book, if you found the concept of Bird by Bird helpful. So just send up a flash. Shoot me a little message. I always love to hear from you. All right, you guys, have a
Karen Kenney:fantastic rest of your week wherever you go. May you leave yourself in the animals and the planet and the place in the other people, the environment better than how you
Karen Kenney:found it wherever you go. May you and your love and your energy and your presence and your bird by birding, be a blessing. Bye, you.
