Are you trying to break out of a rut? Are you stuck? Maybe you’re just not being as productive as you want be for the majority of your day.
This often happens. Do you currently find yourself wasting a lot of time lately? If so I can help you change that – today.
You have the capacity for more. You can be more engaged, energized, and successful for more of your day and there’s three things that you can do to make that happen.
#1 “Look in the Mirror”
Take an honest assessment of how you’re spending your time. An honest assessment of your strengths, the things you’re really rockin’ and getting done but then get really critical about the things that you’re simple not doing.
When you do that, I want you to get someone else involved. We’re our own worst critic, we know that. But we often tend to be hard on ourselves about all the wrong things.
We are hard on ourselves about things that really don’t matter and ignore the crucial parts of ourselves that would change everything if we simply saw ourselves clearly.
Ask your spouse, ask your boss, a colleague, a friend, enroll the help of a coach. Ask the people around you what they see as your strengths and weaknesses (and be open to hear their honest feedback).
What do they think you’re really good at and where do they think your areas of opportunity lie?
You need to start seeing a clear picture of where you really are today.
Once this happens, you can move forward to a place of growth and development.
The second step to “looking in the mirror“ is to visualize where you wanna be. You need to be able to see things about yourself and about your life that you desire.
You need to be able to see things that aren’t currently present today. You need to be able to start to identify with a new identity.
We can want all these wonderful things for ourselves. We can set massive, monstrous goals that are really exciting but if they don’t get tied to our identity, if they don’t get tied to who we believe we are or who we believe we can become, then they’ll never happen. So, you need to start to see yourself in a new way. Start to identify with a different way of being.
#2 Only focus on the things that you’re really committed to doing
Spending time focusing on all of your excuses and coming up with reasons why you’re not going to perform or reasons why you didn’t hit the goals that you have will not get you any closer to reaching them.
Instead of focusing on all the things you’re not willing to do or all the things that aren’t gonna work in your current lifestyle, start to focus on what you will do.
Pick one thing. Pick one thing to stop doing, one thing to start doing, and then select one of your really great habits to continue doing.
Focus on what you will do and get rid of the excuses. Stop spending time talking about what you don’t do. What you focus on expands.
#3 Attack the root cause
Let’s say you have a goal to be more productive. You need to reverse engineer it. Get to the root cause of whatever is holding you back.
Ask yourself, instead of being productive, what am I doing? Well, I’m checking email or scrolling through social media…
Then you take another step back and you ask yourself, why am I doing those things rather than being productive? Why am I scrolling through social media?… I am stressed out at my job and it’s a way for me to disconnect and to let my mind take a break.
Next question: Why are you stressed out? Answer – I’ve got too much on my plate and I haven’t been able to manage my time in a way that allows me to do all those things.
So you reverse engineer it back to the fact that your time management and prioritization skills need some attention.
If you knock out the root cause, you will already be 75% of the way to your goal.
Stop hammering yourself with the fact that you need to be more productive, that is obvious.
The more you continue to tell yourself what you need to be doing without any strategy, the longer it’s going to be before you actually reach that your goal.
First, get really clear on where you are today. Your strengths, your weaknesses, have somebody else help you identify your areas of opportunity. Second, focus only on what behaviors you will commit to executing. And then third, attack the root cause of the problem.
Doing a little digging will wake you up. Start paying attention to get yourself out of whatever rut you are in.
I hope this helps you. If you need any more suggestions or you’re not quite sure what it means to, attack the root cause or you’re not sure how to reverse engineer your own lifestyle right now, send me a message. I do free consultations all the time for people. Helping them get started. I’d love to do that for you too.
Book a complimentary “Get Clarity” call with me and I will help you get unstuck, gain momentum, and reach your goals.
Natalie Peterson is the creator of The Stamina Protocol™, Stamina to Care and Fuel & Fit – Habits for Life. She helps successful people and organizations battle the symptoms of burnout. Instead they gain the ability to take back their time, double their energy, and increase focus so they can finally be more successful at work and not arrive home stressed out with nothing left in the tank.
Natalie has 13 years’ experience in organizational development and human skills training. Natalie holds a Master Trainer Certification in Situational Leadership® , The Leader’s Protocol® , The Service Protocol® , Forte Communication, and is a Marshall Goldsmith Certified Executive Coach.
Natalie has traveled all over the United States and Latin America implementing leadership curriculum’s into organizations, across every industry, from healthcare, to retail, and global call centers. She has a Master’s in Exercise Physiology, a certification as a Strength & Conditioning Specialist through the NSCA, Precision Nutrition Level 1 & a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Certification.
She can be reached at natalie@donbrown.org
