I think I’ll write 45,000 words in January. Focus drives momentum.
I work best when I can be fully focused on one thing, or maybe one small set of things.
Unfortunately, much like my desk, my agenda can become cluttered. Also much like my desk, not everything on the agenda should be there.
Continue reading “Focus Drives Momentum: Writing 45,000 Words in January”
Overwhelm is a term that comes up a lot in the entrepreneurial community, especially for solopreneurs. As the boss you must always think about the big picture, keeping everything in mind all the time. Then you have to execute, doing the ground level tasks.
The great thing about being the boss is that everything is up to you.
The worst thing about being the boss is that everything is up to you.
The longer I work for myself, the more I laugh when someone tries to pitch some kind of opportunity by saying “you can be your own boss.” This is only appealing to people who have never actually done it.
This is where the overwhelm comes from. If you are trying to carry the entire plan for the great cathedral in your head while you lay every brick it becomes overwhelming. There are so many bricks to be laid! What is one is out of place? What if there is a mistake?
The architect on the cathedral building project may be quite stressed out. They think about every little thing that has to go right and could go wrong.
The bricklayer? As long as he’s laying his bricks where he’s told and he’s getting paid on the regular, overwhelm is not a word in his vocabulary.
What if you could be the bricklayer in your own business, only thinking about the next brick?
You can. You can separate yourself into two roles: the architect and the bricklayer.
The architect must think about the big picture but doesn’t lay the individual bricks. The bricklayer doesn’t know or want to know the big picture. They just lay the bricks where they’re told.
You can achieve this by dividing your time into planning time and executing time.
In the planning time, you are the architect. Think of it as if you were preparing detailed instructions for your employee who works in a different office and needs everything laid out for the day or week ahead of time.
This is when you think about the big picture. This is when you make the big decisions of how you will allocate resources. This is when you are the boss.
Then, it’s time to execute. You are now the bricklayer, following the architect’s plan. If there’s a minor error in the plan, you don’t worry about it. If the order isn’t entirely perfect, no big deal. The boss gets what the boss asks for.
In bricklaying time, you execute. You don’t think about the big picture. You don’t worry about the grand goals. You run the action item list in the order that the architect presented it to you.
The bricklayer is never overwhelmed because they lay one brick at a time, no matter how many are left to lay.
Try it. Set aside specific time to be the architect and plan your day or your week. Then, become the bricklayer. Follow the instructions and only think of what must be done next.
How can you be overwhelmed doing one thing at a time?
What do you think? Do you think this strategy can help you? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Michael Whitehouse does not know how to lay bricks or design a cathedral, but he does know how to help you stay focused and motivated on what you need to do without getting overwhelmed.
Click here to set up a free, no obligation half hour coaching session with Michael to talk about how you might better be your own employee.
Sometimes you’re at a dead stop. Maybe it’s just a tough morning to get up. Maybe it’s a tough year. You need to cold start yourself.
It could be a full on depression, a reaction to a disappointment in life or business, or something else.
But the result is the same: you are at a dead stop. No momentum. No energy. No desire to get up and go.
Continue reading “3 Steps to Cold Start Yourself”
There is a certain area of coaching that teaches that your worth is determined by net worth. They tell you that if you don’t have a $10,000 offer, you ain’t nothing. If you’re not bringing in $20,000 a month, you’re a failure.
This mindset derailed my business off of a successful growth path into the doldrums.
Continue reading “High Ticket Coaching Nearly Killed My Business”
If you think about depression, it seems like a very maladaptive trait. Why would our human organism have adapted a mechanism that causes an otherwise functional human to just stop functioning? Wouldn’t that have been bred out of our genes?
Unless there it serves a purpose.
I wondered about this many years ago, and I started looking into it. There is a theory that I read which changed the way I thought about depression and has been very valuable to me.
The theory is that depression exists as a mechanism to force us to stop traveling down the wrong path. Sometimes we get so fixated on a particular course of action, that we ignore all warning signs that we should change course.
According to this theory, depression is a neurological mechanism to force us to stop working and to think about our course, as well as to make it painful enough to pursue a difference course.
This theory changed my life. Once I saw depression as a warning sign, and not some kind of malfunction, I would respond to it by examining my situation and seeing what needed to change. Sure enough, after a bit of a rest, I would execute a new set of actions to change the situation, and the depression would pass.
Consider this the next time you fall into depression. Take a break to reevaluate. There will be aspects of your life that feel unbearable. Change them. Your mind knows what you must do. Listen to it. You possess more inner wisdom than you think.
I’d be open to talking things through with you to get you on the right track. Click here to schedule a call. You are meant to do great things. Let me help you take the first step.
How do you see yourself? What is your self perception?
The other day, I had someone approach me looking for assertiveness training. They felt that they did not stand up for themselves enough, and that people were able to walk all over them.
As it turned out, the lack of assertiveness was not the problem. It was the symptom of the problem.
The problem was that this person saw themselves as a person whose voice did not deserve to be heard. They did not see themselves as a person who had value to give to the world.
They did not believe they were worth the space they took up in the world.
I told them that assertiveness training would not be effective because it would be an act. It would not be authentic. They could not stand up for themselves because they did not believe they should.
All the training in the world would not help because it would feel like a lie, and the same subconsious block would prevent them from acting on the training as was already preventing them from saying what they should.
Rather than paper over the problem with technique, this person needs to delve deep into the causes of their insecurity. They need to sit with themselves to understand the purpose that they were placed on Earth for.
Every one of us is given a particular set of gifts: skills, talents, desires, ambitions, perceptions. These gifts give us the power and potential to be great, to affect the world in great ways, to make a difference.
Since we are given these gifts, we have the obligation to use them and to live in our greatness. To do otherwise would be to spurn God’s generous gifts to us.
So, how do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as one who is blessed by your creator with amazing gifts and an important mission? Or do you not see that?
And what are your gifts? What greatness are you placed on this Earth to achieve?
Every morning, I share a high energy motivational message right in your email. To sign up free, visit http://motivation.guywhoknowsaguy.com.
If you’d like to talk about your own self perception and what might be holding you back, let’s talk. Click here to schedule a call.