Category Archives for Challenges
How To Make Progress On Your Goals
Have you had the experience of setting a goal (like: get more clients, stay ahead of my paperwork or taxes, reach out to members of my network, or write a weekly blog) and then done NOTHING about it?
I’m not talking about setting a goal that you actually have no intention of pursuing (Hello, “10 pushups!”).
No, I’m talking about a goal you care about, would love to accomplish, and in fact, fully intend to accomplish.
And yet, despite all that interest and commitment, nothing happens. I call this Goalnesia, because its so mysterious and feels completely out of your control- like selective amnesia.
I’m very confident that you have had this experience, because I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t. In fact, if you are like many of the people I’ve worked with, you may have had this experience so often that you’ve developed a story about how you are “just plain lazy.”
That’s not true, by the way. People who declare themselves “lazy” are almost always either overcommitted, tired and in need of a break (which is wildly different), unmotivated or confused (which is entirely fixable), or are doing an incomplete job of managing their new goal (which is simply a matter of process).
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How To Give Up On ‘More’
Every time I run a group program—EVERY SINGLE TIME—the one topic that emerges from the group is time management.
The ask usually goes something like this:
“How can I do everything that I already do, AND these practice building things that you are teaching us.”
OR
“I was feeling overwhelmed already. How could I possibly add anything more?”
Embedded in these two questions is a tiny, destructive kernel that will stop your time management efforts (and your business building efforts… and your happiness) in its tracks.
Can you spot it?
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It’s Time to Be Awesome! – Rainbow Dash
The kids (as you know) are home for the foreseeable future. One unexpected benefit of this (in addition to random, mid-day hugs) is that I get to hear the soundtrack to their current movie obsession over and over and over again. Lately, it’s been “Hey Siri, play the My Little Pony: The Movie Soundtrack.” Mostly (to be honest), I just tune it out… but every now and then one of those songs will make its way into my brain and get lodged.
This time, it was “Time to Be Awesome” by Rainbow Dash. She’s talking to a group of parrot pirates encouraging them to stop doing the bidding of the Storm King, and instead do their own AWESOME thing. It’s catchy, and worth a listen (click here).
(My favorite lyric is “Hey Scallywags, it’s time to be awesome!”
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Why Time Management Can Be So Overwhelming for the Self-Employed
There are two kinds of people in the world: those whose work is mostly or entirely dictated by outside forces and those whose work has to be driven mostly or entirely from their own choices.
Think of the first group as all the people you know who have JOBS. Even those who have high pressure, high paid C-level jobs have the boundaries of their work largely set by organizational priorities.
The second group can best be summarized as people who are, to a significant extent, self-employed. This can include the partially self-employed like therapists who have a private practice on the side of their agency job, or side hustlers who offer services or consulting outside of their full-time, corporate, or non-profit jobs. Or it can be the entirely self-employed, like therapists and coaches in full-time private practice or founders of small to medium-sized companies.
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Escape
There are times when you are walking down the road of life, whistling your tune, thinking your whatever thoughts and then… snagged! A vine of worry sneaks out from the forest and wraps it’s thin fingers around your foot. It whispers your name creepily. And you feel yourself suddenly, and without any real reason, caught up in the emotional field of worry. Nothing has changed except that maybe you’re tired? Maybe you ate too much sugar? Who knows why? It almost doesn’t matter.
This happens to me almost once a day. Sometimes it grabs me just a little and I’m able to shake it off easily, and probably once a week it grabs me big time and I have to launch a counter-attack to get myself free.
Here are my tools for escape, I hope they are useful to you!
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We Don’t Have to Agree About Me
In my 40s (I’m 42, thanks for asking) I woke up to a story I was telling myself that was causing me a lot of drama.The mindset goes something like this “We need to agree about me.” Or, loosely translated, “You need to believe about me what I believe about me, or I’m not going to be able to believe about me what I want to believe about me.”
Here are a few everyday examples.
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Six Lessons from ^Almost! Daily Blogging: A behind the scenes look
Today marks three full weeks of The ^Almost Daily Catalyst! Seth Godin has been encouraging me (and, you know, the other 4M people who follow him) for 2 years to blog every day, but it always felt like such a big ask.
I started as more of a blogger than a coach, then the coaching took off and the blogging dwindled to maaayyyybbeeee once a month. And yet, the call of regular writing was always running along in the background like an excitable little dog.
“Bark! Bark, bark!” he says! (That’s dog for “Hey! We could write a blog about that! And this! And that! We totally have enough to write every day! Let’s do it! It will be SO. FUN.”)
Unfortunately, those thoughts were being “managed” by these super “helpful” thoughts:
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What Do You Believe About You?
This week we discussed how mindmanager, our brain’s gatekeeper, and overworked executive, can be encouraged to support our goals rather than “sticking us back in front of the tv” of familiarity. But I realized that I hadn’t clearly explained why mindmanager is so persnickety in the first place.
Why can’t we engage with any goal we want, any time we feel like it?
Ok, so first let’s clarify that the thing you want to do is difficult. No one is blocked about things that are easy! “I want to binge on Netflix but every time I sit down to watch, I freak out and disengage” said (almost) no one, ever.
When things are hard, they involve:
- Times when you don’t feel like doing it
- Times when it’s physically or mentally draining to keep going
- Times when you feel so emotionally vulnerable that you almost can’t stand it.
- Times when you really, truly just don’t know what to do next
What happens in times like these? Do you dig in and push through? Or do you disengage and check out? This is when mindmanager either needs to be on your side, or you will drop back into familiarity.
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F*ck It!
This message is brought to you by the coronavirus, two and half weeks in.
[Tuesday, March 31st, 6pm] I think the lesson from today can be summed up neatly with this two-word, oft stated phrase in the Crowell Home: F*ck it.I’ve decided that for today Imma let go into the mess. Really relax into the chaos. Settle into the shit, and get comfy.
Here we go:
I spent my entire day on zoom, which was glitchy AF as the entire world suddenly logged into it (F-You, Zoom! YOUR internet is unstable!) “connecting” with clients (F-You social distancing! I want to hug my people!) and being emotionally available (F-You self control! I’m going to dip my OREOS in wine!) while also taking care of my kids (F-You color coded homeschooling schedule! One tap for the next 5 hours? SCREENS!) and trying to stay on top of the mountain of videos I’m creating for my classes (F-You youtube auto-translate! Why must it take 73 clicks to find you?!?).
And for good measure: F-YOU New York Times app of doom, Facebook panic button, and [SAY IT WITH ME]:
F-THE-H out of you, Coronavirus.
Fuck all that, is what I’m saying.
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What’s a Mind, Anyway?
My posts for the past week boil down to one piece of critical advice: During the coronavirus crisis (and, actually, always) it’s very important for you to realize that you have CHOICE about what you think, what you feel, and how you act.
Not total choice, obviously, but a heck of a lot more choice than most of us are exercising.
And listen, I’ve heard every version of how that’s not true:
“Some people have depression and anxiety or worse, Amanda. They aren’t at choice about how they feel.” They have more choice than they know, and I want them to see if they can find some. Will their choices make them feel all better? NO. But I’m not going to let that stop me from encouraging them to do what they can to feel more at peace TODAY.
“Some people have lost their jobs and have no money and nobody is hiring right now, Amanda. What do you want them to do?’ I want them to know that even SUPER hard times don’t have to be the only thing happening in your life. Where can you find joy? What delights you? How can you get a little bit of that TODAY?
“Some people are sad, angry, and frustrated, Amanda! And what’s wrong with that? You shouldn’t shame people who are feeling entirely rational, albeit negative emotions.” I would NEVER shame anyone for feeling badly.
And I never said that exercising your choice about how you think, feel, and act during the coronavirus would mean that you will feel great all the time.
How bizarre would that be? Our world is in crisis, people we know are sick (and maybe we will be, too), and there are real worries about how we are going to recover from this economic free fall. Being present and intentional often means feeling sad and angry and frustrated. That’s totally fine.
AND! Being present and intentional can also mean feeling grateful. It can involve laughter. Sometimes it means that you restrict your exposure to the news so you can be present with your kid without that crushed feeling in your chest. Sometimes it means that you tell your husband that “If pajamas are on my body, NO ONE WILL SPEAK about the coronavirus!” All of those things are allowed.