Good morning, lovelies. How are you today?
So today I want to talk about the next principle, if you like, or strategy that I have found to be essential in helping get things done when you have a newborn. But if you don’t have a newborn, don’t tune out, because this also applies to just about any other life circumstance that you’ve got going on that takes up a lot of time or energy from you.
And this is having a positive mindset with regard to getting things done.
Now, I’m not talking about the mindset challenges you might have when it comes to completing certain tasks, because there will of course, be some of those, that will be causing you to avoid certain tasks and take longer on certain tasks – because of some fear or anxiety you may have. I will address those in another episode
What I’m talking about in this one, is just your mindset in general, with regard to you believing you are going to get things done.
The belief that it’s possible for you to get things done. That you’ve either got the time. Or you believe you’ll figure out a way to get it done, even if you’re short on time.
This matters. The mindset you have – that is, the thinking you have, the thoughts you have going round in your head about your to-do list, and your time and your ability to get things done – makes a massive difference between getting things done and not. Regardless of how challenging it is or how little time you have.
Why?
Because if you think about how our brain works – our brains offer us a thought (an opinion, a perception, an idea of something) as it looks at our external circumstances.
And maybe that thought has come from someone else – or maybe it’s based on some past experience it’s had.
But wherever it’s come from, that thought generates a feeling in our body, an emotion. And that feeling in our body, that emotion is the fuel we use to drive our actions. That feeling directly influences our behaviour in the world. It influences whether or not we take action on something, or we don’t do anything.
And then whatever we do or we don’t do, creates our results. So if the result that we want is to be able to get three things ticked off our list for the day, there will be certain things that we may have to do in order to get those things done. Beyond just getting them done.
For example, maybe one of those things is a lead magnet completed. And so in order to get that done, we have to free up the space and time in our calendar to sit down and write it. And maybe in order for us to do that, we have to ask someone else to help us. Or maybe we have to get time back from something else in order to do that. And to do that, We have to figure out a way to get that other thing done faster.
Now imagine you’re telling yourself that there’s no way you’ll be able to find the time to do that thing. Imagine telling yourself there’s no one you can ask to help you imagine telling yourself there’s no way that the other thing can be done any faster so there’s no way that you’ll be able to create the space and time to sit down and work on that lead magnet.
How do you think you’d be feeling if those were your thoughts? Likely, you’d be feeling helpless and frustrated and defeated.
And if you’re honest, when you typically feel those emotions, you probably don’t spring into action. Instead, you probably go watch Netflix. And eat cookies on the couch. So the result is that you don’t create the space in time to do those things. And you don’t get them done.
Now imagine you have a positive mindset regarding getting things done. You had the thoughts “I’ll figure out a way to get it done.” “ I’m sure there’s a way to get it done faster”, “ I can create the time if I’m creative”. “ I’m sure there’s someone I can ask to help me”.
How do you think you’d be feeling if you were thinking those thoughts instead?
Probably you’d be feeling encouraged, determined, resourceful, curious.
And then think about if you were feeling those emotions what you would be doing as actions. You’d be brainstorming you’d be setting yourself the challenge of getting it done faster you’d be asking around to find out if someone could help you with something, An ultimately the chances of actually figuring out how to get it done faster to free up that time, how to get that lead magnet done, would be far greater.
You would be giving yourself a chance to actually succeed, rather than shutting yourself down at the first opportunity.
This is why positive mindset matters when it comes to getting things done.
And it’s really easy to let our brains go to that negative mindset place, because our brains have a natural bias towards negativity. Our brains want to conserve energy so they don’t want to be doing the hard work of figuring out how to overcome our time challenges.
So don’t berate yourself for having your brain go there by default. It’s completely normal. But I want you to recognise that it won’t serve you, if you have a business that you’ve got to get things done in and you have real life time challenges.
So we have to flip the script, and learn how to take our brain to a more positive place. And I am having to practice this principle every single day at the minute because when you have a newborn, I’ve learned it’s very easy if your brain to offer you there’s no way I can get things done with a newborn. It’s very easy to think I just don’t have the time. Or, it’s just impossible right now.
My sister even offered me the very unhelpful thought. Don’t think you’ll be getting anything done in that first year. Can you see how damaging that thought would be if I actually took that on? I would simply give up trying. And it’s not even true. Because even when we have the most challenging days, I can still find an hour that isn’t taken up by the baby. And that hour might be in tiny little chunks, but it’s still an hour that I can use to get something done. And she’s only nine weeks old so is very dependent on me for everything right now, even entertaining at all times.
When I direct my brain instead to “I can figure this out”, “ I can still get stuff done”, the result I create is that I always do. Now, the math still has to add up, like I said last week, but your mindset will make a massive difference to you getting anything done.
So go through this little exercise, jot down as you go through the day the things your brain is offering to you about how much time you have, about your ability to get things done, about how possible it is to get things done – And then at the end of the day, look back and see whether or not they are negative or positive thoughts. Ask yourself what emotions you feel when you think those thoughts, one at a time. And then be honest about how you show up when you’re feeling that way with regards to you getting those things done.
And if the majority of those thoughts are negative, then the work you have to do is train your brain to think more positively. Now, if you have no idea how to do this, you will want to join my signature coaching program, Time Masters, where I will help your brain get on board with a way of thinking that will actually help you get shit done, no matter how little time you have.
So make sure you’re on the waitlist to get more information about this. Just go to my Instagram bio and click on the link there.
Okay, so that is principle number two – a positive mindset. I’ll see you next time.
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