Just Getting Things Done is not “Productivity”
Productivity needs a new definition. While people are running around busier than ever, I’ve noticed that I also hear people saying things like, “I never have enough time”, I can’t make time to relax” or that they “never seem to get done what needs to be done”. Then when I ask them if they have a business plan or what is their strategy or vision, it is not uncommon to hear that they “don’t have time to stop and reflect”. So essentially, they keep throwing “stuff” up against the wall and hope that it sticks. Productivity is really about getting the things done that matter to your values, gives you a sense of meaning and leads to a truly abundant life – inside and out! There is not enough will power in your mind to get anywhere of significance these days without virtually blowing a mental fuse. Why?
1. “Will power” requires a mental, conscious act in general
2. Our conscious mind is being bombarded at accelerating speeds
3. Most people have wired their brain to habitually (unconsciously) go into an unfocused overdrive, multi-tasking, etc., etc., and tend to not make the time to relax their mind.
The problem is, they have a “what” but they have no “why”. In fact, they are often not even clear about “what” they want or how to get where they are going. Yet, they are going, going…. most of the time nowhere fast! It is a money waster and energy drainer to behave in this way. It is also uninspiring and often leads to patterns of fear of “failure” or “not enoughness”. It is a challenge to have passion if you have not taken the time to reflect and feel into what you are doing and “Why”. If you don’t make time to feel into the clarity of your true core values, how are you going to know if what you are chasing after will even align with your “authentic” heart-felt soul’s purpose? Will it really matter when you “get” it? In fact, have you even stopped to reflect on what your purpose is? Why all the “hard work”?
Hard work happens when:
Set your Mindset for Success – Instead of Sabotage
The mindset “not good enough” or “not enough” is blamed on our brain as if it is “the brain’s” fault. There’s a great reason why you want to take responsibility for this and not once again blame it on something you think you cannot control. The reason is you are not likely to change what you believe you can’t control. You can change your brain, your “perception” of HOW you see life.
“Who do you think you are?” is a phrase often used to attempt to “put someone” in their place. What place? Who’s to say that we have “a place”? Who’s to say you are “not good enough”? Who gets to make all of these definitions regarding what we can do, be or have?
Think about it, you may just be giving your power away to someone who is really insecure and simply hiding out behind the mask of “authority” – whatever that means. Our brain is wired by our thoughts, feelings and actions. Here are three truths you need to ponder if you want to create a mindset for success and stop sabotaging your own business and life success:
1. YOU are not your thoughts
2. What you DO is not “who” your ARE
3. Your “Mental Me” self-image is flexible/changeable.
Number one, your thoughts are passing energy currents in your brain/mind that can ramble on and can even be just something you heard someone else say – about you. Your thought is not the gospel truth. The question is, will you accept it as true? There’s the True Self and then there is “who you think you are” – very different concepts.
Innovation Requires Courage to Confront “Reality”
“Innovation”, “Collaborative Leadership”, “Trust” – these are three terms I’m seeing tossed around quite a bit in the articles and books I’m coming across. Sure, I agree that we are in need of change – in fact, transformation – and what I’m not seeing much of is how to confront “reality”. What does it take to develop innovation, collaborative leadership and trust?
It takes courage!
You see, courage is feeling the fear, the feelings that people run from, and doing what needs to be done anyway. This will require self-awareness. The awareness to wake up and realize that feeling is a vital aspect of being human. Feelings add life, color and variation to our experience. It is what most powerfully wires your amazing brain. If you are only in your head, you won’t have much passion to pull your vision forward. The innovation needed here, however, is to learn how to “make feelings your friend”.
It’s the heart that leads to inspiration and inspired action taking.
Notice I said, “pull”, not “push” or “drive”. When your heart is engaged, the inspiration via loving what you do is magnetic. It is meaningful. What you desire draws you forward. One of the problems is that we have conditioned our brain to be “fear motivated”. How does this look? It shows up as:
1. Focusing on what you “don’t want”
2. Focusing on “what hasn’t been done before” as a negative (duh…what do you think innovation means?)
3. Fear of or resistance to change
4. Fear of failure as a means to motivate (“drive – push – change”)
5. Over-activity, “doing” constantly with very little reflection or quiet time
6. Focusing on weaknesses instead of strengths
“If what you see is what you get, then looking for strengths is the way to find them” ~Peter Block
Team Building: Meaning Motivates
Team building is too often looked upon as “some things” to do, instead of “some ones” to become. Teams are composed of people not parts, like a machine. In fact, it is time to stop treating your body and life as “parts”, somehow separated into bits and pieces. If we only use our left-brain mental constructs, this is how we tend to focus. For example, traditionally we see teams in terms of:
• Strategies
• Tasks
• Dollars and cents measures (“bottom line”)
While these aspects are important, they need to be attained from the perspective of a foundation that can is sustainable. They should only come after reflecting on the components that will engage the mind and heart of the people who will determine if, how or when the “bottom line” manifests. Only focusing on numbers is like focusing on the trees and being blind to the context of the overall forest. It is very short-sighted (as in “myopic”). It’s time that corporations have their vision corrected.
Collaborative leaders need to consider such factors as:
• Clarifying values, purpose and mission in a way that engages the heart to integrate between employees and the company
• How “blind spots” disrupts trust, creates fear of conflict and insecurities that block vulnerability and human connection
• The power of passion and meaning to fuel attention to results and ways to develop the mindset of the individual team members
Here are three steps that leaders can bring to the table as they are developing and inspiring their teams:
A Twist on Maslow: When Enough is Never Enough
People are looking for meaning. I like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, yet I’ve come to understand that moving beyond “survival”, competitive mentality is a bit more complicated than just having your survival needs actually met.
Your perception can still tell you that you don’t have enough.
I personally have experienced the “not enough” mindset, and it is a “mindset”. Even though the external things are in place, the issue is inner psychological insecurity or “lack” consciousness. According to Maslow, as people have their survival needs met, they then look for ways to move up the hierarchy toward “self-actualization”.
The problem is, if one is not aware of how fear can impact their sense of:
• Self-identity,
• Sense of trust
• Their need for belonging
…they can still believe that they need more “things” outside of themselves to give meaning and purpose to their life. So you see, reaching the top can be tricky and is not a linear process. So, what keeps people stuck on “lack” focus?
• More than anything, it is the way we are focusing our attention on negative media and other images that incite fear and competition
• The conditioned behavior to think small and play yourself down
• Cultural mindsets that promote comparison to others instead of appreciation of self and others as unique
• The lack of awareness of how the brain wires into the body whatever thoughts/feelings you focus on – like it or not
• Flabby imagination muscle and ignorance of the co-creative process/creative ability of the mind to create, “reality”
• Fear of our feelings; not a good idea at all
One can have millions (or billions) in the bank and still get stuck on the hierarchy ladder to self-actualizing. You see, it’s not:
• How much money you have
• How many educational degrees you have
• Your social status
• Your IQ
…that determines whether or not you can tap into and live as your powerful, authentic self – with peace of mind. What really matters is, are you courageous enough to question how you are seeing yourself and the world around you? How open is your mind about self-compassion and learning how to change the way you are looking at self and others? We say we want innovation, but we already think we “know it all”.
The Power of Vulnerability – It’s Fear-Less
Lack of vulnerability is one reason why team relationships are so dysfunctional. The lack of trust leads to people putting on their “persona” (the root word in “personality) masks. In our culture, vulnerability is confused with the concept of “weakness”.
I’ve got news for you – vulnerability is anything but “weak”. I know this from personal experience. Early in life, I started out as passive (yes, me!). I was quite the timid one. Once I was able to get beyond kindergarten, I begin to seek my voice as I have a natural tendency to lean toward extroversion – as long as I have some “introversion” time for myself as well, that is. The concise story here is that eventually, due to a combination of my experiences and my perceptual tendencies, I started to see the world as competitive and hostile.
I started to mistrust, fear my feelings and made up my mind to not be vulnerable because I was taught like most people, that this was “weakness”. In truth, I was afraid. In fact, I went overboard to hide my fear and became somewhat aggressive and controlling whenever I thought I needed to protect myself – or my point of view. Now, here are 5 lessons that I learned:
Leadership is an Affair of the Heart – and Mind
Collaborative Leadership is a partnership between the head and the heart – the mind and the heart. It begins at this level before you can collaborate with other people. Gone are the days when people were willing to be dominated and controlled.
I’m not saying that fear can no longer be used to manipulate people. What I am saying is, that it doesn’t have the stronghold it once did in that people are now looking for engagement. They want inspiration and meaning; they want a reason to get out of the bed in the morning.
People are looking to thrive not just survive. So, though you may get their body to show up, if you don’t have their heart, they are likely to sabotage your efforts one way or the other. As Gallup shows at least 70% of employees are disengaged. Good luck coming up with new innovative ideas, passionate customer service or team cooperation if this statistic is what your employee satisfaction survey reveals.
Sooner of later, no matter what your current revenues are, you will be run over by the businesses that are evolving to meet the expectations of its employees and team members. If worker absenteeism, lack of purpose, lack of autonomy or little opportunity for personal development are characteristics of your organization, brace yourself for a change.
I don’t care how intimidating you my come off as being “the boss”. People give their best to those who they love and trust – not who they fear. One of the most common reasons cited for leaving a company is poor relationship with “the boss”. One of the most common reasons for staying with a company is a good relationship with “the boss”.
5 Tips to Boost Brain Power and Productivity
Achieving business success requires more than collecting advanced degrees and learning sales and marketing strategies. These things are useful, but we are so “dis-integrated” in our thinking these days, that we miss the forest (the big picture) because we are so busy trying to cut down trees (“doing stuff” and gathering information).
We need to integrate and do both and do it with clarity and a clear and passionate “why”. Gaining clarity and “why” though is a product of making time to slow down and reflect. If we do it this way, paradoxically, we’ll likely get more done with genuine productivity, easier and in less time. Now wouldn’t that be nice?
You may also start to enjoy your life again as you find more time for relationships and self-care…. maybe you can even nurture the source of your very life force – your spirit!
I have personally and experientially found out, even before the brain science started to document the fact that self-mastery requires a tangible understanding of how to “retrain our brain”. Why retrain? Because for the most part, the way that most people have wired their brain does not serve their highest good or support their true potential.
In this post, however, I want to focus on five things you can do to begin to boost your brain’s power and efficiency, even if you don’t yet understand techniques to rewire it. Here are 5 Tips to Boost Brain Power and Productivity the “soft” – and powerful – way:
Not Enough Time? Change Your Focus
Productivity needs to be defined as accomplishing goals and dreams, not simply being, “so busy”. If fact, if you keep talking about how busy and time poor you are, you will likely waste time and energy. Why? Because talking about it is revealing that you are focused on lack of time instead of focusing on where you want to go.
Be mindful of your words as you words reveal your thoughts. Your words speak to the quality of energy of your “being”. If you talk about lack of something repetitively, you are likely to manifest it into your life. This is how the brain and mind work. The primary mechanism of the creative process that ends up being your life’s experience is “focus of intention and attention”.
These two things are slightly different. Intention is a feeling and creates the mental image and attention is about keeping your physical eyes and your mind’s eye on the target. Here’s the catch though: if you have wired a belief into your subconscious part of your mind that you “don’t have enough time”, this powerful intention will be the dominant experience.
Most people don’t even bother to set a conscious intention daily anyway. If you did, you may have a chance, but if not, you can pretty much count on “not enough time” being your experience. You see, it’s not that you are a victim. It’s not that you have fewer hours in a day than other people who seem to accomplish major life changing goals in their lives. What it really is, is that you do not understand how weak your power of focus has become because of some of the following beliefs that you have formed over time. Here are 3 simple examples:
- Multi-tasking saves time and is effective (weakens attention – wastes energy also)
- Life is “hard” and success takes “hard work” (creates struggle)
- Reflection and quiet time is a waste of time (actually it revitalizes and restores the mind)
Here are some solutions to the above:
3 Clear Steps to Radically Change Your Life for the Better – Today
Collaborative leadership, networking, team building and communication skills are all considered valuable and vital to business success in the evolving workplace. Typically when a person decides that he or she wants to learn skill sets related to these areas, they proceed to learn “techniques”. While technique does matter, there’s much more to learning and applying skills sets than meets the eye – the physical eye that is. Most people are still not aware of the power of the brain and its “mind’s eye” to make or break their ability to influence others, break procrastination or create a viable strategic plan.
If it were as simple as taking a class or playing team-building games, organizations would be places that engage the minds and hearts of employees and effectively cultivate personal and professional development. People would be clamoring to get to work on Monday mornings, and absenteeism and lack of team trust would be uncommon challenges. Entrepreneurs would not be working themselves to the bone and worrying about payroll if purely motivational seminars really worked.
In reality, these issues are growing concerns for small business as well as for mega corporations. What is the problem here? Not to over-simplify it, but a central issue is the ignorance that we human beings have in regard to our own brain management. We simply do not understand how we are wiring our mind in a way that keeps us living far beneath our true potential. The brain itself is not the problem; it is truly magnificent and amazing in it’s capacity and functionality.
The next great shift is already beginning and that is, understanding how your amazing brain can help you to take your business and life to the next level, or keep you stuck for the rest of your natural life.
As you make your plans either in business or personal life, here are three simple tips that you can begin to use while you are busy taking all those informational classes and learning new “techniques”. Maybe you will then be able to apply what you learn and “just do it”:
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