Past Episodes:
Why Am I So Resistant To Structure?
I’ve found that many people are very resistant to adding more structure to their life. They believe that more structure would confine them, limit their ability to be spontaneous, and put them in a box that takes away their freedom. But seeing what structure actually does for people rather than relating with it in an extreme way, I believe there’s a way to reframe structure so that you can see it as a tool that actually helps you live in closer alignment to who you want to be, even as a free-spirit.
One of the complaints made by those who are new to ‘having structure’ is that a structured life is overly rigid. That structure eliminates your independence and free-will because it mandates that you live a certain way. But the healthiest type of structure is designed to be accommodating, with enough flexibility to handle variability in life while still offering some guardrails to make sure that you don’t go completely off course.
The free-flowing person rejects the idea of “coloring between the lines”, but honestly it’s more representative of their personal bias than it is the reality of having structure. The structure is there to help make sure you as an individual are balanced, organized, sustainable, and effective in whatever it is you choose to do. The constraints in place are only enough to make sure you’re living productively and with intentionality, and someone resistant to structure underestimates how much creative freedom they have while living within those constraints.
Everything I’ve described is pretty abstract, so let’s make it tangible. A simple structure you could create, that many people are most strongly opposed to, is having a schedule for the day. For some, having a schedule feels too routine and robotic to really enjoy life. That following a schedule for the day means you can’t embrace any of the spontaneity of life and it doesn’t enable you to do things when you most feel like doing them.
But in actuality having a schedule helps you to embrace those nuances. A schedule helps you to quantify the implications, consequences, and considerations of spontaneous things and help you thoughtfully decide if you want to do them. It gives you more feedback for your emotions so that you can choose when to be disciplined, and when to be more flowy.
What a schedule does is it helps you live even more intentionally because every time you want to deviate away from your plan, now you’re choosing to do that. Previous to that, having no structure and no schedule means that you unconsciously go wherever the wind takes you with little thought or control, and it often takes you off track in ways you wouldn’t want to go. But the structure offers you guardrails against that while empowering you to lean fully into the things that most serve you.
Again, if you’re resistant to structure, perhaps all you need is a perspective shift. Discipline can lead to freedom. Structure can be flexible in design. And your life can become more productive, contributing, and enjoyable when you have a foundation of awareness and intentionality built into it.
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See MoreDoing More With Less
Many people are experiencing an internal conflict. On one hand, they’re busier than ever and don’t have any capacity for more. Yet on the other hand, expectations are higher than ever and they need to do more things, be in more places, and make it all work. It’s an unwinnable equation and needless to say people are finding it challenging to strike an appropriate balance.
The default response is that people realize they need to do more with less. They need to become more efficient, get more done in less time, and pack even more into an already full schedule. Unfortunately this puts them into a reactive, defensive position as they try to manage it all and figure out how to get it done in a way that's “good enough”.
But rather than solving the problem from the perspective of being limited on resources, what if you choose to be resourceful. Rather than believing that you ‘need to do more with less’, you believe that you ‘can do more with less’. A simple reframe charges you with encouragement, creative thinking, agency, and on positions you to be on offense as you seek to solve the problem. It ignites personal innovation and empowers you to come up with something that’s even better than required.
For example, let’s say that you have a work project that has a seemingly impossible deadline. ‘Needing to do more in less time’ might get you cutting corners and doing a good enough job to get by without consequence. But embracing that you ‘can do more with less’ has you repurposing old frameworks and ideas that expand on the original intention.
Tony Robbins is known for saying “It's not the lack of resources, it's your lack of resourcefulness that stops you.” Embracing the mindset that ‘you can do more with less’, and that there’s hope, possibility, and opportunity on the horizon, is how you create beyond the requirements of your role and excel in ways others won’t.
And at the end of the day, if you absolutely need to get something done, you’re going to find a way to get it done. What I’m encouraging you to do is look more positively on the problem so that you aren’t constrained to the limitations and scarcity of needing to do it, and tap into the abundance of what’s possible.
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See MoreThe 3 Steps To Implementation
The most important thing that any thought leader will tell you is that, if you want your life to change, you need to do something different with what you know.
It’s not enough to just learn it… If education doesn’t create any tangible changes in action or behavior then it doesn’t do anything for you. Especially in personal development circles, that’s why so many people talk about the importance of implementation - because if you don’t then your efforts to actually change your life won’t amount to anything.
The definition of ‘implementation’ is “the process of putting a plan or decision into effect, to execute”. What that involves is using knowledge to do something in a different way that is more likely to generate the result that you want.
As I see it, there are 3 steps to implementation: Awareness, Action Plan, and Accountability.
Everything, including implementation, starts with awareness. You can’t consciously change something you’re not aware of, and you can’t know what you want to improve upon until you’re aware of what you want. This includes awareness of good ideas to try, awareness for the state of how things currently are, and awareness for the state of how you want things to be.
From there you can develop an action plan. This is a clearly outlined procedure for how you intend to take action, with all of the people, resources, timing, and details taken into consideration. You’re more likely to follow through on what you plan to do when you have an outlined system of execution. Most ideas that people hope to take action on don’t have an action plan behind them, and therefore they often don't transfer effectively into positive change.
Which leads us to the final component: Accountability. Having an action plan isn’t enough. Countless times people have said they were going to do something and then they lacked the discipline to actually do it. That’s what accountability helps with - it makes you honestly answer to what actually happened, if you followed through or not, and adds a consequence to skipping.
Poetically, accountability acts as a mirror so you can clearly see how you did. In other words, it creates awareness, and with that awareness you can adjust your action plan and try again.
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See More“I feel like I’m falling behind.”
Something that is becoming increasingly more common in today’s world is feeling like you’re falling behind. Take one look at social media and it seems like everyone else is succeeding - building awesome careers and businesses, taking amazing trips, getting into great shape - and it makes you wonder what you’re doing wrong.
Especially talented, hard-working, smart people who are doing all the right things… They can’t figure out why they’re struggling so much to get the result. They don’t understand why other people make it look so easy but they need to fight for every inch of progress.
To this I want to present two perspective shifts. The first relates to the reality of other people’s successes. The people you admire likely have similar insecurities. They question their level of achievement just the same. What this suggests is that our tendency to feel bad for ourselves in comparison to others is a human condition, and that real shifts in perception come from changes internally rather than from validation externally.
Tom Bilyeu from Impact Theory puts it beautifully: “People believe that when they become the person that they look at with admiration, they will feel that same admiration for themselves.” And unfortunately, that’s just not true.
The second perspective shift is to represent the feelings more accurately. The comparison to others only brings to surface what it means about yourself. It’s the insufficiency prompted by comparing yourself to others that drives the belief that is really at play here: “I thought I would be further along by now.” and “I feel like I’m falling behind.”
The business person’s jealousy of someone else’s success is a reflection that their business isn’t where they want it to be. Seeing someone else in a loving romantic relationship makes you anxious that you’re running out of time to meet your soulmate. We’re each running our own race, and the genuine fear is that we’re falling behind the pace set by where we think we should be.
But there are a few beautiful parts about it. First is, you’re exactly where you need to be. So find some faith and solace in that. But also, it’s within your power to pick up the pace. If you feel like you’re falling behind, there are ways to speed up! Ask people for help, study your conditions for success, and push yourself beyond your comfort zone. You’ll be shocked to see how fast you start to make up ground.
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See MoreEither You Win Or You Learn
Brian Johnson with Heroic has a saying that, if you take it to heart, will radically accelerate your growth and progress: “Either you win or you learn, and learning is winning, so either you win or you win.”
And what’s most surprising is that given how transformational this idea is, most people are unwilling to do it.
When you win, it’s cause for celebration and you feel really good about yourself. But when you don’t, and you fall short of the expectations you have for yourself, it hurts. Motivated to preserve your own self-image, it’s easy to ignore, avoid, and deflect the situation and move on. It’s easier to feel bad for yourself than it is to be honest with yourself and own up to the fact that you didn’t meet expectations.
But failure is the most fertile, valuable, information rich feedback we could ever get. It tells us clearly what didn’t work about our attempt so that we can fine-tune our approach. It’s only by reflecting on the mistake or shortcoming that you can see the lesson within it, and with that lesson become more prepared to succeed the next time.
That itself is a win. If you aren’t going to get the result you want the first time, then logically the next best thing is to get the feedback you need that will maximize the likelihood you’ll get the result the next time.
I used to be horrible at receiving feedback. I would take it very critically and reflex to defend myself rather than hear the guidance others had to offer me. When it came to my own evaluation of my performance, I allowed myself to feel entitled that I should have gotten what I wanted, and that what happened was unfair. And unsurprisingly it only led to more disappointment and more deflection.
That is until I started using my Self Improvement Scorecard for feedback. Basically every evening I fill out my Scorecard to honestly report on how I did throughout the day. For the areas where I didn’t reach my standards or goals for the day, I reflect on why. And time after time, analyzing my performance in my Self Improvement Scorecard, I grew my growth mindset and receiving feedback became more natural to me. So much so that now I genuinely embrace failure as feedback, and take bigger and bolder action in ways I only imagined!
If you want to accelerate your improvement, check out my Self Improvement Scorecard and learn how to install it for yourself. And it's by getting that feedback consistently for yourself, you’ll realize there are only two options - Either you win or you learn!
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See MoreHow To Make A Schedule That Works Even When Life Is Crazy
One of the most important things that every high-achiever has in common is they are incredibly intentional with how they spend their time. The world is busier, crazier, and more unpredictable than ever - demanding more of you as you try to do it all. Those who can overcome distraction and stay hyper-focused on what matters most to them are the ones who get what they want.
And do you know how they manage to do that? They make a high-quality schedule for the day.
In “The One Thing”, author Gary Keller calls a daily schedule “productivity’s power tool”. There is nothing that will keep you on track more than knowing what ‘on track’ is. Another renowned author, Nir Eyal, calls this ‘traction’. He says that “in order to know what distraction is we need to know what we’re being distracted from.” Your schedule tells you exactly that.
Yet most people don’t know how to create a schedule, or their life is so chaotic that they can never get a schedule to work for them. To that, let me share two perspectives:
1)Your day isn’t supposed to go perfectly according to schedule. It’s your intention for the day that represents what you hope to do given the information you have. As the day unfolds and new priorities, urgencies, and information becomes available, you may choose to go off schedule. And that’s perfectly acceptable because your schedule is simply meant to be a reference point to remind you of what you think ‘on track’ looks like
2) Your schedule doesn’t need to be entirely full. For those who have more unpredictable days, you can accommodate that uncertainty in your plan. Leaving “unplanned” times for the things that you know will pop up helps you quantify what you can practically get done. So instead of always having a schedule that is impossible to fulfill, you can create one that’s designed to be flexible and therefore, more doable in actuality.
Ultimately, considering both of these helps you to accomplish a few things. You strike a better balance because you can clearly differentiate between personal responsibilities, work commitments, and 'me' time. You eliminate stress because you don’t add too much to your own plate. And you get more done in less time because you have a clear plan of attack for the day.
If your life is too unpredictable to make a schedule for the day, that’s exactly why you need the structure of a schedule. And if you need any help knowing where to start in creating a schedule, check out this scheduling micro-training where I walk you through it!
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See MoreTips To Disconnect After Work
Something I’m hearing more and more is that high-performers are struggling to wind down, relax, and be present at the end of a work day. They have a hard time disconnecting after work and it’s causing them to not be the person their loved ones deserve. Even when they’re done working, they still have ideas and to-dos running in the back of their minds, pulling their attention away from what’s in front of them.
Ultimately I believe there are two things at the root of this. First is the pressure to perform. Things are competitive these days and expectations from employers and clients are high. It’s increasingly difficult to stand out and get the good results that lead to more opportunities and financial security. This causes people to work compulsively, and for work to be on their mind more often than it needs to be.
The second component is that it’s rooted in our self-image. We see ourselves as a high-performer, and know that high-performance requires that we’re as productive as possible. This means that we try to fit more into the empty space between moments, and because of that we never truly allow ourselves to shut work off. It can be so extreme that we can feel anxiety or uneasiness when we’re doing nothing because our mind’s are so wired to produce.
I speak about this from experience because it's something I continue to have challenges with myself. As my ambitions have grown I’ve noticed that in my personal life I’m not as present in moments as I’d like to be, or listening as intently as I could. At times it’s keeping me from making the most of my time with others, which is one of the things I value most.
What has worked for me is to reframe my disconnected down-time as a productivity multiplier. I recognize that my mind is sharpest when I’m most balanced, so I’ve been more intentional about protecting my personal time knowing that it contributes to my ultimate high-performance.
Because after all, life isn’t just about your work. It’s a big part of life, but it’s not everything. The more I’ve been able to work intensely when it’s time to work, play hard when it’s time to play, and rest maximally when it’s time to rest… The more fulfilling my life has been. And for me, that has started with finding better ways to disconnect after work.
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See MoreSuccess Is 20% Head Knowledge And 80% Behavior
Dave Ramsey, one of the foremost experts in personal finance, has helped millions of people establish a strong financial foundation. He’s been able to make that kind of impact because he knows what it takes to actually get results. He says that in personal finance, “Success is 20% head knowledge and 80% behavior.”
Let me translate that more directly. Ramsey suggests that if you want to get out of debt, 20% is knowing what to do and 80% is doing it. If you want to save up for a home, 20% is knowing what investment strategies to use and 80% is sticking with it. If you want to decrease your monthly expenses, 20% is knowing the right tools and having a plan to limit your spending, and 80% is following through on that plan.
In all of these cases, the answer is to be more disciplined, to faithfully follow through on doing the thing that most serves you and your goals. It’s those who are able to control their behavior that change their lives in the ways they desire.
If I were to put this in my own words: When someone has the intention to improve their life, 20% is knowing what to do and 80% is actually doing it.
We know that we need to exercise more and eat more mindfully if we want to lose weight. We know that we need to generate more leads and have more sales opportunities if we want to grow our business. We know that we need to put work away at the end of the day and be present with our loved ones if we want to cultivate deep and meaningful relationships.
Success is only 20% head knowledge because we already know what we should be doing. The problem is that we aren’t actually doing it consistently enough for it to work for us. In other words, we lack the self-discipline. That’s the 80%.
So rather than waiting for that next ‘golden nugget’ of information to change your life, focus on changing your behavior.
How?
Build the systems of execution that support you in being consistent. Structure your environment so that your desired behavior becomes the default behavior. Get clarity on exactly what you’re going to do and when so that you can’t talk yourself out of it. Be organized and intentional about how you show up to everything that’s on your plate. Get accountability in place that will hold you to it.
And if you need support with that, it’s exactly why I created the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge. Give it a look if you’re ready to start living with the consistency and focus that you know you’re capable of!
Why? Because “Success is 20% head knowledge and 80% behavior.”
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