Trying to be good at too many things and finding myself failing to meet expectations, not just others but mainly my own high expectations.
Sometimes I need to remind myself to ‘stop and smell the roses’ because really, life passes by pretty damn quick especially as we get older.
Do you find yourself trying to do everything? It’s not that someone else can’t do it, but it’s easier doing ourselves right? I mean, it takes less time to just do it rather than explain the process to someone else. We know what we want and we can get it done… the problem is, there is no time because you have added to the ‘to do’ list which seems to grow and grow no matter how much you keep ticking items of that list.
The average person can only really focus on 2 - 3 goals in a period and do them well. You can’t be good at everything, you simply do not have the time or capacity. Despite thinking you can look after your family, work, play team sport, catch up with friends, look after your health and take over the world; something has to give at some point in time.
I learnt this the hard way, trying to do too much. It wasn’t by choice but more by coincidence, we had a family emergency, my partner and I weren’t spending any quality time together because we were busy working in and on our business, working hard on improving my football game as well as trying to be good leader. I found myself drowning in the daily tasks and responsibilities I have chosen to take on. There are definitely things you can’t change and things that you just have to deal with but the key thing is to sit down and figure out what is your top priority right now. It may change in a week’s time, or a month’s time. But what is it that you need to achieve right now, today and this week? This brings us back to what are your top three goals?
When setting goals, you have to ask yourself:
1. Are these goals going to make me happy?
2. Are these goals going to help me get to where I want to be?
3. Is it an achievable goal?
With these in mind, maybe your ‘to do list’ is reduced? Maybe it doesn’t matter what others think. Maybe you should start putting yourself first which in turns allows you to help others as well allowing you to work towards achieving your goals.
A positive mindset can be very powerful, it can make or break a person. So instead of putting so much pressure on yourselves to do everything and do it at a high level, sometimes 80% is good enough.
We are always our own harshest critic, so be mindful to treat yourself nice and give yourself a break once in a while.
Applications and tools that you can use that can help with your productivity:
• Evernote Basic
• Google Calendar or some form of calendar
• Dropbox
We’ll be sharing ideas on how to become more productive so you can have more time to do the things you love like spending with your family and friends in coming newsletters so watch this space.
