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Hey, Jordan Harbinger here from the Art of Charm.
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Welcome to Minnesota Monday.
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I m happy to be here with you kicking off the week with something quick and actionable that you can implement right away that ll make you more magnetic and effective.
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If you re anything like me, you ve spent way too much time agonizing over your ability to keep up with your workload or your life load.
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Sure, you feel some low-level or not-so-low-level stress that leads to that overwhelmed feeling that we just all loathe.
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The problem with this is that a lot of things get swept under the rug.
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We say we re going to do them later, or we try to forget about them, or rationalize that they just don t even need to be done, and this creeps up on us.
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It becomes insidious, and we start to lose sleep and start comparing ourselves to other people who seem to have it all together.
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Then, the anxiety mixes with your lack of sleep and congeals into a lower sense of self-worth and maybe even a lack of motivation, which leads to yet more slacking off and more comparison with others and so on.
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It s a vicious cycle.
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Now, the biggest problem with this isn t finding out that it s affecting us, nor is it coming up with some plan to get motivated and get more done.
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The problem is that often, the thing standing in the way of us getting our proverbial ish together is us.
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Yeah, it s you, man.
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You re sabotaging yourself and you re sabotaging your productivity.
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What?
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Why the hell would I do that, you say?
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Well, I m glad you asked.
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Allow me to explain.
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Self-sabotage is simple on its face.
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It s essentially the phenomenon that occurs when we throw obstacles and hurdles into our own path.
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I ve done it, you ve done it, but some people do it all the time with just about everything that s important to them.
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This means health, finances, relationships, career, you name it.
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It s like one part of your personality is in a passive-aggressive fight with another part of your personality.
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It s messy.
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Need an example?
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Alright.
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When s the last time you had something important to do and you went onto Facebook or into your email box or texted a friend instead?
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Admit it.
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We ve all done this.
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But the question is why?
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Why the hell would you waste precious time doing something that you know is not advancing you towards your goal and yet here you are watching this video or watching this stupid thing on Facebook instead of writing or instead of researching or instead of whatever.
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You get the idea.
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Paradoxically, some of the science behind this has shown that self-sabotage is actually linked strongly to a sense of survival, at least the survival of our egos.
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For example, if we fail at what we ve set out to do, we can blame that other external object or activity for the failure.
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Oh yeah, I was playing with my new dog, I was talking to my family, my friends, my new partner, whatever.
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It s easier on the old ego to say that you made a set of choices that resulted in not giving your goals enough attention as opposed to admitting that your best just wasn t good enough.
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Basically, you re building up a set of excuses in anticipation of failure.
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It s subconscious and it s a dirty habit.
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So now we get it, it makes sense.
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But the problem remains.
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As I mentioned before, this constant self-sabotage can send you into a downward spiral.
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The more you do it, the easier it becomes, and the harder it can be to get back on the horse.
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Because each failure somehow proves that you just can t do it and you aren t cut out to achieve your goals or make anything significant happen in that area of your life.
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The other thing that happens, and this is killer, is that since you re constantly playing catch-up and in panic mode, the quality of your work suffers.
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Since you re a listener of the Art of Charm podcast, you know about the concepts of deep work and how focused, deep dives are what make real creation and achievement possible.
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The other side of this problem coin is that since you know you re capable of better work product, you feel ashamed of what you ve turned in because now you know it s not your best.
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You re never playing at your A game and it hurts.
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This is a recipe for depression if I ve ever heard one.
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All right, Jordan, got it.
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How the hell do we fix this problem then, smart guy?
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I got you, don t worry.
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Here are some quick suggestions from a few guests of the Art of Charm podcast.
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One, eliminate distraction.
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Nir Ayal, Cal Newport, and several other guests on AOC are huge fans of making sure that the phone is on airplane or do not disturb mode, you re not getting notifications, there s no vibrations, no outside pokes, no nothing.
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This might also mean closing browser tabs or making sure your music is on a nice long playlist and you don t have to go surfing through Spotify for a half an hour finding the right tunes.
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Number two, change your environment.
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For me, I often have to jump to a cafe where there s a lot less fun stuff to do other than work.
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Sure, I m used to working from the studio I built in my house these days, but it took me the better part of a decade to get where I am now with working from home.
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I still find that a quick change up can give me a boost of productivity when I really need it.
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Plus, nothing says finish these dumb emails as fast as humanly possible when you have to go to the bathroom and you don t want to wait in line at Starbucks to do it.
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Three, use a tomato timer.
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Seriously, there are apps for something called the Pomodoro technique that get you focusing intensely for 20 or so minutes at a time, followed by a short break.
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This is great for quick bursts, and I often find myself getting into the zone and not even taking the break after the timer dings because I m just cranking away.
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There s something about knowing exactly when your next break is that is very liberating.
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Try it for yourself and see how it goes.
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And number four, last but not least, a little twist on the above is my friend James Clear s two-minute rule.
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This essentially says that if a task is going to take less than two minutes, just do it.
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A corollary here, or corollary, depending on who you ask, Jason, especially to the Pomodoro rule I mentioned earlier, is that you can start something new and you can just do it for two minutes as well.
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Often you ll blaze right through those two minutes and accomplish much more than you thought.
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This one is especially great for us procrastinators who put off getting started.
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There s so much more like this on the Art of Charm podcast.
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Of course, you know that if you re not new.
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Check us out and definitely check out the Art of Charm Challenge where we re helping you learn how to better connect with others, create more productive personal and business relationships, and we re taking you step by step to help you move forward with that.
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There s also a very supportive Facebook group with thousands of other AOC family taking the challenge as well.
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Of course, AJ and I are in there with the rest of the Art of Charm team helping you move through those challenges.
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It s great for us to see the growth going on there.
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It s really, really fun.
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It s really, really easy to get started.
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Harder to stick with it, though.
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See the techniques I mentioned earlier.
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Just text CHARMED, C-H-A-R-M-E-D, to 33444 in the States, or go to theartofcharm.com slash challenge and get rockin .
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All right, everybody, have a great week.