Power, Procrastination and Productivity

My martial arts teacher talks about having a stop-and-go rhythm when we train. Power comes from the stop – you have to relax, go fast, and then in the last moment - give it power.

When you watch little kids try to punch hard, they often tense up everything in their bodies to demonstrate their strength. Trying to force the punch this way creates resistance for themselves. This slows the punch down, and … no power.

Alternately, kids in 2nd and 3rd grade usually want to do everything as fast as they can. When they move too fast, they also have no power.

The sweet spot is somewhere in between – with a stop-and-go rhythm.

A lot of us have the same problem when it comes to feeling productive. Either we feel like we have to get it all done as fast as possible and don’t allow for stops, or we put up resistance to the things we know are going to get us the results we want.

Either way, we find ourselves struggling.

I was in a group coaching session earlier this year, and someone said he felt like he had too many plates spinning. As soon as he got one stable, others would start to fall over. He was working on systems for his gymnastics studio, trying to hire more people, launching a new business, and needing to be a good father and husband.

He had a lot of goals with the same timeline, and he felt like he wasn’t executing well on any of them.

I had another client who was working on setting up a team in her real estate business so that she could back away and start a new business. She was already training in the new field and designing the new business while she was working to close deals, figuring out how to build a team, raising teens, being a wife…. And she NEVER STOPPED. The first time I asked her about breaks in the day she laughed and said that resting was wasted time.

They were both all go and no stop. Pulled in too many directions, never stopping, they were both losing their power and feeling unproductive. In each case we talked about prioritizing, resting, and being extremely clear on what needed to be done and when. The last time I checked in, he had a new hire at the gym who is already showing up like a rockstar, and she had taken some much-needed time off and came back to all three businesses with a lot more energy and direction.

Adding in time to stop gave both of them better results.

Sometimes the problem we have with productivity is the opposite: too much resistance. But just like with a punch, WE are the ones generating the resistance. I’m sure you’ve seen it:

• The person who will start their diet …. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow (which as Shakespeare says “creeps in this petty pace from day to day.)”

• The person who wants to start exercising and overdoes it on day one so that they end up needing a week off before they can start again.

• The person who says “that’s the way we’ve always done it. It can’t change”

Whatever flavor it is, the resistance comes from inside.

I don’t live with a go-and-go rhythm anymore. I have a post-concussion brain that doesn’t allow it. Recovering from PCS taught me how incredibly important a stop-and-go rhythm is for life. My kryptonite is resistance … in the form of procrastination and distraction.

As much as I’d like to blame it on either ADD or my manifesting generator human design, the truth is that I go off in too many directions as a defense mechanism. The internal struggle is this: there are a lot of things I do that I’ve been doing for a VERY long time. Things I consider myself good at – like coaching, teaching, and talking to people. These are easy for me to execute because I feel very confident and competent.

These days I spend a lot of time outside of my comfort zone – especially for anything that has to do with marketing my coaching – and because I am uncomfortable and uncertain, I procrastinate. I will often look for anything else to do, rather than practicing the things I need to improve on. And I’m sneaky about it. I’ll do things like

• not sleeping enough, and then being too tired to focus on the work in front of me.

• getting a late start to my work day (usually to make up for not sleeping enough), and then prioritizing the easy things first so I can get more of them done in the shortened time I have.

• doing the wrong work on the wrong day or the wrong part of the day. I know, for example that I don’t shoot videos well at the end of the day, but I often make other things higher priorities early in the day.

Whether you’re feeling unproductive because you have no stops or because you’re pushing against self-made resistance, the solution is the same: you need more clarity.

You need to clarify your priorities so you know what matters and what doesn’t. You need to clarify boundaries for yourself so you know when to be doing what. To do either of those, you need to know – very clearly – who you want to be, and WHY you want to do the things that you want to do.

You need to know your purpose.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a high school student or a CEO, knowing what matters to you makes a huge difference in how you show up and do the things you do.

When you know who you are aiming to become and what you want to contribute, it becomes easier to set boundaries around your priorities so that you can move without resistance, find your rhythm, and have the power to do the things you want to do.

If you would like help exploring any of this, check out my website and schedule a free 1-hour Success Strategy Session with me. I’d love to help.

Go have a great day!