It’s half way through the year…
Are you where you thought you’d be?
Are you where you want to be?
If you are like me, you started off the year by setting goals. Goals around things you wanted to start doing (like learning to speak Spanish), stop doing (like ruminating about the past), and even things you wanted to continue doing (like running a successful and {r}evolutionary company).
It’s half way through the year. What progress have you made toward your goals?
Now wait…before you start making a list of all the things you haven’t accomplished and allowing your inner critic to have a field day…my question about progress is NOT designed to trigger shame, guilt, or remorse. Rather, it’s designed to help you consider if you are doing and being…what you WANT.
Where did you think you would be…and where are you?
Again, this isn’t a time for feeling bad…just a time for taking stock. It’s a time to reassess your goals and take action to get the most out of the last half of the year.
As I sat down this past week and reviewed my goals, I could see that I was clearly making progress on some and had lost direction on a few others. I also noticed that I was feeling less like a warrior ready for battle, and more like a tired soldier needing a break from my daily duties.
So what can I do? What can any of us do to regroup and finish strong?
I decided that what I needed was to write and implement three new policies. Why? Because policies help me establish clear boundaries, help me prioritize my time, and help me achieve my goals.
Want to learn more about setting professional and personal policies to strengthen your emotional intelligence? Click here for more strategies and the back story on how I learned about writing policies from Dr. Meggin McIntosh.
Three new policies to help us do and be what we want!
1. Stop Procrastinating.
This policy is designed to curb the distraction of staying busy, and help you lean into opportunities for success!
Now before you skip to #2 because you “never procrastinate”…hear me out. Do you ever rationalize that you aren’t working on something because you don’t have a chunk of time to give it the attention it deserves? Do you ever justify that you haven’t finished or shared something because you need to “first get all your ducks in a row”? Maybe you have already convinced yourself the outcome… so why bother?!?! If any of these scenarios ring true, then you my friend, suffer from what all perfectionists suffer from. And it’s not that we lack a strong work ethic, are unmotivated, or even have trouble following through. Nope! Come to find out…we suffer from procrastination.
Procrastination is a strategy we use to disguise our fear. Fear of losing, fear of rejection, fear of failure, and fear of negative outcomes. My friend Petra Kolber, author of The Perfection Detox, would say…”We’ve learned to postpone opportunities for success because our inner critic would rather we play and stay small.”
2. Touch Something Once.
This rule, when turned into a personal or professional policy, helps optimize your time, reduce decisions, and keep your mental and physical space “tidy”.
For this policy, you’ll need to channel your inner Marie Kondo, author and star of Netflix’s show, “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo”. The “one touch rule” is where you touch or take action on an object once and only once. For example, if you take off your coat, you immediately put it away. If you empty the coffee filter, you immediately throw it away. But the rule does more than keep your house organized. For example, if you open an email, don’t read it and then close it without taking action. If you do…it means you’ll need to open it, and read it again (and likely again)…robbing you of precious time that could be spent working on your goals and dreams.
Applying the “one touch rule” as a policy means you are committed to being present and reducing the mental gymnastics of multi-tasking. Let’s say, for example, you start writing an email, and this causes you to think of 10 other things. By applying the “one touch” policy you won’t leave an unfinished email window open while you “quickly” do the 10 other things that came to mind (i.e., text a friend about plans for the weekend, shoot a different email to your director with a quick question, add to your shopping list a few things you just remembered you needed, add going shopping to your calendar, make a note to follow-up with a colleague about a project, make a quick edit to this afternoon’s PPT slides, etc. etc.). Instead, if you start an email…finish it before shifting to another task or even idea.
3. Nothing New ‘Till Next Year.
This policy is all about keeping your focus on what matters and creating a bit more space for reflection and introspection.
And before you get too excited by the idea of have the next six months off. That’s not what this policy is about. It’s not about doing nothing (double negative I know). Rather, it’s about discernment around the things you say yes to. It’s about limiting when others decide how to spend your time. It’s about showing up and deciding if you are going to spend the next six months “putting out fires” or achieving your goals.
For me, I applied this new policy in a few ways. First, I did a quick review of my calendar. Were there things I could actually remove? I also looked back through my bullet journal to see if there were things I was migrating from day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month. This helped me see where procrastination was an issue. Then, I revisited my goals. Which did I need to let go because they just weren’t going to happen this year,? Which were still a priority and needed more of my attention? And which had been met and really didn’t need additional energy? Lastly, I crafted a response I could easily turn to when someone asked me to take on something new, and a mantra I could tell myself, when I saw something shinny, and felt the need to add it to my calendar.
So are you ready?
Ready to try one of my new policies or write one of your own?
I can’t wait to hear your stories of success!