Video Length: 11 minutes & 37 seconds
Transcription below, edited slightly for clarity
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Today we're talking about three productivity tips for 2021 to accomplish your goals, because you know, it's a great feeling - checking an item off your list. But you know, it's an even better feeling checking items off your list for a sustainable amount of time & then realizing that you have achieved your big picture goal, that big thing, that vision that is in your future that you want.
One day you wake up & realize after all of your hard work, it's happened. But what that requires is not just checking one item off your list, or five items off your list, or planning for a month or even one year. That requires staying in the game no matter how many highs & lows come your way, time after time after time.
I want to highlight a testimonial from Nina, who is one of my incredible clients. & she celebrates that she has transformed her freelance side hustle into a six-figure business. & maybe even more noteworthy is that we are still coaching together. We're now on our fourth coaching contract together & some might be surprised by this, maybe past me would be surprised why would we continue coaching if we've “achieved the thing” because there's an even bigger vision, there's an even bigger goal.
So, what are these three things that I'm going to share with you today, the three productivity tips to accomplish your goals in 2021. Beyond our creative vision, prioritize one per day, & embrace self-compassion. I'm going to share these & dive into not only what these are, but why they're important & how you can implement them into your goal attainment for 2021.
All right, so let's start with this first one, create a vision, create a vision that you're going after, & don't just create it, taste it. Really detail it, really delineate what is this vision for you. Because when life gets challenging, or when you reach one milestone, that feels really good. It could be tempting to say, “Okay, this is it, this is good enough, this is fine.”
But if you have that vision in mind, that big picture thing that you're pursuing & say “Yeah, but that's what I actually want, that's even better. That's what we're working toward.” & that does not mean you can't celebrate the little milestones along the way, but holding that big vision is extremely important to persevere through the challenges & the milestones & the celebrations that we could otherwise settle for as fine.
Only to realize years later, I never actually went after what I really wanted to go after. How can you create a vision? There are a few different methods. One is visualization & the most basic form, right, closing your eyes & just seeing what's there. But again, add detail to it. What are the tastes that are there? What are the smells? What does it look like? How do you feel, who's around you? What colors are present? Where are you located?
Really outline what's happening in this vision, again, so that in any moment along your journey to get there, you can refer to it, taste it & really use it as motivation & a place of empowerment rather than just something that you're reaching for that maybe we could convince ourselves, oh, maybe it's not even that good or I don't even know what I'm going after anymore.
If it's really detailed & specific, that gives us more things to get excited about & more specifics to work toward, even if we let the “how” - which I highly recommend - let the “how” of how that journey unfolds be broad & be ever changing while that vision remains specific.
Maybe you create something in your space that reminds you of it: a tattoo, a picture or something that helps you remember this vision as you're working toward it, & checking off those little things one by one.
The second is prioritize one per day. So, as we check off things one by one, what do we check off? What do we do first? This comes down to prioritization, which is a common roadblock & challenge that I hear when I do workshops, for instance, on time management. So, when I do this in the morning, & you can refer to my five prompts for a morning practice video that I've created in the past.
My goal, I have that top of mind, my big vision, & I have a sense of what's required to get there. But also, I'm pausing, & I'm saying “But what am I actually called to do today?” What actually feels good today? & sometimes that surprises me, sometimes that's something that seems quite big, right? Like finishing this project, or getting all of these emails out to my clients or whatever it is, but sometimes it can be really small.
If I meditated today, or if I paused & talked to my parents today, if I went on a walk today, that is the one thing - that's how I know my day feels successful. & again, trusting that is working toward your big picture vision because you created the vision. You also created that one thing, as long as you take the space & the time to pause & check in of what that one thing is for me today that helps when making decisions, be it what to do first.
Sometimes I'll look at my day & go “Oh, I really wanted to do that one thing” & I work a little longer or I squeeze it in when others I would have just stopped working, because I had already made that promise to myself that that was the one thing. So, there's a few different benefits of this, of prioritizing the one thing, & you'll see for yourself when you apply it, how it changes your workday & clarifies & simplifies what you are doing, & ensuring that you are taking one step toward that big vision every single day. A
All right, the third is to embrace self-compassion. This is backed by the Positive Psychology literature, I spent a lot of time in graduate school diving into self-compassion so you hear me talk about it a lot. & I start off this tip by saying it's backed by the literature & by a lot of studies, because it is our tendency to fight against this concept, it is our tendency to be self-critical.
We assume that being self-critical is the thing that will get us toward our goals, right? We need to punish ourselves, we need to be hard minded, we need to like grind, we need to hustle. & there's certainly a place for some of those things, maybe not the self-critical. There's certainly a place for that. But one of the biggest indicators of goal attainment is self-compassion, is to be compassionate to ourselves.
This goes back to the concept of this is a sustainable long term thing. If you have this big picture vision, again, whether it's your 2021 goal, or whether it's something in your future, or whether it's what you want the purpose for your life. That's not going to happen overnight. & that's again, the good news.
& so, this is a long term game, if we were critical to ourselves the entire journey toward that end result - How would that feel? & would we make it through? Or would we essentially beat ourselves down until we were exhausted or depleted or burnt out, or just not happy? & that's likely the point of achieving this goal in the first place is bettering yourself & bettering the world.
So, the good news is self-compassion is the research based way to get to your goals. & it also feels a heck of a lot better, & allows for us to have sustainable goal attainment, not just one item for a month, or just checking off items for a year until you finally make it to the end of 2021.
A few elements of self-compassion: we have kindness, which is probably what you think of with self-compassion. But then also we have common humanity. So, reminding ourselves that others around us are going through something very similar. That helps with the celebrations, that helps with the challenges, that helps with the roadblocks, that helps with the days when, for instance, yesterday, I spent all morning on YouTube & just veg out.
It was a workday & so typically, I wouldn't do that. But that's just what I was feeling. & I had this moment of, of self-compassion in that I was kind to myself, I trusted my parents, my friends, we all have these days where we veg out, where we just aren't motivated, where it's not clicking in the way that we think productivity might look like, when in fact, these rest days, think of working out our physical bodies were often right now more in touch with our physical bodies than our mental well-being. & we wouldn't work out the same muscle as hard as possible every single day.
That's not a good long term plan, that's not sustainable, that's not healthy. & so, giving yourself the space, such as a yesterday morning, where I set on YouTube to vent & relax, & keep myself accountable, I still had that one thing, & I did that one thing. & so, we can find the balance, & we can remember our humanity & our connection to others in those moments.
Potentially that helps to propel us even further & motivate us even more to continue to pursue our goals. The last element is mindfulness. So, it's to be mindful, whether it's in those type of situations where we realize that we're venturing out & we want to check in with is this actually healthy, restful, veg out or is this I fearful or procrastinating or something that doesn't feel as helpful or beneficial, or well for myself, also to be mindful of celebrations.
This is something I bring to The Experience to my group coaching program a lot because we often don't celebrate & celebration is one of the greatest ways to add fire to our mission, to our purpose is to add in these little moments of “Oh my gosh, I did the thing. I checked the item off the list, this amazing piece of magic happened today, this opportunity fell into my lap.” & the more we can recognize & be mindful of those, the more energy & motivation & clarity & confidence we have that our goal is actually happening, our big picture goal is coming to life, our vision is happening because we can see it & we taste it.
Not only in returning to that vision, but also in our day to day & week to week celebrations. So, there is the big picture of these three productivity tips.
However, obviously, there's a lot here & if you want to dive into these tips & actually explore them & implement them in a place where you have accountability, & you have support & you learn a little bit more, not only again about the what, the why & a few ideas about how to implement them, but really have a grounded, held space for you to apply them & apply them in a way that really works for you - then I highly encourage you to check out The Yes& Experience.
That's where we take all of these alignment practices, these practices based in positive psychology & coaching & yoga & real life experience of going after a goal & a life of purpose that isn't fine. It isn't what should be, but it's what you deeply longed for & desire.
It's holding yourself in a community where that is the center point & that is what we're encouraging each other to do. & we're doing it by applying tips just like this. So, check out The Yes& Experience, if you're interested to not only learn about this, but to apply it into your life, you can learn more at yesandbymarin.com/experience, go check it out. There are some freebies there if you just want to get a taste of what's possible.
Again, that's yesandbymarin.com/experience If you liked today's video, leave a comment or like wherever you are & let me know what tip of the three feels most impactful for you, what one you're going to do first, kind of utilizing that second tip of do one thing per day, apply that to this.
There are three different things - we went into detail about each of them, so maybe they feel a little bit overwhelming. What could you do in this moment or tomorrow that will help to implement this idea, implement these tips into your life in a way that feels simple, rather than overwhelming - because when we do it in that way, then we create change.
Not just now & we are productive, not just in this moment, but over long term for 2021 & beyond. Thank you for joining for another Weekly Spark. I host these live on Facebook & on Instagram every Tuesday at 10:30am & repost them to YouTube & my blog, also podcast streaming services. So, you have a lot of ways to check them out & I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. I will see you again next Tuesday!
