In your business or your personal life, do you have a ton of little things constantly requiring your attention?
Things that probably wouldn’t take a huge amount of time to take care of individually, but when added up, seem like they’ll eat up all the hours in your day? These could be annoying little things like dealing with an error on an invoice you need to pay, getting the car tuned up, or returning the printer cartridge that doesn’t fit your printer.
Small things like these tend to occupy and drain far too much time and energy.
The longer they remain uncompleted, the more they nag at us and take up more and more psychic space. These chores feel like small potatoes, but when you take the time to take care of them, you’ll discover that they have been distracting you or preventing you from making real progress in your business or your life.
Here’s an example of what I mean: One of my recent clients was tackling how to create more efficiency in her workday. She was having a lot of trouble meeting deadlines and returning all of her emails for her small business. When she took a closer look at some of the sources of her workday inefficiency, she discovered that her slow internet connection was eating up a lot of time.
Because her connection was so slow, she was waiting long periods of time to log onto the internet, to send and receive emails, and to do research online. She had been telling herself that she didn’t have the time to call her online carrier and upgrade her connection. In reality, however, this small distraction was actually costing her and her business both time and money!
Once she took a relatively small amount of time to call her online carrier and solve the problem, she made her workday much more efficient.
There isn’t a perfect time to take care of all these distractions, but you can’t allow that to get in the way of accomplishing your bigger dreams and goals with ease and joy. If you want to make room for success, one of the best ways to do that is to clear away these annoying chores and distractions from your business and your life.
Think about the distractions in your life for a moment now. Are they holding you back from some of your BIG dreams and goals? Ask yourself if, on some level, you’ve allowed those distractions to come into being and get in your way.
Are you using distractions to keep you safe and small? If so, I invite you to eliminate them by using my simple, 5-step clearing process:
1. List distractions. Make a list of the top 3 distractions that are draining energy from your work and the top 3 distractions that are draining energy from your life. For work, these might include:
-Outdated or broken technology such as mobile phone,
computer, internet connection or fax machine
-Unanswered emails or phone messages
-Outdated or inappropriate wardrobe
For life, these might include:
-Unresolved argument with a friend or partner
-Unpaid bills or tickets
-Not having drapes on your windows
2. List what they’re blocking. Make a list of what each top work distraction is holding you back from. For example: If one of your top distractions is an inappropriate wardrobe, this may be holding you back from:
-Networking events that will bring in new clients
or opportunities
-Applying and interviewing for more satisfying and
higher paying positions
-Feeling confident enough to have a conversation with
your manager about getting a raise
3. Own it. Acknowledge that you have been using each of these distractions as a subtle way of keeping you small.
4. Change it. Commit to eliminating one distraction a week. Take note of what opens up for you once you do so.
5. Keep up the good work! Repeat steps 2-4 for your "life" distractions.
I hope this system will bring you beneficial results and clear a path for your bigness. Please share with me what successes you open up to when you use this process!
