I don’t know you personally, but I know you want to start or grow your Mindfulness coaching business (or something similar).
Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this article.
Right?
I also don’t doubt that you’re a diligent and hard-working person.
My experience with clients shows that most small business owners are extremely workaholics and often work to exhaustion.
In other words, they often act as if their productivity depends primarily on their diligence and hard work.
Diligence and hard work, however, aren’t at the same time a guarantee of productivity. You can work all day, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get the business results you want.
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There is a beautiful thought by Stephen Covey that states:
“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”
In other words, productivity is primarily about being clear about the direction we’re going and the “ultimate vision” of where we ultimately want to get. And only when we’re clear about “where” we want to go (the “ultimate vision”) can we begin to develop meaningful plans and strategies that will help us along the way to our desired goals. And only then can we assess whether or not a particular decision or activity will lead us in the desired direction.
Without enough clarity, your diligence and hard work will not only fail to accomplish much, but will ruin your career, your marriage, your relationships, your health, and your social life.
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In addition to a high degree of clarity about the direction we want to take, productivity also requires a strong and sharp focus.
We live in the information age. At every turn, someone or something is trying to “grab” a piece of our attention. Due to the constant bombardment of various information from all sides, we have become chronically distracted and absent – which inevitably leads to great stress and pressure, as well as general job dissatisfaction and loss of motivation. Scientific research shows that we spend 46.9% of our time at work being distracted.
A strong and sharp focus (and we develop it by practicing Mindfulness regularly) isn’t only one of the most important prerequisites for our productivity, but also a key element for a happy and fulfilling life.
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In addition, productivity requires clearly defined priorities and plenty of time for creative thinking.
Productivity requires a focus on small details and an extremely high degree of flexibility so that we can change our usual direction and way of working as soon as we receive the slightest signal that there is a better and more efficient option.
Productivity requires enough free time to spend with ourselves and the people we care about.
Productivity requires that we make time for activities that feed our souls – without it, our motivation inevitably drops.
Productivity requires that we have the necessary detachment from the thoughts we often think, the emotions we often feel, and the activities we often repeat, constantly testing different options and trying to find better and more practical solutions.
Productivity requires that we dare to think with our own heads – even if everyone else tells us otherwise – and listen to our intuition.
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Another important reason why many new Mindfulness coaches equate diligence and hard work with productivity, and often work to the point of complete exhaustion, is the feeling of USEFULNESS they inevitably experience after they have used up their work energy.
But don’t be fooled by the feeling of usefulness, because it’s mostly a purely biochemical process in your brain that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with productivity. For example, when our brain “estimates” that we’re exhausted enough to keep us from burning out and losing necessary energy stores, it begins to release hormones such as dopamine that initially give us a short-term sense of well-being, and then we begin to feel “useful” – as if we have done something important and need to “reward” (read: allow) ourselves with rest and relaxation.
Try doing something in such a way that it exhausts you (e.g., build a small drywall, then tear it down, rebuild it, and tear it down again… until you’re completely exhausted). Afterward, thanks to dopamine, you’ll feel “useful” and need to “reward” yourself for your efforts and allow yourself the right to rest and relax.
As you can see, this has nothing to do with productivity but with the natural self-protection mechanism.
