stopped.
I asked her how she had felt when she missed Ben’s home run. “Terrible,” she muttered.
Discontent is the first necessity of progress.
— Thomas Edison
“Do you want to keep doing what you’re doing and miss more special moments?”
“No!”
“So if you don’t want to keep doing what you’re doing, what needs to happen?”
She paused, took a deep breath, and said, “I need to… change.”
GOAL
Acknowledge the discomfort you’ll feel, and try at least one change that I recommend in this book for at least three weeks.
TACTICS
1. Recognize when you feel uncomfortable about trying something new.
2. Rejoice in the fact that you feel discomfort. It means you’re taking forward steps in making a change!
3. Include reflecting on this change — trying out this new strategy or tactic — during your weekly reflect-with-power session.
4. Try out the new strategy or tool for at least three weeks before you consider throwing in the towel.
STRATEGY
Change.
People try it and give up when the first steps toward it don’t go smoothly.
People fear it because they’re not sure about what they’re doing, or they’re not sure if they’ll do it right.
People avoid it because they feel discomfort in doing something different from the norm.
All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.
—Attributed to Michael John Bobak
Discomfort is an abstract feeling, so Julie and other clients have found it hard to describe not only what it felt like, but also what was causing this odd feeling. They just knew that they felt different when implementing new strategies and tactics, so they stopped these new procedures after only a couple of days. Purely because it felt different. And — in the beginning — they went right back to their old ways.
Change seldom happens overnight. Rather, it’s something you struggle with initially because it feels different; it feels unnatural because you can’t be on autopilot, and you have to remind yourself to do it. You have to push through because if you don’t keep up the discipline to do it, you’ll go back to your old but comfortable routines — and unsuccessful ways. Change can be a tedious process because it takes effort to form a new habit. This may take weeks. And for some habits, even longer.
I’d like to tell you a little secret:
Change can be scary, but when you march through a transformation you’ve determined to begin, and then you succeed, it feels remarkably empowering. It’s an accomplishment. You looked fear of the unknown in the face and kicked its bootay!
Instead of being comfortable with shying away from change, try craving the feeling of accomplishment. Instead of allowing the fear of change to dominate your outlook, focus on the desire to feel the success of following through with this change.
It’s all in your head.
It’s human nature to stay in a groove — even a bad one — because we’ve become comfortable in those ways. The minute we try something different, our brains go into a bit of a panic mode because we’ve left that comfort zone. So if you feel a little discomfort from walking off your problems, taking deep breaths, and making decisions based on your priorities, I congratulate you! That’s awesome! It means that change is happening.
As you implement the productivity strategies and tactics in this handbook, recognize the discomfort you might feel from trying something new — and celebrate it!
The discomfort you might feel means you’re taking a step forward. Do a little happy dance because implementing these strategies and tactics we’re discussing during our sessions together will help your brain to maintain clarity and make better decisions about how to use your time.
NEXT STEPS
Julie faced her discomfort and celebrated each day that she implemented her positive changes. She realized that she was more successful when she implemented only one or two changes at a time, so she stuck to that method.
• Do you feel any discomfort from trying to change?
• If so, how will you work through it?
• What will your reward be for getting through the change?
Support Your Time Management Revolution by Controlling These Five Key Elements of Your Workday
7 It’s All in Your Head: Prevent Drowning through Structure and Flow
I’d like to share with you a journey involving a client of mine. Nancy, whom we met in chapter 4, always has a smile and wants to know what’s new with you. She’s just delightful. She’s a super-hard worker, but she felt like she wasn’t getting anything done — despite her long hours at work and multitasking. In addition to her self-care challenges that I shared with you in that chapter, she had ADD, she procrastinated, she felt constantly interrupted, and she never finished what she started because of the interruptions.
One day, we made arrangements for me to shadow her in her office for a two-hour session. I was a fly on the wall that day. Well, not a fly, more like a mannequin on a chair shoved into the corner. Nancy often attempted to multitask: She read email while talking on the phone; filed while printing checks; listened to voicemail while composing emails. She had a huge project deadline coming up and still had more than half of the project to complete, yet she read an email about a conference that she might attend in two months, and the article had hyperlinks about people involved with the event, so she went down that rabbit hole for a good 20 minutes. A few times she just sat staring at her desk with her hands cupped around her coffee mug. She told me later that in those staring minutes, she was in a state of panic because she knew that she had millions of things to do and plenty of piles on her desk to attack, but she had no idea of what she needed to do next.
Strategically, when you take over how you run your day, you also take over time. You harness it. Once you’re
