Category: Abundance

Abundance, Health, Mental Health, Productivity, Working Moms, Working Mums

5 Steps to Throw Fear to the Curb and Take Control of Your Life!

Lyn Bailey

Life is challenging, and painful, and exciting, and unpredictable. We are surviving in a crazy world at the moment, with life being all of these things. There are two basic forces that drive our reactions to what Life throws at us – love and fear. Love opens us to the passion and excitement that Life has to offer, while fear causes us to withdraw and hide. As we join forces to overcome the COVID 19 pandemic, we are faced with both love and fear. Our fear comes from the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring, and how long this situation will last. Our love comes from our gratitude as we have the time and space to question what is truly important in our lives right now.

Fear stops you from taking action, fear of what you might lose or gain, fear of not having enough money, fear of not being loved or belonging, fear of being alone, fear of the unknown, fear of the outcome.

There is a time for fear. It protects us from danger and destruction. The problem is that if you’re not living your life to the fullest, chances are good it’s because you’ve let fear dictate to you that pretty much everything new you want to try is dangerous and destructive.

Well, guess what? It’s not true.

You can throw fear to the curb, you can take control of your life, you can start living your life to the fullest.

Click here for your FREE Checklist on 10 Ways to Overcome Anxiety

Here are 5 steps to get you started on Throw Fear to the Curb and Taking Control of Your Life!:

1. Be Clear About Your Goals
What do you want your life to look like and be like? You must have a destination, a goal, a vision to work toward or you’re not going to know that you reached it. What goals do you want to achieve? Get clear on this and your first fear will be taken care of – the fear of not knowing what to expect. Now you can shift your focus to the tasks that will help you achieve your goal.

2. Prepare Yourself
How many opportunities have you had to say No to because you weren’t ready? No doubt there are many. And there will be many more if you don’t begin to prepare yourself now. Based on the goals you’ve set, what skills and knowledge do you need to achieve them? Begin obtaining those skills and knowledge now.

3. Network With Others
If you don’t have the skills or knowledge, you should know someone who does. A strong social and professional network is vital to your ability to live the life you want. This doesn’t mean you must befriend everyone who crosses your path, or that you must nurture professional relationships with people you don’t like or understand. It means meeting people online and offline and deciding how they fit in your life. You make that decision. Just be sure to nurture those relationships that can help you personally and professionally by being helpful to them first.

4. Ask More Questions
Opportunities don’t appear as if by magic. And sometimes they’re not obvious. Use your imagination and curiosity to help you ask more questions about what is happening around you. When you can see situations from different perspectives amazing lessons can be learned, answers can be found, and recognition of an opportunity can happen.

5. Take Risks
Not just any risk, though, calculated risks. Calculated means understanding what the risks are, whether it’s financial or emotional or mental or physical, and weighing the pros and cons of each risk to determine if you’re willing to live with the consequences of moving forward. When you do this, you are in control of the decision-making process and can accept responsibility for the achievement or failure of what you do in your life.

Click here for your FREE Checklist on 10 Ways to Overcome Anxiety

These five steps apply to your personal and business life because the truth is that you take yourself wherever you go, don’t you? When you are in control of how you make your decisions, why you make your decisions, you throw fear to the curb and are able to live a life that is free of fear and full of joy and happiness and purpose.

While I hope you all stay safe and well during this crazy time we are living in, if you are struggling with this situation, please book a FREE 15 minute coaching session with me to help you come up with a survival plan. CLICK HERE to book your FREE session

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Abundance, Multitasking, Productivity, Time Management, Working Moms, Working Mums

Is Multitasking really the answer to productivity?

Lyn Bailey

Is Multitasking really the answer to productivity?

Multitasking seems like a great tool to get more done. But you have to ask yourself, are you really ever truly multitasking and won’t it just set you up for confusion?

“Think you’re good at multi-tasking? Feeling energized that you can whip through email messages while simultaneously listening to discussions on a conference call? You might not be as efficient as you think.

It turns out that 98% of the population doesn’t multi-task very well. Only about 2% are good at multi-tasking and these “supertaskers are true outliers.” For most of us, we’re not really multi-tasking – we’re actually shifting back and forth from one task to another, such as typing an email and then listening to that conference call conversation, then back to our email and so on.

The problem with trying to multi-task is all that shifting back and forth between tasks isn’t all that efficient because, each time we do it, it takes our brain some time to refocus. So while it might seem efficient on the surface, it isn’t – studies show that multi-tasking can reduce productivity by as much as 40%.” See Forbes

If you are typing an email, it is unlikely you will be able to concentrate on something else at the same time. If you are on the phone, can you really give your attention to who you are talking to if you are reading your Kindle book at the IThe truth is, we are not really good at multitasking.

Looking at even a higher level, if we try to be a jack-of-all-trades, we tend not to be good at any one thing. On the other hand, if you focus on just one skill and put every effort into being the best at that skill, you are going to do a pretty good job at that skill. It will only take a matter of time before you are expert at it.

My Family

As a working mother of 4 young children, I used to pride myself at being great at multitasking. The truth was that my world was falling apart around me. I didn’t see myself as a good wife, a great mum or a good midwife. I was a jack of all trades and a master of none. Something had to give. I changed the way I started to look at my day and my To Do list. I learned how to focus on 1 or 2 really important, productive goals each day and worked at them until they were completed. This allowed me to feel I had achieved what I set out to do, and, in turn, feel better about myself.

While it’s true that we live in a fast-paced society, one requiring more and more of us to take on more tasks, it remains to be seen whether we are improving productivity by doing this. If instead, we figured out what the most important tasks are to move the organization ahead and then focus workers’ resources on those tasks, it is likely that the productivity gains could be greater from this.

Buddhists believe that people should focus on one task and one task only. They widely hold the belief that we are not good at multitasking, in fact, we are terrible at it. Even if the task given is mundane, it should be completed to the best of our abilities and only then do we move onto something else.

You’ll find plenty of people who will swear that they are good multitaskers. But if you look deeper at what those people are doing, more often than not you will find they are not good at it at all. These people tend to get easily distracted because they are trying to do too many things at the same time. It’s not that they are necessarily worse at it. It’s just that since they hold the belief that they are good multitaskers, they tend to do it more than others. So they appear to be worse at it. None of us are really good at it. You will find your productivity will increase if you focus on one task at a time.

If you would like some help in making this change in your life, then contact me for a FREE 30 minute strategy session to point you in the right direction. Click here to arrange a time.

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Abundance, Productivity, Time Management, Working Mums

The Power of Focus

Lyn Bailey
The Power of Focus

 

The Power of Focus

How do you get the most out of your day?
Where do you find the extra hours you want to pursue your passion or live your life to the fullest?
What is the secret to unlocking that extra time to do what you love to do, instead of what you think you have to do?
Women are very capable of multitasking. As mothers, we are even more capable of it. Employers encourage it. Unfortunately, statistics show that multitasking decreases our productivity, no matter what we are doing.
“About 2.5% of subjects can multitask without performing worse at either task, in controlled studies. These are being dubbed “supertaskers.””
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 5/2010
While many people aspire to be “supertaskers”, only 2.5% succeed. For the rest of us, that means that we decrease our focus and attention on each of the tasks we are tackling at any given time. How do we change this? The answer is simple – FOCUS.

7 Steps to Focus

1. Have Goals – know what you want. Set clear, concise goals so that you know what you want and when you want it.
2. Avoid Multitasking – multitasking is not the best use of your time. Block out 1-2 hour blocks to focus on your goal.
3. Take Regular Breaks – give yourself a short 5 minute break every hour to keep yourself rested and hydrated.
4. Identify Distractions – identify your 3 greatest distractions and take steps to eliminate them.
5. To Do list – this will keep you on track as you will always know what the next step is.
6. Keep Your Eyes and Mind on the Prize –Focus on the end result until you achieve it. This will keep you motivated and moving forward towards your goal.
7. Reward Yourself – Decide at the outcome how you will reward yourself when you achieve your goal, then reward yourself on completion. You deserve it!

Go for it now. Start to give yourself time to see the Power of Focus as you incorporate it into your day and your life!

Where will your FOCUS be today?

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