Jeff Howell: Balance Is The Bomb!

Hey, everybody. How’s it going? This is Jeff coming at you with another mindset Monday. And today I want to explore the concept of balance is the bomb. And so what brought this up for me was that I had an amazing weekend and I got some work in, but I also spent a lot of time with friends. We sat around the pool on Saturday and just had an amazing pool party and relaxing and just enjoying the present and enjoying each other’s company in the moment and all of that. It was amazing. And then yesterday we had a gathering for the community, a community here in Austin, to kind of thank them for some things that they had done. So that was all awesome. And it really just struck a chord in me to remind me about how important it is to have work life balance and to balance the work that you do with your personal endeavors. And I think that a lot of people focus on hustle and grinding and all of that, and a lot of times they can forget that self care is so important to staying in flow. And as you know, flow is a big deal for me. So this is one way that I do it. You know, sometimes when the opportunities come up, I just check out of the work mode and check in to just be in a person mode. And I think that really helps me balance in the long term and gives me so much benefit as far as moving forward.

So how do we do that? How can we really set ourselves up for balance if we maybe haven’t really explored that before? We don’t really know where to start? Well, one thing is, if you look at some of the past calls that Patrick and I have done on the Facebook lives, you can see that we’ve really honed in on the productivity. And so productivity and planning is huge for us. So we do quarterly planning. And then also once you hone in on the goals that you want to accomplish within the next 90 days, then we harp on those goals as we move through the quarters. So each month when at the beginning of the month, we will explore those goals that are the point, the parts of those goals, the steps to those goals that we haven’t accomplished yet, and set the monthly part of that. What are the monthly milestones that we want to reach and then what are the weekly milestones that we want to reach and then back out of that and do daily? What are the daily milestones that we want to meet? So for me, I do a weekly chart with each day of the week and I put the main things that I need to accomplish and want to accomplish that week. And then as I go through my week, I check those off of the boxes and you can do this digitally.

I do it by hand like analog, because I think that it really gives me a lot more of a connection to what I’m trying to accomplish into those different steps along the path that I need to accomplish. So you can do it either way, but maybe try it, explore it over time and see what works best for you. So that’s the first way that you can start driving towards balance is to get your planning in place. And we’ve honed in on the productivity pack from Taylor Welch of Traffic and Funnels, and I use that as a guide in the beginning, but then pulled the best practices out of that are the things that resonated with me and made my own practice in my own, have my own set up of how I utilize that framework that he presents in the productivity pack. So it doesn’t matter really what you use. It’s just a matter of taking action, finding what works for you, and then tweaking it to make it your own so that you feel comfortable with it and that you’re actually going to follow through with it. So the second thing is to set boundaries for yourself. And one of the things that really caused me to learn this in a big way was in a very volatile time of my life. When I started doing yoga, this was probably seven, seven or eight years ago on a daily basis.

So a mentor of mine challenged me to do that. And once I started doing it, I started carving out. This time for me, he was very successful and he said that yoga is the most important thing that he does every day. So I said, Well, I’m going to model that. So I started taking a couple of hours a day to get ready, go down to a studio, yoga class, do the yoga class, recover, recuperate after, take a shower and all of that and then start my workday. But setting those boundaries for myself and taking that action over time. I did that nearly every day for three years. Back then, it really gave me the sense that, okay, I’m taking 2 hours out of a 24 hour day. It’s like less than 10% of my day to set myself up for success. So if I take this 2 hours for myself, I feel better about myself I know that I’m doing. Something positive for myself. I know that I’m investing in myself and my mind is becoming a lot more clear because of the practice itself and what it’s giving back to me. So that 10% or less of the time that I’m spending is getting giving me rewards that are far greater than that far exceed the investment of time that I’m putting in. So I feel like if I can be take that 2 hours of time for myself and then I’m 30% more productive the rest of the day, that’s a no brainer.

Like why wouldn’t you do that? So if you just go straight in with the hustle and grind mindset and you’re like, I’m just going to wake up at 5:00 in the morning and I’m just going to work all the way through or whatever, or, you know, put these exceedingly, you know, stringent demands on yourself instead of just stepping back and kind of following your energetic pathway, then I think you set yourself up for failure because you inevitably start failing to meet those different things that you’re trying to have your self accomplish. And then you get distracted easier, you’re more tired, you’re not as clear of thinking, and all of these things start to fall apart. So that’s been my own personal experience. And so I would I would highly recommend that you find a practice for yourself or find something that you’re doing for yourself on a daily basis, preferably in the morning and in the evening, and exploring that and seeing how much more productive you can get. So one thing you can ask yourself is what is it that brings you joy? You know, spend some time every day on something that brings you joy and hopefully something that is either training you or informing you on how to reach your bigger goal. So everything that you’re doing is driving towards those bigger, bigger goals that you set for yourself initially.

So what will you find or what have I found in that dynamic? When I started setting those boundaries and taking that time for myself, well, time started to shift. I found that my effort started to shift. I found that my creativity started to shift and my my inspiration started to shift. My, my, my innovation started to shift. And then I started delegating things. I started learning how to really set those hard boundaries for myself and say there’s there’s a lot to do here, and I want to continue to take this time for myself. So the only way I’m going to be able to do that is if I offload some of this stuff, if I create better systems for myself, delegate some of this stuff to somebody else. Learn new strategies and tools to do things faster and better and easier. And over time, that’s really added up to really much more tuned in flow of my life of where big projects come on and I automatically know and have some tools and know that I can go to, to, to manage a project and make it bring it to fruition without it overwhelming me. I mean, sometimes I get overwhelmed by the sheer number of things that I’m trying to accomplish or amount of things that I’m trying to accomplish. But I’m also I also move through those phases very quickly because I have a lot of tools that have a lot of resources.

I have a lot of confidence around how I can delegate those things and how I can accomplish them. So I don’t get stuck in in one place for too long. I may I may be stuck for a little while or I may be stuck for a few days, but inevitably I can get out of those places where I’m stuck pretty quickly and pretty easily. So those are my thoughts for today on Mindset Monday. And I just encourage all of you on your entrepreneurial journey that it’s going to be challenging. You’re going to have to build new skills, you’re going to have to take care of yourself to, and part of taking care of yourself is setting these boundaries and and finding ways to move through the challenges without getting overwhelmed. So and my own experience, it’s been really amazing to learn and grow in this way. And I hope that you can take something away from this video and apply it to your own situation that’s going to help you move forward faster and get you to where you want to be. I’d love to see your comments in the comment section below and I look forward to next Monday and see what I can drop for you then. All right. Have a great week and go get some wins. Peace.