Free Your Mind! Quick Activity to Unlock Your Potential

mind, brain, mindset

This month I continue to explore tips and techniques to focus on you during this (maybe not so) busy holiday season.  

Last week we talked about learning how to coach yourself (don’t forget to grab a copy of  Coach Your Self Up: Self-Coaching Skills for Success by Mike Normant).  As I stated in the last post I need to get better at digging into what beliefs and behaviors are limiting not just my clients, but myself.

This week I encourage you to take time to go through the “Start Stop Continue” exercise with respect to your beliefs and behaviors.  What is the “Start Stop Continue” exercise?  I use this as an exercise with teams to facilitate a discussion around actions and activities that are achieving great results, not working at all or things a team needs to start to do to achieve higher levels of performance.  It’s a reflection on what is in the team’s control that they can do more of because it is working great , or not do because the results are not there.  And you can apply this to yourself as well.  

So what would this look like?

  1. Open your journal, Excel sheet, mind map or some other place for you to jot down your beliefs and behaviors on things like
    1. Making money
    2. Working out
    3. Continuous learning
    4. Where you are today at your job
    5. What you are doing to get to goals 1/5/10/20 years out from now
  2. Of what you jotted down, highlight the beliefs and behaviors in blue that are working for you to get you to where you want to be – is it the daily reading?  Three times a week workout?  Networking?  Self motivation speech every morning?  How you build relationships with family and friends?
  3. Next what are the beliefs and behaviors that are holding you back – potentially sabotaging your career, business or personal life.  Not sure? Ask for feedback from colleagues, managers, mentors and friends.  Maybe it’s not having a growth mindset?  Avoiding conflict?  Not managing time effectively to be able to shift to strategic versus tactical work?  Jot these down and highlight in red.
  4. Now what are you going to start to do to change what is in red or get to a goal you are not working on today?  Begin to listen to podcasts during walks?  Learn to meditate to help bring clarity and tranquility?  Carve out time for daily self care of some type?  Write and highlight these in green.

Once you are done color coding you’ll see habits you want to break or things you want to start to do.  Remember to not change everything at once!  You can only change one habit at a time so your next step is to take everything in red and green and prioritize the importance of breaking or starting a habit.  Then commence your 2021 transformation that will unlock your full potential!

If you have a hard time with this exercise alone I recommend grabbing a friend or colleague to do this together (or your coach!)

PS – I was inspired yesterday to see an old colleague, Renee Adams, share her meditation journey.  I’ve never tried it so I am adding this to my start list for 2021 to help me with focus and being more grounded.  She created a website to help others start their meditation journey –  www.mindfulholiday.com

Stay tuned for more self care tips next week.

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