Today we're talking about the productivity mindset. It felt like a good time to talk about it because I don't know if you're like me or like other people I've been talking to, but there is this sense of wanting to call February the new January. [laugh] So I know a lot of people in the last year were telling me that they wanted this year to be a year of massive growth, and yet it feels like there's not a lot of massive growth happening right out of the gate. And so I want to address this and talk about it with you guys because productivity really is a mindset.
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I’m Jen Argue and I have been leading masterminds for the past five years for six and seven-figure entrepreneurs, and I would love to help you start your own mastermind as well so that you can create a really big impact with those around you and work a lot less and make a lot more at the same time.
When it comes to the productivity mindset, I want to address three things. The first one is trust the process. So far, a lot of you, maybe January, didn't feel necessarily very productive, but I imagine that you were spending a lot of time on the things that really mattered it’s just that those things were more of behind-the-scenes work, and when we're doing work behind the scenes, it's not productivity that is forward facing that you can really see.
Instead, it's happening under the surface. Just like if you were to build a skyscraper, And you know how there's the part that you can see that comes up from the ground and goes really tall, but in order to build a skyscraper, you have to first build the foundation. And the foundation is what you can't see.
It's when you're looking at that empty lot and you're like, why are they going to start building on it? But you can't see just from the road, from your car that they actually are doing a lot of work. Well, even before they're digging, they're drying up architecture plans and they're doing all this city zoning.
There's a lot that goes into a thing that you want to achieve in the beginning that you just can't see. And so I want to encourage you as you are doing that with your own projects, that you can trust the process that what you are doing. Is very, very productive, even if it's not forward facing, even if it's not something that you can see.
The second element of having a productive mindset is identifying the source of overwhelm. A lot of times when we are trying to be really productive, whether it's starting your business or scaling your business or some other big project that you're trying to achieve, there can be a lot of overwhelm that happens and I want to help you get through that.
One of the main ways that I like to help people get through it is to encourage them to identify the source of overwhelm because so often anxiety is like an octopus. It has a lot of tentacles, and even though that octopus might just be sitting in one spot, Its little tentacles reach out everywhere in every direction and can tend to generalize into other areas of our business or our life.
And so it might just be that there is one source. There is one, let's say client, or one project, or one system that just isn't working. Just one thing that is causing that anxiety, but yet it's easy to generalize it to everything. And so I want you to identify where is that one source of anxiety and focus on that right where that octopus is sitting.
Focus on that one place, and what are the things you can do about it? What problems can you solve with that? And notice how that feels. Does that feel a little bit better? Like you can breathe a little bit more, and sometimes it's simply…not anything you can really change, but it could be your mindset that you could change about that one thing.
I have this one client who likes to remind her employees that this business is really great and it's important, but it's not the end of the world if one thing goes wrong. It is just a business, and so really focusing on what is that one source of anxiety? Is there something about it you could change or is there a mindset you could change around it?
The third element to a productivity mindset is putting on your blinders. Every single successful person that I have ever coached or talked to has said when they really wanted to make the leap to the next level, they put on their blinders and they didn't focus on anything else. They just blocked out everything so that they could really focus and get some real traction.
On what they wanna be doing. And so I challenge you to think about where are your blinders a little loose? What could you say no to, to really focus on and put on those blinders and focus hard and run at it purely with all of your attention? So really getting that laser focus is what's going to help you with your productivity.
Ok! I have a bonus element for you, and that is to instill boundaries. So the first three were trust the process, identify the source of overwhelm, and put on the blinders. The fourth element is instill boundaries. And what I mean by this is to think about what is your ideal life as you're trying to achieve these big things in your business and experience massive growth.
It will be with some sacrifice of your time and your energies. But not all of it. You still have to live. You still have relationships, and so it's fine to hustle like crazy for a short time, but then we need to still live our lives. This is the whole reason we got into entrepreneurship, right? is to experience more freedom.
And so when you think about that freedom that you really want, What do you want to be doing with that? What does that look like in your life? And I want to have you think about your actual life and the boundary that you want to put on work. Now, I'm not going to tell you where to put that boundary that's up to you.
Some people like to wake up and have their morning to themself. Just enjoy, not think about things. And sit down at their desk at, let's say eight o'clock or nine o'clock and start working, or 10 or 11, whatever it is. Other people want to wake up and start working right away and take time off later. So think about what is it for you.
But whatever it is for you, I want you to instill it right away before you have it figured out how you're going to get all your work done within that allotted time. I want you to instill those boundaries right away. What that does is it creates a little bit of pressure in your life to figure it out faster.
Because your life is what matters most, and I want you to really create that ideal life now because you can, when you start to do that, you will be forced to think of ways that you can create better focus in your business. To accomplish those things.
So out of all of those four things that I shared with you today, I would love for you to share with me which one appealed to you the most, which one you want to start doing right away, or which one you already employ and you love. So please share that with me. Wherever you're listening to this, I would love to know that.
Thanks so much for watching. If you found value in this, please subscribe to my channel and share it with a friend.
