by Mandy Green, Busy Coach
As coaches, the reality is that we have a lot of people counting on us to do our job well. And to do perform well, we need to be able to consistently bring our best self every day.
I had been struggling with bringing my best every day for many reasons, but mostly it was due to me being inconsistent. Have you ever noticed that sometimes you’re inconsistent?
Some days you show up and you just crush it and knock it out of the park. You have an amazing day at work, you get the right things done, you’re efficient, focused, motivated, driven, you’re awesome with people, your spouse loves you, and the team actually likes you. It’s a great day.
And other days you struggle just to pay attention, you kind of show up and go on automatic pilot, you’re grumpy, or you’re doing a lot of busy work but you’re not actually achieving anything. It’s frustrating and makes it really hard to be your best.
I eventually realized that there were actually small things that I was doing that was making it harder for me to show up consistently and have control over my day.
But luckily for me something happened. I actually learned a few really small things that changed everything. It first started when I discovered Hal Elrod’s book The Miracle Morning. Here is a short quote from his book.
“How you wake up each day and your morning routine (or lack thereof) dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life. Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days—which inevitably create a successful life—in the same way that unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre mornings generate unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre days, and ultimately a mediocre quality of life.
By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible.” -Hal Elrod, The Miracle Morning
Every morning presents a new opportunity for you to take on your day in the best way possible. A simple set of predetermined habits can help you take on life in a much more proactive and balanced way.
Before I share with you what the habits are, first I want to talk about what we are aiming for with these simple habits.
Mel Robbins, author of the 5 Second Rule, talks about how we all have two minds: the genius (champions) mind and the robot mind.
- The champions mind is where the greatest live. This is the mind that you want to have. It’s creative, it’s proactive, it’s free, and it’s where your best ideas come from.
- The robot mind is when your mind is on autopilot. It’s when you’re overwhelmed by small tasks, it’s when you find yourself checked out and putting out fires all day and having no time for yourself. You might feel like a robot to if you feel like you’re constantly at the whim of the demand of others doing what they need when they need it.
When I used to work with the robot mindset, I would start my day by checking my phone. I would then be on my phone and checking my email pretty much all day. In the office, my inbox was always open and it seemed like while I was getting work done, my brain was hovering and waiting. Then my email chimes, the phone rings, or a text message beeps. Immediately my brain goes to- There’s something new! Somebody wants me!! I’ve got to respond!!! I stop whatever I am doing and react to that new message. How many of you can relate?
I found when I got into that mode, I had a real hard time getting out of it and it pretty much consumed my whole day
As long as your robot mind has the control, it will stifle your inner champion. The robot mind keeps you living small and when you’re stuck thinking about small stuff you’re going to have small days. When you’re stuck in robot mode, you’re busy making all kinds of decisions that sabotage your day before it even begins and you don’t even realize it.
But when you give the champions mind space to expand you’re going to have the biggest and best days of your life. It empowers you to find the clarity in the midst of distractions and it enables you to chase after your dreams.
Coach, would you say you have a champions mind or a robot mind?
Over the next few weeks, I am going to show you the simple steps that you can follow each and every morning to awaken the champion inside of you. You see, the truly productive, the truly successful, and the truly focused among us, awaken their champion before they do anything else.
My goal through my company Busy Coach is to teach college coaches how to stop making your life harder by learning simple proven tricks to set you up to be your best every single day. One way to do this is to get your mind right first thing in the morning.
If you spend the first hour of your morning with a great routine, you’ll win that time back many times over by being more alert, rested and making better decisions throughout the rest of your day.