by Mandy Green, Busy Coach
I’m reading the book The Miracle Equation by Hal Elrod.
I feel like a bad parent right now. We are a few months into 2020 I have been working since 6am this morning.
I thought my priorities were number one, family; number two, health; number 3 productivity/achievement; number four, financial security; and number five, fun-in that order.
If you had asked me what was most important in my world, I would have told you, without hesitation, “My family.” And I meant it.
There was nothing and no one I loved more than my husband and our two children. They are my world. And I truly believed that all my other priorities lined up behind them, that everything I did was for them.
So what’s the problem? Where is the disconnect? It wasn’t hard to spot the disconnect with a quick scan through my schedule. The way I chose to spend my time told a very different story: I go on frequent trips, I work sixty-plus hours a week, I give up family time on the weekends because I have yet another big week of projects due. If my family were really my number one priority, they sure got pushed aside – and often for my supposedly less important priorities. My actions were simply not lining up with what I was saying or even believing was most important to me.
Upon deep introspection and reflection, it turned out that I valued productivity and my achievements above everything else. Almost all of my time and energy went into finishing one project and securing the next. Instead of focusing on my kid’s, I was preoccupied with my business metrics. Instead of listening to how my husbands day had been, I’d give him the obligatory head nod while I scanned my emails and responded to those I deemed urgent. I wasn’t really focused on any single thing-especially not on my family. But I had good reasons. At least I thought I did. I valued financial security for me and my family. I wanted those people, who meant more than anything else to me, to be well fed, well clothed, and comfortable. When I sat back and examined that line of thinking, though, I saw that my focus on financial security didn’t stem from my love for my family; it stemmed from fear. The subtle shift in my priorities had nothing to do with them at all.
I think all college coaches can relate that there is always a fear of losing your job. The fear of losing the next big recruit. The fear of not being able to make enough money to provide for your family. I often find that I am still driven by a deeply ingrained fear that I could lose my job at any moment.
To combat that fear, productivity had become my top priority, whether I was aware of it or not. And talking to countless other coaches after speeches I have been giving around the country, I see that this is the case for most of us. Whether you call it productivity or success or accomplishment or work, they all fall into the same bucket and many of us are literally addicted to it. Not only to we focus on tasks that keep us busy and aren’t highly consequential, but we focus on them to the detriment of what matters most to us.
When we work nonstop in this way, it is damaging to both our bodies and our brains. So right there, we are undermining our own health. Looking even further, we also undermine our family, our fun, our spirituality, and even our work (all at the same time) because we will ultimately burn ourselves out. If you really can have only one top priority, everything else is automatically bumped down the list.
But we don’t do this only with productivity-related tasks, we do it with lost of activities that just aren’t that important. Consider how much time you spend bingeing on Netflix or watching the news, surfing the internet, checking Facebook, or even playing games on your phone. Yes, all of these count against the time you spend on your highest priority. If you have ever though, I don’t have enough time to get to my top priority every day, it’s not necessarily that you don’t have enough time but more that you are spending your time on lower-priority activities that you are thinking of as high priority simply because you spend so much time doing them. Remember, your schedule never lies.
The number one priority in my life is to connect with and positively influence my children, and the only way to do that to the fullest is to spend quality time with them. The more I am with them, the more we deepen our connection and the more I can positively influence their development. So I’m running towards that every chance I can get.
If you resonate with anything I have said in this article, the most important thing for you to do is to acknowledge it and commit to making changes. Be honest with yourself. If you want work to be your priority, then commit to it and don’t feel guilty about it.
P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with your coaching friends. I want to help eliminate as much coaching office chaos for as many coaches I can this year. If I can save you 1-2 hours a day and get you so you don’t have to bring as much work home with you (besides recruiting calls), you will have more time and energy to spend with your families, friends, and on your hobbies. Happier and more productive coaches have happier and more productive teams!
P.P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 4 ways that I can help you double your results while working less in 2020.
1. Follow Me on Twitter
Get access to some of my best training and a rapidly growing community of coaches working together to become more organized, efficient, and effective so they can get the results they want quicker and get home to their families sooner — Click Here
2. Set Up a Free Coaching Call
If you would like a free 30-minute coaching call to create a detailed strategy for recruiting or coaching success for this upcoming year. To get on a free 30-minute call with me by using this link http://www.meetme.so/mandygreen.
3. Schedule a Becoming an Organized and Efficient Recruiter On-Campus Workshop
I’ve personally trained hundreds of college coaches individually and as a staff to be smarter, more effective high-level coaches and recruiters. Now it’s your departments turn. I give you a step-by-step blueprints that will teach you how to control your days, conquer the chaos around you, and concentrate on what matters most so that you can spend less time on operational things and more time working with your team on the X’s and O’s. It took me more than a decade of trial and error to discover this formula to how to work more efficiently and effectively as a college coach and I want to share it with you. To get a taste of what the workshop will be about– Click Here. Email me at mandy@busy.coach for more details.
4. Get 12-Months of Coaching from Me
If you would like 12-months of coaching to create a detailed strategy for success and get the accountability you need to succeed as a coach or as a recruiter, set up a call with me by using this link http://www.meetme.so/mandygreen. We can discuss all of the details from there!