3 Key Mindset Shifts when it comes to Time Management
When it comes to time management, mindset plays a HUGE role!
If we start off the day feeling like we’ll never accomplish anything, or like we never do anything right...how do we think our day will look?
Yes, having a plan and doing all the "time management hacks" make a huge difference, but we also need to start each day with the positive. Telling ourselves things like, “I can do this...,” “I will accomplish my tasks for today...,” “I will make progress...” Your mindset can make or break your success!
There are 3 Key elements, I believe, to creating and maintaining a positive mindset.
1.
Happiness
2.
embracing failure
3.
exploring possibility
Happiness is a daily choice (admittedly one that can be difficult if a worrier or natural negative nelly like myself).
Also, if you think you must be "happy" 24/7 that is a lie and an unrealistic expectation. I believe there are 3 paths. You can have a negative, positive, or neutral mindset. There are times we will be negative, it's human nature. But it is how you work through it that is important.
On days where I'm feeling negative for one reason or another, I work to use neutral statements. It is a harder jump to go from straight-on negative to full-on positive, but less of a jump to go from negative to neutral.
Some neutral statements might be:
"I'm learning patience today..."
"I'm getting better each moment as a mom..."
"I'm moving closer towards my business goals..."
Although we aren’t claiming to be a rockstar with these statements (which is totally great to do when you're in a good mental space) but we're also not claiming to be a total failure or the worst mom ever.
Next is embracing failure.
All successful people fail. Every single one of them. It is not a matter of if you fail, it's a matter of what you do when you fail. How do you react or respond? What do you do next? Do you quit? Do you re-evaluate? To accomplish your big hairy scary dreams, you need to learn how to embrace your failures and look at them as growth opportunities. This may mean analyzing what didn't work or figuring out how to adapt or change. This concept is not new, and we see and hear it all the time, but we need to make sure we are actually implementing it in our day-to-day. Do we look at ourselves as failures in homemaking if we give our kids pizza one night for dinner or don't keep up with the laundry? Those things don't make us failures! Even if we lost our job, or our company fell apart...those don't make us failures. We adapt, we learn, we grow, and we move on.
Finally, let's cover exploring possibilities.
With mindset, we must allow ourselves to envision what is possible; we need to let our minds see the things that can happen instead of always getting stuck on what can’t. For example, my husband and I were planning out the next 5 years. (Trust me, this is not my strength. I worry, get overwhelmed, and generally shut down when asked to do long-term planning.) These exercises are a huge challenge for me. We have four kids, which means multiple activities and different schools and a whole lotta time planning and driving and such. I kept festering about the time I won't have to devote to my business through our talk instead of focusing on why I started this business! I’m guessing you can relate because you likely started for a similar reason. I did this whole thing so I could have freedom of time, so I can raise my kids! Doh! When I realized that I was limiting my possibilities by thinking this way, I pivoted the thoughts in my head to "Ok. If this is what our days are going to look like, where do I need to find support to make my business work." It's about envisioning what you can do. Want a different example? Maybe your business has grown to a certain point and now you feel stuck. Make sure you are creating stretch goals above what you think you can do. Expand your thinking beyond your common goals. Instead of focusing only on profit, consider your life holistically. Do you need to keep growing your bottom line or do you need to take a look at how you spend your time within your business so you are living a healthy lifestyle. Do you serve crummy clients who bring you down? Think about the possibilities of letting that client go to open up space for more fulfilling opportunities.
It is so easy to spiral down into a negative mindset when we are in what can feel like the grind of daily life. Kids get sick, clients or jobs are lost, the weather sucks, the laundry piles up and the bathrooms are gross (can anyone pee in the toilet?). But we have a choice each day (or even multiple times a day) to reframe our mindsets by choosing happiness (or at least neutrality), embracing failure as a learning opportunity, and exploring the possibilities within our life, both inside of our jobs/businesses and in our personal lives. Even baby steps in each of these elements can make our days better, our attitudes more positive, and our possibilities endless.
