The Way Most Think About Being Busy is Dead Wrong!

What does being busy mean to you?

For many of us, being busy can easily become a part of our identity.

Have you ever asked someone what they’ve been up to, and they reply with something like, “I've just been so busy!”

It’s not like they are saying this because their life is bad. They are typically just trying to communicate that they are important and have a lot of important things going on.

If we aren’t careful, “busy” can become part of our identity too, and we can end up living a life where we do a lot, but we don't accomplish much.

Do you ever feel like you are doing a lot but not accomplishing a lot? This message is for you.

Maybe you work hard and put in the effort, but a day passes, a week passes, a month, a quarter, a year passes and you realize that a lot hasn't really changed.

Our body kind of looks the same as it did a year ago. Our business hasn’t really advanced like we desired.

We were busy, but we weren't productive.

If any of this resonates with you, it’s time to make some changes starting today.

Let’s start by bringing awareness to your belief system and walk through some possible mindset updates.

First, it’s important to realize that what we believe creates meaning, and meaning creates emotion. And we are often driven by emotion.

If we believe being busy equates to being productive, important, or valued, our belief system will create emotions surrounding those beliefs that we will likely crave.

Many of us can crave being busy in order to feel significant, productive and valued.

Significant in our job, our career, with friends, or with our family.

We tend to buy into the idea that if we’re busy, it means we’re needed, making us feel significant.

It’s also easy to believe that if we are busy, it means we are being productive, but more often it is a sign that we’re not focused and organized enough to have clear priorities and strategies to get things done, leaving us on that constant busyness treadmill.

And it's these false belief systems surrounding being busy that I want to challenge you to upgrade today.

I want to suggest that the need to gain affirmation from being busy is a sign of weakness, and that we also don't have to find our significance by saying yes to every single demand that everyone else has for us.

It is extremely freeing to understand that we don't have to find our self-worth based on what others think about us.

What if we updated our definition of busy to include one or more of the following: being lazy in one’s priorities, being lazy in one’s focus, being disorganized, being a people pleaser, or the failure to develop the systems and skills needed to prioritize tasks and to be more productive?

Would that challenge you, as it does me, to up your game and find solutions to the busyness of life? There are always solutions. Sometimes we just need to get creative.

As I begin to wrap this up, remember that you are not simply who you are today. You are who you were born to become tomorrow.

In other words, you are your future potential, and if you and I are to ever realize our full God-given potential, we must be good stewards of our limited time.

Realize that sometimes saying no is saying yes. In fact, most of the time saying no is saying yes.

In closing, after acknowledging what busy means to you, and why, decide to redefine (if needed) what busy really means, and get to work on finding solutions to be efficient and productive rather than just busy.

This is necessary in order to accomplish your goals and dreams, serve others more effectively, and go to the next level in your personal growth and business development.

It’s now time to get hyper productive and willing to let go of the need to constantly be doing things just to be busy.

Quick Tips:

• Prioritize high impact activities over low impact tasks
• Reserve attention for important things rather than giving away time to anything or anyone
• Hyperfocus on a single task rather than multitasking
• Have few “exceptional” projects rather than many “good” projects
• Say “no’ by default rather than saying “yes” by default

And if you haven't heard the most recent (and extremely encouraging) interview with Dwight Johnson on my “Life's Hard, Succeed Anyway” podcast, you can listen and subscribe here.

Until next time,