How I’m making micro-shifts till I become “That” Girl?
Let me just preface this by giving you a little background information on me and a few of my tendencies. I’d like to think that I’m a pretty organized person, type A maybe, but after doing an inventory of my time and how I use it I’ve come to realize that I’m really not as productive as I think I am. So, in taking inventory a few very apparent bad habits came to my attention that resulted in this less productive, constantly falling behind version of myself.
Not too long ago I watched this video on how this girl who struggled in the exact same ways made whats called micro-shifts to re-parent herself into undoing bad habits she’d done her entire life. I took that and am using the concept of micro-shifts to turn my life towards the direction I feel like God is calling me in. I thought I’d share on this journey and few of my most impactful bad habits and the micro-shifts I’m using to overcome them and start becoming the girl I want to be .
Lets start with my biggest downfall and jump right into putting myself on blast. Everyday I manage to get only two or three tasks done but usually they are the very easy tasks that take very little effort of my brain power. I’ve done this I think all my life. Its so easy to navigate to easier tasks that I’m going to visually see a difference with. For example, if I have a list of 20 tasks and some are admin task like making calls, scheduling appointments, and doing the dishes I’m going to do the dishes because I’ll be able to see the difference it makes. However, scheduling the appointments usually are more important and have a bigger impact, but they involve me making a call, speaking with someone, and keeping the appointment is a whole other story. So, I used all my mental and physical energy to capacity doing the task that had less of an impact resulting in making zero to little progress. The next day comes and I make a new list and just move those important tasks I never accomplished over and then repeat and only do the easy task! It’s an endless cycle with zero reward and leaves me in a losing battle of trying to keep up with my to-do list.
Well I’m fed up with myself! Over the next 6 months I will be knocking this extremely awful habit out with a few micro-shifts in my behavior. I’ve been doing my fair share of research lately on the power of prioritizing and I think it’s really helping me to start to make strides towards my goals instead of inches, and I’m going to use this a to really start being more productive. Every week I will sit down and write a list of what I need to get done in the week. I’ve pretty much done this before but I plan to change it up a tad bit with micro-shift number one. I will take that list and then in return break it down into my tasks for each day and take that one step further by creating a top 5 of daily tasks in order of impact. Each day I will start my day with my top priority tasks till those are complete and then continue with my list. This will help me to get done those top priority tasks when I’m at my most creative and ambitious self and leave the tasks that take zero to little mental energy for the end of my day.
I’ve only been doing this for a few days but when I say life changing I mean life changing. Things that have been on my to-do list for months are getting knocked out my first week of doing this.
My next micro-shift deals more with scheduling and timing.
Being an entrepreneur is unique in that you don’t have anyone standing over your shoulder telling you to prioritize and get your work done so if you don’t have the self discipline and routine in place it’s easy to get overwhelmed and want to quit and that’s where I’ve found myself many times. Again though, I think it has a lot to do with the inability to prioritize and prepare. It’s also extremely difficult when working from home to find yourself disciplined enough to prioritize business and personal life when they are so closely intertwined. My next micro-shift is helping me in both of these areas.
Over the next six months I will be splitting my top 5 with top some business and some personal but scheduling out my day so I know when to tackle each. I’m taking a play from my many years working a nine to five and will be designing my day around planned work hours. Although I still have the convivence of being able to rearrange my schedule without the approval of someone else I will have the benefits of being disciplined with a dedicated amount of time put towards my business. How my micro-shift will be implemented is every morning I wake up and get my kids ready and off to school then do my home top tasks between 8-9. This will include appointment making, daily cleaning tasks, and anything else that made it on my priority list for my personal life. However, come 9 o’clock, I will change gears and sit down at my desk and start working on business tasks. Keeping that separation has allowed me to make sure those strides I’m making aren’t just in my personal life but business life as well. How did I go so long without realizing the importance of this? How?! If you are a mom building a business and you don’t know how to manage it all , I’m telling you right now if you don’t have a scheduled time for work vs home duties you NEED to get one!
Having too many micro-shifts can be as overwhelming as trying to take one a big project so this month I will only be making one more micro-shift and that is I will be starting one load of laundry every day except for the Sabbath. I want you to pay attention to how I said starting. I think the problem with the task of laundry is that when you tell yourself you want to do a full load of laundry a day that includes washing , coming back in a hour and putting it in the dryer, taking it out of the dryer and folding it and putting it away. This one tasks can easily take up mental and physical energy from hours out of your day! HOURS! This is why I’m not overwhelming myself with the commitment of doing all of that. I just want to start a load of laundry a day.
Doing this so easily has lead me to washing, drying, and folding that laundry because I can’t start one load without moving over another and it’s developed it’s own flow naturally. I believe it works because I don’t count myself out when it’s not all done. I made the one goal and I achieved that one goal of starting a load a day and the endorphins on that have been driving me to continue.
It seems like a crazy thing to focus on but when you’re a mom of three and your husband goes through multiple outfit changes a day because he’s a gym rat laundry can easily become a full day thing and take up my mental space of what I can get done in entire day. This has allowed me to quickly tackle that goal first thing in the morning and free up the rest of my day for the big tasks that are going to make a huge difference in my life. This has been something I’ve wanted to do for years, over a decade, but it wasn’t till I decided to focus on changing one micro part of this task that I was able to achieve this goal!
I know these micro-shifts seem trivial and very personal but I want you to put your own spin on it, because the concept is really the biggest thing. This has been so very impactful on my day to day and has boosted my productivity and confidence in being able to run my business which in turn has helped with self worth, and deeper things in my life. It’s so easy to undermine the small changes we need to make because we have the big ones staring down our throat but I will never do that again. Use the concept and apply it to your biggest goals. Need to lose weight don’t start a diet or intermittent fasting, start by waking up 15 minutes earlier to walk around your house. You don’t have to change clothes or go outside just walk around your house and maybe do a few stretches. Stretching should lead to you feeling a big difference in your body and help you get energized for your day which may lead you to being able to start working out later down the line. If it does, great! If it doesn’t who cares! The motivation and self confidence of you making this small change to better yourself was worth it.
There are so many ways you can use micro-shifts to advance your life towards who you’re meant to be, make some time to really look at your goals and see what tiny changes you can make to launch you in the right direction.
How I’m making micro-shifts till I become the Woman God created me to be ?
