Being busy is a sign of the times. With many articles being published recently about the ‘mental load’ of working women with families, and a number of my coaching clients struggling with the same issue I wanted to share a technique with you which can bring clarity in steps to achieve more balance in your life.
You are likely to be more successful if you give the exercise your full focus from start to end, so go and find a pen and paper before you start so that you can make notes as you go.
1. Note down who you really are, sticking to verbs and adjectives rather than nouns. For example ‘I teach‘, ‘I am anxious‘, ‘I organise family logistics‘ or ‘I make car parts‘.
2. Next note down who you truly want to be. If it helps, put a time frame next to these items. ‘I want to be head teacher’, ‘I want to feel calm’, ‘I want less logistics’, you get the idea.
3. Note down now, to help you towards the ‘want to be s’:
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what do I plan to stop doing?
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what do I plan to do less of?
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what do I plan to more of?
4. Imagine, by chance you find yourself with an extra eight hours free each week as some of your responsibilities have dropped away. What are you going to do with those free hours? Make a list to fill up all eight hours.
5. Unfortunately that extra eight hours has now been lost! Spend some time now identifying eight hours of existing activities during your week that you can give up to make space for the new things you built in during point 4. This hypothetical – you can be creative!
6. From that thought process, make yourself a list of the activities that you will actually stop doing and by when.
What will you actually do more of, and when will you start.
What will you actually do less of, and from when?
If you are familiar with SMART goals, then try to apply those steps to these actions.
7. Challenge yourself now to scrutinise whether you will actually do the things on the list.
Is this reality? And if so, has anything prevented you from taking these steps in the past? What obstacles might get in the way – what can you do to overcome any barriers?
Try turning the ‘stop list‘ into a ‘start list‘ to make more impact.
8. Note down what you can you do to make sure your activities are repeated for long enough to become your new habit. Old habits are hard to break and new habits are hard to form. That’s because the activities we repeat most often are literally etched into our neural pathways. Happily, through repetition it is possible to form new habits, taking on average 66 days of repetition.
9. Finally, for even greater chances of success talk to people about your plans or write them up and stick them on the fridge… allow yourself to be both supported, and held to account by those around you. The very best of luck.
If you would like to explore one-to-one coaching as a way to achieve greater balance or reach your next professional goal please get in touch today.
This approach has been adapted from the More/Less/Stop technique from David Adams in 101 Coaching Strategies and Techniques, McMahon and Archer.