Transcript of Episode #10:
Crush Your Goals in 2024:
9 Tips to Stay Focused
Cristina: Hello, and welcome back to the Blissful Mompreneur podcast. I’m your host, Cristina Hall, and I am so grateful you are here today. I am on a mission to help mompreneurs or female entrepreneurs who hope to be moms in the future, systemize and scale their businesses to beat overwhelm and reclaim their time. Join me each week as I dive into actionable strategies and inspiring stories to support you on your journey to entrepreneurial success and work-life balance.
Do you ever have days when you know exactly what you need to work on, but you can’t seem to motivate yourself to get started? You’re distracted by the pile of laundry or the endless notifications drawing your attention. Well, you’re not alone. Today I want to share my top strategies to combat lack of motivation and distractions to help you sharpen your focus and supercharge your productivity. But first I want to share a personal story.
At the end of 2023, I experienced the worst eczema flare-up that lasted for several months. I was scratching myself awake in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, showering and putting on clothes hurt, and I couldn’t even think about working out. It was a period of deep frustration and loss of motivation. Despite knowing what I needed to do, my mental and physical health struggles made it incredibly difficult to stay focused and productive. During this period, I began trying out different strategies to motivate myself, while also trying to work on improving my health. While my mood and focus did not change overnight with each new strategy I tried, I found it easier and easier to begin to focus again. And now that my health is better and in general I’m feeling way more motivated, these strategies have just supercharged my focus so that I can get so much more done. So here are the 9 strategies I use to help me focus, even when I don’t feel like working.
Tip number one, listen to binaural beats. If you’re not familiar with binaural beats, it is when you play a different frequency in each ear to get your brain into different states such as relaxation, focus and sleep. I learned about them while listening to Andrew Huberman’s podcast, The Huberman Lab. He has an episode where he reviews the various studies. I’m not exactly sure if they work or if it’s just placebo, but the sounds are rather soothing and definitely help me block out ambient noise. I simply sync my AirPods, search “binaural beats focus” on YouTube and get to work.
Tip number two, do something. When I have moments when I really don’t want to do anything, I just tell myself do something. It can be something small, but I just want to get myself into action. Oftentimes, this can help me build momentum and before I know it, I’ve accomplished more than I expected.
Tip number three, now this is really powerful. Revisit your why. Tony Robbins refers to this as your compelling why. Goals are great, but the why is what motivates us. Try this exercise. Take one of your goals and ask yourself why. Don’t stop at your first answer. Continue to ask yourself why until you get to the heart of what you really want. For example, one of my current goals is to improve my body composition and reduce my waist to hip ratio to be below .8. When I ask myself why, I might say to improve my health. Why? So that I can have more energy, be stronger and have an overall better mood. Why? So that I can accomplish my business goals while being present and patient with my family. So that I can have financial freedom and can give my children endless opportunities. Why? So that I can maintain my lifestyle through retirement and not have to work and my children can have every opportunity to be successful. Now, I can choose any of these as my compelling why, but if I don’t want to work out or I really want to eat another cookie, if I can think, I want to maintain my lifestyle through retirement and not have to work and I want my children to have every opportunity to be successful. All of a sudden, it becomes a lot easier to do that workout or put down that second cookie.
Tip number four, change your environment. Sometimes a changed scenery can make things a bit more exciting. If it’s a nice day, consider moving your laptop outside or working from your favorite coffee shop. This small change can help you find a little bit of motivation to get started.
Tip number five, reward yourself. If you’re really struggling to get things done, you can tell yourself that if you say finish writing your newsletter or whatever it is that you have to do, then you will treat yourself to your favorite latte or 10 minutes to scroll through social media.
Tip number six, the Pomodoro technique. Now with this, you simply set a timer and do 20 minutes of focused work. Then take a three to five minute break and repeat. After four cycles, take a longer 15 to 30 minute break and repeat. What’s great about this is when you don’t feel like working, getting yourself to do just 20 minutes of focused work can feel a lot easier than getting yourself to do hours of work.
Tip number seven, create a work block routine. Most people do really well with structure and routine. If you do the same thing every day, it’s hard to talk yourself out of it. It’s just what you do and it becomes part of your identity. My work block routine is constantly evolving, but right now it starts with putting in my AirPods, turning on binaural beats, reviewing my planner, task manager, Slack, and skim my email inbox. I then take care of anything pressing and then I dive into my big three. I begin the one that is either the most challenging or the one that scares me the most. This is so that everything else feels so much easier after that. Then I tackle the remaining big three and other tasks in my planner and task manager. At the end of my work block, I review anything I didn’t accomplish that day and schedule it to be completed another time. Once a week, I respond to emails and clear up my email inbox. This is so that I’m not wasting time each day responding to emails. I just take care of pressing emails, which rarely come up.
Tip number eight, have an accountability partner. While I’ve never had a mutual accountability partner, I have hired coaches that have acted as my accountability partner. Since I had hired the coach to help me learn faster and get results, I felt it would be a waste of money to not follow through on the tasks they wanted me to do. This had always given me the necessary push to keep going. I typically make the fastest progress when I’m working with a coach. If you’re not in a financial position to hire someone, you could always try to find a friend with similar goals and you could act as each other’s accountability partners. I haven’t done this, but I can imagine it would be very effective.
Tip number nine, turn on do not disturb. If notifications are constantly distracting you, put both your phone and laptop on do not disturb while you are working. Be sure to put important numbers such as your child’s school on your favorites list. So you are notified if there is an emergency.
As we wrap up today’s episode, I want to remind you that your ability to stay focused and productive is within your control. By implementing these strategies into your daily routine, you have the power to overcome distractions and accomplish your goals with greater ease and efficiency. So try out some of these tips I mentioned in today’s episode and let me know which ones work best for you. Please DM me on Instagram at the Blissful Mompreneur so I can be your accountability partner. I truly love helping in any way that I can.
Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode of the Blissful Mompreneur podcast. I hope you found the information valuable and inspiring. Remember, you have the power to step off that hamster wheel, reclaim your time and find balance in your life. If you enjoy today’s episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps me continue to provide valuable content to mompreneurs like you. Until next time, keep pursuing your dreams, finding joy in the journey and creating a life and business you love. Take care and I’ll see you in the next episode.