Do you need to reset something?
Whether it’s the reset of the new year, week, day or a goal you’re working on this episode’s for you. I’m sharing a 3-step process on how to reset - mindset, goals, and focus. Like we did as a kid with a “redo” you can reset these things too!
“Whether it’s a new goal, a previous goal, a negative thought, whatever. Do you feel like you need to or want to hit the reset button?” - Amanda McKinney
Three-Step Process for Resetting
Mindset Shifting
Goal Setting
Focus Fixing
Mindset Shifting
First, you have to recognize your current mindset.
“You can’t get to where you want to go if you don’t know where you’re starting” - Amanda McKinney
Once you identify this it’s time to write it down or tell someone so you can actually identify it in another way than just in your mind. Often when we talk something out it’s helpful and this works even if we write it in a journal. This helps us put actual words to the thought or situation we’re in. You really want to call it out so you know what it is.
Then, you have to identify where you want to go. If you’re frustrated with a negative thought pattern you have or lack of progress on a goal, it’s time to get clear on what you want to achieve. Identifying a more positive thought is a great way to do this.
I recommend writing this out in a journal or google doc or a napkin, who cares where you’re writing it, you just want to write it down. Although I’ve found it incredibly helpful to write some of these replacement thoughts on post it's and have them around my daily life spaces (ex: mirror in the bathroom or my computer).
By going through this exercise, you’re able to shape the mindset shift you want to have when it comes to your reset. Then it’s time to move on to step 2.
Goal setting
If you started this process because you aren’t making progress on a particular goal, then you’ve probably even tapped into this when you were working on the mindset shift but we still want to visit this. Just like calling out our mindsets that we want to tackle, we need to identify the goals that we want to tackle too.
Setting goals is often a fun process but actually doing the work to achieve the goal isn’t as fun.
“I think back to growing up and the goal of making it on the cheerleading team or earning A’s in classes. I didn’t know I was setting goals but we do this all throughout life and we have to work hard to achieve them.” - Amanda McKinney
While not everything in our life needs to be hard, we often set high goals for ourselves because we’re high-achieving people. But this also means that it’s easy to get discouraged when we aren’t making progress because….well, it’s hard!
If you need to set a goal, follow this process:
Set Good, Better and Best goals so you can celebrate along the way.
Make a plan to actually make progress by working backwards from when you want to achieve the goal and what need to be done to actually achieve the goal.
**Good, Better, Best Goals:
This is not my original concept and many people teach it now but it’s the idea that instead of setting just one goal, you set a few so you can celebrate along the way. Example:
Good Goal for Yearly Revenue - $30,000
Better Goal for Yearly Revenue - $45,000
Best Goal for Yearly Revenue - $60,000
If you find yourself discouraged about lack of progress in a goal, you want to go through this process:
Review your goal that has been previously set
Review what’s happened since you set that goal and what’s in your control versus what’s not in your control
Identify ANY progress you’ve made
Determine if that goal is still want you to want to work towards or if it needs to be changed or adjusted
Make a plan for how you will achieve the new/revised goal
One you know the goal and the new plan on how to get to where you want to go, it’s time to stay focused and get to work!
Focus Fixing
It’s inevitable that you’ll lose focus along the way to achieving your goal. Maybe it’s a big loss of focus or maybe it’s just a day. Either way, if you’re feeling like you need to reset something, chances are your focus is off a bit.
“And if you’re like me, it’s hard to find your focus once it’s gone so we need to figure out what caused you to lose your focus in the first place.” - Amanda McKinney
While you might look at my business today and think “how can she get all that done” I want to let you know that (1) I don’t get it all done, and (2) I had to figure out how to get these things done in a way that worked for me. You can do this too! It’s all about finding what works for you.
And the first step is figuring out when you lose focus. If you find yourself scrolling Instagram and think “what was I doing”, chances are you either got distracted and picked up your phone for no reason or you intentionally opened the IG app to post something and got distracted.
From that information, you want to reflect back and figure out what happened just before you lost your focus.
Are you procrastinating something?
Did you not know what to do with your time in the moment?
Whatever it is, identify what’s happening and what led to you losing focus and you’re closer to gaining your focus back! Because you’ve identified a distracting habit that you have. We all have them.
“My distracting habit is getting caught up in my email inbox. It’s so easy for me to lose hours in the day if I let my email inbox rule the day so now I’m not allowed to have my email open all day. I have structured times when I check email each day.” - Amanda McKinney
Once you know what your distracting habits are, you can correct them. But it’s impossible to correct something that you aren’t aware of. So it’s time to take notice of these things and then make a plan to correct them. Maybe you need to:
Close your email except a few times a day
Put your phone on the other side of the room (or another room)
Start using a task management system so you know what to do
Get an accountability buddy to check in with each day
Task Management Tip
If you find that you’re not focused when it comes time to do your admin tasks (including marketing) it could be helpful for you to use the system I use. I have to map out each, individual task so there’s no guessing at what to do.
For example, if you need to send an email to your list I wouldn’t encourage you to have “send email to list” as your task. Instead I would list it like this:
WRITE the email
CREATE the email in your email service
SCHEDULE the email
This is 3 tasks, not just one. This helps you not underestimate the time it will take to take the actions and it helps you cross things off as you do them. If you simply said “send the email” you couldn’t cross that off until the email was sent, which might happen a week later.
Your next step
Go through these steps in whatever you need to reset today. If it’s the new year, focus in on your word of the year, your intention, your resolution, whatever you want to call it and go through the mindset, goal and focus exercise. If you’ve set a new goal or need to check in on an old one, go through the process for that.
Take it one step at a time and until next time, give yourself permission to reset and grace along the way. I’ll talk to you soon!
Feeling stuck?
If you're really feeling stuck with making progress, there might be something quick I can help you with. I've noticed that there are 3 mistakes that yoga teachers (and every business owner really!) make that stop you from impacting more lives. And you can take my quiz to figure out which one of these might be stopping you from making progress.
Plus, once you have the answer I also share the quick-fix with you!
>>> Click here to take the quiz <<<
