Grace Marshall's Blog, page 15

Three good reasons to take that frog off your to-do list

‘Eat That Frog’ – do the hard thing first – can be a great way of getting momentum going, beating procrastination and clearing that scary thing off your plate as soon as possible.

But have you ever had a frog that lurks on your to-do list? You know you ‘should’ do it, but for some reason you never seem to manage it. It’s the first thing you see every day, you’re sick of the sight of it, but still you find yourself transferring it from one day to the next.

What if your frog isn’t a frog at all? What if it’s masquerading as a frog, and instead of getting your momentum going, it’s stealing your attention, looming over you and overshadowing everything else you do achieve?

When is a frog not a frog?

When it’s an elephant. Something that’s simply too big to be eaten in one sitting, let alone for breakfast. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time of course. Break it down. One of my clients got her tax return done last month by breaking it down into baby steps that started with “Get the file out…”

When it’s a time traveller. It doesn’t belong in this time. Yes you ‘could’ do it now, and there are lots of good, sensible reasons for getting it done early, but frankly if there isn’t a compelling enough reason that means something to you, you ain’t gonna do it now. So take it off your list. Put it back in its time. Put a reminder in the calendar to tackle it when the time is right.

When it’s not your frog.  Last week a friend saw something I shared on Facebook about ‘Eat That Frog’ and when we met she was delighted to tell me how she had crossed all the frogs off her list, except one. When we got talking about this particular one, she explained that it was quite a complex piece of work (elephant?), the client wouldn’t need it for a while (time traveller?) and she was waiting on the client to provide her with the information she needed to get started.

Aha! It was not her frog. It was her client’s frog. It didn’t belong on her to-do list because the next action wasn’t hers to do. I suggested she put it on her Waiting For list, so she could keep track of it, review it from time to time, and nudge her client when she needed to. Job done, a clear to-do list. Imagine the beam on her face.

What about you? Have you got any elephants, time travellers or other people’s frogs squatting on your to-do list? Is it eviction time?

Tell me what you think. Add a comment below and let me know if you have any pretend frogs lurking on your list!

PS. ‘Eat That Frog’ and the Waiting For List are just two of the many ninja  tricks and techniques you can pick up to create zen-like calm and playful, productive momentum in the How to Get Things Done workshop. 

Debbie Huxton: A&E nurse to Author

How do you become a published author? I get asked this question a lot. And people often expect a well thought-out plan, like something a careers advisor would give you, or a bold, unyielding conviction that this it’s ‘meant to be’. More often, it’s a story that starts from the most unlikely of places that involves wrong turns and looks more like tiny steps of faith, than boldly going…

So I’m delighted to be invited to share another author’s journey today – Debbie Huxton, as she launches her Little Book of BIG Wisdom. Debbie is known as a life changer, thought-provoker, inspirational speaker, business and executive life coach, and the book is a gorgeous little collection of straight-talking, motivational quotes and sayings.

Over to you Debbie:

“Eight years ago I saved my son, Matthew now 25, after finding him semi-conscious from a drugs overdose eight years ago.  This was obviously a shocking moment that made me re-evaluate my whole life.  In that instant, I resolved to be a better mum to Matthew, Saranne, now 17 and Jemma, 22.

With my husband Simon serving all over the world as a sergeant in the British Army’s Catering Corps, and me working all hours as as A&E nurse, I realised that our emotional well-being as a family, had been neglected.

I vowed to start living for what’s important, changed myself, my career and her family life for the better and just 12 months after finding Matthew, I’d shed six stone and a year later quit nursing.

It took Matthew’s attempted suicide to make me realise how unhappy we all were with life in general.

It was an enormous shock as Matthew hadn’t shown any signs of depression, and I hadn’t picked up on any signs that he was even unhappy.  He was a high-achiever at school, getting good grades, and he seemed to have a good group of friends.

What I didn’t realise was he was feeling immense pressure to excel, he had an intense fear of failure and he didn’t know how to talk to me about it.

The experience spurred us all on as a family to sign up to courses learning about the human mind and emotions.

The courses did more for us than being counselled, because learning about different personalities helped us understand each other better – what made us all tick.

It also made me realise there were better ways to help others than nursing, that people often need healing from the inside.

It took a second big wake-up call from a very unlikely source, however – in a promise to a dying patient – to give me the final push to change my career.

Whilst still working in the emergency room, I befriended an alcoholic.  This friendship led to making a life-changing pact over his death-bed to leave nursing and do something that makes me happy.

It’s not been easy. My first attempt at building my own business as a weight loss coach resulted in facing bankruptcy.  Through the process of trying to start a business, however, I talked to a lot of established businesspeople who were trying to change their lives for the better, but had something holding them back.

I changed direction, moving from weight-loss counselling to forge a career as an established and respected confidante and coach for business people across the UK,  including Brad Burton, the millionaire founder of 4Networking Group.

My career, and new book, has been borne from helping clients and friends deal with ‘their thing’.

The first quote in the book is, “You know that thing . . . it’s time to deal with it.”

That thing is different for everyone. Matthew helped me to see that although we may look the picture of health and happiness on the outside, inside there is something eating away at us.

The book is my collection of ‘Huxisms’ – my own own motivational sayings that have seen me through the bad times and gone down a storm with my clients.

I hope people take away from my story and my book that – no matter how low you go, there’s always a way up.”

You can get hold of Debbie’s Little Book of BIG Wisdom here and learn more about Debbie at her website at www.debbie-huxton.com on Twitter or her BIG Wisdom Facebook page. 

How do you know you are winning?

I often ask my clients, “What does success look like to you?”

We talk about what they want to achieve, their goals and dreams. We talk about outcomes, and how brilliant life will be when they have them.

But that’s not enough.

It’s not enough to know what it looks like when you’ve won. You also need to know what winning looks like.

Sometimes winning looks nothing like won.

Won is what it looks like when you get there. Crossing the finish line, hitting your target, performing at the Royal Albert Hall.

Winning is how you get there. The plodding and panting, the flops and falls, the wrong note and screeches, and the hours and hours of practice that goes on behind the scenes of every success.

Two things happen when you only focus on ‘won’.

1. You get overwhelmed.

A big goal might be exciting, but when you wake up to it everyday on your to-do list and find it’s too big, that’s just fuel for procrastination.

As I said to one of my Babysteppers this week. Even a baby’s first step is the result of hours of shuffling, stretching, tumbling and moving that didn’t look anything like walking. If something feels too big. Break it down even more. Until the first step becomes something you can take from where you are right now.

2. You mistake progress for failure.

My 8 year old tried proper bowling the other day – actually bowling the ball rather pushing it down a big slide. If we measured his success by his ability to hit strikes he’d be one miserable child. Instead we looked for improvement: “Yay you knocked down two more this time!” because that shows he’s working his way up to the strike.

The same goes if you’re setting yourself a target to make 10 calls a day. If you make 6 out of 10, have you failed? Or have are you over halfway there?

If you’re trying to set a new daily habit of getting to bed early, and manage to do it once in the first week. Do you berate yourself for the 6 late nights or celebrate the 1 early night you managed?

I’m a big believer that what you focus on grows.

If you want to win, you need to focus on winning – not just the finish line, but the daily baby steps you take to get there.

So what does winning look like for you this week? How do YOU know you are winning? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Who’s afraid of the big bad phone?

I want to tell you about one of my clients. Let’s call her Tina. I’m so proud of her.

Tina was afraid of the phone. Not cowering, gibbering wreck afraid. No way. But dreading, feet-dragging, easily distracted, I’ll-do-anything-to-avoid-it afraid.

Ever get that? Yup, me too.

But Tina had had enough. Fear was standing between her and her clients. The people who need her help, the people she loves working with. She decided she could no longer tolerate that fear.

So what did Tina do?

She decided to stare fear in the face.

She set herself a target, to make 5 calls each day, and started logging her fear factor -

Before making calls: 8/10, 6/10, 7/10…

and afterwards: 4/10, 3/10, 2/10…

What she noticed was this:

“Actually the fear just before doing something feels much worse than the actually doing it. I feel much better once I get off the phone, having made a call, than I do just before I make the call.”

Fear was the enemy, not the phone.

Making phone calls actually made her feel better.

That’s the thing about fear.

Fear fuels resistance and steals enjoyment, contentment and satisfaction.

Fear is the thing that has us saying

“I know it’s just… but I just can’t seem to bring myself to do it.”

“I know I can, but I’m doing everything else to avoid it.”

“I know it’s silly, but… anyway, I haven’t got time now.”

Fear is a shadow.

When it lurks behind you or looms over you, its presence is big, bad and scary. But a shadow has no substance. When you shine a light at it, face it head on, its power disperses.

What about you? Where is fear holding you back? What would you discover if you faced it head on?

Let’s talk about it. Leave me a comment or send me a message.

Too busy to workout? Try this instead

I find winter really hard to exercise in. I don’t mind the cold so much, in fact I prefer running in the cold. But the dark mornings, slippery conditions and the winter coughs and colds my kids keep insisting on sharing with me keep knocking me out of my rhythm. Before I know it, months have passed and I’m well and truly out of the habit.

So when I spotted Joanna Helcke, pregnancy and postnatal fitness expert, talking about 11½ minute workouts, I was intrigued, and asked her to come and share her secrets on the blog.

Don’t be fooled though. It may only be minutes long, but she’ll work you hard. Not a bad way to warm up on cold winter days though! Over to Jo…

Too busy to workout? Not with this short, sharp calorie buster!

by Joanna Helcke

Want to exercise but find it hard to find the time? You really don’t need to be spending hours on the treadmill or ploughing up and down the pool.

How about giving this short, sharp, metabolic (that means calorie busting!) workout a go at home? No need to go to get into the car and go to the gym, and no need for any equipment. Even better – it is only 11½ minutes long. Now come on, don’t tell me you can’t find 11½ minutes for fitness today!

Ready? Let’s go for it.

The Pyramid Accumulator

Here’s how this routine works. Once you’ve got the hang of the 5 exercises and the pattern in which you put them together, it will become an incredibly efficient workout (by that I mean hard work!).

Read through the exercises carefully
Practice the exercises until you feel confident doing them
Once you feel ready to get going, this is your plan of action:

Make sure you have a stop watch to hand and visible
Do the warm up
You will now go into the exercise routine and there will be only one 40 second break throughout the 11½ minutes
Do exercise 1 followed by exercise 2
Now do exercises, 1, 2 and 3
Go back to the beginning and complete exercises, 1, 2, 3 and 4
Finally, do exercises, 1 – 5 without stopping between each exercise
Well done. You have climbed to the top of the pyramid and now all that’s left is to come back down. Have a 40 second rest before your descend.
Now do exercises 1-4 without stopping
Drop exercise 4 and do exercises 1, 2 and 3
Get rid of exercise 3 and perform exercises 1 and 2
Last but not least just do exercise #1
Take a walk around until your heart rate comes down before stretching through the muscles that you have used. Voilà!

Warm up: never skip this bit, or you might strain yourself. Try and warm though all the main muscle groups by doing big movements such as vigorously stepping on and off the bottom step of your staircase. Now circle your arms backwards and forwards through a nice big range of movement.

Exercise 1, Squats for 30 seconds

Squat with your feet shoulder width apart, dropping your bottom down to just above knee height. Make your squats strong, rhythmic and purposeful, maintaining a good pace.

Teaching points:

Weight goes into the heels and not the toes as you squat; your back must be long with the shoulders pinned back and the chest open; knees must be aligned and neither drop inwards (knock kneed) or splay outwards as you squat; check that your knees remain behind your toes as you drop down into the squats; abdominals should be gently drawn inwards.

 

Exercise 2, Dynamic lunges alternating left and right foot for 30 seconds 

Step forwards with your right foot, lunge, push back to your start position. Now step forwards with your left foot, lunge and push back. Keep going with bags of energy and with great technique!

Teaching points:

The step you take needs to be LONG so that you are up on the toes of your back foot and the heel is off the floor; drop the knee of the back leg straight down to the floor; keep the knee of the front leg behind the toes of your front foot; the chest remains lifted as you lunge. Avoid dropping your upper body forwards. Think posture!

Exercise 3, alternating lunge-squat-lunge pattern for 30 seconds

Now it’s time to put the lunges and squats together into a high energy pattern as follows:

Right leg lunge. Take a large step forwards with your right leg. Now drop your left knee down towards the floor. As you come back up push yourself back to the start position with force.
Squat. Now take your feet shoulder width apart and drop down into a squat with excellent form.
Left leg lunge. Take a large step forwards with your left leg. Now drop your right knee down towards the floor. As you come back up push yourself back to the start position with force.

Keep going with this alternating pattern for 30 seconds.

Exercise 4, press ups for 30 seconds 

Make sure you work at the correct level for you.

Box press up technique: all fours box position, hands in-line with shoulders but wider than shoulders, back long and aligned, abdominals drawn in to support the back. Lower yourself downwards and forwards of your hands whilst maintaining the back in a neutral position.
¾ press up: take your knees further back and bring the weight forwards into your arms. Your body should be in a diagonal line from shoulders to knees. Lower yourself in one “block” towards the floor making sure that you do not let your lower back arch. Abdominals need to be drawn in.
Full press up: hands need to be in line with your shoulders but wider than the shoulders. Up on your toes and ensure that your body is in a perfectly straight line from shoulders down to heels. Do not allow your lower back to sag down towards the floor as this will place pressure on the back. At the other end of the scale, avoid sticking your bottom up into the air, thus forming an inverted Ʌ-shape with your body. To achieve this alignment and protect the back, it is important to draw in the abdominals.

Exercise 5, Plank hold for 30 seconds

Make sure you work at the correct level for you.

Level 1 plank: this level should be used if you have recently had a baby. Lie on your tummy with your elbows under your shoulders and your shoulders relaxed away from your ears. Gently draw your abdominals inwards and upwards away from the floor. Hold for 30 seconds but be sure to keep breathing as you do so! NB This exercise is not one to do if you suffer from lower back pain.
Level 2 plank: Lie on your tummy with your elbows under your shoulders and your shoulders relaxed away from your ears. Draw the abdominals inwards and then lift yourself onto your knees so that your torso is raised off the floor and is parallel to the floor. Try to avoid sticking your bottom up into the air or, conversely, letting it drop downwards. You need to be level. Hold for 30 seconds but be sure to keep breathing as you do so!
Level 3 plank: Lie on your tummy with your elbows under your shoulders and your shoulders relaxed away from your ears. Draw the abdominals inwards and then lift yourself onto your toes so as to create a straight line with your body from your shoulders to your heels. It is very important that you do not let your hips and bottom drop downwards as this will strain the back. Lifting your bottom too far upwards into a “pyramid” shape won’t strain the back but it is cheating! . Hold for 30 seconds but be sure to keep breathing as you do so!

Cool down and stretch – don’t miss this out!

Finally, take a photo of yourself looking hot and sweaty, and post it on my facebook page to prove you worked hard! I’ll be there to send you a big congrats!

About the author

Dr. Joanna Helcke is an award winning expert in pregnancy and postnatal fitness and is the creator of the UK’s first ever week by week online mum-to-be and new mum fitness and wellbeing system. She is regularly quoted as a pre and postnatal fitness expert in the national media. You can sign up for her weekly busy mums fitness and health newsletters via her website: www.joannahelcke.com

Friends in the Arena

Theodore Roosevelt said,

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Whenever we stretch outside our comfort zone. Whenever we dare greatly. Whenever we put ourselves out there and try to create something new, we are in the arena.

We are in the space where we strive and struggle and fall and get up again.

When we are in the arena, critics are cheap and plentiful. It’s easy to get a ringside seat on Twitter and offer ‘feedback’ and opinion.

That’s why I love this attitude from Brené Brown:

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That’s we need friends in the arena.

Not just any friends. As lovely as I’m sure they are. But friends in the arena. Those who are getting their butt kicked too. Who knows what it’s like to struggle, to fight, to fall, to succeed. Who can share with you and support you, encourage you and get you back on your feet, time after time.

That’s one of the things that makes the 40 Days of Baby Steps extra special. The group itself. Every time I run this, we have an amazing group of brilliant, open, supportive and generous entrepreneurs, all with a passion for growing their business without putting life on hold.

An absolute pleasure to work with.

“I got so much out of the 40 Days of Baby Steps. I really enjoyed our supportive and very honest group dynamic and we all really helped each other move towards our goals.”

Rebekah Harriman

Our new group starts tomorrow and I’d love for you to join us. Are you in?

Fuel

So often recharging is seen as a luxury, something to enjoy after the work is done. I disagree.

Recharging is not a luxury. It is fuel for your productivity.

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Fuel for your motivation - when was the last time you reconnected with your ‘why’ – your purpose, the reason you do what you do? Are you working to create a lifestyle that allows you to spend more time with your family? Then spend some time with them this weekend and let that fuel your drive to create more. Working to transform lives within your community? Spend some time with those you are working for, or spend some time revisiting someone whose life you have helped to transform. Reconnect with the thing that first sparked your passion and purpose.

Fuel for your energy – what recharges you? What do you find energising? It might be time alone, time with certain people, going for a run, reading a book, drinking water,  being outdoors, quiet meditation or loud, crazy dancing in the kitchen.

Fuel for your inspiration – what gets all your creative juices bubbling? It might be the same as the above, or it might be something else entirely. For me, immersing myself in other people’s ideas and creativity does wonders to spark mine. Spending time with artists, reading fiction, listening to poetry, watching TED talks, for example.

What fuels you? What will you make time for this weekend? Let me know in the comments below.

Fuel is one of the key things we identify in the personal brainstorming calls that kick off my 40 Days of Baby Steps next week. Join us here to book your call.

Flow

It’s easy to ride high on the energy and enthusiasm at the beginning of a new year. It’s also easy to crank up the pace when the urgency of a deadline at the end of year approaches.

What about in between? How do we maintain momentum in the middle?

It’s all about flow.

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I like to think of flow like a river.

A river flows because it has banks, which provide structure. Without banks, it would be a stagnant pool, rather than a free-flowing river. Equally, if the banks became too restrictive, they could act more like a dam and cut off flow.

It takes both space and structure to create flow.

Which is why I run Baby Steps as a 40 day programme – to put a deadline in sight, a finish line to aim for, with the structure of daily baby steps and weekly check-in’s, to create just just enough pressure and plenty of space to get things flowing.

“I joined the 40 Days because I really need deadlines or I don’t get anything done. Being self employed, there are really no consequences for not meeting a “deadline” unless I make myself accountable to someone else.

The program was fantastic and you get what you put into it. Being able to connect with the group daily and see others accomplishments and get support was great. It gave me purpose and accountability, and Grace gave some great advice which I now use on regular basis – sometimes even hourly!”

Brenda Caley, RMT

Want to get your momentum flowing? Come and join us on the 40 Days of Baby Steps.

How do you create flow? Let me know what works for you in the comments below.

And if you’ve not read Graham’s How to Be a Productivity Ninja, check out its brand new 2nd edition cover being launched by Icon Books this week.

 

Baby Steps Move Mountains

What keeps you on track when:

you don’t have much time?
you’ve woken up with a bout of can’t-be-bothered-itis?
or you’re so full of bright ideas you don’t know where to start?

The answer is focus.

Focus means being selective about what you work on first, rather than trying to tackle all your 2014 goals at once.

Focus means choosing where to begin, even when you haven’t got it all worked out just yet.

Focus means being clear on what YOU want to achieve, rather than trying to be all things to all people.

Focus means appreciating that extraordinary results come from taking seemingly ordinary steps every day in the right direction. That baby steps really do move mountains.

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That’s why I created 40 Days of Baby Steps.

The first time I ran this program, I was about to write my book – in 40 days.

If I had “write book” on my to-do list every day, it would never have happened.

Instead, Baby Steps gave me the focus and clarity I needed to make meaningful progress every day, even on days when life was already full on – and days when I really didn’t feel like it.

Baby Steps were small enough to sneak past fear and confidence wobbles: Do I have what it takes? I don’t know. Can I have a go at just this tiny little bit of it? Yes I can.

And Baby Steps meant I could get on with the task right in front of me, rather than by paralysed by the enormity of what I was trying to achieve.

And it worked. For me and for a whole bunch of other busy time jugglers too.

If you’d like to join in, our next 40 Days of fun, focus and accountability start on 6th January, with a range of brainstorming dates available this week and next.

Just Add Fun

In the world of business and productivity things can get a little too serious for my liking. And when things get serious, fear, overwhelm and procrastination come out to play.

Fun, on the other hand, is naturally motivating. It comes easy, it doesn’t overwhelm and we don’t need to psyche ourselves up for it.

Fun engages our creativity and brings out our best ideas. The act of ‘tinkering’ can be a great way to bypass procrastination.

Fun can be a great way of disarming distractions too, as Helen Routledge highlighted in her guest post about how games can boost productivity.

Fun is sustainable. It’s easy to keep going when you’re having fun.

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Today some of my fun is going to involve coloured pens and big piece of paper on the kitchen table with a little family tradition we started last year, where all four of us draw and write down ideas, hopes and plans of what we want to do, enjoy and grow in 2014.

Here’s what last year’s looks like. It’s been up on the wall by our front door all year, as a reminder, a prompt and an ideas generator. In fact we’re quite proud of how many of these we’ve ticked off this year (although quite frankly I still don’t know what a chicaporca is! Any ideas?)

What about you?

Whether you’re dreaming big, planning meticulously, or just starting to think about what on earth 2014 is going to look like, how can you inject some fun?

Fun is also one of the ingredients of 40 Days of Baby Steps - my way of kicking off the New Year with 40 days of fun, focus and accountability. Fancy joining me?