How to Schedule Your Life Part 3 of 3: 3 Tools to Help You Stick to Your Schedule

One of the biggest ways to build confidence in ourselves is by doing what we say we’re going to do.

Part of the magic of working from your scheduled week is that you are training your brain to get a surge of dopamine every time you do a task on your schedule.

Conversely, not doing the things you say you will do can erode your self esteem and confidence.

Now, we all know that life happens and we have emergencies come up. This isn’t what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about you looking at that run you have scheduled and deciding, “nah, not now - I just don’t feel like it”.

Spoiler alert: our brain is going to talk us out of anything that is hard or uncomfortable. Our brain is meant to conserve energy and it takes a lot of effort to do the hard things we need to do.

This hard-to-do task is different for everyone.

Personally, I love to exercise so unless I’m honestly feeling unwell or injured I’m gonna want to go out 90% of the time.

What I know is hard for me is getting out in my community to promote my business. In the moment I’m going to stall and make all sorts of excuses for why I should do something else. Luckily, I know this about myself and with effort, can push through and do the thing.

So what do you do if you’re in the moment, negotiating with yourself about not doing the thing?

Here are a few tools to have in your back pocket when things get tough and you suddenly decide you should actually just sit on the couch and watch Netflix for the afternoon.

Tool #1: Identify what thought is making you feel resistance.

Literally get out a pen and paper and brainstorm the thoughts in your brain.

Then for each thought ask yourself “is this true?” or “is this real?”.

Then ask yourself: “how can the opposite be true?”

Once you get all the opposite thoughts out on paper, hone in on one or two power thoughts to repeat to yourself to get you all pumped up.

Example from my life: One day a week I go out in the community and physically hand out postcards for my floral design business. It’s in my calendar as a 2 hour block. When the time comes I always start negotiating.

Here are the thoughts that come up in this example: “this is a waste of time”, “there’s got to be a better way to get the word out”, “people are going to think I’m soliciting”, people are going to think I’m a bother”, (insert other not-helpful thoughts).

Are these thoughts true? Once I ask myself this I realize it’s all up for interpretation!

Is it truly a waste of time? Only if I think it’s a waste of time.

How could the opposite be true? Well, if make a connection with ONE person, then it’s not a waste of time. Or, if I now know there are 20 floral design postcards out there in peoples offices, on people's fridges, and in the hands of new potential customers this is not a waste of time. 

BINGO! I can grab one of these thoughts and get all jazzed up about going out there!

All I have to do is connect with ONE person.

Tool #2: Take your uncomfortable feelings along for the ride.

We often think we’re not supposed to feel the “bad” feelings of fear, embarrassment, etc.

Two of the hardest lessons I’ve learned in business are that 1) sometimes things you need to do just feel uncomfortable and 2) you can do them anyway, even if you feel uncomfortable.

How does this work in practice?

Let’s take my popping into businesses with my floral menu cards as an example. It’s on my calendar, I drag myself into the car with postcards and I just feel awful. Instead of resisting it, I just feel the discomfort in my body and start driving to my first destination. 

I let fear, embarrassment, anxiety just ride along but am clear that it must stay in the back seat.

With fear safely in the backseat, I can then dig up a power thought that I came up with (Tool #1). 

I begin to repeat this again and again. Before I know it I’ve gone into 5 new businesses and I’m thinking to myself, now that I’m on a roll maybe I’ll just spend the whole afternoon doing this!

Tool #3: Take one eensy-weensy baby step in the direction you're supposed to go.

This works wonders in fitness. Although for me, the majority of the time doing my daily fitness is not hard to motivate for. But occasionally it is.

Maybe I’ve had a bad night of sleep or maybe I’m reaching a point in my training where I’m putting in way more miles and I’m just tired.

So there it is, my 60 minute run on the calendar. And I REALLY don’t want to do it. 

I’ll say, “OK, Greta put on your running clothes and run for 10 minutes. Then if you still don’t want to do it, you can come home.”

9.5 times out of 10, I’ll finish my workout and feel so glad I did. 

Need an example of how this works in business?

Say I have it on my calendar that I’m going to schedule 4 social media posts at 12:30. I look at that task and immediately start negotiating with myself. 

Here’s the eensy weensy baby step I’ll take: I’ll say, “Ok Greta, hop into your marketing calendar and choose 2 topics to post about. 

(I categorize my social media posts by creating 5-10 “topic buckets” this helps narrow the overwhelming question of “what do I post about?”)

Then I’ll go into my marketing calendar, see the content buckets and start thinking and brainstorming and before I know it I’ve written 2 posts so why not go to the original 4 I scheduled in?

Ok, now it’s time for YOU to put this into action.

Next time you feel resistance to something on your schedule, know that it’s normal. Then whip out one of these tools and see how you can transform your state of mind so you can get the thing done. 

Advanced technique: once you’ve tried one of these tools for a bit, try combining them. 

Then come back in here and comment on your experience!