If you are like everybody else, you are probably inundated with pings and dings and alerts and buzzes and all those things.
You may be focused and typing away, and everything's great. And then you get the "ping." And your attention goes elsewhere, you lose your momentum, you lose your focus, you lose that productivity, and then you're in the rabbit hole. You find yourself scrolling through Instagram and Facebook, and Reddit is my new downfall.
How do we get back on track when we have all of these distractions going on?
I want you to grab this magical little device. And I want you to scroll through your phone and find the apps that get your attention the most. And I want you to get ready. We're going to do this together. There's my Instagram, we're going to hover on it, and I'm going to remove the app.
So here's the thing, if it's bugging you, if it's taking your energy away, an active decision is removing the app. An inactive and passive decision is trying to convince yourself that you are more intelligent than your brain's chemistry. And guess what? You're not, you're not.
Your brain is here to outsmart you.
It's trying to keep you in your little patterns of safety and comfort. And so it's going to try to pull you back to that feeling that, "Ooooh, someone's thought of me. Someone wants to be in touch with me."
No, they don't. If they wanted to talk to connect, they would call, they would send you a text message, or they would make plans with you.
So let's go ahead and delete the apps. I've already deleted mine and I feel better already. So Facebook and Instagram are now off of my phone.
If you're like a lot of my clients who are on Slack, guess what? It's got to come off your phone too. Because if it is pulling you away from doing the work you want to do from having the connections that you want to have with other people, it's got to go it has to go.
Otherwise you're convincing yourself that it's good for you when in fact it's not.
My friends (Griefcat) have this great song, Loving You is like Eating Chipotle." It looks like it should be good for you, but it's really not.
If you want to make healthier life choices. Let's make actual healthy life choices. Let's not do these half-assed versions of like, blame sort of kind of doing it. There is no such thing as a neutral decision, and a non-decision is accepting and tolerating things that haven't worked and will continue not working for you.
Let's do a little life scan. Let's do a little inventory.
Where are things not working for you?
Where have you just passively accepted things and assume them and really just become a sponge for nonsense?
Life is short. We don't have a guaranteed timeframe. And then, you know, we get a party at the end, maybe we do who knows! Nothing is guaranteed and you are not entitled to have this fantastic thing rolled out for you.
You have to create it.
Nobody's going to just say, “Hey, you really put in the work you suffer through life. So now you get to be rewarded.”
It's not how it works. You need to actively create it with the decisions and the actions. There are minor micro shifts that happen every day, every moment, and the time you wake up, shoot, even as you go to bed. This is where you need to start setting those intentions for the life you want to create.
It all begins with the thoughts that become the beliefs. The beliefs become the actions that give us these feelings. It all comes together. We think our emotions are in charge of us. But guess what seeds your emotions? It's your belief system. It's your mindset. It's your thoughts. It's the people you surround yourself with. It's your decision. It is a cycle. And guess how we change the cycle? By changing the factors, changing the environment, and changing the variables, you can expect a different result.
If you're doing the same thing over and over again. What is it Einstein said that chaos doing the same thing expecting a different result? Change it up, change it up and see what happens? Be patient and observe. Get curious. It's like a science experiment. What variables do we change to get a different result?
Look at what worked in the past. I guarantee it'll work in the future. But stop blaming technology. Resolve technology, make technology work for you. And if it doesn't work for you, guess what? It's kind of like people in your life. They gotta go, they gotta go if they're not working for you. If You're ready to cut the fat and get healthy, let's do it. And you guys keep being awesome!