January 10th, 2009
If you're new here, you may want to check out my Offerings. Thanks for visiting!
Want to make 2009 an amazing year? I’m doing a goal setting workshop with my close friend Skip Shuda that will have a web business focus, but will be really useful for ANYONE who wants to accomplish huge goals this year.
While I will be talking about small business concepts in the examples, I’ll be helping everyone set great goals of any kind.
Are you often unclear about the most important thing to be working on?
Join my teleseminar January 12, 2009 at 7pm to learn about how you can lay the groundwork for an amazing year.
Check out the video here for more info: Goal Setting Workshop
Setting goals and instilling habits will make your success nearly ‘inevitable.’ Studies show that people who set specific goals accomplish 80% MORE than those who don’t.
Where you focus those goals determines whether you apply that 80% advantage on your MOST PRODUCTIVE avenues. We’ll help you discover the “right areas” for directing your goals in our upcoming Teleseminar for both personal life and new and growing Web businesses.
The first 3 habits from Stephen Covey’s legendary book on “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” directly relate to setting proper vision, goals and priorities.
If you want to know the most highly leveraged areas to be working on for your Internet business, then this may be the most important call you’ll ever listen in on…
In my upcoming January 12, 2009 teleseminar, moderator Skip Shuda will interview me as I lead you through the goal-setting process customized personal success and building and growing a Web business.
Sign up now: Set Great Goals Now!
Seriously, this may be the most important thing you do this year.
Learn more now: Make 2009 Amazing!
Be well,
Rob
September 18th, 2008
Many people who procrastinate have tons and tons of potential. Are you one of those people? Do you know that you could do so much more if you only found a way to apply yourself?
Do you ever start things, and sometimes even get a lot done, only to drop the project to start something else? Does your procrastination spiral once it starts, getting worse as things pile up?
I often hear from people that they think they might just be “lazy.” And if lazy simply means avoiding things, then that may be true in the moment. But I want to suggest that you’re probably not “genetically lazy.” There may be more going on for you behaviorally, and even psychologically.
But these are things you can change.
Let me share one of the biggest “ah-ha’s” I’ve ever had as to my own procrastination. I got it from an important formula I found in a book called “Procrastination: Why You Do It and What To Do About It” by Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen.
The formula is this: Self Worth = Ability = Performance
If this formula ends up being true for you, it can make you procrastinate, a lot! Let’s look at this formula a little more closely…
What defines our worth as people? Many people would like to say that our worth is inherent; that just because we are here, we are worthy. While that is a nice idea, many of us don’t really feel that way. Often we feel that it is our ability as people that defines our worth as people.
If I am able, I am also worthy.
So if you are someone who is able to “bring food home to the tribe,” it makes sense that you might consider yourself, and be considered by others, as “worthy.” If you have ability at almost any skill whether it’s making money, dating, or even water polo (if that’s your thing) then people have reason to consider you worthy. Right or wrong, the idea of *ability* being related to our *worth* as people seems to logically follow this line of thinking.
OK, ability seems to define self worth to some degree. So how is “ability” measured?
Well *performance* makes sense as an indicator of ability. If you perform well at something like gathering food for a tribe, or making money, or getting dates, your *performance* in whatever area shows that you have *ability* in that area. Nothing too illogical here.
Performance seems to define ability. So the entire formula explained directly is this: If you perform well, you have ability. If you have ability, you are considered worthy. So on some level your worth as an individual can be perceived to relate directly to your performance.
Self Worth = Ability = Performance
So how does this relate to procrastination? Well, if this is true for you, you may use procrastination unconsciously to manage the pressure that performing well can create for you. If a bad performance means you are not worthy as a person, then the performance, whatever it is, has a awful lot riding on it, wouldn’t you say?
Let me say that again:
If your self worth is dependent on your performance then there is a huge amount of pressure on your performance. So you will then look for ways to alleviate that pressure!
Here’s where procrastination comes in: People often use procrastination as a way to break the connection between self worth and performance. And this usually occurs unconsciously!
Essentially, it becomes easier to say “I could have done so much better if only I had not waited so long to start, or been just a little more organized, or tried a little harder…” than it is to risk performing our best and failing.
Procrastination gives us the excuse, the very reason that we didn’t perform our best. This breaks the formula! This leaves our self worth in tact! Your potential is still unlimited because this time you really didn’t fully try.
So how did we get the idea that self worth equals performance to begin with?
Did your parents ever treat you differently when you got good grades? Did they get you an ice cream cone when your team won the little league game? Did they scold you or tell you you should have done better when you failed at something or brought home bad grades?
These examples may not even touch it. For many of us worse things happened related to bad performance. Many parents guilt and shame children into certain behaviors. Of course, some of these actions are natural for parents, and obviously happen all the time. But there are many ways to get the sense that our performance is directly related to our worth. And when that happens we tend to put too much value and judgement on our performance as people.
Procrastination often becomes a tool we use to protect ourselves if our self worth isn’t inherent and deeply solid. Self worth is a huge topic, and again is completely related to most cases of serious procrastination.
I plan to write you more about self worth and why so many of us have such a hard time with it. It’s important to realize also that this may be true for you even if you don’t think it is at this time! We often have things about our selves that we keep in the “shadow,” and this character trait may be just that. But I’ll write more about that later. For now I just want to restate my main point:
When you link your performance to your self worth you give yourself a great reason to use procrastination.
So what do you do about it?
The first thing is to become aware that this may be happening at all.
Would you rather be someone who avoids doing most things because you are afraid of failing? Or would you rather be deeply self assured and able to try tons of different things no matter the outcome? Have you ever passed on something fun to do because you thought you might not be good at it?
Someone who is truly OK with who they are goes out and does things for the joy of doing them, rather than the value attached to the outcome.
Do you want to be someone who can follow through on things? Do you want to be someone who gives it their best (or maybe not even their best), and is deeply OK with the result? Do you think you’d get more accomplished if you were to stop sabotaging yourself? Do you think it would improve your performance if you stopped quitting things right before they get good?
Basically, if you want to stop procrastinating, you may need to realize that often it’s better to do, and to try, even if you might fail.
I hope this idea is as helpful for you as it was for me.
I’m available for a quick 15 minute consultation. Just email me at rob@fundamental-shift.com. I’m glad to quickly help you get on the right path.
And if you want more ideas like this emailed to you, sign up here for my newsletter on Ending Procrastination.
May 12th, 2008
The idea of nations is dying. Or at least it should be…
The lines we paint on our planet to form nations cause some of the deepest rifts in our humanity. I’ve done a lot of talking about the importance of each of us developing a world view perspective. This is why I’m sad that I only heard about Pangea Day just before it happened. I’m even sadder that I did nothing whatsoever to promote it. But I’m absolutely thrilled I got to be a part of it.
Pangea Day really was absolutely amazing. The 4 hour event featured short films submitted by people around the world, all of which enabled us better see the world through the eyes of “the other.”
Having the world come together - at the same time - to watch the same films - was an amazingly powerful thing. I sat in a room with strangers watching the world talk about itself. We experienced standing up together to do laughing yoga. We also participated in listening to the world’s heartbeat as percussionists from all of the world drummed together.
It was moving to say the least.
I don’t do it justice talking about it. Instead, here’s a few links to some of my favorite films. Check out all of them at www.pangeaday.org… And maybe even pick a cause to help.
My favs:
Pale Blue Dot
Encounterpoint
WalleyBall
Laughter Club
March 7th, 2008
What does it mean to be spiritual today? In this podcast Rob Scott and Kerri Kannan discuss how to implement spiritual teachings in a down to earth and realistic way. This interview is from a show that Kerri runs called World Awakened on Blog Talk Radio.
Topics covered include:
It’s a great interview and I was really happy that Kerri invited me to be on her show. Give it a listen.
How Do We Implement Spiritual Teachings:
Play Now |
Play in Popup |
Download
March 3rd, 2008
“It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you… Without a strong rhyme to step to…” - Eric B and Rakim.
In that spirit, I’m sorry I didn’t leave a strong rhyme to step to.
Some of you have written asking where I went. My only answer is I’ve been: working on this new website, moving, working with individual clients, doing some public talks, being injured, not having podcast equipment set up, lifting, writing, jiu-jitsu-ing, being injured again, more lifting, lots of laughing, oh, and catching some shut eye.
It’s been a redefining and busy many months.
So a couple of quick updates, and then an intention statement.
First, here finally is the next stage of my website. I’m really happy with it. Thank you to those who worked on it: Web Guru Alex Hillman, Designer Dan Wilt, and the Wordpress coders over at Dizzain. The current categories are where I’m starting, but they are subject to change, so let me know if they work for you. And some of the forms on here are still buggy, please bear with me. Oh, and I couldn’t import all the old comments, so we’re starting from scratch on that, sorry.
Second, I am working hard on the next web project. It will be an online coaching product. I’m seeing many applications of the things I talk about in my podcast and am building a comprehensive online course to teach those concepts. I have about as many individual clients as I can have at this point (insert gratitude here), so this is what I’m building for others who can’t work with me directly. Cruise on over to my offerings page and leave an email address if you are interested in hearing more about this project. You won’t be spammed, promise.
OK so the intention statement is this: I’m going to be more active with posting and whatnot. (Or really really try to be.)
I’m taking a different attitude on the posting thing. I used to only do a podcast, and the blog entries were really just descriptions of the shows. My intention wasn’t to tell the world about Rob Scott, but rather, just things I thought interesting to teach. Now I realize that some of you may want to know a little more about me and my interests. So I plan to blog a bit more just about stuff… We’ll see how that goes. (Don’t worry, it will still be related to evolving consciousness and whatnot.)
Also, I’m planning on doing some more videos as well. They should be more interesting than my old talks (let’s hope!). I’ve spent time learning how to do this whole video thing a little better. We’ll see if the learning took.
Anyway, next up is an old interview I found with my friend Kerri Kannan that I meant to post eons ago. Stay tuned, should be out any minute.
And oh yeah, be kind to yourself, and everybody else.
