HIGH ACHIEVER HACKS TO MAKE PROGRESS NO MATTER WHAT

Speaker 1 0:00

So you're driven and focused, but then life happens. You've told yourself that you would be super consistent, so disciplined that you would not lose focus. But what are you supposed to do when there's a family crisis, when you get sick or when you just feel too stretched thin? This episode of The confidence podcast is going to offer you some simple hacks that will take you out of that place of overwhelm and fog that derails so many of us that are well intentioned. I'm going to help you today learn how to know the difference between an excuse and an adjustment so that you can always move forward with clarity and confidence, knowing that however life's drama comes, you are still creating forward momentum in a consistent and reliable way. Because when you know that, you don't get derailed no matter what comes your way, no matter what unexpected, because there will be unexpected things. Today's episode is going to keep you on track to make progress no matter what

Unknown Speaker 1:08

you're listening to, the

Speaker 1 1:08

confidence podcast your go to for boldness, motivation and actionable confidence tips. I'm your host. Trish Blackwell, confidence coach, Best Selling Author and founder of the College of confidence, I help go getters like you, Master self talk, quiet self doubt, and step into the life you were created for. You're here for more, and today's episode will help you claim it. Let's dive in and let's train those confidence busses. Hey there. It's Trish Blackwell, you are listening to the confidence podcast episode 626 in today's episode, we're coaching on High Achiever hacks to make progress no matter what. And because listen, life's drama is gonna happen. And really, I could have titled this how to not get distracted by life, so that you keep maximizing everything that God has put inside of you. I want you to know I don't think it's a coincidence that you stumbled upon this show. If you're a new listener, we're so happy you're here. If you're returning, we are family. I am convinced that you have greatness inside of you, that you are a world changer and difference maker. But the truth is, the people who make a difference in the world, the people who achieve their dreams, the people who live a big life,

Speaker 1 2:32

they're they're the ones who just don't get distracted. Distraction is our biggest enemy. But the truth is that sometimes it's, it's real distraction. You're sick, you have a hospital stay for someone you love. There is, there's a pivot in whether there's a natural disaster. I mean, these aren't like lazy distractions. It's real life distraction. So that's what we're coaching on today. I'm really excited to dive in, and I want you to know this was actually a listener requested topic. That's right, if you aren't yet following me on Instagram, I'm Trish underscore Blackwell over there. I still post on Facebook, though, and you can find that at Trish Blackwell coaching. And the reason I share is because I love hearing from you the audience like I really love knowing which episodes resonate, what serves you. What do you want to hear more of? And how can I continue to help you up level, your confidence and your courage, so that you can really step into the calling that I really believe is on your life. So this was from someone who reached out. They said this in their in the DM to me, and they said, I recently started listening to your podcast, and I wanted to follow through on like, one of my business ideas that I've been having. You see, I have idea after idea, but I never go anywhere with them. Your podcast has really helped me stay consistent and realize that just because I've not been consistent in the past, that's not who I am, I can become a consistent person now. Hey, maybe that's an episode for a future podcast. Here's my question. You've already helped me so much with consistency. The part I really struggle is the difficult times when I'm unwell. We've been just coming out of winter, and this year has been really difficult. So this person's in a different hemisphere than me, although one of my kids has been home sick at least one day, almost every single week. And then, of course, I get sick after them. Finally, when I get back to feeling better, I can get back in there, but it feels like every time I get back to it, someone gets sick again. So I feel like this really messes with my mindset, especially because it feels so slow to get anywhere that I want to go, because we keep coming down with things, we keep getting distracted. And sometimes I feel that successful people like yourself must just continue to do all the things when you're unwell just to get ahead. I'd love to hear how you handle these times. Okay, so we're gonna do the whole episode based on that. How do I handle those times? How do I handle the pivots? And we're diving deep, and I want you to know I. Have all of those same things happening, and the way that I stay consistent is really about how I structure, how I time block and what I tell myself along the way, but it's the clarity of the priorities and keeping them very, very simple and small. I think sometimes we overwhelm ourselves with the bigness of things and we want ideal circumstances. We think I, in order for me to do this, I need this much time. And actually, as we record today, I'll even share with you, I have a puppy play date lined up. I know, I know you know my puppy, who's about to turn one, has lots of energy, so we need play dates. And so I have a small window to get this podcast recorded for you all. And unfortunately, the puppy is getting dropped off in 12 minutes. Well, once these two puppies, and then there's actually going to be a third once they join, it be chaos in my house, and that is a worthy cause, worthy and a chosen distraction for me. But the time frame that I have to finish the podcast after the puppy play date is too small for me to record the whole episode, and so even though it's not ideal for me, because I'm right now in the flow, I want to keep going, but I'm gonna have to pause in my recording. You won't know the difference. I'm gonna edit it all out, but I'm be highly inspired, highly on point. Then imagine taking an hour break play with puppies and come back now. Good for you. Puppies are gonna create some positive energy for me, and I believe the second half of this episode's gonna be even better than the first. But I wanted to give you an actual, like tangible example of how, even in unideal circumstances, when it comes to time management, what has been really effective for me is to find a way to break it up. So even if it's not ideal, my self talk and my narrative is that I can make it ideal, and so that sometimes I do that with workouts too, if I don't have the time that I need to do a workout. So let's say hypothetically, I want to go for an eight mile run that takes me about an hour and two minutes, but I only have a 30 minute window. But I want the eight mile run. I will split my run. I'll do four miles. Get that done in 3031, minutes. I'll take a break, sometimes three hour break. Sometimes I change my clothes. Sometimes I have to use two workout outfits. It's so it's inconvenient. Sometimes it's early in the morning or late at night. But then I'll get the other four miles. And so I'll take I'll still get my one hour, it just doesn't look the way I want it. So we always look at, how do I make it work, even if it's not ideal? Now, guys, that's just a taster of what to expect in this episode. So in this episode of The confidence podcast, what I'm going to be coaching you on is how to not get distracted by life's drama. Then the secret to making adjustments instead of excuses. And so the two examples I gave you of this recording, the podcast around a laugh if you're a dog lover, I know you get it. If you're not a dog lover, you can laugh at us around my puppy play date or the adjustment and a busy day when I when I want to make my workout work, but it there's, there's a lot of reasons I could say, well, I guess I'm gonna have to shorten my workout. And so I look at it as every time I have an excuse, I ask myself, How can I turn this excuse into an adjustment? And then we are gonna dive in and talk about what is the difference between an excuse and an adjustment, especially when there are certain things that we can't avoid, and I will transparently tell you, we have a family week coming up this week where I'm going to be in the hospital for a full week supporting a family member who's getting a pretty intensive surgery. So that is something I know ahead of time, and I've made plans I have over produced on content on my on my back end, on my personal life, items on my on my professional things I need to do. My to do list has been intensified as an adjustment before this period where I'll be at the hospital and do the same when I'm on vacation. So there are certain times we have planned adjustments, and that's easier to make. But we're also going to talk about, what about the unplanned? What about the unplanned? What about the unexpected? And I think the key too is to simply know you can always pivot. And I want you to start telling yourself that you're really good at turning excuses into adjustments. You're really good at finding a way to keep the needle moving forward. Okay, so what we're going to start with is to manage your self talk. The first High Achiever hack here is that the secret to progress, no matter what, is not based on what you do. It actually starts with what you say to yourself, because what you say to yourself is going to directly impact how you act and what you do. And so when life happens, our self talk is the thing that most often starts spiraling and we go into the woe is me, the self pity land and y'all, it can get sticky. This happened to me just this past week. I was telling my students in the College of confidence that I went into compare and despair. I went into negative thinking. I had an adjustment made. Be a big one out of my control that really impacted our whole schedule, our whole lives. Everything a thing about months of what I had set up, and I allow Listen, when you have something like that happen, you have to allow yourself to process the emotions. So what I like to do is I give myself 20 minutes to have a pity party, and I let myself feel sorry for myself. Say how unfair it is. Tell me allow myself to spiral about how so and so should have done their job better, or I should have this shouldn't be happening to me. But after 20 minutes, I pop the self pity balloons, I have to acknowledge the pity party is over, and now we have to accept what we can't control, what we what is reality, because when you resist reality, and maybe the reality is a schedule change, a kid that gets sick, a diagnosis, some sort of natural disaster, something that makes you really go, whoa, whoa. This was, this was not part of the plan. When you argue with reality, you always lose. So we have to get ourselves to a place of acceptance of reality, and once you have it in a neutral way, that's when you say, What am I going to do about it? Now you see, it's when we fight against reality that we feel sorry for ourselves. We victimize ourselves. We say, Oh, look at how much I'm going through. And I'm not saying not to give yourself credit for that, because, because I want you to honor your resilience. But it's really easy to start believing the talk that it's really hard, and the more you look around at other people who seem to not be having any issues or complications, it's easy to look and say, Man, it must be nice. That's easy for them. No one else has as many things going on as me. Nobody else has as many as many weeks in a row of our kids being sick, nobody else has has these complications or the tech that keeps breaking on me. And so what we want to do, the key to your breakthrough here, your key to consistency, is to de dramatize the situation. You have to ask yourself, Is this thought necessary? Is it absolutely true? And then ask yourself, in the context of the circumstances I have now the reality in front of me, what would success look like? Or you could reframe that of how can I still be successful? So back to my adjustments. When I look at my time and I look at my schedule and something's not working, I ask myself, How can I still be successful?

Speaker 1 12:26

And if it's something that really pivots us and derails and it feels like, oh, well, there I go. From my plan now my plan has to be adjusted. I say, okay, how can this still be the best thing that's happening to me? What is in this for me that is good. And you can also ask yourself, what would the best version like, the most confident, really secure in their future, believing in themselves? What is that version of me? How would they show up right now? Would they be dramatic? Would they be panicking? Would they be talking about how hard that is for them, or feeling sorry for themselves or giving up on their goals, or does the best version of me figure it out anyway? Does the best version of me have more grit and more focus and more belief that even if I can do a little, that there's a compound effect of my efforts? And it is always worth starting. You know our listener who submitted this concept and this topic mentioned, they have all these ideas, but we we delay the ideas because we want this often, this perfect time. And listen, there's no such thing as a perfect time. It's always the right time. So if you're considering coaching, start now. Don't start January 1. Don't start. You know, once you have your the this little financial bucket set up for it. Like the sooner you start on anything in life, the sooner you're gonna get those results. Do not put off to tomorrow. What can take action on today? I don't need it to be perfect action, but I need you to take action. So maybe you have these business ideas. So go open an LLC, get started, build a website. And if that might feel overwhelming. We break it down into even smaller chunks. We say, one hour I'm going to spend one hour buying the domain and starting to build the website. Then I'm going to spend another hour the next day doing this, maybe opening your social media accounts for that business. It's the delaying of the small actions that delays your dreams, and then the things that happen in life become justifications of why you aren't able to act on the dreams, on your heart, or the big ideas you have, or make the changes you want. As a result, the world misses out on what you're supposed to be doing in it, and you miss out on the fulfillment, and you feel disappointed in yourself. And so I think we really have to break it down into micro chunks, that there is always something we can do every day to move the needle forward, always, and in the times where you feel really stretched, then maybe you're taking care of sick family members, maybe you're working a full time job and it's like, you're like, Trish. If you knew my day, I hear you. I want you to look for micro recharges. I was using this example in my coaching in the College of confidence. My husband and I have, both have Apple watches, and we have this one particular charger right here at my desk. That's like a super charger. It's it charges our watches in like, 12 minutes, I don't know what, and then we have about three other chargers through the house, and they take, like, three hours. And my point is, I think sometimes we think I just need a break, I just need to recharge, and we envision ourselves in the Bahamas or at the beach, or, like, having like, you know, a three day weekend, y'all, it's just that's just not realistic all the time. And so we want to work with reality and with what's realistic. And so what's realistic is, rather than idealize the recharge that you want, the three day weekend. Can you find a supercharger? Can you find a micro recharge, a fast watch charger that rejuvenates and refreshes you. So I don't know what that recharge will look like for you, but a micro recharge, is it an hour walk without any technology? Is it a drive without anyone else in the car for five minutes with your favorite song on the windows down? Is it a 10 minute micron? But there are some ways to give yourself a micro recharge. And you have to, in that moment, say, this is just a season and it is sustainable, because there will be an end to it. We're going to create better a better schedule moving forward. And you have to know there's never going to be perfect circumstances. And so your job for to be a high achiever, to be somebody of excellence is to find a way, no matter what, to move your dreams forward. Now let's speak to the what happens if you're sick when I get sick, because that was really the direct question, what do you do? Trish, when I get sick, I prioritize my sleep. I then ask myself, What would success look like in the context of how I'm feeling right? We all know there's different levels of sick. There's days when, if I'm sick, my brain is slow. I can tell when my thoughts are foggy and on that, I look at my to do list and I go, What is something that? What are the tasks that don't require a lot of me? I don't need the big expanse of thinking the mark like writing an outline for a podcast is something I can do. Podcasting when I'm foggy, brain a little bit harder. So when I'm sick, I'm honest with myself and say, what is truly not a good idea to do now. And what if you stretched yourself? Could you do? There are times when I say, hey, it's a Friday. I'm gonna just take the whole day. Honor, what my body needs. Honor being disconnected from the world. Honor whatever I need for recovery. And I can always work this weekend. I find a margin of if I'm losing time, I can always make it up elsewhere. Now I might go ooh, but I don't want to work the weekend, but that's I would rather move forward to my goals and make some adjustments to my preferences. And this is where it comes down to your priorities versus your preferences. You've got to know what your priorities are. When you have clarity on exactly what you want, you will know exactly what priorities to hold to. And if you haven't yet checked it out, check out my new consistency and growth tracker. It's an entire system I've put together. It is how I help my my I use it myself, and it is how I one on at the end of the day, close out my day. It takes a it's a three minute habit, and you follow along the spreadsheet and includes the 333, method, but also your priorities for the next day. And it's gonna help you keep focused on how to take massive action. So the days where I don't feel like doing anything, I look at my consistency tracker, and I go, Well, yesterday, your higher thinking self, the prefrontal cortex, said, Hey, the top three things that are most important for you to do and accomplish tomorrow are this. And I look at that list and I say, OK, whatever I can, this is what I'm going to do. You might have also heard me if you've been a long time listener, or if you're a student of mine in the College of confidence, we teach another method called the A, B, C, 123, and that is a method that will help you focus in and categorize your priorities, your A priorities, your B priorities and your C priorities.

Speaker 1 19:21

But you've got to know what your priorities are. Because when you know what your priorities are, you can ask yourself, How can I make an adjustment to make sure I make maybe you don't, maybe you don't complete the priorities, but you at least show up in some way for the priority. So you know, if you if we go back to the workout example, if the priority is an eight mile run, and for my runners out there like that, that's normal. If you're not a runner. I know it sounds extreme, but you know, it's an hour run. Then if you're sick, if I'm sick, and I've said, Oh, I have this eight mile run, I might do a two mile run, I might do a three mile run, I might do a one mile run and a 20 minute one. But I still move my body. If I'm truly sick, I at least walk around the block and get fresh air, right? Or I do some sort of movement. And so you make an adjustment, but it's a conscious adjustment. It's not an excuse. And the difference is, you know, you're making an excuse when you say, Well, I guess I can't do it. I guess there's no way. I guess I can't adjust it. It needs to be done this way or no way at all. So you have to know exactly what you're telling yourself. And it might be it won't work. I'm too tired. There's too much going on. I This is too hard. I'm afraid I can't figure it out, because when you know how your thoughts are in the when you're making excuses, you will be onto yourself. Because the truth is, we end up trying to avoid our most honest and simple fears. And once you identify them and you write them down, this is the power of journaling. Once you write it down, then you regain power. And so when you go, I'm afraid that if I start, I'll not know the next step. So sometimes it's easier just to say, I'm too busy right now, because honestly, that's a lot of times the truth. And once you acknowledge that, you can say, Well, seems like B if I keep thinking that I'm gonna stay stuck here forever, right? We can find a million reasons that we don't have the time to keep to show up for ourselves. But the people who live the lives of their dreams, who create a future that they love, they find a way, and it doesn't have to be, you know, gritting and going. It doesn't have to be white knuckling. You can do it and with kind adjustments. But we what we have to tell ourselves in our self talk is that I always move forward. I'm always making progress. And so what's an excuse and what's a necessary adjustment? I would say, an excuse avoids responsibility, and it tends to lie in intention and accountability. We say, I can't help it. I don't have time. It's pointing outwards. An adjustment acknowledges the challenge, but takes ownership of the outcome. Instead of avoiding something. It finds a new solution to work within the current limitations, and so confident people have flexible thinking, and we find new solutions to work in the current limitations. So really, the next hack I have is a question I want you to ask yourself, How am I optimizing what's in my control? Because if you can learn to optimize what's in your control, then you can really know that you can make adjustments for momentum, no matter the limitations. So what are you optimizing for, which you might go, I don't know, but reflect on it. How can you make things, the things that matter to you? How can you make the process simpler, or even maybe more interesting of a question is, where are you wasting time? If I were to be a fly on the wall of your life, where would I see you wasting time? Now I thought it's, by the way, I believe in intentional leisure. I believe in in margin to turn your brain off and have fun and quote, unquote, waste time. Intentionally wasting time is different than mindlessly wasting time. I'm enjoying my time, not wasting it. And are you losing time? Right? If time is of the essence, which is really what it is like when life's drama comes, it's really about time. But let's also ask ourselves a really honest question, are you losing time in indecision. Are you losing time in self pity? Are you losing time in your defeat, your discouragement? I, for years, lost time in discouragement, and I want you to realize you have power here, when life happens, we feel powerless, and the key to confidence is to feel like you always have power. And so we have to say, I still have power. There's power in my pivot. I can always move forward in some capacity, even it's not my ideal, but within the limitations that I have, I can move the needle forward, but that takes knowing your priorities and planning ahead. And I want to remind you that things often take less time than we think that they do. There's a anonymous quote that says we often overestimate the length of time that something will take, and we underestimate what can get done in a short burst of energy. See, Northcote Parkinson said this, the work will expand to fill the time available for its completion, and you can accomplish anything that you want, y'all if you stop thinking about how much time it will take. Napoleon Hill said, don't wait. The time will never be just right. And that, my friends, is the truth. The time will never be just right. So if this topic is resonating with you, I want you to know you have so much more within you. You have so much more movement. There's so much going on in everyone's lives. You are not alone. But those do not have to be the reasons you don't move forward on designing and cultivating the life of your dreams, and if you are interested in making the next year the best year of your life, and on designing your days, designing your future in the College of confidence in the month of December, that is what we're spending the. Entire month, we have courses and workshops coming out on how to design your life, how to design your day, how to maximize for time efficiency and time optimization, and

Unknown Speaker 25:10

how to know your priorities. I'm

Speaker 1 25:11

going to be coaching all of that live. You can get your you can get access. Come live with me. Ask me questions, get personal coaching and support. Go check it out at College of confidence.com. You are so committed to it being the most affordable way to get life coaching on the planet, that if you are not absolutely wowed in the first 14 days, and it's not what it's not the right fit for you, just let myself or my team know, and we'll refund you your $97 like it's that easy. So I'm gonna give you some podcast recommendations that you can scroll back that are gonna supplement today's episode. First is episode 596 it's five toxic mistakes most people make with goals. Then is episode 622 how to never give up, building mental toughness in three simple steps. Okay, so Black Friday has started early. Here's what I'm offering. And I'm really excited about these specials. They are now through Cyber Monday, but grab them before you get distracted, before you forget. Number one is it's $500 off the happy High Achiever Program. This is one of my signature programs. If you are driven, but you find yourself going, I'm successful, but I'm not happy yet, and like, I'm just there's a grind and I'm burnt out. And you want to know how to be super successful and super happy at the same time. That is how to work with excellence and have a work ethic and a professional life of excellence, but also live with excellence and have the life of your dreams, one that's fun, one that you love, one that you wake you look forward to waking up on a Monday for so that is if you use Code Black Friday at Trish. Blackwell.com forward slash H, H, A happy high achiever.

Unknown Speaker 26:49

I'll put the link in the notes here.

Speaker 1 26:51

You can get $500 off. The second offer is, if you've thought to yourself, I gosh, I would just want, I'd love to get coached by Trish for an hour. I want a customized plan for myself. I just, I don't need a lot of her time, just one hour. I'm offering a one on one session with me, with full access to the happy high achiever, course as well, which is normally a $2,000 product. That that bundle is typically $2,000 it's 50% off, so that you will have the link in the show notes. And if not, if you're interested, you can shoot me an email and I'll hook you up. Let's close out with our power phrase pyramid. These are our beginner medium and top thoughts. I

Unknown Speaker 27:29

call my power my affirmations power phrases. I

Speaker 1 27:32

like that better, because they give me internal power. And the beginner thought here is this, I am committed, and I find a way to move the needle forward no matter the circumstance. I'm gonna read that one again. I am committed, and I find a way to move the needle forward no matter the circumstance. Our medium thought is I am flexible, adaptable and able to pivot forward in creative ways. That's

Unknown Speaker 27:59

the key, guys. It's creative ways.

Speaker 1 28:01

This means easy, but man, you can be so stinking proud of yourself when you do pivot in a creative way, and you're at the end of the day, you will realize that you've done something today that your future self will thank you for. And our top thought is this, I'm always making progress, and I execute with efficiency and power. I'm always making progress, and I execute with efficiency and power, guys, I'm so just grateful that you allow me to be a voice in your life, a voice of encouragement your couch. If you're listening on Apple, please hit that follow button. Please write a review if you're on Spotify, hit the five stars. Follow the show if you're if you're on Spotify, by the way, there's also a video version of this. Or if you're on YouTube, comment and let me know that you like that. I upload these to YouTube. It helps me to get the feedback. Please share the show with a friend, with a with a with a family member, and go out there today. Go be more of who God created you to be. Be you. Be free. Thanks for listening to the confidence podcast and allowing me to be your coach today in your life. If you love the show, please let us know by leaving a review in iTunes. Are you encouraged by what you learned? Share this episode with a friend and let us know that the show is changing your life by saying hi to us on social media and Instagram, Trish_Blackwell or on Facebook. Trish Blackwell coaching ready to take what I teach and really take it to the next level. Join us today in the College of confidence. It's a group coaching program that you can join, risk free and cancel anytime. In the COC, you'll scale your confidence, your courage and the changes you make in your life. It's the coaching, support and community you've been looking for. Go to www.collegeofconfidence.com to get started. If you love the podcast, you will love the College of confidence even more and see even more transformation in your life. You. Come and see you for yourself. I'm cheering you

Unknown Speaker 30:02

on, friend, see you soon. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai