Welcome to the first installment of Happy Productive. I decided to start this series with my husband, Douglas Robbins. We are calling it Happy Productive for a very specific reason. Being happy is the purpose of life. Every goal we set comes down to, I want to achieve it because it will make me happy. The Dali Lama said “The purpose of our lives is to be happy” so why not get right to it and start with the purpose of life.
Productive is defined simply as the state of producing or creating something. What better thing to be creating than happiness in our life, thus Happy Productive.
In this episode we explore, why you are not meeting your goals and what to do about it. Enjoy!
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WHAT YOU WILL DISCOVER
How to discover why you’re not achieving your goals
The difference between empowering and dis-empowering beliefs
Why you can’t beat yourself up to achieve a goal
How your core beliefs affect your thinking and actions
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the very first episode of Happy Productive Day
I decided to start the series with my husband, Douglas Robbins, because we have a truly great love and a really happy life. And we want to help others find that kind of happiness too. Now, we’re calling the Series Happy Productive for a very specific reason.
Being happy is the purpose of life.
Every goal that we set comes down to whether we want to achieve it because it’ll make us happy or happier. The Dalai Lama said that “The purpose of our lives is to be happy”. So why not just get right to it and start with the purpose of life?
Productive is defined simply as the state of producing or creating something. And what better thing to be creating than happiness in our life? Thus, the name Happy Productive.
I’m also the founder of Best Planner Ever, which is a daily planner because productivity means a lot to me.
Now, happy productivity doesn’t mean having a bigger to-do list or more goals, or working harder. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s about getting clear on who you are, what you want your life to be, and then taking inspired actions each day to fulfill that purpose.
It doesn’t matter if your purpose is to grow a multimillion-dollar business, or raise amazing kids since both are valid. It’s even better if you want to do both. What only matters is that you discover what will make you happy and then start doing it.
Our goal with these episodes is to provide you with real coaching on the real problems that you face every day. The format is designed to be short and simple to never seem as overwhelming. I absolutely love personal growth programs. I’m always doing one, but sometimes the amount of content that they throw at you can feel like drinking from a fire hose.
You’re probably already a busy person, so the idea of adding more to your plate can cause some resistance, right? I don’t want to do that. We don’t want that.
Happy Productive is about simplifying and getting clear about the issues at hand and not complicating them. It’s about taking one small step together— those tiny changes over time that add up to extraordinary results.
In today’s lesson, I want to talk to you about why you’re not achieving your goals and getting the results that you want. We’ll also talk about how you’re depriving yourself of living that ideal life that you really want.
We do believe that results are tangible, right? You can see the money in your bank account. You can fit into that ideal jean size. You have the endurance to run that race. You have a great loving relationship. It’s all real.
I was reading a book on productivity, and the author summed it up painfully clear for me. “Look at all the work that you’re doing. And what results are you getting?”
Oh, if you have to really look at that!
If you’re not getting the tangible, real results that you want then you should consider looking at the reasons why that’s so.
Here’s how it works.
We all have core beliefs. They’re either disempowering or empowering. The disempowering beliefs would trigger thoughts such as, “I am inadequate. I’m ineffective. I’m powerless. I don’t deserve happiness. I’m unlovable. People are untrustworthy. The world is not safe.” These beliefs can feel awful and we carry them around often without even knowing.
Then we have empowering beliefs such as “I am enough. I deserve everything life has to offer. I’m worthy of love. Life is beautiful. People are good. I’m the author of my life. I can make a difference.” Such beliefs make us feel really good and they help us to connect to our personal power.
But why is this important?
Because beliefs determine how we think and feel. And how we think and feel determines the actions that we take. And our actions determine our results.
Let’s say that you have a belief that you’re an athlete, okay?
It’s your identity. It’s who you are. You’re going to think like an athlete— feel like an athlete. You will take actions an athlete would take and get results that an athlete is supposed to get.
But if you have the belief that no matter what you may do you’ll never have the body that you want, you will only end up feeling angry and helpless. This is the type of thinking that arouses frustration and anger. And this state of mind will only encourage you not to care or bother.
You’ll end up not bothering about what you’re eating, or whether or not you exercise. Ultimately, the end result would be never having the body that you’ve always wanted. Although, on the contrary it’s not that you can’t ever have the body that you want. You absolutely can!
It’s just that there’s a limiting belief in you that’s holding you back from taking the actions that would lead you to success. If you’ve ever experienced this, you’d agree with me that it isn’t any fun.
Most people try to meet their goals by being super busy, or by exhausting their willpower and only beating themselves up. They feel like they just need to get out there and get busy. To push through it all. They keep telling themselves to man up, to woman up. “Get it together, get yourself together.”
I agree that by all means action is an essential part of meeting our goals. However, if you’re taking the wrong action or not taking action because of how you’re thinking and feeling, you won’t get the results that you really want. It’s just not the way how it works.
For example, I had a belief that I had to work really hard to be successful. Taking action has never really been my issue. I can work all the hours in the day and not stop. But can you start to see the problem with this behavior?
If I worked really hard to meet a goal at any cost only to fail at it and feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled later, I might end up obsessively working on another goal in the hopes of achieving it. This was done just to feel better and be happy. But it never happened. And it never would happen because the belief that was driving the show was misguiding me to believe that I had to work hard to be successful. And that only lead to burn out, depression, and exhaustion.
Not to forget I also sacrificed many other areas of my life, such as health and time with my family just to meet that goal. It’s really no wonder, happiness was never the end result. This was really frustrating for me over the years.
And now I can see this all the time in my clients too. People are really frustrated for not meeting their goals fast enough or even not at all. Or they met their goal but they still feel like crap.
Now it all comes down to the same answer which may not be pleasant to know. Nevertheless, it’s essential to your success and it happens to be the core focus of my training to coach my clients.
We can’t control circumstances beyond and above our existence. I wish we could, but we can’t. We can’t control other people and their actions. We can’t control our past because it’s already done. But what we can control is our core beliefs.
These core beliefs are what we think and feel. We can control our actions and we can control our results. All of that is entirely within our control. So if you’re tempted to think that you are victim to the misfortunes in your life and you don’t have control over anything, it’s really not true! You can control your beliefs, how you think, how you feel, your actions, and your results.
You might have heard the saying, “thoughts become things”. Well, it’s true.
But, if we go through life paying no attention to our thoughts and only burying or ignoring our feelings, no wonder we won’t be able to take action. Or we might take the wrong action and end up with poor results.
This is a really simple practice. I love things that are super simple but really powerful. This is a simple way of understanding how things work accurately.
Core beliefs drive thoughts and feelings. Feelings drive our action or inaction, which then determine results.
However, the problem is that most of us have never been taught to look at our core beliefs. We certainly don’t learn it in school to pay attention to our emotions. Instead, we learn to suck it up, deal with it, cope with it, but not actually pay attention to it.
If you want a different result in life. This is a practice you need to master. And it’s called a practice because it takes a process. It’s a process and it takes time to get good at it.
This is where meditation could also be useful because it’s the practice of giving yourself space. It allows you to observe your life almost through a screen so that you may literally watch and pay attention to how you think.
Once you start paying attention to what’s going on, it can be really enlightening. But your reflections may also intimidate you and discourage you to deal with the issues. Like most people, you may just want to keep checking out through overconsumption of food, alcohol, drugs, TV, social media, and the likes. However, that’s not a good idea, and here’s why.
Numbing down and checking out does not lead us to the happiness, the contribution, and the fulfillment that we crave. All it does is that it eases the pain temporarily.
Now you might be thinking, “I did try or I am trying, and I still haven’t gotten to where I want to be”. Many people try to change aspects of their lives through force or will power. It’s going to be a lot harder if you do this without fully understanding the beliefs that are the driving force behind these actions.
Instead, you can take out the time to fully understand what’s going on within you and get a hold of that thought-feeling combination that drives your actions. Once you change it, the action becomes so much easier like almost unwinding the hold that it has on you.
This is what coaching is all about— helping you get to the core of the issue, changing your thinking and beliefs so that you may feel better. You’re not alone through this process. When you feel better, you take the right actions. And from there onwards, you start getting the results that you want to achieve your goals finally.
Now many people hire a coach and say, “Just tell me exactly what to do.” They follow the steps only to find that they may work a little or not at all. And end up saying, “See, coaching didn’t work for me!”
In actual, the problem is that when you expect others to tell you what to do, you transfer the responsibility for your own success to another person. When it doesn’t work out, you get to blame them and still stay stuck. Feelings like “It’s not my fault” are certainly driven by limiting beliefs such as “Nothing ever works for me” or “No matter what I do, I can’t solve this problem”.
Now it’s not to say that if you Google and hire a coach, you’ll work with professionals with whom you won’t be able to make good use of all the valuable information. You absolutely can.
But it’s your job to own and drive the end-result. Take responsibility for your own success and do the inner work to identify your core beliefs. Study and probe what you’re thinking and feeling in a non-judgmental way so that you can address the problem at the core. Do the work to understand it and then change it in a gentle, loving, and kind way.
Once you change the core belief, the action becomes easier and results start to flow. We love being in the flow. If you want to meet your goals, you must be in a place of compassion, understanding, and love.
You cannot struggle, force, or beat yourself up into change. Any results that you get will not be permanent and they will not be lasting. But, you can understand your thinking. You can practice and develop this skill. It doesn’t mean you have to relive the past or go to therapy. Now if you’re in your therapy and it’s working, you can stick with it. That’s great. You can use it in combination to deal with the issues.
But it’s also important to realize that some of your beliefs were probably picked up as a child. When you begin to recognize and understand why you think and feel in certain ways, you can practice changing it. This attitude will drive better actions and results, and help you into achieving your goals easily.
So if you have a goal and you’re not getting the result you want. First, take a step back and get into observer mode. Start analyzing your thinking and feeling around the goal. Look back and see if there are patterns that have been repeating. Sometimes, it might have been happening your entire life without you even noticing.
Start asking yourself “What’s my core belief here?”
Be patient with the answers when they do come, and they will. Be compassionate and loving towards yourself even if the answers scare you, and you don’t want to deal with them. Once you understand your core belief, you can change it.
Core beliefs are like peeling back layers of an onion. You don’t really get to the deep stuff without getting those top layers off. And we often cry peeling onions and that’s okay too.
Remember, this is a practice. Be prepared for other layers to reveal themselves.
That’s our first lesson. I hope you enjoyed it.
If you would like further assistance with this, consider joining our Goal Achievers. This is our coaching community where we dive deep into a topic relevant to living a full and extraordinary life each month. We focus just on one topic at a time, so that the process isn’t overwhelming. And we help you take small, powerful steps forward towards the life of your dreams.
You can learn more at either www.bestplannerever.com or www.jenniferdawncoaching.com. Thank you so much for listening.
Now, go out there and have a Happy Productive day!
xo
Jennifer