163 Achieve More with Accountability and Sage Powers

Struggling with procrastination and looking for ways to enhance productivity? Learn how to conquer procrastination by leveraging the power of accountability! This episode breaks down actionable strategies to help you turn overwhelming tasks into manageable steps with clear deadlines. Discover the effectiveness of using scoreboards, prioritizing daily tasks, and celebrating small successes to keep your motivation high. Identify and eliminate distractions, set short-term, attainable goals, and harness your peak energy times to maintain momentum and achieve more.

1. Chunking your projects
2.  Reinforcing habits with a scoreboard
3.  Be honest with the behaviour that is causing distraction
4.  Shifting into action
5.  Try priority planning
6.  Break free from perfectionism
7.  Tackle your fear of failure
8.  Baby steps, always
9.  Understanding your energy cycles

Hello from your host, Carol Clegg. A coach for coaches! I work with women coaches to find balance with ease and flow, manage stress, cultivate self-empathy, and set meaningful goals that resonate with their individual coaching practices.

My clients often have too many ideas and struggle to decide which one to focus on first, leading to a HUGE BLOCK in just getting started. I love to help simplify the process, explore what is getting in the way and guide you to choose the next project, enjoy the journey, and celebrate progress while taking small, meaningful steps.

If you would like to take the complimentary Saboteur assessment to discover what gets in your way and then follow up with a complimentary coaching session to explore your results. Take your assessment here or visit carolclegg.com

BOOK your ✅ 30 minute complimentary exploration call HERE

Connect on LinkedIn and Instagram or join my LinkedIn Group Creative Ideas for Women Business Owners

Chapters

• 0:00 Overcoming Procrastination With Accountability
• 8:54 Empowering Women Coaches Through Accountability

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, hello and welcome to Connect, inspire, create. I'm your host, carol Clegg, a progress and mindset business coach, here to help you thrive and flourish and turn those challenges into opportunities for growth. So, whether you're looking to find balance, say goodbye to procrastination or just in need of a friendly nudge towards your goals, remember, we're all on this journey together. So grab your favorite cup of something be it coffee, tea or something else and let's dive into this conversation today and today is going to be a short and sweet episode I wanted to share a little bit more about the connection between procrastination and accountability, and, as an accountability coach, I certainly find that there are things that get in the way of my clients that cause them to procrastinate, and it can sometimes be such a roadblock to achieving what you set out to do. So I know that it's a challenge that many people face in many different walks of life, and I came across this really interesting article that just shared some insight that a couple of other coaches have shared, that works for them and that they're sharing. So I hope you find this inspiring and informative, and perhaps there's something that you can relate to and that might help you take the next baby step, because that's what I always encourage it's one step at a time. Yes, we need to have a look at the overall end project that we're aiming towards, but if we allow ourselves only to look at that end result, I think that's when procrastination can step up in the way and put the hurdles there. So one of the first ways chunking your workload, first ways chunking your workload. So sometimes you just need to have a look at the different components of your project and break them down, as I said, into baby steps. So making smaller tasks your goals and then adding a completion date to the smaller tasks can help you overcome that feeling of being overwhelmed.

Speaker 1: 2:30

How about reinforcing habits with a scoreboard? I know that some people like to prioritize. I often talk about working in threes. I find that three is generally just a really comfortable number not to be overwhelmed and overloaded. So, reinforcing your habits with a scoreboard you could pick your big three for the day, and so what this helps you do is it prioritizes your important tasks. You can look at that the night before and that enables you to begin your day fresh. You focus, you know what you are going to do. So you could also look at rewarding yourself. I encourage my clients when they have completed something to celebrate, and that celebration can be something as simple as grabbing your favorite coffee, going for a walk, having a nice hot shower. So you don't have to always go overboard with the rewarding, but I want you to think of recognizing when you have achieved.

Speaker 1: 3:35

The other one that you could look at doing is being honest. So have a look at what behavior is distracting you and then dig into that. You know, thoughtfully and gently. Be gentle on yourself, but have a look at what, honestly, is distracting you and then find out how to solve that, perhaps lessen the impact or the effect. Because I think once you can actually recognize what's distracting you, you can then start working in the right direction. And that would lead me to talking about taking action.

Speaker 1: 4:17

So if you shift your thoughts towards taking action, helping stop that negative cycle, that I'm not good enough. This isn't going to work. What if I fail? Kind of keeps your feet frozen, keeps your thoughts frozen. So if you could shift your thoughts, or your belief or your perspective, and go, let me start with taking action. And action is that getting that wheel moving.

Speaker 1: 4:46

Once you start with taking action, to me, many times that gains the momentum that you need and can get you out of that procrastination. So another one would be engaging in priority planning, because often we procrastinate when we're uncertain and we don't quite know what needs to be done next, where to start or how to even move forward. So priority planning is a really good tool to help beat procrastination. You take some time for a little introspection with a goal of the bigger project, breaking it down into micro tasks and once again scheduling small tasks within a project timeline to help lay out a clear and easy-to-follow action plan. So it seems to come back time and time again to breaking things down into small action tasks.

Speaker 1: 5:53

And one of the other things is that you can have a look at is to break free. Which I think many of us also have on our agenda is this feeling of needing to be perfect. So how can you break free of that perfectionism? And perfectionism certainly is a partner with procrastination, because if you're feeling overwhelmed and you're wanting everything to be perfect, it makes it really difficult to focus and take action. So if you could create a routine prioritizing the completion of a project and focus less on it being done perfectly?

Speaker 1: 6:39

So comes around again, setting short-term goals and looking at those often. So it's short-term, attainable goals, with rewards along the way for every small accomplishment, and you want to make sure that you're emphasizing the importance of a balanced lifestyle. Are you maintaining healthy habits? And that includes simply getting enough sleep, eating healthy food, getting up and taking a break, walking away from your desk. Perhaps that means using a timer that you just get up and move every 30 minutes?

Speaker 1: 7:18

And the last one I want to leave you with is understanding your times of peak energy, because we often procrastinate out of perhaps it's anxiety or lack of time management skills, but sometimes it's also having a look at when we are at our best to do the specific task that's in front of us. So if you have a certain energy in the afternoon, then you want to connect that and tie that together with the project that you are focusing on or the goal. And then perhaps it's morning. So when are you creative? You know, recognizing that you absolutely have an ebb and flow of energy. So taking on a task that's already feeling overwhelming is just going to allow procrastination to put its foot back in the door. So, once again, sometimes we feel overwhelmed when we have too much to do or the steps to the result are too many and that can just paralyze us. So, remembering that there's also the 15-minute timer, that you could say, well, what can I do in the next 15 minutes? And before you know it, you are moving forward and taking action. So I hope that you could say, well, what can I do in the next 15 minutes? And before you know it, you are moving forward and taking action. So I hope that you find some of these tips helpful to put procrastination at bay and know that you can take action. So until the next episode. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1: 8:54

If you are looking for tools to build powerful habits around a lifelong positive mindset, then I'd love to explore what results you are looking for in your life and your business. Every coach needs a coach. I'm sure you've heard that before. As a mindset and accountability coach, I work with women coaches in midlife to find balance in their business endeavors and prepare their foundation for a positive mindset. By blending my personalized accountability and mindset coaching along with the powerful positive intelligence program, you'll learn about saboteurs and sage powers and gain lifelong tools to create a shift in all areas of your life, from personal to professional, and reduce the negative self-talk and discover more self-love, curious to know what your own saboteurs are, I invite you to take the free assessment provided by Positive Intelligence that you'll find on my website, carolclaguecom, and then book a call with me and let's explore the results, because I am here to support you on your journey. You can connect with me on LinkedIn Just search for Carol Clague or pop by my website carolclaguecom.