ExpectationsGoalsMarriagemental overloadMindsetStress

Here’s the #1 Thing Keeping You Stuck!

Last updated on: Published by: Recognizing Potential Coaching 0

You haven’t showered in 4 days or eaten more than 1 meal in over a week because “there’s no time”. Too many decisions to be made have caused your brain to basically shut down to anything that isn’t dire to the present moment. The struggle to figure out everything and yet want to crawl back into bed and do nothing is a contant battle. Sound familiar? 

Three out of my five clients are going through the exact same thing right now. So I thought well, if it’s plaguing them, it might be plaguing you too. So here we go. 

There are five things that keep people from accomplishing their goals. The first is that there are no goals set in the first place. If you don’t have specific, measureable, attainable goals written out and put into place, you’re setting yourself up for massive overwhelm and failure. 

Start with why. If you haven’t read the book by Simon Sinek that has this exact title, it’s a fabulous read and a great place to start! Why are you waking up in the morning? What are you trying to achieve? Set the goals. Write them down. Break them down into 3 year, 1 year, and 90 days, then even further into what you need to do daily and weekly to make them happen. If you need help with this, email me at coaching@recognizingpotential.com. I’ll do a 1 hour session with you and we’ll have you on your way with a specific action plan that works for you. 

The next thing that keeps people from achieving greatness is not that they don’t have time, it’s that they don’t have time management. 

When you wake up in the morning, do you know exactly what your day is going to look like? Do you know what time you’ll be eating your meals, showering, going to the gym, connecting with your spouse and intentionally building the life you want? If you questioned any of these or said no, there’s your reason for not having what you want. The hard truth is that you aren’t intentionally making time for it. 

See, if you say yes to your job and build that into your day, yes to running your kids to and fro, yes to a grocery pickup, cooking meals and an episode or four of your favorite show but have no idea what connection question you’ll be asking your spouse, what time you’ll be engaging in alone time or what that will look like, you’ve chosen everything you’ve said yes to over your marriage and your goals. Saying yes to something means you’re saying no to or neglecting something else. 

So how do you make time for the important things? 

Scheduling. 
I use this planner (not an ad, just a planner I really really love!). I time block. I also schedule according to my cycle. Ladies, if you are not doing this- let me tell you. GAME. CHANGER. This will straight up dominate your goals. 
The fact of the matter is that if you’re not scheduling things- vacations, family outings, your gym time, self-care, etc. it’s not going to happen. Life (or the social media time suck) will ultimately get in the way and it just won’t be a priority. 

Limit Your To-Do List.
Realistically, you can’t do it all. The maximum you can do is six big things a day and maybe not even that. If you’re going to bed at night with guilt that you didn’t get it all done, you’re trying to do too much. Who are you doing those things for? Who are you trying to impress? How is this weighing on your mental or emotional health and energy? Some things are going to need to go in the F*** it bucket. When you’re wondering how you do it all, the answer is, you don’t. You go back to your goals. What is most important to do daily or weekly to make your goals become a reality? 

Ask for Help.
It may be the hardest thing you have to do but it’s also the most vital. Delegate housework to your kids. Developmentally, they are able to start helping do small tasks by age 2. Ask your partner to help with what you don’t have energy for. If they won’t, have the hard conversation around why and/or get help. It takes the whole family working as a team to keep the ship afloat. Hire a babysitter, housekeeper, or assistant if possible. If not, let a few more things go. 

Set Boundaries.
No is a boundary in teh simplest form. If something is too much for you financially, energetically, mentally, physically or emotionally- just say no. This is your permission to stop people pleasing, stop doing the things you think you “should” for the sake of everyone else. When you take care of yourself and set boundaries, you’re respected more and have more energy for who and what matters most. You’ll also be doing things from a place of acceptance versus obligation so your heart will be all in instead of half in and half resentful. You’ll do a better, more complete job and the energy you provide while completing the task will be more positive for everyone, including yourself.

If this is a topic you’re struggling with and you need more help, I have a course that helps with this. It can be done self-study or with 1:1 coaching over 6 weeks. Take that first step of asking for help and email me at coaching@recognizingpotential.com. I’m opening my schedule for 5 clients who need this specific help for the next 6 weeks. Let me know if you’d like to be one of those 5. 

Until then, happy scheduling! 🙂 

Your coach,
Kameran

BoundariesCommunicationFamilyParentingUncategorized

Social Media: Friend or Foe?

Last updated on: Published by: Recognizing Potential Coaching 0

There’s a reason people who have 10,000+ followers are called “influencers”. They’re literally influencing those who follow them. I don’t feel that a person should have 10k or more followers to be called an influencer though. We are influenced by anyone we are allowing to show up on our feed. The content they produce influences our decisions, our thought processes and our lives. If it didn’t, positively or negatively, we wouldn’t consume their content anymore. We’d simply unfollow.

I don’t take for granted that the combined 2,000 followers I have throughout the different platforms I produce content for, including you, are influenced by that content every single day. In fact, I value it. I have a responsibility to make sure that I’m using these platforms for good, creating helpful content and being responsible for the marriages and families that I’m influencing. I’m also highly aware that not everyone has the same heart I do or takes responsibility for their platforms in the way I do. I’m also hightly aware that because my 12 year old doesn’t have the brain synapses that I do and won’t until his brain stops growing at the age of 25! He doesn’t understand the influence these YouTubers have on him. I won’t let him have social media or his own phone yet for this very reason.

Most of what we learn about relationships can be traced back to our parents, grandparents, or older generations. We watched, we caught more than we were taught about what marriage and relationships should look like. Except when it comes to social media.

We are the first generation to have social media and we are enthralled, obsessed, and addicted. We take our phones to the bathroom with us for crying out loud! How do we model a healthy relationship for future generations?  You know, the upcoming generations that live in our houses and are watching us like we watched previous generations. How do we preach to them to limit screen time when we don’t limit it ourselves?

Recently, Mohammed and I started to ask ourselves the same question as we watched Encanto, Moana and Frozen on a loop for the 8,000th time and again when we were preaching to our tweenager that he needed to get off YouTube! Oof. The hard truth slapping us in the face is that they’re simply following our lead and the only way to make it stop is to set some boundaries.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I’ve seen so many posts in different groups I’m in on facebook talk about affairs, marriage problems and disconnection. Did you know that 85% of affairs start out as emotional affairs? A harmless text that eventually crosses a boundary, a social media post that leads to a direct message that leads to more than just “small talk”. A few years ago, I remember a comment a friend of mine made over couples who share social media accounts and how stupid it was. I wasn’t so sure then but now, I’m definitely sure that it’s not stupid at all. It’s a boundary.

Boundaries aren’t just around who we follow and whether we have our own social media accounts or combined to avoid temptation. They’re setting time limits, removing notifications so we aren’t controlled by a ding, vibration or number in the upper right hand corner of an app. They’re deleting social off your phone, keeping your phone out of the bedroom or turning it on do not disturb mode after a certain time to promote more connection between you and your partner. Boundaries are set to control our own behavior and promote what’s important to us. When we don’t have boundaries, we don’t have control on our time and energy. So we spend that time and energy getting sucked into things that may not be as important as our spouse and kids but we invest our most precious resources in what’s important. So by investing our time and energy into our phone, the message we’re sending to those we love is that social media is our priority. Technology gets our attention and our family gets what’s left over.

That realization was enough for us to say enough is enough. Here are the boundaries we’ve set. Feel free to take what you need and leave the rest.

  • Sleep mode at 9 pm  to avoid blue light before bed
  • No technology at the dinner table or in bed
  • Removed notifications
  • Time limits on certain apps and for the kids
  • Parental monitoring of sites

That’s what we’ve come up with so far. We also started taking a class called Screen Sanity- teaching your kids how to be responsible around technology. If you’d be interested in taking this class, let me know. I am considering getting certified as a faciliator. If you have boundaries around technology that you’ve set, I’d love to hear them as well! Feel free to respond to this email or post them in my Facebook coaching group!

Social media and technology aren’t all bad. Groups, influencers and content can help you grow, can educate and promote positivity. It can be used for good. The idea, like anything else, is to monitor, reflect and inventory it every now and then. Is it a problem? Is the content you’re consuming growing you or making you feel like garbage? Is it helping or hurting your marriage and your family connections? Do you need new or different boundaries?

I look forward to hearing about your boundaries and connecting with you on this topic.

Have a great week!

Your coach,

Kameran