You need limits - Why you can’t focus when you’re your own boss

Leadership Lesson: Use constraints to boost your focus and creativity

You decided to strike out on your own

Start a side hustle or quit your job to open your own business

You’ve set aside time to work on your big idea

And yet, nothing is getting done

Why?

You’re successful at your job

You get up, get ready

Make it to work on time

Show up to all your meetings

Get your work done

You’re a great and productive worker

For somebody else

Why is working for someone else so easy when working for yourself is so difficult?

What’s different?

Am I lazy?

I’ve thought that a lot myself when I’ve struggled to be productive on my own

Maybe I’m just naturally lazy and I need someone to structure my day for me

Someone to force me to work to my potential

If you believe that about yourself it’s going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy

But I don’t think it’s true

Not for me and not for you

You’re not lazy

You need limits

A life without limits is a life spent wandering aimlessly

When you’re working at your job you have clarity

What should I do today?

Get up

Go to work

What do I have to get done at work?

Whatever’s on my task list

Everything is clear and set up for you

Every expectation and every goal is clear

The path is well-tread

Now, you’re starting on your own

What should you do today?

There are a million things you could be doing

You don’t have a boss anymore

You can do whatever you want

How freeing

How horribly, horribly freeing

“Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard.”

• Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice

Welcome to the Paradox of Choice

You can do anything

Why this?

Why now?

Maybe you’re not in the mood, maybe there are other things you could do, maybe you’ll do it later…

Maybe, maybe, maybe…

No deadlines, no direction, no one counting on you

You get to work on what you like when you like, and whenever you decide to release it, it has to be perfect, right?

This is a recipe for disaster

Just ask George R. R. Martin how that next Game of Thrones book is coming along

John Romero had an unlimited budget and no deadline when he was developing the game Daikata

Without a compelling reason and no one counting on you to deliver, things are going to be way harder than you think

Freedom without constraints destroys focus

If we can do anything we want, we’ll do nothing

We’ll give in to distractions, escapes, cheap dopamine, or easy tasks that don’t move us forward

We’ll make excuses

We’re not ready yet

We just need to learn one more skill, take one more course

I see you

I know you because you’re me

I’ve done all of these things and then some

Procrastinated and put off things until the last minute

In University, my final essay was due at 8 am on a Monday

I started it at 4 am Monday

Here’s what I’m struggling with now

I should be

• Promoting my 1 on 1 coaching service to you, my reader

• Building a landing page for said service

• Developing my online course

• Painting the ceiling in my rental unit

Instead, I’ve been spending far too much time scrolling through Twitter

I picked this topic as a reminder of things I’ve done to get myself unstuck

Here’s what brings me back to getting things done

The Self-Focus Framework

The Self-Focus Framework has 4 pillars

• Habits

• Structure

• Discipline

• Teamwork

Let’s take a look at each pillar

Habits

If we are what we repeatedly do, then we must have good habits

When you leave your normal routine, you’re going to replace it with something else

Be intentional about what you want your habits to be

BJ Fogg has a great approach in his book “Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything”

Start with the smallest version of the habit that could work

Floss 1 tooth

Read 1 page

Write 1 sentence

Start small

Successfully doing the habit will increase your motivation to keep it in place

You can always expand on it once it’s in place

Of course, to do the habit you’ll need to develop a reliable prompt

That is, something you already do that can serve as your trigger for the new habit

For example:

When I first wake up (prompt)

I’ll read 1 page from my book (behavior)

And smile and say “VIctory!” when I’m done (positive reinforcement)

Ending with some positive reinforcement will help you keep the habit in place

Structure

Sometimes obstacles get in the way of your new habit

You have to structure your life in a way that will make it easy for you to get the results you want

What happens if I wake up in the morning and my book is in another room?

Exactly

Make sure you remove as much friction as possible between you and your desired behavior

Have your book/Kindle on your nightstand the night before

Want to work out in the morning?

Set your clothes out ahead of time

Have systems and structures in place that you can use when things get hard

A colleague of mine had a great method for dealing with the Paradox of Choice

When he went to a restaurant he would struggle with all the potential options and couldn’t make a decision

Instead he would go through the menu until he reached the first item that seemed acceptable to him

Once he found that, he committed to it and closed the menu

This can be a great method if you’re struggling to prioritize all the options you have in front of you

Look at your top priorities and start on the first one that jumps out to you

Get that one done and then worry about the rest

You can also find ways to gamify consistency

I have a Post-it note on my wall where I track the number of days in a row that I’ve written a tweet

Every day I keep the streak going is a win

This helps reinforce the habit

Eventually, I’ll achieve escape velocity

That’s the point where writing Tweets becomes a normal part of my routine and I won’t need the Post-it anymore

Discipline

This is always the biggest challenge

With so many tempting distractions, how can we keep our discipline?

The first thing to do is recognize that this is normal

This is the challenge we all have and have to get through

Alex Hormozi said something recently on a podcast that applies here

“This is what hard feels like”

You knew stepping out on your own would be harder than working a day job

Here it is

Exactly like you expected

And you’re not the only one

Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, struggled to get out of bed and be productive just like you and I do

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work - as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for - the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?

- But it’s nicer here…

So you were born to feel ‘nice’? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and the spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?

- But we have to sleep sometime…

Agreed. But nature set a limit on that - as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.”

It’s your job to get past the hard

The best way to do that is to tackle your most difficult task first

Once you’ve done that, everything else gets easier for the rest of the day

Limit the number of things you start and see each one through until completion

Then move on to the next item

Getting things done and released is a great way to stay motivated

Teamwork

Part of what makes going to work easy is knowing people are expecting you to show up

When you’re doing something on your own, no one knows if you don’t show up except you

It’s easy to create limits for yourself by having a schedule and setting deadlines

But if no one else is expecting you to show up or to deliver by your deadline it’s going to be tempting to just let them slide

Find someone you trust to work with and set expectations with them

Show up for each other

Make and keep commitments to each other

Next Steps

If this has helped you, I’d appreciate it if you would share this newsletter

And here’s where I end my procrastination and promote my 1 on 1 coaching service

If you’re looking for help, book an introductory call with me

Let’s see if we’re a good fit for working together

https://calendly.com/toddcharron/introchat

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