Transcript

0:01

1 of the core issues for many of us, heart based business owners or or just kind of more intuitive workers is consistency. I hear this. I've heard this over and over and over so many years, and I and myself Most of my life, I struggle with being consistent with doing the important things. So I don't know if you can relate to that. I can certainly like that.

0:26

And really because of implementing joyful productivity over the past now, I'd say I've been implementing it diligently for about 15 years. I would say probably about 5 to 7 years into it, well, even even less than that, or 3 to 5 years into implementing it diligently. I I began to see that I'm like becoming a different person, which is really both beautiful and surprising to me. Because I'm like, I didn't realize, well, I didn't realize I could change so much. And I wanna tell you, I I really believe that each of us can change dramatically dramatically.

1:09

Really can. The the human mind and the spirit, the human spirit. Is, you know, neuroplastic is very pliable. We are able to activate potentials way beyond what we currently are living. And it's because of practice, practice again and again and again and again and continuing to practice that changes us and integrates that change more and more deeply over the years.

1:41

It takes years. It really does. Not just you know, 3 weeks. Right? Some people say, hello, mobility habit, 3 weeks.

1:49

That might be true for certain habits. Or, you know, maybe you've heard the James clear, you know, research. 67 days is the, you know, average time based on all the studies that build a habit. I no longer believe that. I mean, yes, that's probably true for, like, certain tiny habits.

2:05

Yeah. Sure. But for changing ourselves at such a core level, to become consistent in doing uncomfortable things takes years of practice. It's not surprising that there is the old 10000 hour rule. Now, 10000 hours is there's no it's not really imagining that it sounds good, but the idea is 10 years of full time practice.

2:27

Right? I don't think it takes 10 years necessarily, but I'm gonna say it takes a couple of years of of consistent practice. It takes years of practicing or flailing in practicing consistency before we become more and more consistent, and then it becomes something that's just part of us, whatever we will become consistent with, discipline, I tell you, III had been so, you know, growing up. I was so frustrated because I realized at 1 point in my, you know, later use, I guess, my early adulthood, I I would say, I realized I'm I'm the 1 in my own way. Like, I I am I have all these dreams.

3:03

I have all these desires, goals, vision, And the 1 the reason I can't do this is because of my lack of discipline. Like, I realized that in my early adult, I'm like, I and I got so discouraged when I realized it because I thought that was an unchangeable. And I will tell you I'm a different person today than 5 years ago, for sure, and very different than 10 years ago. Because of discipline and consistency. So why?

3:29

How how come we're not consistent? How come we're not disciplined? Well, let let me just say I wanted to I have I'm seeing my notes here. Consistency leads to skillfulness, and skillfulness leads to results. And oftentimes, we Even beat ourselves up when we do something, we don't get the results.

3:51

Of course, you're not gonna get the results. Of course, you're not gonna do something well or do something excellently if you don't do it consistently. Because if you don't do it consistently, you can't have the skillfulness. And without the skillfulness, the results are either take a great deal of willpower or their haphazard. But when you are skillful, then the results come easily.

4:11

Easily. So, I mean, today, I mean, I'll 1 more thing I'll say, I used to be growing up. I was extremely shy And I I stuttered. I had a stutter growing up. I don't know if you knew that.

4:23

A lot of people didn't know that. I used to have a stutter and I used to be freaked out when I got in front of a room, in part because I you know, we integrated to to US and Taiwan when I was just learning how to you know, communicate, you know, as a as a young adult. And so it's like, I got I freaked out because I, you know, so I couldn't speak in front of people. So now I'm a completely different person. You can't stop me from giving me a crowd.

4:48

I'd love to speak. What happened? Consistency of practice led to skillfulness. And skillfulness made me a different person, which leads the results. So me be able to I'm not reading notes right now.

4:59

Xtemporaneous speaking is so easy for me because of so much practice by consistency. Being on video is not something that you don't even know my story being on video. My god, I avoided it. Like like, III talked it down for 4 years. My first video, 2000 9II couldn't stand how I looked at how I viewed myself.

5:17

I couldn't stand how I looked and how I sounded. So I store off video for the rest of my life. It was with with a lot of encouragement and love from colleagues like Tad Hargrave, marketing for hippies dot com, check out his his work. That encouraged me to to show up again. Try again.

5:34

Try again. Try again. And now can't stop me from being on video. It's very natural for me now, but I'm a different person. And same thing.

5:42

And you too, I invite you to chat below In what area of your life are you a different person than 10 years ago? In what area of your life, because of consistency of practice. Now you might you might not have intended the practice. Right? Some of you were forced into practice, like practice being a parent.

6:04

Very different person now than you were before you had kids. Or or practice being a caretaker. Practice being doing some particular skill that you you have to Many of us had to practice using social media because kind of forced into this new world. Right? So, alright, consistency leads a skillfulness meet the results.

6:21

Now, consistency being a problem. Now, how does consistency therefore take place? It takes place by kind of 3 major moves. Right? 3 major phases or 3 major areas to to work on.

6:35

1 is calendaring and setting boundaries. Which we talked about earlier in this webinar series, calendar in 7 boundaries. Then so that's you gotta plan well. To be able to be because because for example, you know, I always use the example of writing. You don't want to write consistently.

6:53

You have to experiment and figure out what time of day is best for you to write. So that you can plan more skillfully to say, oh, I've got to write in the morning. Oh, I gotta write in the evening or I gotta write, you know, in the middle of the whatever for you. So calendaring and then setting boundaries like closing the door, when you're writing or when you're doing the thing that you wanna be consistent with, close the door. Right?

7:13

Tell everybody you're not available for an hour. Right? Because you have an appointment on focusing. Focusmate is another secret to my consistency. Right?

7:20

I use Focusmate several hours a day. If I'm not on a call or I'm teaching, I'm on Focusmate. So consistent Calendaring, setting boundaries, first part of consistency, or that's the that's the first aspect of it. Second aspect of it, is normalizing the discomfort of getting into the work. And let me let me talk about this.

7:42

Right? And let me just give the the big picture. So calendaring the setting boundaries, normalizing the discomfort of getting into the work, or basically generating flow and inspiration instead of waiting for it. Okay? So that's the second part.

7:58

And the third part is working lightly is generally how I like to say it, which is basically letting your products go sooner than you probably would have liked because you see the bigger picture and you're working more lightly, you're working with less intensity working more sustainably, personally. Right? So which I'll talk about in the upcoming segment. But let me let me talk about this noodle part. Of normalizing the discomfort of getting into it.

8:30

Boredom, Right? Anxiety, resistance. Did you know that that is normal? For expert creators. Did you think that if you felt any kind of resistance towards a task that somehow your spirit guide is telling you not to do it, Could be.

8:54

Right? Some of you are much more spiritually attuned than I am. It could be your spirit guide showing you not to do it. It could be the stars not being aligned for you to do it. But I don't know.

9:04

Right? You have to determine that. You have to, you know, understand Spirit well enough to know what what Spirit and what your monkey mind. Do you know the difference? It's hard to tell sometimes.

9:13

Right? It's hard to tell. What I know what I know for many, many years is maybe a trained my spirit guide. I don't know what it is. Maybe I've trained the stars.

9:22

I can move stars by saying I don't feel like doing it. Screw it. I'm doing it anyway. Watch me. A resistance?

9:32

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You don't want to write because you're gonna write crappy right now. Watch me.

9:37

Watch me. So I I kind of rebelled against my resistance and my anxiety. It's 1 way of doing it. It's 1 way of doing it. And maybe because I have a lot of internal critics which you could say is is the anti spirit guides.

9:50

Right? You know, trying to bring you down. So Boredom anxiety resistance is normal, REAR. Boredom anxiety resistance is normal for many of the expert creators out there. It is it's not necessarily true that because you feel bored of anxiety or resistance that your spirit or somehow, it's not it's not within flow.

10:14

It's not taoist. It's not in flow for you to do that thing at the time. Could be, like I said, could be. You know, the stars or the spirits or whatever. But what I know is having practiced rebelling against my resistance I kind of like maybe I I kind of practice the principle of the universe gives way The universe gives way when you set an intention and you move through the resistance and you become a creator, you become the creator of your life.

10:46

Universe gives away. So or you might say it's the monkey mind that is becoming tamed, right, to the monkey mind is being attained to your higher mind to say, no no, it's time to create. No no no, it's time to do this thing because it's on my calendar. And if I still feel a lot of resistance toward doing it, then maybe I can ask myself, is there a better time of the day or better time of the week that I should be scheduling this thing in the future because right now it's a ton of resistance. Okay.

11:16

Fine. I'm still gonna move through it right now for this hour and publish something crappy. It's fine. It's fine. But next time, maybe I should schedule, like, 9AM or 9PM.

11:25

It's a 2PM. You know? So so you learn over time. But still, The key is is to understand that there is an illusion for us hippies or for us heart based people that flow is supposed to happen on its own, or that if work is done right, it's supposed to be light and fun. At the beginning.

11:47

So that's the that's the big mistake. The big mistake is work is supposed to be light and fun at the beginning. No 1 ever told us. No no no no no work is not supposed to be light and fun at the beginning. It's supposed to be light and fun after you move through the initial resistance.

12:04

And you learn to generate the flow, then you're having fun. So it takes me sometimes half an hour of writing frustrated before I find my way through the resistance and now I'm having fun. I'm like, oh, I'm seeing something come together now. I'm using writing as an example. You could talk about using, you know, doing marketing as an example, learning technology or doing your bookkeeping or doing your taxes or whatever has resistance.

12:29

It's supposed to be hard at the beginning. What is not hard at the beginning? You know, and Yeah. Sure. You could say tiny habit.

12:36

Sure. That's fine. But designing the tiny habit may be hard. Right? Designing it right.

12:42

But the key is to understand there's my cat there, baby girl. In the in the other webinar segments, you you see buddy there. But when when baby girl wants the bed. She gets the bed. There is no existent.

12:55

She moves through the resistance. Buddy says, alright. Sorry. You get the Buddy, my dog always gives way to her. So and she's much smaller too.

13:05

So so she practices -- Yeah. -- moving through the resistance. So you have to just understand that we don't somehow I mean, sometimes we're lucky. And we do experience lightness and flow, you know, inspired moment of creativity. And if you have that, And if your schedule allows it, you can move things around.

13:28

You're inspired right now. Go ahead and create. Go ahead and do the thing you're inspired to do right now. Just as long as you move your schedule around, can you move whatever you were gonna do at 9AM to do something else to another time of the day or another day of the week? It's fine.

13:40

I do that all the time. But then you have to know this, I'm always inspired at 9AM. Or I'm always inspired at 9PM. Then maybe you should plan that in the future rather than just always be haphazard, just be inspired at random times. Then you're not planning.

13:56

You're not using your brilliant mind. You know? You gotta marry the left and the right brain. Right? Married mind and heart.

14:04

Right? So so whether or not you have inspired I'm usually not inspired, honestly. I do all of my most of my creative work. Is done not inspired in the beginning. Not inspired.

14:15

But I understand the principle like baby girl of moving through the resistance. And so I just basically rebel against my resistance. I go, hey, I know your resistance, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Sorry, you know, I don't have to be angry or or mean. To that part of myself.

14:30

I simply say, oh, got it. I understand you're resistant, setting you aside for now. I'm just gonna play with this. And I'm gonna publish something crappy. Right?

14:39

And so how do we find our way into the flow? How do we generate lightness and fun and and creativity. Right? That's something you've got to discover on your own. I have a process.

14:52

I do the energy reboot. If you don't know it, just Google, energy reboot, and you find my process. But my process is there there's not for everybody. It's simply The fact that there is a process of generating flow is what I want you to develop. Some of you may need to dance.

15:07

Some of you may need to, you know, I don't know, do some lighter candle or something like that. You know? Some of you may need a journal for a little bit. But the idea is to find your way into the flow, you you do something quick don't don't say, well, I got I have to walk for 3 hours in the woods before I'm creative. That's not that's not good.

15:25

That's fine. You should still walk 3 hours in the woods. But you can't let you can't have that as a crutch. Every time before you write, you gotta walk 3 hours in the woods, I mean, unless you can plan that into your daily life. Fine.

15:36

Great. Wonderful. You have that privilege of doing that. Great. Most of us don't can't do that, you know.

15:42

First, you gotta even find the woods, you know, wherever you live. Right? And then commute there and then you bought for 3 hours and then come back and then write, okay, or whatever you do. So so my energy group takes me, not 3 hours. 20 seconds.

15:57

If you can find a flow generating activity, now just after 20 seconds doesn't mean I'm suddenly brilliant. None like I said, after 20 seconds, I still struggle for the next 5 minutes before I do another energy reboot for 20 seconds. And then I struggle a little bit less for another 5 minutes. Energy reboot. Yeah.

16:13

Sometimes I do my energy every 5 minutes, and then I struggle a bit less each time. And then by the half hour mark, I moved it. I moved through it. I moved through it. The dog has moved out of the way and now the cat's in the bed, you know?

16:24

And now I'm like, oh, now I'm in Flow. My god. It took me half hour, but Same thing with my videos. If you notice, I mean, from the beginning of the segment till now, now I'm much more energized. I moved through the resistance.

16:35

I'm much more alive, but it took me how how long it take me 10 minutes Right? Same thing with any of my Watch any of my videos. You notice beginning is not at the same energy as when I'm middle to the end, I'm much more energized. Moving I generate flow while I'm in it. Right?

16:50

So that's how that's how we do it. And so I wanna I wanna, you know, just invite you again to to join the community of creators, which is around the world, all of us. We're moving through resistance every day. We're normalizing discomfort in the beginning of our creative process every single day. Every moment, every every, you know, however often we create, you are in that community of creators around the world.

17:19

Yeah. And you could literally be in a in a community. You wanna be part of my focus made group. By the way, I don't I don't get paid if you join my focus made group. It's just a convenience for you to be paired up with me and other people in my group more often.

17:31

And I'm just gonna chat below the the the link to to join my Focus Make Group. Again, but you you can pay for focus. You pay them if you want to have unlimited sessions. It's like 5 dollars a month or whenever you're watching this, it might be 10 or 15 dollars a month by that point. Still a great deal.

17:48

But basically, the key is, again, if I if let's step back out a little bit, the bigger picture and say, you know, instead of delayed gratification you know, which is true. We get gratified the more we work on our skillfulness. But when you are willing to join the community of creators around the world and join this adventure of moving through resistance at the beginning of any creative endeavor. Anything that's important, anything that adds value has resistance in the first, you know, 5 to 30 minutes, sometimes 45 minutes. Right?

18:28

The faster the more you practice, the the less time it takes to go through resistance for any task, any project, any skill. When you join us on this adventure, you know, be part of this movement, worldwide movement, I'm moving through the resistance, and what happens is you find the reward. In every hour of creating. You no longer have to delay gratification because I feel so proud every time I finish writing something because I couldn't I've imagined writing something in the beginning of the hour. It was a blank page.

18:57

Blank page, I may have a topic. I'm like, how the hell am I supposed to write more than 5 words on this topic. I don't know what I'm gonna say. Blank page. But then by the end of the hour, something's there.

19:07

It's such a miracle. It's such an award. So I invite you to normalize creative discomfort. Alright? So Alright.

19:19

So so let me go ahead and pause and see if you have any questions, and then let's we can move on from there.