How to Stop Tying Your Productivity to Your Self Worth
You probably tie your productivity to your self worth and don’t even realize it. I’m sure you’ve had moments of free time, where all you wanted to do was lay down and watch Netflix. Yet, there’s this internal nagging that keeps saying, “You should be using this time to work on your business.” Or, “This would be a great time for you to clean up the house and run errands.” Even worse, “Look at all these things you wanted to get done this week and haven’t yet!” Despite you being absolutely exhausted, you resentfully get up to do whatever your inner nag is saying you should do.
This is something I continue to battle with on a regular basis. I know I work extremely hard, with growing two businesses, working a 9-5, handling everyday responsibilities and still having time for family and friends. However, that doesn’t stop my inner nag when I get a moment of a free time and want to utilize it by doing nothing. What I had to learn (the hard way) was, my self worth was not tied to my productiveness. I’m actually very productive hence, this blog and my productivity program! LOL! What I had to detach was, me being busy to my self worth… now that’s hard! With this in mind, here’s a few ways to detach our self worth from how busy we are.
Understand the Difference Between Being Busy & Productive
Being busy and being productive are two totally different things that are oftentimes misconstrued. When we’re always busy, our subconscious and egos frame that as the ultimate showcase of our hard work! However, being busy does not mean you’re being productive. In fact, I can guarantee that during your busy day, you probably got close to nothing done on your to do list. When you’re always busy, you get more of the same! Busy is overwhelmed, careless, jumping from one thing to another and being on a hamster wheel. Busy ultimately leads to burn out! While productivity is more; more time, freedom, energy, focus and creativeness. Being productive is what you keeps you happy, fulfilled, accomplished and successful.
Redefine What it Means to Rest
When I started my first business, rest to me meant sleeping 5 – 6 hours at night. There were no other resting periods other than that dedicated time. That meant, if I wasn’t sleeping then I was working or committing myself to a task that didn’t fulfill me. Constantly moving around the clock and working until exhaustion is the fast track to burn out. You have to redefine what it means to rest! Resting is more than sleeping 7 – 8 hours a night; it’s also laying in bed watching Netflix or playing a board game with your family. Anything that triggers you to “turn off” and stop thinking about work, should be considered rest.
RELATED: Urgent vs. Important: Here’s the Best Way to Stay Productive
Doesn’t Add Value to Your Life? Trash it!
Whenever I would feel tired, drained or anxious about something, I would automatically resort to mindlessly scrolling on social media. This would give my inner nag, more ammo to step on my self worth and make me feel bad. Additionally, the scrolling never actually made me feel any better about myself either. In fact, it made me feel worse and gave me anxiety once I finished processing everyone else’s highlight reels.
If we’re being honest here, there’s so many other things I could’ve been doing that’s calm, productive and adding value to my life. So I had to become mindful of my natural default and replace it with something new. That new default became reading, which is an activity I’ve always enjoyed! Reading for me is calming, soothing and it doesn’t hurt that I’m learning something in the meantime.
Self Worth is NOT Conditional
The problem I found within myself and many others is, we tie our self worth to the things we do. Self worth is not conditional, it’s something that’s already within you. We have to wake up everyday knowing that we’re enough and that’s it! Your self worth does not lower because of an action of what you did or didn’t do. Instead, come from a place of being enough and continue to seek growth on a regular basis. That’s the important factor with untying your self worth to everyday actions!
Limit Outside Validation
Outside validation is something that we’ve all yearned for at one time or another. I think it’s even more prominent now in today’s society with social media. It’s important that you become secure with who you are as a person. You know what’s best for you and the goals/dreams that you want to accomplish. Too often, we don’t self reflect and take the time to see just how far we’ve come. You don’t need outside validation to approve your self worth, accomplishments or how hard you work.
Just Do It!
There are times when we know that we’re procrastinating on something that needs to get done. My advice here is to just do it already! Procrastinating is what leads us to becoming busy because we’re trying to avoid that one task, by doing a thousand other non-important tasks. I’ve combated this by first differentiating my busy tasks from my productive tasks. Then I make it my mission to complete my top important tasks (some of which I don’t really want to do), first. That internal nagging mixed with discomfort is worse than actually doing the task and getting it done. Additionally, once you begin and get within the flow, completing the task wasn’t all that bad as we made it out to be!
It’s so important to understand that our sense of self worth, comes from being there for the things that are important to us. Stop telling yourself that you’ll become worthy once you do x, y and z. That’s conditional thinking and based on the outcome of an action. Instead, show up knowing that you’re enough and have everything within you to succeed.
Until next time ASSASSINS. . . Stay Disciplined!
Let’s be friends!
Follow me on Instagram @MissAshleyAllison Twitter @MsAshleyAllison and Pinterest @MsAshleyAllison.
