Time Management Part 4: 365 Degrees of Inspiration
(The video that this article is adapted from is very visual, so if you want to watch it, you can check it out here.)
Last week I was running a 3-day event. It was the end of day 3. The energy in the room hit a low. I could suddenly feel frustration, anxiety, fatigue. So I asked the room, “Tell me what’s going on?” One of them answered, “I’m about to go home and do this for real. And it’s scary and lonely. I just don’t know about this time management – cash flow thing!” The whole room agreed.
There’s nothing quite like the loneliness of being an entrepreneur. Fending off all the distractions alone, motivating, and having to face disappointments. Figuring out this “time management – cash flow thing” by yourself.
Now, let’s be clear — I don’t think any entrepreneur really should be alone. We all need a coach and a community. But at the end of the day, you still need to get that work done in the confines of your office. In fact, the closer you get to any big goal the higher the risk of losing motivation, self-sabotage, fatigue and quitting. If you are running a marathon and get close to the finish line you want to stop, because it feels like too much! The quote “It is always darkest right before the dawn” is so true, because it is hardest right before the finish line.
Because self motivation is so important, I want to share with you how I stay motivated and inspired: I call it 365 degrees of inspiration.
If you missed them, check out the other articles in my Time Management Series:
Now keep in mind that this is a 4-part series on Time Management – and here’s parts 1-3 in the series:
Time Management Part 1: The Three Ways You Are Managing Your Time Wrong and How to Fix it.
Time Management Part 2: Four Foolproof Ways to Banish Burnout and Prevent Ball Dropping
Time Management Part 3: How to Finally Find the Time to Get it All Done!
First, set up your physical space with things that you love.
Do this for your office and do this for your home, because we do at least some of our work in our homes.
To get started, make sure that everything in your home is something that you love. For example, make sure you love your couch, your furniture, and all of the items on your wall. Some of us have hand me downs or family items that are just not in alignment with us anymore, but we tolerate them anyways.
Part of the secret to getting more clients and being more charismatic is keeping your vibration high and staying inspired by everything around you.
So, if you don’t like something — get it out! It doesn’t have to be all at once. In our house, we still have a few things that we don’t like but still use. We are gradually replacing them with things that resonate with us. Believe it or not this can really help with time management — and creating more cash flow because everywhere you look really matters.
Second, be intentional about what you create in your home.
Because I am a highly spiritual person, I like to think of every corner and every space in my home as an altar. Now, not like a religious altar, but an altar to things that I love. An altar to inspire me, to remind me of what I am committed to.
In my home I have a wall of inspiration with all of my inspirational sayings.
I have sayings on my wall like, “be fearless,” “happiness is not a destination, it is a way of life,” “always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think, and twice as beautiful as you’d ever imagine,” and “always believe that something wonderful is about to happen.”
These are things that inspire me. And of course, you will have different things up — things that inspire you and speak to your dream and your values. But what I like about this is that it is an entire wall of inspiration, something you can’t possibly miss.
Third, surround yourself with people who inspire you.
For me the most inspiring people in the world are my family. I have a father who is my hero, and my sisters are amazing. I also have 6 nieces and nephews who are loving and sweet. And a great husband.
They are my rocks and my cheerleaders. When I think of them, they remind me that even if something is not going well in my business, they are still there, and my life is still full and wonderful. So that business thing that feels so important isn’t the most important thing. My family and the love I have in my life is. This helps me so much when I am feeling frustrated about that “time management – cash flow thing.”
Fourth, make sure that you are writing down things that inspire you.
I have a big white pad of paper hanging in our bedroom on the bathroom door, and it is the first thing I see in the morning as I wake up. This is a really important aspect — what you are seeing in the morning when you first wake up.
Currently written on that piece of paper is the question, “Will you identify with your soul or with the voices in your head?”
My soul is always talking to me about what is most important and how to interpret things, but life is always intervening. My soul knows that everything is OK and that the most important things are love and family and friends. So, I try to remember to follow the voice of my soul instead of those pesky voices in my head.
Another phrase written on that piece of paper is: “train like a racehorse, think like a bumblebee.”
Racehorses don’t compare themselves to one another, they aren’t critical of themselves, they just train and run. They follow their coach and practice no matter what.
Bumblebees are a miracle — for a long time scientists didn’t even understand how they could fly, because their bodies are so big and their wings are so small. This reminds me to hold on to my dreams and believe in miracles.
I hope that in sharing all of this with you I have inspired you to create 365 degrees of inspiration in your own home.
So much of what we do is about being inspired. One of the things that we as entrepreneurs want to do is to be pulled into our work, be called into our work, and be inspired and not forced into it.
As always, my call for you is to go out, make tons of money, and make this world a better place.
Hop over to the Revenue Breakthrough group to watch this video and actually SEE all the images and sayings I have referred to — it will make it so much easier for you to create your own 365 degrees of inspiration (you’ll need to join the group if you haven’t already).
Photos
Office: flickr, Maria Ronna Luna Pastorizo-Sekiguchi
Racehorse: flickr, Candace Gray
Bumblebee: flickr, dbarcus1
