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Are you an aspiring leader who knows you have more to offer but you can't seem to get ahead? Do you frequently feel overwhelmed and undersupported? Listen to the overcome to become podcast as we talk about actionable tasks and mindsets that you can apply to begin leading yourself. Hi, my name is Angela Buckley, your host and author of the Strength in Nature Leadership series. I'm a mother, consultant, triathlete and author and overcome to become. I share with you the science, fact and experience proven lessons I've learned in my own leadership journey to beat burnout. Thanks for listening.
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Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Overcome to become. My name is Angela Buckley. I am your host here today. I am the author of Strength in Nature Leadership series. I'm so excited to share with you today some of the tips that we talk about during our class overcome the overwhelm. Today we're going to talk to you about micro habits and prioritization.
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If you're an engineer, You can move right on to the next episode, because prioritization is probably something that you talk about every single day. But in the event that you have not spoken about this on a regular basis or day-to-day, or perhaps applied it to your home life or your personal development, then maybe, just maybe, you'll find a little bit of a nugget here or there during the day.
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We're going to talk about micro habits and prioritization. How do these two things tie in when we're talking about overcome the overwhelm and prioritizing?
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Let me say, micro habits are all about the small things, right? I want to see that you're taking a sip of water.
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Maybe 10 times more frequently than you were last week.
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I would like to see you say, you know what, I've never done a push-up before in my life. I don't need you to set a goal of 10 or 100 or some ridiculous number.
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I want you to do 1.
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Start small and prioritize that small goal and achieve it. We talked earlier about smart goals and then we talked about not achieving those goals and adjusting when they don't work for you. Today we're going to talk about how you can make those goals so small, laughably attainable that you can't help but achieve it.
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I said a push up. Maybe you can't do a push up flat on the floor, lean against the wall. Maybe you want to do a push-up starting on your knees. That's too much. It's OK you can do it on your knees leaning against the wall and slowly get deeper and deeper until you can do something that's on the floor. It doesn't have to be anything that somebody else does, it has to be something that is asking you to grow just a little bit. And by growing every day a little bit, these micro habits build up and create the strength and the endurance and the grit that becomes you.
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When you learn how to prioritize yourself. When you learn how to prioritize these tiny little habits and do them every single day, the dividends are almost mind bogglingly astronomical. That's a big word, mind bogglingly. I'm sure it's not in the dictionary, but it's true nonetheless.
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Take a walk.
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If you've never had a true physical exercise regimen, start with taking a walk. 20 minutes a day has been proven over and over again to reduce cortisol levels. It has been proven to help you impact your heart rate and you're breathing.
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And in this way, it will help you regulate all of those stress hormones that we want to get rid of. Prioritize that. You can't make 20 minutes a day? Make it 10 minutes a day. Park your car on the other side of the parking lot before you walk into your office building.
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You're not commuting. Maybe you need to walk to the grocery store. What is it that will motivate you to walk? What is it that will motivate you to prioritize this one habit that will have such a powerful impact on your life and on your overwhelm?
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When we talk about micro habits, we're talking about setting very small goals that you will achieve every single day.
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I have a child. Sometimes he was easier to parent and sometimes he was harder. I'm gonna tell you the whole 2 minute toothbrush thing. I do not know why this was such a hard challenge, but trust me, in our household, 2 minutes with the toothbrush as a young child. Was a thing. It was a battle.
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So we started small. And one of the lovely, lovely things about Quip, if you're familiar with that brand of toothbrush, is that it vibrates at you every 30 seconds. So it gives you some goals, it keeps you on track, it keeps you moving. We should all be brushing our teeth two times a day, 2 minutes. Everybody hears that from our lovely dentists. Thank you everyone for keeping our teeth clean, but.
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Sometimes this is harder for some people than others. Set a micro habit goal for yourself.
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And don't allow yourself to negotiate from that grow until you achieve a standard habit every morning and every night. Micro habits don't have to be big and overwhelming, and in fact the micro habits when you start applying them are super, super powerful in your life. Let's look at some examples.
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Sips of water: set out an 8 ounce tumbler next to your desk while you're working through the day. You might be surprised how quickly it disappears.
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You don't like the flavor of water? Maybe you want to add something that has some electrolytes in it.
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A girlfriend who is a phenomenal athlete and has a great focus on her her healthy habits confided one time that she was struggling with drinking water.
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Someone had told her to drink some very, very large amount of water, and as we talked through the issue, I suggested that perhaps the issue with water was that she didn't have enough electrolytes, and in fact she might want to scale back her water intake, which she did, and then finally found what the right balance was for the different types of workouts that she was going through.
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Sometimes those big numbers aren't always the right numbers, which is the story I'm trying to share, right. What we learned and going through that experiment with her body and with what her body was asking for, was that she was drinking so much water her electrolytes were out of balance and that she in fact needed to scale back a little bit on the water and increase her electrolytes. When we are participating in micro habits, we are able to be a little more in tune with our body and hear what it's saying to us. So prioritizing that, prioritizing them is an important part of overcoming the overwhelm.
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Water drinking water is one of my absolute favorite micro habits that I like to encourage many of my clients to increase.
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You'll hear me say it so many times and I will dance when I hear people tell me how successful it is for them. But taking a walk in nature is super critical. Find a green space near you. If you can't find a green space still go outside and do your exercise as much as possible and come in and look at green. Have plants around your your workspace in your living space plants. It has been shown again through science and in measuring the cortisol levels in blood serum will help us reduce those cortisol or stress hormones in our body simply by being around them.
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What an easy way to reduce stress by introducing a plant.
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I know I've heard from a few people. I don't have a green thumb. I managed to kill everything. I just want to say this, some of those succulents are only $1.99.
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If it dies, get new one. I would rather that you learn how to take care of a plant or two, but if you don't and you have so many other things going on in your life, replace it. Get something green and build it in. Have some live and some plastic, some pictures. Build a nature scene for yourself that will help your body reduce its cortisol level. It takes you almost no time in your day once you have this and have that as a habit in your life. It's a micro habit that will pay dividends in your overall health.
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So what do we have? My three top favorites? Drinking water. Going outside for your walk and being around nature and anything green, those are my three favorite micro habits that I encourage you to adopt in your life and really focus on reducing the cortisol and the stresses that are in your everyday life.
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Thank you so much for listening today. I hope that you take the time to prioritize micro habits in your life. My name is Angela Buckley. You have been listening to the latest episode in overcome to become one of the podcast series offered by Strength and Nature's Leadership series.
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I look forward to speaking to you next time. Have a good day.
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You've just concluded an episode of Overcome to become a leadership podcast focusing on leading yourself first. Thanks for listening. I'm Angela Buckley with Creatively Efficient author of the Strength in Nature Leadership series. To learn more about mindsets and leadership, follow me on Instagram at CreativelyEfficient.
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