From Burnout to Balance

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BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.
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Lots of people say they’re overwhelmed. But there’s a difference between feeling stressed out and being burned out.

And it can be hard to tell the difference. And even harder to take care of yourself through it and prevent it from happening again.

I invited nationally recognized registered dietitian nutritionist, healthy cooking expert, and speaker, Patricia Bannan, MS, RDN on my live-streaming show Inside Scoop to learn the difference, how to prevent burnout, and her new book From Burnout to Balance.

Here are four things to know about burnout.

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Pushing Past Personal Boundaries

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Raise your hand for me if you feel you’re up new and different, but then you stop yourself before you start. It happens to a lot of us.

We make excuses. Maybe it’s your age, or your lifestyle, or you’re just set in your ways. Whatever your excuse is, it’s just holding you back.

So, if you want to get out there and “live your best life”, as Oprah would say, you have to push past your personal boundaries.

So I invited author, speaker, performance coach, podcast host, and DJ, Petra Kolber on my live-streaming show Inside Scoop, to chat about why it’s important (and never too late) to push past your personal boundaries.

Here are four ways to push past what’s holding you back.

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Live Boldly to Reinvent Your Life

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“New year, new you.” It gets thrown around a lot, but it’s time to really think about it.

Is it time for a new you?

What steps have you taken recently towards living the life you’ve always dreamed of? Have you been thinking about making a career change? Or have you been taking the steps to make it change?

My friend, author, journalist, and podcaster, Tamsen Fadal, joined me on my live-streaming show Inside Scoop, to chat about living boldly and the art of reinvention.

Here are four ways to get started reinventing yourself.

1) Declutter Your Life

You need organization to make major changes. And organization starts with my favorite thing…

Lists!

Tamsen uses lists to get her thoughts out and her priorities straight. “I really write down everything in my head and do a brain dump. I block out time every single day so I can declutter my head a little bit and then prioritize what’s the most important thing” Tamsen said.

If you don’t know your priorities (more on that here during my recent WPIX interview) and what you want, you won’t be moving in the right direction. If you’re not sure how to get started using lists to figure that out, I have a LinkedIn Learning Course “The Power of Lists to Get Stuff Done” that will guide you through using lists to improve your life.

Once you’ve decluttered and you know your priorities, you have to…

2) Be Honest with Yourself About Your Goals.

It’s easy to throw yourself into things and start working just to feel productive. “The scariest thing is to stop and really think about and assess what you want,” Tamsen added.

Ask yourself, where do you want to be a year from now? Don’t worry about what other people think. Where do you want to be?

Don’t start working until you have specific and exciting answers to those questions. “I think you really have to be honest with your goals and what it is that you want in the end because  sometimes we find ourselves working toward one goal, only to realize that wasn’t the end game,” Tamsen explained.

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3) Be Honest About Your Reinvention Timeline.

Once you’ve aligned yourself with the right goals, be realistic about how long it will take to achieve them. Be honest about how long tasks will actually take. You’re not going to launch a new content channel in a week. But you can decide what kind of content you want to be regularly creating in that long.

I asked Tamsen what your reinvention timeline should be. “Three months,” she said without having to think about it. “That’s a real established time to get a habit started or at least to achieve something and then go back and look at what you’ve achieved,” she added.

Taking the time to applaud your small accomplishments is important!,” she said without having to think about it. “That’s a real established time to get a habit started or at least to achieve something and then go back and look at what you’ve achieved,” she added.

Taking the time to applaud your small accomplishments is important!

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4) Celebrate Yourself to “Unlock Your Bold.”

Living boldly is something we’re all capable of doing. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be hard at times. Keeping a list (Yay more lists!) of your wins will help you stay motivated.

Even professionals as successful as Tamsen keep a list of their accomplishments. “Not only am I looking forward, but I’m looking back at what those achievements are. When you start building those blocks on top of each other, I think you can unlock that bold part of you,” Tamsen said about keeping her list.

Tracking your accomplishments will help you feel proud of your progress and encouraged to keep going.

For more tips on reinvention, check out Tamsen’s guide to “Unlocking Your Bold” and watch our entire conversation here.

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BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.
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Handling Distractions in a Hybrid World

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BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.

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Whether working from home or returning to the office, there are distractions everywhere. And we need help.

That’s why I invited focusologist, Penny Zenker, on the most recent episode of my live-streaming show Inside Scoop, “Handling Distractions in a Hybrid World.”

Here are a few tips we discussed to understand, avoid, and deal with distractions.

1) Understanding your distraction type.

Penny breaks distractions into three categories: emotional, physical, and environmental.

Emotional distractions are the biggest category. Penny explained these can be “taking care of your parents who are older, or if your kids are sick, or you got passed over for the job that you wanted.” Emotional distractions are things that happen in your life that take up your thoughts and energy, distracting you from what you need to do presently.

Then there’s physical distractions. Penny says these are things like “stopping my kids from coming in.”

And then there’s environmental distractions. Like being too cold or too hot. These are external factors that distract us from the task at hand.

2) Creating awareness.

Now that you’re aware of the type of distraction you’re dealing with, you can work to prevent it in the future.

Penny walked us through an example for those of us returning to the office: “What do you do about those got-a-minute meetings where somebody comes and stops by your desk?”

You can set up boundaries. You can put up your away message. Or block your calendar. Or set up specific office hours so people know when (and when not) to stop by.

For individuals, Penny suggested having predefined things to say. She says something like, “I only have five minutes. Is it something we can handle real quick?” works great. This lets people know how much time you have. And if it can’t be handled in that time frame, you can set up a time to meet about it later.

As a company, or team leader, make it a point to listen to your team members and be proactive in setting policies to help minimize the distractions they face.

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Interested in keeping out distractions by creating more boundaries? Join me for my LinkedIn Learning Course “How to Set Boundaries and Protect Your Time.”

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3) Getting back on track.

Not all distractions are avoidable. That’s why I developed my distraction placeholder method.

I keep my to-do list next to me at all times. And on the lower left-hand side at the very bottom, I leave an area open for my distraction placeholders.

So if I’m in the middle of writing an email and I get distracted, I stop. I write down what I was doing. Then I allow myself to be distracted by answering the phone or the door. (It’s a little bit like mindful meditation.)

And when I return from my distraction, I look at my placeholder to know exactly what I was doing and pick up where I left off.

You can see how I do it and download that for free here.

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BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.

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Long-Term Thinking in a Short-Term World

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BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.

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It’s so easy to get caught up in instant gratification – especially these days with social media!

But true success takes time. And to accomplish your goals, you need to be a long-term thinker…despite our short-term world.

Author, keynote speaker, teacher for Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, Dorie Clark, joined me on my live-streaming show Inside Scoop to discuss her new book The Long Game: Long-Term Thinking in a Short-Term World.

Together we broke down why long-term thinking is difficult in today’s world. And what you can do to adjust your habits and move your career forward.

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