Brendon Burchard’s 5×50 Productivity Formula – Weekly Challenge #18

Brendon Burchard’s 5×50 Productivity Formula – Weekly challenge #18

Hi Guys!

This week’s challenge we are going to take on world famous high performance coach Brendon Burchard’s weekly productivity challenge. It’s no point in me saying to much this time, since he has a video addressing exactly what this challenge is going to be about! Instead I’m just shortly going to mention some important things and advices from my own experiences when dealing with this kind of stuff.

Every challenge can be seen as a project, hence we apply the overall project plan structure What How Why and When.

What – We want to get things done, we want to accomplish things without burning ourselves to the ground. We want results effectively. However, this is so much deeper that just getting more things done; it’s about daily progressing towards our life goals. It’s about doing the best we can to fulfil our life purpose. But willpower can only take us so far, we need the right tools to achieve those goals, and being highly productive is a key player in that game.

Why – This is for you to write down on your own, and go deep, see the big picture and how things actually effect things. Do this thoroughly; write ten reasons for why you must do this ( watch my video where I give an example ), ten reasons for why you can do it and ten reasons for all the good things that will happen if you do – creating that positive association.

How – This is what Brendon describes in his video and downloadable PDF; this is how we actually are going to reach our wanted outcome. The document also entails a simple way of rating ourselves, which we should do before and after we start the challenge. Measuring is important in order to analyse, evaluate and tweak our actions to make sure we are doing the right thing.

When – The actual time we are going to apply and implement these productive habits; it is described in detail in Brendon’s downloadable PDF and video. As always on an overall level, we are going to apply this for five days and then evaluate and decide weather to continue doing it or not.

Now let me just say, this isn’t an easy challenge that lies ahead of us, he may make it sound like it is if you listen to his video. But I’ve tried parts of it before, and do some of it already, and I know this requires a tremendous amount of discipline and motivation. If you are going to follow true, you need to have a real sit down, watch his video and really take in what he is saying and go through how this will effect your usual habits. You need to be prepared for all the obstacles that these new habits will bring, because it’s going to shake your current way of doing things up real good. Now that’s good, we need that! But if we can foresee how it may clash with our current routines and habits, and plan ahead and adapt to these new habits, it will increase our chances of succeeding big time. Or one could just dive straight in the first week, and realise we’re the actual problems lies, and then adapt for the second week to make it work for you. But that’s less effective.

Here’s a brief summary what he is saying in his video; going over the five challenges he claims to increase your productivity by 30%.

The 5 productive habits are:

Sleep more! Brendon sais sleep 50 min more then you are used to. This also includes 50 min prior going to bed, no screens; tv, phone, computer, etc! This requires some planning; set the alarm 50 min before going to bed so you now when to shut down.

50 min power block – first 20 min stretch/yoga – you can start the day with a workout, but then also do 20 min stretching to open up your body. The last 30 min – planning your day! Brendon has a morning routine, included in the same downloadable PDF and goes through it in more detail in his video, but for one you don’t check your phone or any other contact with the world until you have planned out your day.

50 min work block time – no spontaneous random multitasking doing a little of that, a little of that. And schedule the things you otherwise to spontaneous; like social media and other kinds of distractions; YOU FOCUS IN ON ONE THING, AND ONE THING ONLY.

Breaks – after the 50 min work blocks, you get up, move around, do some focused breathing and shake lose.

50 min break, sometime during the afternoon you take a longer 50 min break, where you for instance go on a 30 min walk OUTDOORS, stretch some, clear your head and energize.

Before I let you go, I can’t stress enough the importance of really answering the questions for WHY you’re doing this properly. And remind yourself every morning for your reasons. That is what will give you that drive you’ll need. When you’re in the middle of a 50 min work block, and your urge to check the mail kicks in, or your phone buzzes ( because you forgot to put it silent mood/flight mood), to be able to withstand and continue as nothing has happened; that requires willpower fuled by a tremendously crystal clear WHY! It’s big changes, but if you’re like me highly motivated for some real change and getting to action – let’s do this.

If you have any questions – please share!

Good luck, and don’t forget to see how I’m doing in the week vlog.

/Alexander Nilsson

Brendon Burchard’s 5×50 Productivity Formula

Video:

Brendon Burchard’s 5×50 Productivity Formula

Video: http://2.highperformanceacademy.com/5x50video?autoplay=1&inf_contact_key=d531bba1a04da7a06682e1bc134f957b13b7a903840aa81d5d01a14ae407603d

Document: http://brendon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/BrendonBurchard-5x50ProductivityFormula.pdf

Defining Yourself to build self-esteem

This guide is meant to help build self-esteem and assist you in defining yourself as a person. It was initially thought out for my sister, whom suffers from deep depression and severe anxiety, and as a result booth her self-esteem and self-confident are, bare to non-existent. She has always suffered from this to some degree, but since a while back she has started to doubt everything about herself and who she is. Both her self-esteem and self-confidence has totally vanished, and her ability to speak with conviction and making decisions are long gone. Since most of the decisions we take, subconsciously or consciously, to a great extent are based on who we are, what we believe in, what we like, basically all the things that makes up our identity; if all that are gone, what will then our decisions be based on? Not only is it time consuming not being able to make decisions in an efficient way, but it is also drains us of our valuable willpower – a limited resource that should be used for the important decisions in life, not the small mundane everyday choices like picking the colour of your socks.

My sister need do define herself to give her a sense of who she is again. So, I put together a “define yourself” template to paint that faded portrait once more. Painting this picture means we have the possibility to create the ideal person we want to be; influenced by the person we are and what we have done, If the old us have parts we want to keep that is, and use it as a blueprint, a compass and a reminder when in doubt. Because this is not only for the broken ones, by defining the ideal person we want to be, and simply decide to be that person, we can reach that state, if so only for a split second.

There are not so many of us that truly can say that they know who they are, but how does one actually reach that state o being certain in who you are, what you believe in and stand for – is it even possible? We are going to adopt the mind set of “do it and you’ll be it.”, adapted from the famous expression “fake it til you make it”, which I don’t like because that actually tells ourselves that it isn’t the kind of person we really are, that we are being incongruent with ourselves. The word “fake” doesn’t send any good vibes, it tells us we are fake, but we are simply going do our best to be the person we define ourselves as – our ideal selves.

We need to get over the focus on WHAT we actually like or believe in; it just isn’t that important, at least not for the sake of building your self-esteem (the actual moral issue of some question is a different topic, and not the star of this story). But what rather is of importance is that you in fact believe in something and stand for that. This enables you to be confident when talking to people, to actually have an opinion and a belief, something that defines you – not knowing anything just makes you come off as blunt and undeceive. Whether you actually like the colour blue or pink more doesn’t really matter. As long as it is written in the definition of you, it is the truth you live by, as it will make you more deceive, and feel a sense of knowing of who you are.

I know some people will probably argue that it’s a bad thing painting oneself in to a corner, taking a stand point of being in a particular way, and I can agree that to some extend that may be true. I’m not saying that just because one has picked his or her favourite colour it is written in stone for all eternal future. But we need a solid foundation to build ourselves up from, a starting point and base to lean back at when in doubt. And we can do that by defining ourselves, our beliefs, our likings, who we are, what we believe in, our values and moral, but most importantly, how we act. Because it is actually the actions we take that defines us.

If you actually change your mind after some convincing arguments, it should be changed in the definition first so you don’t give yourself the possibility of jumping opinions too much, as it will render the point of the definition worthless. Just taking an initial standpoint for the sake of feeling belongingness having a definition of ourselves will serve our self-esteem well. Because that means we can act and make decisions based on what we are standing for – and that makes us be true to ourselves, because we are just following the blueprint; our game plan of life. Less wasted energy on decision making. Of course situations may occur where we might derail from our definition, but since we then have the right answers we know we should have followed, we will hence feel guilt and make an effort to improve until next time we are faced with a similar situation.

We as human beings are in a constant transformational state, as I’m writing these words, it changes me as a person, it affirms a belief I have and what I do. Hence is a static timeless definition of a person not even possible for more than a split second. Defining ourselves in this static way is like interpolation, if you are familiar with math, we’ll use a previous and a future ideal state as a data points to approximate our current state, see figure 1. Therefore, are we also working with a changing definition that are meant to lead and guide our way of being, acting and taking decisions; a definition of our ideal self-image that is dependent on what we’d like that person to be like. The “define yourself” template will give you a simple framework to support you in that process of becoming your ideal self. And if you already know who you are – great, then it’s an easy process for you to just fill in the blanks, and you have a solid definition you can look back at if you ever start to doubt yourself or begin to fall down a dark path. Because we all have our dark moments.

Figure 1, our different points in time between who we were, and who we want to be, we always want to move in the direction towards our ideal self.

Full disclaimer; this isn’t scientifically grounded. This is my own experience and thoughts influenced by thousands of hours of personal development content. I know this isn’t perfect, but it’s a start, I’m playing around with this, and sharing my thoughts on it; trying to build my sister up, and I believe this is something that could work for her. I have been defining myself in a similar way for many years know, and have found it to serve me well, even though this is a more detailed template than i previously have been using. If you have comments or constructive input, by all means, do share. Good Luck!

Link to the Template:

WORD – Defining yourself

PDF – Defining yourself

The video:

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How to start a Passion Project – A practical Guide

How to start a passion project – A practical guide. Weekly Challenge #16

The video Link.

So this week is going to focus on that one thing you know you want to, ought to and need to do! It’s time to start that project of yours you’ve been neglecting for so long – you may not be able to explain the reasons fully, but the thought of it keeps circling around in the back of your head. Or it may just be something you told yourself long ago you were going to do someday, and it just wouldn’t feel right to not at least give it a try. Whether it is customizing your bike or starting your own YouTube channel – the time to start, is now!
You may ask what this has to do with personal development? – I say It has everything to do with personal development! it’s a cornerstone in personal development. Because whatever it may be, if its’ a dream or something you just know you know you have to do, you are not being true to yourself if you keep ignoring something that obviously is so important that you brain constantly reminds you of it. It follows you around wherever you go, nagging and urging you to take action. Being true to ourselves and are the foundation of self- esteem.

I know there is one thing you’re thinking of right know, you know what it is. We owe it to ourselves to put in the effort and give it a try. At least give it a proper evaluation, and from that standpoint realize it maybe wasn’t anything that had any real value to it. But your current state does you nothing good and only drains you of valuable energy and occupies white space, space that when cleared out could open up for new ideas and projects.

So, the first step will be to have a sit-down and write out all the thoughts you have concerning your “thing”, which will lead you to a making a decision on whether it’s time to let go of it or actually put a real effort into it. Often the hardest part is to start, to get the ball rolling. We have to let go of the concepts of perfectionism, which – in my opinion – one of our biggest enemies. Nothing will ever be perfect, you just have to get over that idea. We have to become friends with uncertainty, and start to believe – have faith – that our focus will align us on a path towards our goals. If you want to, if you truly and wholeheartedly need something to happen, it will. But also realizing and accepting, that if that is what you’re pursuing, it will require way, way much more time and effort than you ever can imagine. But if you can come to terms with that, it’s just a matter of getting started.

So How do we do this? Well, we’re going to try to keep things simple by approaching this on a WHAT, WHY, HOW & WHEN basis.

WHAT – Start with defining WHAT the wanted OUTCOME is. We are doing this in two steps; short term and long term.

Long term – What’s the end goal? At this state dare to be bold, dare to dream big and reach for the stars. Have a playful mind. You don’t have to have any clue for how to reach your goal, you just need to have a belief that our focus and determination will set us on a path towards it. If we must, we will find a way. This is where faith and accepting uncertainty plays a tremendously important role. We have to accept not knowing; we have to embrace it. Don’t underestimate the power of a determined mind & belief in yourself.

Short term – Since we are doing this challenge on a five-day basis, you will set up a goal for what you want to achieve in five days. So, what’s a realistic outcome you could reach in five days? This is dependent on what it is you are reaching for and how much time you actually have to allocate for this project. We’ll come into time allocation more in detail further down in the text, but If you’re working, an hour a day may be a good start.

WHY – Write down the reasons for why you are doing this. If you’re in a rush and has known why you need to this for so long, scribble it down and go on with it. But don’t underestimate the power of clearly defining your reasons. Because when you actually sit down and go through your thoughts and ideas – those you thought was so vivid and clear – you most often find that is not the case. Hence, doing so often results in great insights and new perspectives. Having a crystal clear WHY will empower you not only to get started, but also keep you going for the tuff times ahead, because they will come. So, if you want to get better clarity and motivation you’ll write the following lists:

10 reasons for WHY you MUST do it
10 reasons for WHY you CAN do it
10 reasons for WHY it will benefit you – creating a positive association! Have a playful mind, remove all pessimism; dare to think big. How would the most gracious outcome change your life?

HOW – Strategy planning – now here’s where things stop being general. Depending on how your project looks like, you need to do different kinds of research. Google and search around for the experts in the area your projects relate to. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, there are people that have shared their knowledge on basically every area that is out there today. Find those persons and model what they’ve done. Or if it actually is something brand new, find the closest thing to it, and see how you can borrow thoughts and ideas and implement it on your project. Research and prepare; read books, google, talk to people you may know, or just get started and learn for yourself (if that’s the path of least resistance that will actually get you started, take it). On a general level, here are some workflow tips;

Create a list of all the things that you could do, then pick out the top 3 and focus on those things first.
Brake things down to actionable items and to do’s, what’s the first thing you have to do to get started?
Have clear deadlines and sub goals (SMART- goals – https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/smart-goals.php ). When you are responsible to yourself, deadlines (if you respect them) are what will give you something to strive for in an otherwise infinite amount of time.
Reviewing analysing and re-evaluating; tweaking your plan, because it will change! What you know when you start is massively going to change time after time.

For this 5-day challenge, I want you to focus on the short term strategy. To JUST get started without overcomplicating things. TO get momentum. The long term strategy you can look into when you revaluate things, or if it really is a big project, creating or starting to create that long term strategy, is perhaps suitable to be your first short term goal for this week. Now, if it’s a new habit you want to create, like starting a new exercises routine, look into my last week’s challenge ( https://youtu.be/ioTWLaAS2w0 ), or simply read the book “The Power of Habit”.

WHEN – First off, you have to allocate time to this. If you’re in the middle of a vacation – GREAT! What a fantastic opportunity, if you’re not, you just have to reprioritize and make time with what you’ve got. Try to schedule in a least an hour a day, but of course It’s dependent on your situation.

The initial timespan will be five days, then it’s time to do a new evaluation of the status and look over the long-term outcome tweak if necessary and then put up a new short-term outcome. Always work with deadlines. Trust me, it will make things happen. Also, you may come to the realisation that it wasn’t what you thought it would be and you can say god bye to it forever. Either case, if you put a real effort into it – great, now go out and celebrate with friends and share your experience! Your worth it, and you need to reward yourself for it.

A Work schedule outline:

Day 1: the most important day – it’s what will give you a game plan for the rest of the week
Day 2: Reviewing short term / long term goal. Taking action for X amount of time. Tracking & logging progress.
Day 3: Reviewing short term / long term goal. Taking action for X amount of time. Tracking & logging progress.
Day 4: Reviewing short term / long term goal. Taking action for X amount of time. Tracking & logging progress.
Day 5: Reviewing short term / long term goal. Taking action for X amount of time. Tracking & logging progress. CELEBRATION FOR REACHING YOUR GOAL; or for ACTUALLY STARTING SOMETHING THAT MATTERS TO YOU. Revaluating Long term goal, putting up next short term goal.

You are also going to need a place to gather thoughts, ideas and material. I do all this in OneNote, but there are other alternatives like Evernote or a regular paper block. But, from experience I’ve found that a paper book just won’t store all the links and data i gather in an efficient way, since so much of the work is being done on a computer.

Good Luck, and hit me up if you have any questions.

/Alexander Nilsson