Let’s chit chat about mindset today. I’ve been taking a lot of classes lately and reading a lot of books and the one thing they keep mentioning is mindset.
The funny thing is when I try to talk to some of my authors and peers about this, they tell me all the ways they can’t change in order to grow, and the only way forward is to work harder.
I tried wrapping my head around this concept and tried to come up with different ways to approach this. The issue for me is that at RIA,
I am constantly trying out different things to see what would work better for my authors. What would help them be more efficient? What would help them produce more?
But each time I introduce a new product or way of doing something—even so much as offering an insight into a new newsletter manager—I’m informed they don’t have time to learn that. They just need to continue to work harder. What does that do to you?
For the longest time, I was that author. Dude, seriously. I was so over-over-over-everything’d. I had way too much to do and entirely too little time to do it all. And there’s not enough money yet for me to hire the help I need. The thought of learning something new—like a newsletter manager—just sent me over the top. My frustration tolerance was seriously low, and I was in the sink or swim mindset.
Okay. I was on the “I’m drowning” mindset. Even now. Just a few weeks ago, I told my husband, “I feel like I’m drowning. I have too much to do. I feel like I’m a team of one.”
First off, that’s unfair. There are others on my team. They do stuff and sometimes, they falter because they’re human, but I’ve created—I’ve fought hard to create—a life where being human isn’t allowed? I’ve struggled this hard for this long so I could be the long-suffering hero who shoulders everything, does it all, and just keeps charging on?
The answer is… yes.
And I’m not alone.
When you have the starve mindset where you’ll just work harder and not smarter, you drain your tanks faster and you can’t seem to ever top them off. Sometimes, it’s difficult to find fuel to fill them at all.
Working harder leads to burn out.
What do you do?
The first thing you need to do is figure out what tasks absolutely have to be done, have to be done by you, have to be done by you because “you’re the only one who can do them right,” and what can be delegated to someone else or just done at another time.
Then make time to learn how to be more efficient. Yes, yes, yes. I know. You can’t.
You have to work harder.
Well, when you’re tired of being tired, look at how you can carve out some time to learn how to do something more efficiently.
