In this episode...

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Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup, and launched it in big box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family and self care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day. There should be no hesitation. Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you. This episode of the Boss It Podcast is brought to you by Commerce Chefs, a brand new e-commerce podcast that's perfect for seasoned commerce leaders or even an up-and-coming maverick. Hosted by the commerce experts, Tom and Kyle, this series takes a quirky and informative approach to commerce education. In each episode, you'll hear from the top commerce experts find thought provoking questions, surprise segments, hilarious banter, but most importantly, I promise you'll learn something new. If you want to learn the secret ingredients to become a better commerce leader and brand, tune into Commerce Chefs with Tom and Kyle. Check out the series on your favorite listening platform, or just go and click that link in our show notes. It's time to get cooking. Hello everyone, and welcome to another fantastic episode of the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen, and I'm going to be your host for today. So before we get started, I want to give a shout out to Steph who left this great review, a five star review on Apple Podcast, and this is what she had to say: "Love this podcast. This is such a motivating and inspiring podcast. Sophia is a fantastic and inviting host. Glad to have found it." Thank you, Steph. I really appreciate that review. And all of our listeners appreciate that review, too, because it gives them insight on what the podcast is all about. If you guys would like to leave us a review, we would more than appreciate it, and please go ahead and do so. If you do leave a review, please take a screenshot and share it on social media, and tag us at @bossitclub and we will see it on Instagram, on the gram. And if you don't have Instagram or you're not a user of Instagram, go ahead and take a screenshot and send it to our email address, [email protected]. That way, we can send you our 50 Best Tips for Business and Life. If you don't do that, then we don't know where to send you the tips. So make sure you take that screenshot and either share it on social media and tag us. Or you can also send it to our email if that works better for you. All right. So let's get on with our show. Today we are going to be talking about your energy level and we've brought this up in the past. We spoke about it in past episodes in regards to your productivity, but I wanted to dig a little deeper about energy because I really do feel that your energy level will not only affect your results in business, but your results in everything you do or you want to accomplish in life. So let's just dive a little bit deeper into energy. And the reason why I brought up energy again is because even if you want to create a habit, say for example, you are wanting to create a new habit and you realize that your energy level is too low. Then it's really, really difficult to take that action and make it into a regular habit. And the reason I'm bringing up habits is because habits are what control your daily activity. They say in life, 48% of all of your activity is actually habitual which means that you are doing it subconsciously. You're completing an action subconsciously. You're not having to actively consider the next steps. And very simple examples are driving your vehicle. When you go and you start driving to work or driving to the store or driving to pick up your children or going to a place that you are commonly going to. So for example, some people drive to the gym. At times, you'll notice that you are consciously not considering the directions. You are just habitually going towards your destination. That's a very simple example of how your brain goes on autopilot and you will habitually complete a task. The reason we think that habits are so powerful in business and every aspect of life is because we want you to free up that brain power, that conscious energy so you can actually excel in making goals in your company or in other areas of your life. If you are constantly going with the grind and you don't have something mastered, and it's not down to a habit, then you're using that conscious power throughout your day instead for making these actions happen when they could have just been habitual. Now I'll give you an example from my life of something that I've made a very strong habit of and it helps me basically not seize up sitting in my office chair. I ensure that I get up and I walk around every hour. This has become a habit and I've picked up this habit because I used to work frontline in a hospital so I was constantly on my feet, moving every day. When I switched over into the management side, obviously it was more of a desk job, but I still would get up every hour and I'd walk around. Now, that is a great habit because not only is it allowing me to have a little bit more clarity when I come back to my desk, it's allowing my body to take a break from the seated activity which they say now that sitting is one of the most dangerous things for your physical health. We spend way too much time in that seated position so I do encourage everyone from when I put on my physiotherapy hat, I'm encouraging everyone to make that a habit. It's not a hard habit, it's just something that I'd like you to start doing habitually, meaning you would not need to set a conscious reminder on your phone or a pop-up that could come up every hour. That's what we suggest people to do if they come to us and they say: "Oh, my back hurts or my neck hurts". And we go through the regiments and we say, Have you been sitting down all day?" And they say: Yes, "we sit down for eight hours and we hardly move". Then that is one of the things that we ask patients to do if they come to us with all those ailments and they have a desk job, is to set an alarm and get up every hour. Now that's a very simple example, but again, it's something that needs to be consciously completed. So now, for example, if I'm using that brainpower and I'm like, oh, I need to get up every hour and I have my alarm going off, then that is taking away energy from something else that I could consciously be thinking about. That is the reason why we would like you to start turning things like that. Simple tasks that would help you in life and in business so you're not having to expend that energy, that mental energy on completing the task. Another great example I want to share with you is planning your day. Many people are very reluctant to plan their day, the night before. And I know it's difficult, but again, if you make it into a habit, it will actually help you tenfold. You will be a lot more productive and organized, and less stressed when you wake up in the morning, and you should be able to fall asleep easier, if you are one that suffers from insomnia. If you can make it a habit to take time out of your day, at the very end to organize your planner, your agenda, or your electronic calendar, then you're more likely to feel more productive when you get up in the morning. Again, that is a simple task, but it takes time for people to make it a habit and a regiment. So again, what you would have to do at the beginning is you would have to potentially set an alarm or carve it out of your day and make it protected time. Many times people don't protect this time and they get slammed with other things on their agenda for the home or their family, or socializing when we're not in the middle of the pandemic. Those are things that usually take over this sacred task of planning your next day. I usually try to take even just half an hour, at the end of my day, I look at the things that still need to be accomplished for the week or for the month, and I try to schedule them into the next day. Very, very specific on when I need to complete them and I'm protective of that time that it needs to be completed in. People should also consider this time as a way of reflecting on how much they've completed during the day. I also consider this time for being mindful if you want to do some journaling. These are things that, again, will help you balance other aspects of your life and not just your business. It's very, very important, very, very crucial. So those two smaller life changes are habitual changes that you can make in your regular day, and can actually work tenfold. But again, you see how they're not habitual at the beginning and you have to make a conscious effort, and that will take away energy. But you can see that those two examples will have ramifications throughout the rest of your life zones. So for example, you have a lifestyle zone when it comes to business, you have another life zone when it comes to your family, you have another lifestyle when it comes to socialization. By being able to carve out time at the end of the day, to be mindful of how much you've completed, you are able to structure your next day and you're able to cross off things off of your list that helps you feel accomplished. You bring your spirits up high. It feels like you have control and agency over your life, and that is the reason why those things are so important. But if you don't have that carved into one of your habitual actions each day, it will take you time at the beginning. And again, getting up and moving around, I'm an advocate for physical health and we don't want your body seizing up because you're sitting there and trying to create a great life for yourself and your family. We want to make sure that you can actually be thriving in all aspects of your life. That's the reason why we have this podcast. So make sure that if that's a habit you'd like to complete, ensure that you are starting small steps, set an alarm and get up every hour. Now, again, those are just examples. There is something that I know you want to accomplish and make it into a habit, and that habit is going to help you with whatever goal that you are trying to strive for. So it could be something physical nature where you want to get up and walk, you want to do more physical activity, you want to stop snacking or you might have a habit that you want to complete in business. The simple example that we provided was planning your day, trying to be more productive, writing down what you have accomplished during the day, and then crossing off your lists, because why wouldn't you want to get that surge of dopamine and serotonin. Those are the neurotransmitters that are released when you feel like you've accomplished something. So every time you do something, write it down and cross it off because then you'll get that bump of happiness. And you might just want to become a bit more harmonious in all of your daily activities. For example, I have a hard stop at 4:00 PM because I can't sit down and do work throughout the evening until maybe later at night. That is something that I had to consciously, at the beginning, say: No. I am not going to continue working. I want to be more harmonious with other aspects of my life. Like for example, I'm starting to take up more cooking because I feel that that's a great break from the computer, you can get all creative in the kitchen as well, so why not? So those are things that I want you to really dig deep. This episode's all about you, learning how to make an action, a conscious action into a habit, and that's the goal. Now, we started with energy and the reason we started with energies because you need energy to actually go ahead and propel consciously over and over that action until it becomes a habit. They say in psychology, it usually takes between 30 and 60 days for something to become a habit. Very simple things like making your bed in the morning or getting up and having a shower, or even brushing your teeth. Those are things that we teach our children and we cannot just teach them once. We need to teach them over and over and over again. We need to repeat, and the repetition will eventually turn into something that is natural for them to complete. Same with toilet training, and if you're a parent, you completely understand. You can't expect most children to figure it out the first time. If they do, congratulations to you because that's not really what happens. You need to work with them over and over and over again. And of course, toilet training is a whole different topic, so we won't go there, but I'm just trying to use really simple life examples to really hone in on the fact that you will need to do something over and over again, and it will be a conscious effort. So you will need energy, and a lack of energy is usually the reason why people do not push forward and make these actions into habits. So why is that? Everyone knows, most people know that you should not be sitting around in your chair all day. Most people know they should be getting up and going for walks. Most people know that eating healthy is the right thing to do, but why have they not executed on that task? In business, most people know that you should be planning your day ahead. Most people know scheduling your time is very important and you should not let other people schedule it for you, but why don't we complete it? Why is it that some people have a harder time executing those tasks and it's because their energy might be the limiting factor. And that is a reason why energy is where you should start when we talk about habit formation. So what do we do to increase our energy, because if we know energy is our limiting factor and it is preventing us from moving forward with consciously making these actions into habits, then we need to start at the energy component. Now, if you haven't had a chance to listen to episode 18, we speak specifically about energy and how it is related to productivity. I will speak about a few of those factors today, again, on how to ensure your energy is elevated and at its best. And one of the reasons that your energy could be liking is because your physical health might be in question. Now, I don't want to cause any fear but if you feel that you are always lacking energy, you are always feeling like you're not getting enough sleep or you're not getting enough nutrition, or there's something off about your physical health, we really encourage you to go visit your physician or your nurse practitioner, or your primary care provider, so they can help you look into what could be a physical ailment that could be reducing your energy. It could be as simple as a vitamin D deficiency, a B12. It could be that you're not sleeping enough and they'll really go through the entire gamut of questions and really understand if that is actually what is happening. More often than not, it is potentially your psychology that might be depleting your energy level. And what that means is you might have psychological blocks when it comes to your productivity with your limiting beliefs and hitting that upper limit. Hitting the stage where you're like: I've hit my ceiling of productivity or my ceiling of success. And when that happens, people will at times, come back down and that can really affect your energy level. If you feel like: Oh, I want to do this. Oh, I want to do that, and then you have this limiting belief or you've hit this realization that things are just going so well, I can't let them get any better, and you self-sabotage. You have the psychology and it's basically saying to you: No, you can't do that. Who are you? and that all goes into the imposter syndrome. So I want you to take a check on your psychology and see if it's actually not a physical feeling, after you say: Okay, my physical check, I don't feel physically tired. I don't feel physically drained. My body's not aching. Is it my psychology? Is my energy level not at its best because of my psychology? I'm telling myself I'm not able to do something when actually I can, because you're capable of doing a lot more than you actually think. People really do put themselves into a box and say: "Oh, this is where I stand in this box." But if you have a desire or something that's motivating you to go outside of that comfort zone, outside of that safety zone, then it's on you then to make that a reality. We always say, if you can imagine it, then it's actually achievable. You have everything that you need. So we need you now to go ahead and say, is it your psychology? and your psychology is not optimal. And that is the reason why you are not pushing forward and actually executing on something, or is it affecting your energy? Now we want to prime our energy, we want to be our maximum best energy and if we are, then we are able to then have the energy to consciously make our action into a habit. That's the whole goal here. We really want you to take less conscious effort for things that should be done regularly, diligently and basically help you with getting everything else sorted in your life. If you can make all those actions that you do daily and habit, then you don't need to spend that conscious effort to complete those tasks. So that's the goal. What you need to then do is after you go ahead and say, it's not a physical. My energy is great physically. It's not my psychology. What else could be reducing my energy level and not allowing me then to make the conscious effort to make these actions into habits? And it could actually be that your energy level is not primed. You haven't gone ahead and primed your energy level so it is actually at its best. This can be done in different ways and I actually learned this from Tony Robbins. Now I subconsciously was already doing some of these actions, so when I became aware that these are actually things that people practice to get their energy level higher then I was like: "Wow, that's great. I'm already practicing this." So it wasn't a situation where I had to go and teach myself how to do it. I just became consciously aware that I was doing some of these practices to get my energy level higher. One of the things that he speaks about is how to elevate your state. When you're elevating your state, generally, that means that you are physically getting up and moving. Now, if you've been to Tony Robbins, and this is not a pitch for Tony Robbins guys, I do follow him quite closely. I have been one of his students from afar for almost two decades. I am training to be a strategic intervention coach but at the same time, this is not a pitch for Tony Robbins, but that's where I've gotten my teachings from. Although I had been completing some of these actions anyways, now I consciously know that these are practices that his students learn. So one of the things that he does with the students, if you go to one of the seminars, is that you cannot be in a state, a low energy state to be actually able to connect information. And the reason why is because your emotional state, your heightened emotional state is more likely to absorb information and be able to retain that information. If you're able to absorb and retain that information, you're more likely to use that information. So what that means is if you're in a heightened state, now the number one example that people use for this is that if you remember 9/11, that was September 11th in 2001, when there was a terrorist attack on US soil, and everyone remembers that because it was such a heightened emotional state that occurred. Most people remember where they were at when that occurred. I remember that I was in my high school lobby and I heard of the news. If you can think back to a time when you had a heightened emotional state like 9/11, it is likely that you will also remember where you were when you heard the news or a similar example for our international friends, if there are things that have happened, for example, the Japanese tsunami, you will probably remember where you were at the time that you heard that information, or any other major event that occurred in the last few decades. If you think back, you will probably recall where you're at. So that just shows you that if you're in that heightened emotional state, if your energy, if it's at the highest potential, you're likely to not only absorb information and be able to take in more information, you're likely to also execute on the action that you're trying to accomplish. So one of the ways of doing this is priming yourself, and what that means is priming your energy. And what that means is you need to do things like getting up and physically moving. So what do I do to prime my energy? If I've gone through my checklist and I'm like: I feel good. Physically, I'm great. I don't have any ailments right now. I don't feel tired right now. I don't have any mental blocks. I have no subconscious considerations that are holding me back from executing, and then I'm like, if I'm still not feeling up to it, I get up and I put on a little music and I actually move around. You could consider dancing if you'd like, but that is what I'm doing these days to really get myself into that really primed, heightened state so then I'm ready to go and complete whatever action I need to do in order for it to become a habit. I know people might think that's funny, but try it. I want you guys to consciously make the effort. After this episode, write down a habit that you want to accomplish. Something that you want to do regularly. You don't want to consciously think about completing activity, you just want it to happen. It could be as simple as doing the laundry regularly so you don't have it sitting around all week. You could also make it as simple as planning your day, the night before so you're more organized. So write down a very simple goal, a really one step oriented goal, if that's where you want to start. And then I want you to go through the checklist, ensure that it's not a physical ailment that's causing you to not move into action with that habit creation, make sure that it's not a mental block. And if it is, you need to then go and eliminate that story and rewrite your story. You don't need to live with limiting beliefs and you don't need to self-sabotage if you're living in a great space right now and you just don't want it to get better. So really get in tune with your psychology. And then the last thing is if you're still not feeling like pushing yourself in reaction, get up and move around. Put on some music and just try it. You would be surprised how much better you feel after you move a little bit. Guys, that's all I got for you today. I hope that exercise was useful. I hope you had a few "aha" moments. If you want to learn a little bit more about Tony Robbins, feel free to Google Tony Robbins or Anthony Robbins. He is a life coach and he is the most popular life coach in the world, and the highest paid life coach in the world but his strategies are really, really great. So if you want to learn more about him, please do not hesitate to go ahead and research him, if you have not heard of him before. And if you have any questions about what we have spoke about, feel free to email us at [email protected] or follow us on Instagram

@bossitclub.com,

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