Own Your Power » goal setting

Using Procrastination as a Stepping Stone By Sheila Hawkins

Carol: Fitness Guru — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 11:00:33 +0000

Research shows that people spend most of their time and effort working on activities that have nothing to do with the success of their projects. It’s the biggest reason that people fail to reach their goals. In one survey, almost half of those surveyed said that procrastination cost them money. Not a good scenario.

Believe it or not, there are ways to use procrastination to your advantage to feed your flow of productivity. Understand that this is different from procrastinating in a destructive way. That will disable your level of productivity and keep you from reaching your goals. But there are ways to use procrastination as a stepping stone to reaching your goals.

If you look at your to-do list, you’ll probably see some things there that don’t need to be accomplished immediately and some might not ever need to be done although you might consider everything there to be important. Take a step back, relax, and look closer. What do you see? You might see your responsibilities as the important things, but what about the personal items on your to-do list? They can be important too. Look at the things that you’ve been procrastinating on. As you do, you might see things that aren’t related to your values or intentions. There might be a better way for you to reach your intention. In this case, it’s time to stop and think about other ways to reach your intention. This would be more productive than having something on your list that you are destructively procrastinating on. Here, you’re making a conscious choice to put something off to find a more suitable goal. Doing so contributes to your productivity.

Continuing to look at the things you’ve been putting off, you might realize that there’s something that you need clarity on, or maybe you need additional information. Take the steps necessary to get clear about the task. Consult the appropriate resources for the information that you need. If it’s clarity that’s missing for you, do what you need to do in order to get a clear picture. Try journaling, mind mapping or even creating a vision board. While you’re waiting for clarity, focus on other goals and activities-there’s always plenty to do. Doing so might still lead you to just the right solution; meeting the right person, coming across the right resource, being in the right place at the right time to hear something that you need to hear, seeing an idea, being at an event that stimulates you to move forward. This is not an effortless process as it can be hard to sustain the patience and to trust yourself.

You may look at your list and realize that you aren’t ready for something that you’ve been putting off. Maybe the opportunity is just not right. Or perhaps you’re struggling with things other than strategy, logistics, an action plan or timeline. You might just need to wait, which is truly opposite of what we’ve been taught to do, so you may not feel comfortable doing so. There’s the illusion that we’re doing something wrong if we don’t do it yesterday; 24/7/365 productivity. It’s possible that you may loose an opportunity. But you also have to realize that if we don’t allow time for things to take root, you can end up being frustrated and wasting our time and energy and maybe even money. When we wait, our ideas can gel or things can be revealed or become more apparent to us. There is internal activity that we don’t realize takes place when we do this. That activity is important to the task at hand.

Sheila Hawkins is President/CEO of Third Eye Group based in Detroit, Michigan. The company provides customized professional organizing services for individuals, small businesses and solopreneurs. Services are tailored to the needs and personality of the client helping them transform environments and behaviors, streamline processes, develop programs, systems and infrastructures to create order and peace in their lives.

Services include home and office organizing, time management, productivity training and coaching, event planning and project management. Additionally, the company provides various workshops and products focused on increasing productivity. Learn more about Third Eye Group by visiting www.thirdeyegroup.org or contact the company via email at info@thirdeyegroup.org.

Add Sheila as your friend on the OYP network, http://ownyourpower.ning.com/profile/SheilaHawkins

Loving The Women In Me (Workshop Series)

Simone — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:48:23 +0000

Introducing the Loving the Woman in Me Workshop Series

-It’s time to embrace just how beautiful you are from the inside out.
-It’s time to give back to yourself with me time and girlfriend time.
-It’s time for self love…and to stop apologizing for your greatness!

Saturday, March 27 , 10am-12pm
In this workshop we’ll cover:

Session 4 (Last of 4 part series): Being a Sexual Woman: Getting in the mood is easier than you think!

This session covers getting in touch with your inner-bad girl, being creative and romantic, and an OB/GYN will also joinus to explain how hormones can effect your libido.

Special Guest speaker and fun exercise with Renee O’Connor ,

Miami Territory Owner & Instructor
The Art of Exotic Dancing for Everyday Women
Find out about her fun and sexy classes! (305) 321-9506

You deserve this fun and informative me time!

Cost: $35 per session It’s our last session in a series of 4 workshops, so don’t miss it!
Register Now, Space is Limited

Location: LifeLine Wellness Center (A few doors down from Lifeline Counseling)
Street: 10426 Taft Street
City/Town: Pembroke Pines, Fl 33026

Your Instructors: These workshops are lead by a team of insightful women who have joined forces to share their knowledge to empower you!

Simone Kelly-Brown, Holistic Business Coach and Certified Life Coach, www.ownyourpower.biz
Jackie Cagney, Family Therapist, www.mylifelinewellness.com
Glory Tharp, Motivational Speaker
Dorty Stunston, Yoga Instructor and Expert in Nutrition

Come join the fun and experience everything these seminars have to offer! Bring a friend or family member with you who will benefit from this amazing experience.
Register Now, Space is Limited

REGISTER NOW!

“Being a Sexual Woman”

DESIGN YOUR DESTINY THIS SAT @ The Own Your Power Lifestyle Center

Simone — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:02:17 +0000

Your Instructor: Simone Kelly-Brown

We’ll discuss your values, passions, and the importance of various areas in your life and where you’d like to excel in. You will have a hand-out to help you set your intentions and get clear on what you’d like to improve upon or celebrate in your life. We’ll then have an active discussion while we have blast using our creative juices to design destiny maps (aka vision boards) that reflect your future self.

The mind thinks in pictures, so creating these destiny maps and reviewing them each day you’ll begin to see it, feel it, believe what you want for yourself. Experiencing these sensory details with positive visualization has launched countless new businesses, relationships, and various successes for our past attendees.

We’ll provide: items such as paper, glue, scissors, card stock/construction paper.

Please Bring:
1. 2-5 old magazines you’d like cut out from (We’ll have some on hand as well, but the more the merrier!)
2. Floor pillow or matt, if you don’t want to sit in chair. It’s a cozy environment so please dress comfortable.

Time: August 22, 2009 from 1pm to 3pm
Location: Own Your Power Lifestyle Center
Street: 1200 North Federal Highway
City/Town: Hollywood, Fl
Website or Map: http://www.ownyourpowerlife…
Phone: 877-545-7352

Event Type: workshop, goals etting

Are Your Expectations Realistic?

Simone — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:19:39 +0000

By Leah Mullen

You know what they say about those with the best of intentions. Every day for at least a year, I intended to work on a particular project, one of my novels Resolve to Love. I listed it on my to-do list faithfully every day. And at the end of the day when I was reconciling what I did and didn’t do, I’d move it to the next day without fail. I’d look at it, really want to work on it, but just didn’t get around to it. As I said I repeated this process for a year at least. Resolve to Love wasn’t the only project languishing on my list. While I write every single day on multiple projects with deadlines attached, there were some that Stephen Covey would call “non urgent, but important” that I could just never seem to get to.

Then one day–after months and months and months passed–it hit me. In terms of writing romance, I was aiming way too high. I really did want to work on Resolve to Love every day until it was finished, but obviously it’s not realistic for me at this time.

The truth is that in theory I want to get up early every morning, pray, exercise etc and then spend two hours writing romance novels that would rival the work of Donna Hill and Rochelle Alers. However when it comes down to it, in terms of what I actually “do” I’ve discovered that I’m a lifestyle journalist at heart. I want to report on what works in my life in hopes that I might help others. And that is where I spend the large majority of my writing time.

I’m eager to pour over magazines deciphering the story forms used for each article. I enjoy putting together interview questions for life coaches and other helping professionals and then editing their responses. I devour self-help books two and three at a time. I especially love it when I’m walking down the street and dream up a new article idea or a line I can use for an article. When I submit an idea to a new market—whether they like it or not—the feeling I get is amazing. And there is nothing like seeing my by-line on a website, in a glossy magazine or newspaper print.

In terms of “doing” I absolutely love self-help, but in terms of “being” my dream is to be a best selling romance author. This is a fantasy I’ve had for more than seven years. I can see my future website featuring the two dozen books I have yet to write. However, I have no vision of my ultimate goal in terms of writing self-help, I just really, really, really enjoy the process.

After reaching this new level of self-awareness, I knew I had to get real.

Read on for the rest here…