I need to sit less.
I need to eat more fish.
I need to stop complaining.
I need to stop drinking tea after 2pm.
These are only a few of the need-to’s continuously shuffling around in my mind.
How many need-to’s do you have taking up space in your brain right now?
When it comes to your business these might be:
I need to be more consistent.
I need to create more content.
I need to stop stalking competitors.
I need to stop spending so much time scrolling my feeds.
Take a moment to ask yourself where all these need-to’s are coming from.
Why do you think you keep telling yourself that you need to do any of these things?
It feels like repeating something will somehow get you to finally do it.
Even though there’s loads of evidence to the contrary.
I’ve recently realized that we don’t usually stop to consider whether or not we actually do need to do any of these things. At least in the near future.
What’s the deeper purpose or value?
By asking yourself what’s the deeper purpose or value tied to these things, it’s a bit easier to let some of them go.
So when you tell yourself you need to be more consistent in your business, what is it about being consistent that matters most?
It might be that one of your values is reliability. And when you’re not consistently showing up for yourself and for your clients, you feel the discomfort of not following through on what matters to you.
Then instead of telling yourself you need to be more consistent you could say: “Being reliable is really important to me so I’m going to prioritize publishing at least 3x a week every week.”
When you decide to take action on one thing, you also have to consider what one thing you will drop to make space for it.
Or if you stop doing something, consider how to best use the time you save.
There are so many things we tell ourselves without thinking about whether or not those things matter enough to us right now. We just feel like they somehow should.
I’ve dropped the need to eat more fish. Because I don’t like to cook and haven’t a clue how to make good fish, there’s just too much I’d have to do to make this happen. At least for now.
What’s something you could drop today?