What to Do About All Those Daily Tasks You Hate
After many years of experimentation and trial-and-error, I can finally say that I’m at a point in my career where I really feel like I’m doing the right thing with my life.
Now, I get to spend my days doing working on things that bring me joy, utilize my strengths, and help fellow entrepreneurs to be more impactful.
Yes, life is good!
(It might sound cheesy, but it’s true!)
Though today everything seems to be aligned and clicking in my life, I’m not sure if I would have believed me if you told me I’d be this much happier and more productive several years ago.
So, what happened? What made this change?
While I wish I could tell you it was an overnight change, it wasn’t (overnight changes never really work out quite as well as we want them to). Instead, it was many small changes and lots of gradual progress over an extended period of time.
Looking back over the years, I think there were two very important things I did (and continue to do) that led me up to this point. And today, I want to share them with you! Here they are:
#1: Peel back the layers & work in the zone
#2: Delegate & eliminate the rest
Or, if we want to make things snappy: only work in the zone, delegate the rest.
Let’s look at these things a bit more closely and see how you can do the same.
Peel off the layers & work in the zone
The path to where I am now first began years ago when I started my professional life as a doctor.
I was very good at my job, but this job wasn’t good for me. I emphasized with the patients too much and was paying too much of am emotional price for it.
Deciding it wasn’t worth it, I peeled off this layer.
Then, it was a matter of what I wanted to do next. Luckily, this was right around the time I was set to move to a new city in a new country - making the time ripe for a career change.
In deciding what to do next, I asked myself: what’s interesting to me right now? What has been grabbing my attention lately?
The answer quickly jumped out: computers and the internet.
With this in mind, I taught myself to be a web designer. I enjoyed web design, but realized there was another subsection of it that I enjoyed even more: programming.
So, I peeled off that layer of web design and dove headfirst into programming, which I had my own company for.
But as I continued, I realized there was yet another subsection of computers and the internet that I was interested in even more: business growth and online marketing.
Yet again, I peeled off that layer of programming and transitioned my business to online marketing implementation.
And while online marketing was the closest to me being where I am today, there was one part of it that I found myself to be best at and enjoy the most: strategic conversations with clients about business growth, hear how they (and their businesses) were struggling, and offer up advice based on my own experience and what I’ve learned.
With that realization, I peeled off yet another layer to reveal the one that brings me the most joy, uses my talents and strengths, and keeps me always working in my zone: entrepreneurial and productivity coaching.
And as you know, I am still doing that today :-)
In other words, although what I did took time, it was relatively simple: I peeled back one layer right after another based on what I was interested in and enjoyed until I found what had me working in my zone each and every day.
Eliminate & delegate the rest
By this point, I had already done a pretty good job of eliminating the layers of jobs that didn’t quite suit me until I got to be a coach and work in my zone. This is what I mean by elimination.
But yet, no matter how much I love what I do now, there are still aspects of the business that are essential for me to do even though I might not like them or be great at them.
And we all know what happens when we are faced with tasks we dislike or struggle on: procrastination.
And here’s what makes things worse. Too many entrepreneurs follow this idea it’s some kind of commandment: “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”
Wrong! You want the opposite, in fact. This innocent-sounding little tidbit is NOT the right mindset for an entrepreneur.
Yes, hopefully this is true for certain tasks - those ones that let you work in the zone and utilize your talents and strengths to the max (like coaching and talking to clients, for me). You definitely want to be the only one who can actually do those and let those be the ones you devote your time and energy to.
But for everything else? Set aside that pride of having to do everything on your own, and delegate it!
Elimination and delegation of other tasks are the only ways you can be truly sure you are working in your zone as much as possible.
Imagine if you could eliminate most of the tasks you disliked (booking appointments, marketing yourself, writing blog posts, etc.), thus leaving you more time to do what you love and find important.
Now, I still have a LOT left to say on the topic of delegation (it happens to be one of my favorite topics!)....but we’re going to have to save that for our next series of articles
So until then, here’s the message I leave you with:
work in your zone, eliminate the rest.
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