1 Simple Habit to Give You More Control Over Your Greatness
Living A Proactive Instead of Reactive Life
“If you leave your time to your randomness, you are stealing time from your greatness.” — Brendon Burchard
I heard this quote directly from Brendon Burchard, one of the top life coaches in the world, when I attended his High Performance Academy a few years ago. It has since changed the way I feel about what it means to be in control.
Being in control is more than having financial freedom or having the ability to do whatever you want. It’s about controlling your carnal desires and living a proactive, not reactive, life. To do not what you want to do, but what you should do.
When we leave our time to randomness, as Brendon put it, we live a more reactive life. Let me show you what I’m talking about:
Imagine you are in the midst of an important project. You are trying to really get into the flow of things and be a productive monster. You’re going solid for ten minutes when, all of a sudden, you hear a ding from your phone. Perhaps you received a new follower on Instagram. You open the phone, thinking there’s no harm in a quick check up. When you see who followed you, you look at their profile. After a few minutes of scrolling, you see a funny meme on a suggested post and send it to one of your friends. You click on the meme page and 30 minutes later you have eight bookmarked memes, over half an hour of reactivity, and no progress made on your project.
Statistically speaking, it will take you over 20 minutes to regain the flow you just lost. This adds up to almost an hour of time that could have been productively spent in flow.
Do you see what I mean by reactivity? You had no control over the information you consumed during that pointless instagram scrolling, causing unwarranted distraction. Furthermore, this distraction took time away from what you should have been doing, which was your project. This randomness stole time from your greatness.
Today I want to formally challenge anyone who is reading this to take control of their lives. However, I want to challenge you to do this in a very specific way. In no way am I claiming that this is a magic pill that will guarantee you 100% control. This is simply a practice I have incorporated to apply the above quote from Brendon Burchard and has had far-reaching benefits for many. The practice:
Turn off your notifications.
I know, I know, this can certainly be easier said than done. The biggest obstacle for this task is FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). I mean, what if you miss something?!?!
The truth of the matter is, if something is really important (or at least time-sensitive), someone is going to call you. If they don’t call, it is not that important to them.
Communicate with people on your own time and choose when and how you will consume information from outside sources. This allows more time to spent on the things that matter — you greatness, if you will.
Now, I will say there is some wiggle room for this. For instance, I have my badge notifications on for my messages and my email; I didn’t have it on the first few days and I missed some stuff. However, I do not have sounds or vibrations on for anything. This way, I check my phone when I want, and if someone messages or emails me, I will see that they did once I open my phone.
This system has worked very well for me, but find what works for you. The point is to be able to control when you deal with the randomness of life. Scheduled randomness brings proactivity to your reactive time, generating more focus, productivity, and of course, control.
This habit has had an incredible impact on my ability to reach flow and has heavily decreased my overall screen time. And better yet, I feel more in control of my emotions and my path in life. I want the same for you.
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Try this out and let me know your experiences. If you have already done this, leave a testimonial in the responses below. Creating a conversation on this topic will help deepen our understanding and keep us accountable. Happy productivity!
