How do we make friends with our monkey mind?
Our minds are like monkeys on crack. They either hold the reigns and take over, or you can control them. But how can you learn to tame your monkey friend?
- Stay focused on your goals with a powerful exercise for self-discipline.
- Learn how to set clear goals that will satisfy the monkey’s insatiable thirst for short fixes.
- Know how to stay on track by defining what is essential and what isn’t.
- Get more clarity by understanding why it is critical to define, prioritize, and identify distractions along the way.
Be more productive by focusing on tasks for a short period.
– David Wood
To find out more about Shye Gilad and Craig Moen, go to https://www.businessownersradio.com/ and view the full episode here.
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– TRANSCRIPT –
Shye Gilad: [00:00:00] You have that great quote about the monkey, so how do we shock the monkey? How do we get this? How do we corral this noise, this manic tendency in our heads to really distill these things that are most important. So how do you put that kind of framework to work?
David Wood: [00:00:14] Yeah let’s not shoot the monkey.
I’m more like. Let’s make friends with the monkey. So let’s start with step one. I would start with 12 months out. And the monkey will come in. The monkey be like, Oh, but you’ve got to do, I had one client say to me last week, I think I have too many goals. I’ve got about 20 goals for the year. I said, why don’t you just pick three to five that are going to take 80% of your focus.
And you’re really going to make sure that those happen. The rest of them, a bonus. She’s like, all right, I can do that. So that’s one way we start to do a deal with the monkey. All right. I’ll have these bonus things, but these things are what really matter. Then step two, let’s bring it back. Because one year is too long, a timeframe to really mean anything day to day.
So one client, Sam, said, how do I keep a thread between my day-to-day actions? And this year long set of goals. We just have to layer them. So let’s come back to eight weeks and write down what would have you do the happy dance in eight weeks, if you could achieve these things. And that would have, that you’re fully on track to the 12 month goals.
And again the monkey will be like, wait a minute. Let’s piling 20 more things. That’s where you’re going to have to exercise some discipline and say, all right, this is what I’m mainly shooting for. And then if I have extra time, I’ll do these other things. But that’s not enough Shye and that’s not enough Craig, we’re going to layer it again because eight weeks is still too way out there.
So I want listeners, I want you to know every single week what’s important and what’s not, and those are two. Two very critical things. You got to know what’s important. You gotta know what’s not. So step three, I recommend is pause I’ll tell you what the date is. And then I’m going to ask you to pause the recording and actually go and put it in your calendar.
You want a regular date with yourself every week for 20 minutes. That’s all I’m saying. I call it a CEO date. This is where you exercise executive function and some discipline. And you’ll look back on what you did for the last seven days, because I promise you’ve achieved 10 times more than you can remember.
So it’s important that we look back and celebrate and then look at your eight week goals and just choose. All right, for the next seven days. This is what I will do. And maybe do some post-it notes. They go up on the wall, but once you’ve done that, you’re going to need some discipline because every day.
The monkeys got to come back and say, I know you said we do these goals, but these 20 other things were important. So step three, pause the video right now. Put in your calendar, a recurring date with yourself. Every week, 20 minutes could be four o’clock on a Friday, nine o’clock on a Monday. I don’t care, but if you do this and actually show up for it, it can be a game changer because this is when you get to talk to the monkey in your mind and say, all right.
I know I want to do all this stuff, but this is what I choose to do. Then we’ll see if you can actually stay on track. That’s a whole other whole other question, but at least at the macro level, we’re starting to come back to focus because I want you to have double revenue at the end of the year. I want you to have double your time off at the end of the year.
And if you don’t focus, you’re going to feel busy during the year. And you’re going to look back and say, what the hell did I do?
