How to Stop Being So Busy with Alex Sanfilippo

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/124

When people ask you how you’re doing, do you normally respond by saying, “I’m just so busy!” Almost everyone we know uses the word “busy” as their default response. Today I am excited to be bringing you another solo episode of the podcast to talk about how to stop being so busy. This is a topic that I am very passionate about because I am noticing the many of the people I love in the entrepreneurship world and in my personal life, allowing time to pass them by while they’re busy being busy instead of truly living a life they love and enjoy. Today I’m going to share how I began living a proactive life instead of one that is reactive and how you can do the same. Let’s get into talking about how to stop being so busy so we can enjoy our lives more!

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/124

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to the Creating a Brand podcast, where we deliver weekly interviews on topics to help entrepreneurs make their first or next step in business the right one. I am your host, Alex Sanfilippo. When people ask you how you're doing, do you normally respond by saying the words, I'm just so busy? Almost everyone we know uses the word busy as their default response. Today, I'm excited to bring you another solo episode of the podcast to talk about how to stop being so busy. This is a topic that I'm very passionate about because I'm noticing more and more people that I love in the entrepreneurship world and in my personal life while they're going through life busy instead of truly just living and enjoying their lives. Today, I'm gonna share how I began to live a life that was proactive instead of one that is reactive and how you can do the same. For links to resources that will be mentioned during this episode, please visit creatingabrand.com slash 124. And now let's get into talking about how we can stop being so busy so we can enjoy our lives more. I want to talk about an experience that I recently had. It was actually just the other day. I ran into someone that I hadn't seen in a while, and they immediately asked me the signature question that we all ask, right? Hey, how are you doing? And I immediately responded with the word busy and obviously went on to elaborate a little bit more. And they responded with some variation of, oh, I hear you. Me too. I'm busy just like you are. And this really bothered me when I was walking away from the conversation. I was really starting to think about it. And it's because I started questioning myself. It wasn't because the other person I ran into, but when I was thinking about me. I was thinking about how my default response was to tell someone that I'm busy, when in reality, I don't know is that I'm actually busy, quote unquote, which we'll get into in a little bit here. But I was really questioning why was this my default response. And so I decided to do a bit of a deep dive on this topic. And I realized that this state of busy has become the typical response for almost all of us. It's what we tell people we are when they ask how we're doing, we're busy, or what have you been up to? Oh, I've been really busy. This is just something that all of us say. And what I've come to realize is that people, humanity, we have a default mode in the world that we're living in today. And it's detrimental towards our forward progress and our overall health. And it's called being busy. And here's the funny thing about being busy, as I'm sharing on this topic. Everyone says it. My friend who works a nine-to-five job and has a growing side hustle along with a family, he's busy. And you'd say, yeah, he's definitely busy. My friend who only has a part-time job and spends the rest of his time playing video games, he tells me he's really busy. My friends who have their own startup that are working 100 hours a week, yeah, they tell me they're busy. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I definitely agree with that. My friends who are only in school also say that they're busy. And my friends who are unemployed and taking some time off just to relax also say, oh, I'm just really busy right now. Here's the point. Everyone says that they're busy and here's what I find funny about this sometimes I start feeling bad because these people are like oh man I'm working like crazy hours and I'm just so busy and I'm like oh man I really feel bad about that like internally I won't necessarily voice that but if I'm in a conversation with this person as other people present at some point somebody references a show that they're streaming and or they just found out about and that person who just told me how busy they are and how they don't have a free moment to do anything says oh I love that show I was binging it last weekend I watched like 12 episodes in a row been watching it all night, every night. And everyone around them always says the same thing, like, oh, yeah, I'm going to check that out tonight. And I'm like, thinking in my mind, I'm like, wait a minute, all of you just said that you're really busy. In my head, I'm judging everybody. I'm saying, you're not actually busy. You're just watching TV and relaxing. Turns out I was actually the one that was wrong. You see, I've always defined the word busy as being engaged in a productive activity, which turns out according to Noah Webster from the 1828 dictionary, that busy simply means employed with constant attention. So now that I've learned that I had the definition of busy wrong, again, I thought it was engaged in a productive activity, but it's actually employed with constant attention. I've realized that sitting in front of the TV is actually being busy because you're Attention is constantly being called upon, even if it's from a screen, from a TV, from a phone, whatever it is. So again, I was wrong. I thought busy had a different definition than it did. So we all technically are busy. But what I've learned is that busy is the enemy of progress. And I want to say that again because it's so important what we're talking about here today. Busy is the enemy of progress. And this is because the act of being employed with constant attention is a reactive state or mode. And the only way to actually make progress in your life is to live proactively. So again, being busy is the state of being reactive. You're reacting to whatever's happening in front of you, to the constant draw for your attention. But if you want to make progress in life, you have to begin living proactively. So I say to you, if you feel like you're just not making any progress in your personal life or in your business, it's because you've become reactive. As I stated toward the beginning of this conversation, this is really our default mode, is this reactive state. And without intentional effort, it's what's happening to all of us. So again, without being intentional, without living proactively, what happens to all of us is we fall into this reactive state, which causes us to be, quote unquote, busy all the time. And to kind of prove this point, because no one's really questioning it, I'm sure, but no one wakes up and says, oh, whoa, how did I become so successful in life? No one has ever said that. It doesn't happen by accident. It's an intentional, purposeful action that we have to take. So if you want to begin experiencing growth in your life, and I believe this leads to a happier life and a healthier business as well, you have to break free of this default mode of busy and become proactive. And you can do this through superseding your default mode of busy reactive. So I don't want to just share that with you and kind of leave you hanging. I actually want to go through five steps for living a more fulfilled, proactive life. So I'm going to go ahead and jump into those five steps now. Step number one is to decide on a primary purpose. Decide on a primary purpose. Why does your life matter? What is the purpose of it? What are you passionate about? Without knowing the answers to these questions or at least having a direction, you cannot live a proactive life because you always fall right back into the reactive state because you're not really sure where you're going. There's a quote that I love and it says, the purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. Now, a lot of people don't know how to answer this question. And for me, it's actually deeply rooted in my relationship with Jesus. But for you, it may be something else and that's perfectly fine. The point is this, you have to find something you can grab onto. And it really could be anything. Your why can change over time. And right now it could be to learn a new language, to acquire a new skill, or to simply just change something in your life. Whatever it might be, it's important that you just find that primary purpose and be intentional about it. Know what it is and know why you are focused on that right now. So again, that's step one, decide on a primary purpose. Moving on to step two, which is set a goal to reach your primary purpose. Remember that unspecific goals yield unspecific results. Living this proactive life and overcoming the busyness that we're all stuck in is a specific action, and you have to have a goal in order to do this. Now, I've covered this a lot on this podcast. You might be saying I'm not really a goal person, but you have to have a goal to reach your primary purpose, or you will never reach it. Again, unspecific goals yield unspecific results. And if you want to live this productive life, you have to be specific with what you want and where you want to go. And I'm not telling you to have 10 or 20 different goals. Think of the one most important thing that you have to accomplish before the end of the year, or the end of next year, or the end of the quarter, whatever it might be. Embrace And by doing this, you're actually giving your day meaning and purpose to follow. I know this is a topic that I could have covered in its own podcast episode, but I definitely want to give some direction before moving on to step three. And it's how to break down your goal. And this is something I pulled from Gary Keller and Jay Papasan's book titled The One Thing. They talk about taking your someday goal, so what you want to accomplish, turning it into a five-year goal, and then making it into one year, monthly, weekly, daily, and then right now. What needs to happen? And here's the kind of central question, if you will, that they have in the book. And it says this, what is the one thing I can do, such as by doing it, everything else will seem easier or unnecessary? So I want you to really think about it when you're thinking about it. goal again. Draw it out all the way from that primary purpose that you have down to the absolute one thing that you need to do right now to get you closer to it. And start from that high level and work your way down. I actually encourage you to check out this interview that I did with Jay Papasan. You can find it at creatingabrand.com slash 073. And it's titled Achieving Extraordinary Results in Your Business Slash and Life because it works really for both. But again, I encourage you to check that out because it really adds value to you if you feel that you're struggling with setting the goal side of things. One more thing on this point and then I'll move on. You can tell that I'm really passionate about goal setting I know I talk about it most episodes that I do, but it's something that Stephen Covey said. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. So remember, when you're thinking about goals, don't set a bunch of little ones. Just find the one next thing that you need to do to move closer. To recap the steps so far, number one, decide on a primary purpose. Then step two, set a goal to reach your primary purpose. And that moves us right into step three, which is to track and improve your habits so they lead you closer to your purpose. Only you can decide your habits and if they're good for you or not. Yes, there's some best practices practices across the board that could throw out, but you need to decide what's going to be right for me in order to actually get me to achieve this purpose. So is spending four hours a day on social media healthy for you? No, it's probably not. And without watching three hours of TV every day, is that healthy for you? No, probably not again. Is getting 60 minutes of exercise beneficial to your overall health and clarity so that you're able to get closer to achieving your goal every single day? Yes, that's something that would be good for you. is hanging out with your friends not only fun, but also healthy for your mind and body? Yes. What we need to do here is learn to limit the bad behaviors and celebrate and maximize the good habits and behaviors that we set. And this all happens once again by intentionality. That's really kind of one of the keys here that I'm sharing today. But if you really want to continue to move forward, you have to say no to some of these bad habits that we have, or at least minimize them. I'm not telling you to throw out your phone and burn your TV, but you need to limit those things and create a better habit around it so that you can focus once again on what matters most. The best way I find to do this is actually making a simple two-column list. First, list all your bad habits that you want to limit and then list out your good habits on the other side that you want to maximize and celebrate. Then add the amount of time that you want to spend on the bad habits every day to, again, minimize them a little bit and then do the same thing with the good habits. When you do this and you get it really organized in front of you and make some personal notes to yourself, there's no right or wrong way to do this. When you're doing that, it's really going to help you gain clarity on the habits that you need and the ones that you don't need and make sure that you're really going public with this as Well, tell other people your plan here, because when you do that, you're far more likely to actually achieve that goal or make that habit change that you're seeking. Hey, Alex Sanfilippo here, and I want to take a quick moment to intentionally serve the world with you. Here's what I want you to do. Think of the one person you know who would most benefit from listening to this episode today. Now, I want you to send it to them, but also include an encouraging note explaining why you share this episode with them specifically. By doing this, you're helping me grow this podcast, and you're also adding value to the people you care about. With that said, thank you for your continued support. It means the world to me. And now let's get back to today's episode. Now, you might be asking, Alex, when on earth am I going to do all this? You know I'm busy, right? And that would lead me straight into actually step four, which is to set aside intentional time to reflect on your progress. I once heard Brendan Bruchard say, those who reflect the most win the most. When I heard him say that was actually the moment that I decided to make reflection a regular habit in my life. And since then, I've come to realize just how true what he said is. And reflection is simple. It's not some weird or overly spiritual task or anything like that. You don't need to do anything crazy. It's really just the act of picking a time every day or every week or every month, whatever it might be. I recommend weekly and getting a pen and paper in your hand, getting rid of all the tech and writing out your thoughts. Think about what hurt you the most in the last week? What also added the most value? What held you back? What habit are you struggling with to overcome that's a bad habit? What good habit do you want to implement that you're just not making any progress with? The point, once again, is it's a little bit of like a mini tech detox because I recommend just taking pen and paper, but you're really just sitting back and thinking, okay, here's where I'm at. Let me go back to step one now and think about what my primary purpose is that I said is my primary purpose. And then step two is, I set a goal toward achieving that primary purpose. Am I making any progress there? And if yes or no toward that goal helping me achieve this purpose, what role do my habits play in that? Am I still focused too much on my bad habits or am I focused more on my good habits? Am I changing things about myself? Again, this is all part of that reflection process. And I'm telling you that when you begin doing this, you will start winning more. As Brendan Burchard says, once again, those who reflect the most win the most. And this is something that has really just changed my life. And here's another little tip for you that I think will be really helpful. You have to put this in your calendar. You can't just say, okay, once a week, I'll definitely make time to do that. No, you're going to get busy, right? Or something's going to come up. You have to set it in your calendar. And if someone tries to schedule during that time, tell them what you're doing. Again, it's not some weird spiritual practice or anything like that. Just tell them, hey, that's my time that I'm spending reflecting to make sure that I'm really making progress on this goal that I have. Let me tell you about it, by the way. Again, going public with this stuff is going to help you a lot. But this fourth point is what I'm really passionate about. Make sure that you're setting aside this intentional time to reflect on your progress in your life. And now you're ready. Here is the big one that you've been waiting for. And this is how to stop being so busy. This is step five. Remove the things that aren't getting you closer to fulfilling your purpose. I talked about good habits and bad habits in the last point, but this one is taking it to a next level. And you're really going to find out what this is through your time reflecting. You now know what really matters toward achieving that purpose that you've set. But just as importantly, you know the things that actually don't get you any closer to that. When people start asking you to do things that don't fit with the direction that you're heading in, you have to start telling them no. Sitting and watching TV for hours every night is something that you have to say no to until you've completed your most important work for that day or that week or month, whatever it might be that you're deciding to do at that point. This is the most difficult part. Saying no to things that we used to say yes to or to please people is the thing that will hold you back the most. Because here's what I've realized. When you go from living a reactive life to living one that's proactive, because it is not the default state of humanity—and I know I'm going really deep here— The world has a way of trying to get you back to a reactive mode. Now, again, I don't mean to over-spiritualize this whole process or anything like that, but I have seen this happen time and time again. When I'm living my most proactive life, I'm not busy. I'm actually thriving. I'm making big progress in the things I want to do. Life has a way of saying, no, no, no, no. Here's some other things that you have to do as well. People will show up that haven't seen in years asking me for things. Things will happen in my life that I actually have to attend to. Something will happen with the car. Something will happen with the house. These things will start happening. And again, I don't know how to explain that, but it happens every single time and you've seen it as well. When you try to live a certain way, life has a way of bringing the opposite to you. But I'm telling you what, the things that you can't control, you have to let them slide and you have to just deal with them as they show up. But you always have to ask yourself, do I really need to deal with this? Do I really need to deal with this? And a great example of this is for a while, this was years ago, I had a car that I really loved but always had problems. So it would always take me back to this reactive state instead of living proactively because I always had to go to a shop or drop it off or have someone work on it. And it wasn't costing me a lot of money and it was honestly a good car other than the fact it needed a lot of maintenance, which is actually probably the definition of a bad car. But anyway, I finally just got rid of it. I sold it for really cheap to get rid of it because I realized it was causing me to live in a reactive state. I was a slave to that vehicle instead of being able to live proactively after the things that I wanted. Because when I looked at my purpose, going back to step one, it wasn't to keep my car running. I had other ambitions and things I wanted to work on. So I had to remove that. Now that might be an obscure or odd example. But one that's probably more relatable to many of us is when your friend asks you for help with a project, or they're trying to start a company, can you work on it with them? Everything in you wants to say yes, but the truth is you're doing yourself and them a disservice because if you're not getting closer to fulfilling your primary goal that you have set, you can't serve the world on a higher level. You have to learn to say no. And to quickly recap these five steps for living a more fulfilled, proactive life. Step one, decide on a primary purpose. Step two, set a goal to reach your primary purpose. Step three, track and improve your habits so they lead you closer to your purpose. Step four, set aside intentional time to reflect on your purpose. And finally, step five, remove the things that aren't getting you closer to fulfilling your purpose. Now, a quick challenge for you before I move on to the closing part of this episode. I want you to challenge yourself to do something. Stop telling people that you're busy. Find different vocabulary to use. Instead of saying, oh, I'm just so busy, tell people what you're working on specifically. Mention the primary purpose that you're focused on. Make it interesting. Make it go beyond the default response. Let people know what you're doing because, again, this raises awareness to something that you might have that's serving the world or helping people, but also might inspire them to go out and find a better response themselves other than just saying, oh, I'm busy. And when you do this, I think it's going to really add value to you and the other person. So that's my challenge for you. Stop telling people you're busy and start using different vocabulary. Now, I want to give you a warning here. I'm going to use the word focus as an acronym. Focus in my book stands for follow one course until successful. So if you're not focused, again, following one course until you're successful, you will fall back into your default reactive mode. And here's an example of that. When airplanes fly, it's because of what is known as the four forces of flight, lift, thrust, drag, and weight. Without the active engagement of all four forces, gravity, which is the default mode, kicks back in. and anything living above its standard, such as flight, will be brought back to the ground. It's exactly the same for us. If we're not actively remembering our why, setting goals to get closer to it, tracking our good and bad habits along the way, and lastly, spending time reflecting, we can very easily fall back in this busy, reactive state, and it'll bring us right back to the ground that we've been trying to get up from. In conclusion today, I want to encourage you to be done with busy. Something that Robin Sharma says that really sticks out to me and relates to what we're talking about here is he says, don't confuse activity with productivity. Many people are simply busy being busy. So again, I say stop being busy. Take control of your life today and choose to live a life that is proactive instead of reactive. And I can promise you that both your personal life and your business will be full of greater purpose and fulfillment. I hope this episode really added value to your life. As I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, I'm really passionate about this topic because I want to see more people live lives they truly enjoy and are fulfilled by. And I hope that today's episode helped you to do that. I also want to say thank you. Thank you so much for the feedback on my previous solo episode, which was number 100. Because of the overwhelming response, I decided to start doing more of them. So thank you for reaching out. It really means the world to me and helps me know where to go with this podcast. For links to more resources on this topic, please visit creatingabrand.com slash 124 Thank you as always for listening. I'm looking forward to bring you another interview masterclass next week.