00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on Episode 5 38 of the inspired Stewardship podcast. I'm Matt Woodrum, Park Cassar and Father and Training. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invested others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talents, angel treasures, having the calling to face your demons and struggle to become a great father for your Children. And one way to be inspired to do this. It's so listen to the inspired stewardship podcasts with my friend Scott Medard. They got a routine that got a structure.
00:00:49 They got a set of things that they do and they're good things, But they're not the best things. They're not the things that really move the needle for him. They're not the things that make the big changes or the big differences. This is when you spend your day working, going from little emergency tow little emergency from little Tasked. A little task. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time,
00:01:22 your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired storage of podcast will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. In today's episode about investing in yourself by Stuart In your time I talk with you about why your comfort zone is it always your friend when it comes to productivity and getting things done? Why your comfort zone turns out to be so hard to leave and why, Even if you're productive in your comfort zone,
00:02:02 that can turn out to be a trap as we talk about stewarding your time. Wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long?
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00:02:22 and a small commission will come back to support the show just that quick. If you enjoy the show when you are ready to buy from Amazon,
00:02:30 just use inspired stewardship dot com slash amazon. Everybody has a comfort zone, you know, we talk about comfort zones a lot when we're talking about doing things that are outside of your comfort zone,
00:02:46 pushing yourself to grow or to do something that's challenging, perhaps something that you really want to do. But you're afraid of it.
00:02:54 Or there's something holding you back from doing it, whether it's jumping out of a plane to do skydiving or whether it's getting up in giving a speech in public.
00:03:03 We all have things that fall outside of our own comfort zone, and being aware of that is an important factor.
00:03:13 But when it comes to being productive and getting things done, you also have a comfort zone. You have certain habits and mindsets that you fall into around productivity,
00:03:25 and we all have them. Whether you're aware of him or not is a different question. But I guarantee you that you have them.
00:03:33 We all have certain patterns of behaviour routines that we fall into no matter what and often ties. What happens is those build up over time and become so ingrained in our neurobiology that were not even aware that we're doing it.
00:03:50 You're doing it on autopilot. If you stop and think about it. When you got up this morning and did things you did probably very very similar things to what you did yesterday and probably very similar things to what you'll do tomorrow.
00:04:06 And if you haven't intentionally thought about this and done the hard work of breaking bad habits and forming new habits and creating ah,
00:04:15 morning routine that has structure and has the things in it that you want, then odds are good that that routine is just built up over time by accident.
00:04:28 But it's comfortable. It feels good. It feels like you're getting things done. You know, this is also a trap that we can fall into with things like email.
00:04:38 I'm running an inbox zero challenge this week on my page over on Facebook, and one of the things that folks are saying is when they actually sit down and start looking at it.
00:04:49 You know, getting into your email and doing something feels like you're being productive. But sometimes that's not product productivity.
00:04:59 Sometimes turning off your email and getting some focused work done on something that has nothing to do with email is the way you can be the most productive.
00:05:10 But because email gives you that feeling of productivity, we get trapped into it the same thing happens with notifications on your phone is those notifications pop up.
00:05:21 You respond to him because it feels like you're getting something done, and sometimes you are. But sometimes you're not.
00:05:30 The truth is, we need to examine the things that we do out of habit and routine the things that we do not because they make the most sense,
00:05:39 but because they feel the most familiar. They feel comfortable, and we need to begin to examine those things and begin to break down.
00:05:48 Is this something that I want to keep doing, or is this something that I need to change? But the problem is,
00:05:57 of course, changing. Leaving your comfort zone is hard. There's a couple of reasons why. First off,
00:06:04 generally leaving your comfort zone feels vulnerable. It feels like you're exposing yourself to something that has a risk involved with it.
00:06:15 It feels like you could be socially ostracised. You could be put out in exposed in a way that leaves you out of the inn group.
00:06:24 It leaves you on the outside looking in, and that fear can hold us back. That's often what's happening when people have a fear of public speaking.
00:06:33 But there's other things that go on to there's actually believe it or not. A brain chemistry reason why living leaving your comfort zone could be so hard,
00:06:41 too, because it turns out that what happens is when you build up a habit. When you do the same thing,
00:06:46 time after time after time, you can think of it as if those those neurological connections the connections between the the synapses in the brain becomes stronger and stronger and stronger.
00:06:57 In fact, they never really go away completely unless there's some sort of brain damage or disease. Instead,
00:07:06 they could become stronger or weaker. So when you form a new habit, those old connections air still around.
00:07:13 And that's why it's so easy to slip back into those old bad habits really quickly when you're trying to form a new good habit because the brain wiring is still there for the old habit,
00:07:27 it's still strong. It's still active, and until you give it enough time, which, by the way,
00:07:33 is a lot longer than most of us think. You feel trapped inside that comfort zone. It's it's easy to bounce back toe what you've done before because it feels right.
00:07:46 Your brain says yes, this is what we should be doing and pulls you back down into that old bad habit.
00:07:54 But let's talk about even productivity in your comfort zone. Let's assume you have some really good routines. You've got a good structure.
00:08:02 You managed to get a lot done and you feel very productive and in the zone. And that can still be a trap because one of the things that I've seen happen with folks is they've got a routine.
00:08:17 They've got a structure, They've got a set of things that they do, and they're good things. But they're not the best things.
00:08:24 They're not the things that really move the needle for him. They're not the things that make the big changes or the big difference is this is when you spend your day working,
00:08:34 going from little emergency tow little emergency from little tasked a little task, and you never move the needle on the big projects that will actually make a difference.
00:08:45 I'm guilty of this, too. I've had a couple of things on my project list that I haven't even started on yet that I want to get done this quarter and the truth is,
00:08:55 time is ticking away, but it's easier to fall back into the routine of doing the regular things that I've got on my calendar each and every day that it is toe carve out some time and dedicate it to doing the big things that will really move the needle for me in the long term,
00:09:12 but I've committed to doing those things. So now I'm starting to schedule some time. I'm blocking off some days on my calendar,
00:09:20 and I'm assigning those days toe work on those big projects. I'll turn off email. I'll turn off notifications on my phone.
00:09:27 I'll turn off YouTube and Facebook and all the other things that can crowd into my brain, and I'll do the focus work that it takes to do those really big projects.
00:09:38 And that's what you have to do to and guess what? That doesn't feel comfortable or I could just slip back and keep doing what I've been doing and keep getting what I've been getting,
00:09:50 not make the big changes that are really needed to make big changes in your life. So what are you doing toe?
00:09:59 Identify where your comfort zone is and to figure out. What do you need to change so that you can really be doing not just a lot of things but doing the right things?
00:10:12 Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener,
00:10:24 we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen. But act on what you've heard and find a way toe.
00:10:32 Live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips.
00:10:41 Siri's by going to inspired stewardship dot com slash time or texting. 44222 time tips and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time investor time,
00:11:03 your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact world.