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Articles
MASTER MINDSETS – By Erika Lyemark
Frank, a West Coast film editor was feeling overwhelmed by his fast-paced career. The rush to succeed left less and less time for the important personal relationships and interests in his life. He needed to create breathing space in his daily routine. In short, Frank wanted to maximize his life without fostering an overextended regimen.
Wendy, a Minneapolis attorney, knows all about the challenges of balancing a successful career with motherhood. A self-described Type A personality, Wendy moved through the world in fifth gear. She needed help defining what was essential from the “not-so-important.” She recognized that if she learned to delegate with confidence, both at work and at home, she could take charge and control.
Stacy is a CPA who literally works around the clock during tax time. The calendar’s looming deadlines seemed like a foe, not a friend. With such a seasonal business, Stacy had to streamline her in-demand schedule. That meant spending more time on value-added tasks versus those that brought minimal benefit.
These top-tier professionals wanted to simplify and streamline so they could take charge and control of their lives. But how do you effectively change your modus operandi? It’s really difficult, if not impossible, to shift our patterns and step out of old habits all by ourselves. You’ve got to have a reflecting mirror, a sounding board, an objective guide. That’s where coaching comes in. It’s a process of shining light on your patterns and providing clarity in the fog. Coaches help you whittle away what isn’t working. Like Michelangelo chiseling away bits of stone to reveal the statue already inherent in the block of marble, coaches assist you in getting to your power core.
Everyone knows how we walk through the world starts in the mind; so organizing our thoughts is of paramount importance if we want to move from overwhelmed and overworked to clarity and command. By removing the chaos and clutter from our minds, we can streamline the entire scope of our lives.
I’ve found that there are ten LYREMARK MASTER MINDSETS that together maximize productivity and efficiency. One example: learning how to SYSTEMIZE YOUR ACTIONS.
SYSTEMIZE YOUR ACTIONS means creating a dependable structure for things you do over and over again. A SYSTEM is anything that is a distinct way of doing something on a continual basis. SYSTEMS create protocol and automate the routine or menial tasks in our life. Think of a SYSTEM as an assembly line… you do not need to remember what happens next. Just follow the SYSTEM!
Effective SYSTEMS reduce stress in work situations. They bring order to chaos, clarity to clutter. SYSTEMS allow you to take charge by helping you track what needs to be done. They’re a way of maintaining control and maximizing your time, money, energy, and focus.
SYSTEMS save brain cells. You no longer have to go round and round in your mind fretting about all the things on your to-do list. SYSTEMS create a buffer zone when you are caught off guard or are under a tight deadline. SYSTEMS keep you on task, on track, in control, and in the right direction. As kids, we had a daily structure and a system put in place by our parents that kept us on time and on task. As adults, many times we need a partner to help us set up similar structures of HARDCORE ACCOUNTABILITY.
HARDCORE ACCOUNTABILITY is another MASTER MINDSET. How often do we tell ourselves we intend to do something but never get around to it? Once you’ve mastered HARDCORE ACCOUNTABILITY, you will quit lying to yourself. HARDCORE ACCOUNTABILITY keeps you on top of your game. It propels you into action, like the starting pistol at the racetrack. Put simply, it gets the job done.
ESTABLISHING CRITIERIA is a third MASTER MINDSET that streamlines your life. Being efficient means knowing how to separate the wheat from the chaff, the essential from the not-so-important. Learning how to ESTABLISH CRITERIA gives specifics, clarity, and a checklist to any area of your life where you are confused, unsure, foggy, unfocused and out of control. It sets a standard and a guideline for you to follow. CRITERIA help you be exact about what you want and what you don’t want in all aspects of your life.
Knowing how to ESTABLISH CRITERIA is like being able to write a guidebook for your life. Feeling lost? Check out your CRITERIA. Sailing in uncharted territory? Chart your desired course with well-defined CRITERIA.
CRITERIA allow for creativity and flexibility; they’re not set in stone. What you want this year may not be what you wanted last year. Life changes and so do we. But having CRITERIA in those areas where you are struggling will bring clarity and focus so you are no longer frustrated or overwhelmed. Having CRITERIA allows you to make your commitments simple and easy. You will know exactly when to say “yes” and when to say “no.”
After many years of coaching, I’ve found it takes three weeks to break an old habit and another three weeks to start to instill a new one. It will take hard work and dedication, but it is completely possible for those who are committed to living a productive and efficient life. In my process, I first help clients become aware of their patterns and then we select short-term methods and weekly challenges to change things up. Finally we consider the long-term ramifications, the big picture, if things don’t change. All told, the client gets pushed out of seemingly secure, but stale comfort zones and invigorated with new, systematic modes of action that bring major pay-offs.
Most of the high performers I work with are close to living the life they want, but daily tasks and over-commitments often trip them up. They want change and are willing to work for it, but don’t have a SYSTEM, HARDCORE ACCOUNTABILITY, or CRITERIA to move from here to there. That’s where the LYREMARK MASTER MINDSETS come into play. By simplifying and streamlining any aspect of your life – whether it’s career, finances, time management, fitness or relationships – you minimize unproductive habits and maximize strengths. You become conscious of your patterns of thought and behavior, making it easier to chart your desired course. Then you can have great fun inviting the world in on your own terms, not just reacting to it.
Erika Lyremark is a personal coach and founder of Lyremark, a Minneapolis-based coaching consultancy that helps its clients take charge and control in a six-week Boot Camp. Contact Erika at erika@lyremark.com or visit www.lyremark.com.
