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Welcome to 2023. Whoa, it’s so fun to say that. Okay, full disclosure, I’m recording this in advance. It’s not 2023 yet for me, but it will be when you listen to this episode and I know how are we feeling? Which is why
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was it all ready January of a new year, it feels like we just started 2022 In some regards. And then at the same time, it feels like that was 17 lifetimes ago. So I’m sure you’re feeling the same way. It’s always a double edged sword. But the here and now is that you’re listening to this in 2023. And we have quite a bit to talk about. So for today, we’re going to be talking about how you spend your time, and why the how, and the what we’re talking about both of them specifically, we’re going to be talking about progress to working. What is progress to working progress to working is when you lie to yourself, and you say that you’re working. But you’re really not you’re procrastinating something. And it’s probably something different than what you think it is, which is what we’re going to talk about in this episode. A lot of times with humans on the planet in 2023. This comes in the form of distracting yourself or themselves with social media, or our phones in general, we love these little things in our hands. We love to distract ourselves from working, or enjoying the moment or feeling an uncomfortable emotion, whatever that is, by scrolling or pushing buttons on our phone. We love to do that as humans in the present time. It hasn’t always been that way. There have been other ways that people have procrastinate worked in the past. But we are going to focus on the most common current progress to working out switches, social media and phone usage. I’m going to quit saying the word progress to working I’m going to quit saying that you understand the concept here, I’m actually going to swap in a different term that you may have not heard before called buffering. Buffering was a new term to me as of a few years ago. But I learned this term from Brooke Castillo, who is the founder of The Life Coach School. And I listened to her podcast for quite a long time, I found to be very interesting, I don’t know who to even give credit to for where, or who introduced me to the podcast or how I found it, I really don’t know. But I somehow stumbled upon her podcast. And I really resonated with a lot of the things that I was learning there. I was loving it. One of the concepts that she teaches is buffering. Now I went on, I loved Brooks teaching so much I love the concepts, I could really apply it to my business in my life and see very measurable results and things coming from it, which I love. So plug for the Life Coach School podcast, go listen if you don’t already. So I ended up getting certified as a life coach through the Life Coach School in 2020. And then I really dug in to this concept of buffering. And I learned how to coach my clients about buffering and how to talk about it in a completely different way, not from someone who was coaching themselves on it or learning how to apply it to their life. But also, as you know, the flip side as the practitioner that was helping a client with this. So I feel like it’s something long overdue, we need to talk about today, there are things I don’t even know what angle I’m going to take to dive into this, but let’s just go for it. There are things that we choose to spend our time on, that don’t have a net negative effect on our lives. I for one, choose to read books, this is an example I’m gonna give you. I love to read books, all sorts of books, sometimes they are business related, which obviously makes sense given the fact that I’m a business coach. So we could say that that’s time well spent. Sometimes they’re finance related. I’m interested in history. I’m interested in self help type books. I’m interested in lots of weird topics, learning related, if there’s something I’m interested in, I’m probably going to buy a book or five about it. And deep dive because that’s what I like to do. So you can see that that would be useful. Right learning something totally makes sense. You’re going to read about it. But sometimes I read books that are not learning related okay, that have no use in my life other than just checking out my brain. I love me some murder spy, CIA military bad guy and good guy Mission Impossible type books love those. The more murdery the better. Typically what I read I love if you haven’t read Okay, first of all, the gray Man series of books is amazing. Very good. The wall book to not so much but keep going through book to keep going. I think there’s like 11 or 12 books. It’s great. The movie that was made the gray man it’s terrible. It doesn’t follow the books but I love the gray Man series. I love me some Mitch Rapp. I love some Jack Reacher I love all of that genre. Okay, some of my favorites. Sometimes I also read mindless literature. I’m not above it. Just a complete unplugged distraction. Read for me. Sometimes I do doesn’t matter. The point is sometimes I read books for no other reason than to just shut off my brain and because I like it. Okay, there’s nothing else I’m getting out of it. And I choose that. Now I’m not reading those books instead of taking on my other responsibilities or instead of doing the other things on my to do list so it’s not a net negative effect in my life, too.
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Read books for no reason to just like fiction books just read them. No, it’s an enjoyable pastime, where I rest my brain very intentionally. Sometimes I learned something with the books I read. But other times, very often I just mentally Chase bad guys.
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And that’s not buffering. I know, I said, I was going to introduce buffering, but I just gonna tell you, that’s not actually buffering unless it turns into a net negative experience in my life, meaning that the benefits don’t outweigh the costs. I love to think about things this way with net negative because there are things that we do. That could be at certain points just fine and other points, there’s like a tipping point where it becomes a net negative, and it’s actually costing us something else in our life, which is why I love the actual concept of buffering when I first learned about it from The Life Coach School podcast, and then more in depth in my coach certification training, because I think this is something we are innately aware of. But putting words to it, and actually isolating what buffering is, for me, it was so helpful, and I hope that it is helpful for you too. So here are some common buffering activities, could be overeating, could be over learning, over researching, overspending, overworking, over drinking, over scrolling, over people pleasing, you name it, any of those things could be okay in moderation, or they could turn into a net negative when we put over in front of it. All of these are buffering behaviors that people would use you me people, they the ultimate, they use to pull our attention away from the emotions that we don’t want to feel. That’s why we do them. There’s a short term dopamine hit in our brains when we do these activities, followed by a temporary distraction from an uncomfortable emotion that we don’t want to feel. And our human brains love to feel pleasure, and to avoid pain. So think about the truth of that the biological truth is that our brains love to feel pleasure, and to avoid pain. So without any planning from us, if we’re not thinking ahead to our future selves into the long term pleasure that we want in our life, and the long term pain that we want to avoid, our brains will always prioritize short term feeling pleasure in short term, avoiding pain. But the cool thing about us as humans as we do have that ability to plan and we do have that ability to look towards the future and to project what is going to be actual pleasure long term, and what is going to be actual pain long term, which is cool, it’s really cool. We have this ability to think about our future selves, like no other creatures that we know of can do. All right. So we want to know this about our brains that we would love to buffer because it gives us short term dopamine hit, it’s fun, it feels good, it feels really good to overeat in the moment, it does not feel good to overeat long term, it feels really good to scroll social media in the moment, instead of doing the next item on our work to do list. But in the long term, it doesn’t feel good, we definitely definitely get a short term dopamine hit from overspending, or shopping, or over shopping or whatever you want to say that. But in the long term, it isn’t quite as exciting that fades really quickly see how this goes. Given an opportunity, our brain is going to prioritize that short term hit the feel good hit, and to not want to feel pain, pain in this situation would be whatever uncomfortable emotion we are trying to avoid. And our brains will choose to do this over and over and over again, if we aren’t aware of what’s going on. For me, it’s overeating to avoid feeling bored, or overwhelmed or restless. Not to say that there are other things that I buffer with. But I know for sure that mindless snacking is one of these things for me, it’s my go to I find myself quote unquote, needing you can’t see but when it’s like I find myself needing some cashews in between tax tasks on my to do list. And definitely putting needing in quotes here. I find myself during the work day, thinking that I really just need maybe a few chips before I take on the next thing, right and I’m like going to the bathroom. And then I’m like, quick stop in the kitchen. Just for a little, a little handful of something before I go to the next thing. If I don’t catch myself, that is what my brain wants to do. It wants a short term, dopamine hit distraction, to procrastinate work from the actual work that I need to do. And that’s where I’m trying to avoid feeling overwhelmed. This specifically happens when I noticed for myself, maybe it’s different for you. But I noticed for myself this happens when I have a really long to do list or when I have a particularly arduous task coming up next on what I plan to do in my day, then I will somehow really need something salty and crunchy. First.
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I’m so honored myself I could see it just as clear as day as I tell you the story. I also find myself needing with air quotes needing a pre dinner appetizer. A lot of the times when I’ve wrapped up my work day and my kids are busy doing something else and I’m just kind of twiddling my thumbs while dinners in the oven or it’s
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Like, I don’t really have anything to do, and I get this bored feeling, or this restless feeling. And some point, my brain has decided that feeling bored or overwhelmed or restless is a problem. For me, those are the three big ones. And so it tries to solve that problem by thinking that we need a snack, or pre dinner appetizer or something, we need to put something in our mouth. Because we cannot feel bored or overwhelmed or restless. Do you know what I mean?
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For me, that’s when I noticed hardcore buffering, it’s snacking if I’m not paying attention, if I can’t see, oh, I’m bored right now. And my brain doesn’t want to be bored. It wants to distract from feeling that emotion, because that is not pleasure. That is pain. For me. It wants to give me some pleasure. Instead, it wants to give me a short term hit of some salty, crunchy snack real quick, instead of feeling bored or overwhelmed or restless. Now, why this is important, because you have emotions like that, too. And we’re going to talk about it in a minute. What are yours? How do you figure out what your emotions are, that your brain wants to procrastinate work instead of feeling or it wants to completely buffer against. So I’m gonna give you like a different way to think about this. I was talking to a coach friend of mine about eating a lot of cookies. Last year during our mastermind event. So this is another coach friend of mine, we’re in a mastermind together. And we were at a live event we were putting in really long days, and tackling lots of big business projects and decisions over the course of three days. And to be honest, my brain was fried. Okay, these are very long days, I’m staying up way later than usual. And just really thinking hard. So during this live event, there were amazing fresh baked cookies. On the sideboard in our breakout room, there was coffee, there was water, that was cookies that kept coming in fresh and hot was like what has happened. It’s just more and more rookies coming in. And I was hitting them hard. These cookies, they didn’t know what was coming for them. I was hitting them hard. And so I was telling my coach friend about this, I was she’s a weight loss coach. And I was kind of pitching to her about it. I was telling her how I could see myself as the days were going on. And as the hours were getting later, I was getting more overwhelmed, and more tired. And I was reaching for those cookies. And so she asked me what I got in that moment of eating the cookies. And I answered her honestly, I got about 60 seconds of rest, not thinking about my looming to do list. I mean, I don’t exactly remember how this conversation went. But she’s like, Well, what do you get from it? What do you get from the cookies? I’m like, I don’t I get 60 seconds of rest. And I thought she was going to give me a strategy to avoid the cookies. She didn’t do that. She commented on my choice to eat the cookies. And I’ll never forget it. She said that was the most brilliant decision. And I was like, oh, what? No, it wasn’t brilliant, ate five cookies. And I felt terrible afterwards. But she persisted, she told me it was the most brilliant decision to eat those cookies, because of what I got out of it. Because I wanted rest and a moment of comfort. And that’s what my brain offered. It solved the problem. So it was actually brilliant. Now, of course, we had a follow up to that I had lots of questions. And I definitely challenged her on this. But she showed me how it would also be brilliant to skip the cookies, and just rest on purpose. Because that’s what I really wanted. In that moment. I didn’t want the cookies. I didn’t I just wanted some rest. I wanted to rest my brain I wanted to rest. So she said Now what if in the future now that you know that your brain is brilliantly solving this problem of needing some rest. What if you just skip the cookies and rested on purpose. So we’re going to talk about that in a moment. But it was very profound for me knowing that it was brilliant for my brain to buffer. It wasn’t something that was problematic that I could never figure out. It was like, Oh, this is a brilliant thing. My brain is just solving what it perceives to be a problem, nothing has gone wrong. When we do this, our brains are just offering us a solution to a problem that it thinks that we have, which is getting some pleasure and avoiding some perceived pain. That’s it. That’s all our brains are doing when we buffer. Social media scrolling is the same thing. And that’s the example I want to keep using here. Because I know that so many people that listen to this podcast, do this and don’t want to do this. I hear from you all the time, that you don’t actually want to be scrolling on social media that you don’t actually want to be tied for it tied to it for your business purposes, that you don’t actually even want to use it personally that often. But you feel compelled to keep it on your phone and you find yourself. Keep going back to it day after day, week after week that you’re spending time scrolling social media when you don’t want to be. So it’s definitely a buffering behavior in that situation. It’s definitely creating a net negative result. So we’re going to keep talking about it. Now, maybe for you this rest example, actually is what’s going on in your brain. If you’re scrolling social media mindlessly, maybe your brain like mine wanted to get some rest and to zone out and to just escape boredom. I
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Get it. Because I did the same thing sometimes when I was on social media and when I had those apps on my phone, and I do the same thing as well, with reading books, reading mindless fiction books that are doing nothing in my life, other than just giving me some rest, and allowing me to zone out. The thing is, it’s not buffering, if it isn’t creating a net negative result in your life, it’s brilliant, really, our brains are actually so smart. So boredom is a perceived problem for you, your brain is going to solve that problem by making sure you’re never bored. That’s exactly what mine is doing. And that handy social media scrolling device in your hand is a great way to do just that. It’s very brilliant. Now add in a few hits of dopamine, because people like your posts, or your videos or your reels, and it’s pretty good feedback to your brain to keep doing it. It just reinforces Yes, this is what we need to do we get we get dopamine, they’re just like me with the cookies, throw in some flour and sugar. And that’s like a really quick dopamine hit to the brain that says, See, we wanted some rest. But we even got a few hits of dopamine here with the sugar, this is great for 45 seconds, and then we feel terrible for 45 hours.
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But really, when you could see what your brain is doing, when you buffer, you can see what your client’s brain is doing when they buffer I can see what my brain is doing. When I buffer, I can see what my client’s brain is doing. When they buffer we can see what’s actually happening there. It’s brilliant. But first and foremost, if you find yourself scrolling social media way more than you want to or doing any of these buffering behaviors, really stop judging yourself for doing a brilliant thing, your brain is wired for that. So just know that first and foremost, your human brain is seriously hardwired to do these behaviors. But that doesn’t mean that it is a habit that you can’t overcome, you absolutely can. With any buffering behavior, that’s giving you a net negative result in your life, you first need to figure out why you’re doing it. For me with the cookies. As we established, it was rest, I just really wanted to rest, I was tired, my brain was tired, I had been thinking very hard. I’d been making big decisions, it had been long days. And really, I just wanted rest. Now that I’m on to myself, I can see that those snack attacks that I was talking about earlier, are always correlated to me working too much, or not planning enough rest, always I can see this now as I can take that insight about wanting rest. And I can look globally at when I buffer and when I am using buffering behaviors that are creating a net negative result in my life, I can see why it is. It’s because I really want rest. So what is it for you, that’s what you’re gonna figure out. Apparently, my brain thinks that it’s a problem, to feel overwhelmed, or to feel bored or to feel restless. And it solves it with snacks. I could tell you with full, full conviction that I don’t reach for chips when I’m feeling focused, or I’m feeling calm, or I’m feeling content. That is not when I am reaching for trail mix, or chips. No, because my brain doesn’t want to buffer those emotions away. It doesn’t think it’s a problem to feel focused, doesn’t think it’s a problem to feel calm, or content or motivated. Whatever that is, whatever those emotions are. Apparently I don’t have any reason to buffer those away. My brain doesn’t want to buffer those away and wants to just feel those and keep going. It only wants to buffer away the emotions that I’ve decided somewhere along the way are a problem. I’m sure your brain has done the same thing. So when you buffer, what are you trying to avoid? Now remember buffering can be any number of activities, but it’s a behavior that you find yourself doing that’s creating a net negative result in your life. Big ones are over drinking, over eating over scrolling, overworking, over people pleasing. What is that for you? And when you buffer? What are you actually trying to avoid? Is it boredom? Like me? Is it overwhelm? Is it inadequacy? Is it pressure is it perfectionism? What things are you actually trying to avoid? When you buffer? Just name it? Understand it? Like really explore for yourself what emotion you’re not wanting to feel in that moment when you’re doing the things if it’s scrolling social media for you think about what is that thought right before you grab your phone? What is it for you? What are you not wanting to feel look for your patterns, and just get really curious with yourself. Like I’ve said 100 times not for me it’s boredom and overwhelm, and restlessness. I have realized that I do not want to feel those emotions ever, ever, ever, ever. I hate it always. Always going to try to avoid those if I just leave my brain to its own devices. It’s going to find brilliant ways to distract me from feeling those emotions it will usually involve snacking.
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So good to have this awareness. Now apparently for me, I can operate just fine in the middle gives me by the middle, the middle between boredom and overwhelm. I think that those are kind of pulled
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polar opposite emotions right on one of the spectrum your board, you have nothing going on the other end is the overwhelm. And there’s too much to do or too much going on. So apparently, in the middle, I can operate just fine without any salty crunchy snacks to get me through.
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But when we get to either end of the spectrum, my brain gets really panicky, and it wants to buffer with snacks or overworking To be honest, overworking is another way that I buffer or if I have too much on my plate, and I’m feeling overwhelmed, it wants to just shut down and snack instead. In that moment, too. It’s like, okay, here, we’ve reached some sort of threshold where there’s too much going on, we must have a snack and have rest for 60 seconds, I could see this. Chips are always the answer that my brain offers. No matter what the question is, I’m on to myself. So what is it for you? What are you avoiding? As we’re talking about buffering, as you’re thinking about this for yourself? What is it that you do? What’s the behavior? And what are you trying to avoid when you do it? Is it boredom? Is it overwhelmed? Is it pressure? Is it perfectionism? What is it for you? And then when you’re distracting yourself? What are you really wanting in that moment? Think back to when I told my friend about the cookies. And she said that was brilliant. Because you’re you really wanted rest and your brain provided an outlet for you to get some rest? What is it for you when you’re distracting yourself with social media? Or scrolling? or overeating? Or over drinking? Or any other buffering mechanism? What are you really wanting in that moment? Figure that out for yourself? Is it relaxation? Is it rest? Is it escape? Is it validation? Or comfort? What is it that you’re actually wanting in that moment? Name it, understand it, see it for what it is, and then plan for it created intentionally? I want you to really ask yourself, how do you create more of that feeling? Or that experience that your brilliant brain is asking for? without picking up your phone? Or with outreaching? For a bag of chips? Or without working another hour? What is that for you? Or without? If you’re a people pleaser, or without putting someone else’s needs before yours? What is it? What are you creating more of intentionally so that you don’t need to buffer against it, your brilliant brain wants something what is it, understand it, name it and then plan for it very intentionally, like I said, I can see that I really go for the snacks. Just like I really could see this, I really go for the snacks at a high level when I am not resting enough when I’m not planning rest enough. So a strategy for me in my in planning out my time is to intentionally plan rest. And sometimes I have a really hard time honoring that. And I kind of fight against myself and have to really coach myself to intentionally rest because my default is is to get a little bit more done to get ahead for tomorrow. And to not rest, which is when I then find myself buffering with lots of different things, I don’t want to do that. I want to honor myself and I want to plan ahead and I want to give myself rest. Sometimes that means I intentionally feeling bored, I feel bored on purpose. Sometimes I just go for a walk with no air buds. I know, I know, it’s crazy, it’s crazy to think about, I just go for a walk with nothing in my ears. And I’m just bored on purpose. And what happens is that I’m not actually bored for that long. But if I’m willing to feel bored, and to not buffer against it, then it’s not a problem anymore. And I can see the more I do this, that my brain is reaching for the trail mix less, because I’m just willing to feel bored. And I’m also building in more rest. So it’s a beautiful thing. So for you, if distracting yourself with social media is a problem in your business or in your personal life, or it’s creating a net negative result that you don’t like because you’re just finding yourself wasting so much time you get in the rabbit hole. And suddenly an hour has gone by in your workday and you don’t even know what happened. That would definitely be a net negative result. If that’s happening for you then figure out what you’re trying to create in that moment. What is your brilliant brain actually going for? Is it rest? Is it distraction? Is it validation? What are you actually picking up your phone for? And how can you create more of that on purpose, and build it into your schedule and build it into your week so that you’re creating it on purpose. This is so important because this is a skill that we can teach ourselves and then model for our kids and for our clients and for our fellow business owners. I am telling you I reclaimed at least 10 hours a week that’s conservatively at least 10 hours a week in my business and in my personal life when I quit scrolling and deleted social media out of my life and business. That’s a lot of time
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That’s a lot of bandwidth that I suddenly reclaimed. That’s a lot of time that I reclaimed and then got to decide what do I want to do with this 10 hours a week. A lot of times, my brain thinks that it is a problem that we have an extra 10 hours a week, because it doesn’t want to be bored. So I can see that I can plan for it, I can be bored on purpose, I can plan for more rest all of the strategies I’ve already told you about. But it’s really important to just know that as I’m working through that for myself, I’m also modeling that for my kids, and for my clients and for other people around me, which I think is really important. So many people, let’s just acknowledge the elephant in the room, many people think that social media has to be part of their business. Like if you have a business and 2023, you have to be on social media, people tell me this all the time.
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And I’m like, why not on social media. And then they have a very, very confused look on their face, which is my favorite. It does not have to be unless you consciously choose it to be. But don’t buffer with social media and then call it working, that’s progressed to working.
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That’s when you say I have to go post on social media, I have to do videos, and you know that it’s going to result in a half an hour of you scrolling other people’s stories, or looking at other people’s posts? No, that’s progressive working, you don’t have to do that. You don’t need to know what your colleagues are doing, or how they’re selling or how they’re marketing or what they’re up to you don’t, you don’t have to be scrolling and signing up for more free trainings, or buying stuff from ads, and then lying to yourself and call it work. Oh, it isn’t. So be honest with yourself about what you’re actually doing. If and when you’re Mindlessly scrolling on social media, and 60 minutes goes by, or an hour and a half, and you have no idea what happened. But your work still isn’t done for the day. That is for sure. A net negative result that is buffering, my friend. But what do you do instead of scrolling or posting on social media to market your business? And to get clients? How do you do it? This is the follow up question that everyone asked me. They’re like you can do that. You can have a business without social media said for sure have an online business without social media? Like what? And then the next question every single time is, well, how do people find you if you’re not on social media? very confused. I’m so glad you asked. This is something you’re wondering about. I’m going to teach you all of the ways earlier this month, or well, this month as I’m recording it. But a month ago, as you are listening to this episode, I debuted a brand new live webinar called three secrets to making 100k in your practice without social media. And it was by far the best class I’ve ever taught. I mean, I thought that the content was good. I thought it was the best class ever. But I know that other people also thought it was the best class I’ve ever taught. Because I had so many emails coming in afterwards, telling me that the content was so helpful. And thanking me for teaching it and saying how come I never knew this before, and all of that great feedback. So a large part of what I taught in that class is what to do instead of marketing on social media. So it definitely ties into this buffering conversation today. If you missed the last webinar, in December, you are in luck, because I am running it again and teaching it live on January 5, meaning if you are listening to this episode in real time, you have to go reserve your seat right now. Because that is in just a couple of days. So go to build a profitable practice.com/learn le AR n again, it’s the three secrets to growing your practice to six figures without social media. It’s a full live class, you’re going to have all of the strategies I’m teaching a few of them even that I have never shared before outside of my paid program. So you definitely want to be there if you have not already seen it. And even if you have maybe you want a refresher, register at Build a Profitable practice.com/learn Okay, have a wonderful week, my friend, and thank that brilliant brain of yours for all the hard work it does on your behalf and for everything he’s going to do for you in 2023.
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I’ll see you next week.
