In this episode, we discuss the importance of removing things from your life so you can have more freedom.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how you can add to your life through subtraction. This is a hard lesson that I learned a couple of years ago but I’m so much better for understanding this concept. A couple of years ago, I was married, trying to write a book, trying to build up my business, and volunteer at three boards. Life was hectic and everything around me was failing.
This took a big toll on my relationship with my ex-wife because I was never around but I was trying to do all of these things so I could reach the financial freedom to help out our families. I think as Latinos, we take a huge burden on our backs to want to help our parents. Our parents sacrificed a lot to give us opportunities to succeed and we just want to pay it back. I know I want to help my parents out. They worked extremely hard to help me out and there is a guilt that I should pay it back. They are fine for the most part but this is a story I come across a lot when I sit down with Latinos. They just want to help out there parents.
That’s why I was adding everything to my plate because I was just trying to figure out how to become successful so that I can then provide more opportunities to help out my family. Plus I had to worry about my ex-wife’s family as well so there was more pressure. I ended up just failing at trying to do everything because I couldn’t focus enough on one area to the point where it could grow. If you want to see something to grow you need to put time and energy into it. If you don’t put any energy and time into your marriage, it just going to fall apart.
Same thing with your business. So if you really want to see something grow, you have to decide what you want to see grow. Ultimately I and my ex-wife chose our careers. I chose Grow With Joe because I saw that I can create a lot of good in this world and give me the lifestyle that I want. I don’t want to sit behind a desk and follow a bureaucrat system with people that I don’t respect. I want to work for myself and choose my own schedule and activities to work on. I lived that life in the Marines, in the Federal Government, and in the private sector, and being my own boss is suitable for me.
I also realized that I couldn’t be on three boards and I quit all three of them because I was being a bad board member. I wanted to focus on growing my Grow With Joe Business. If I had to focus on all the other things, I wouldn’t have written three books, created this podcast, and help out my clients. I looked at what I wanted to do and I saw that focusing on my business would create the greatest good for society.
I had to subtract all those things from my life, in order to add to my life. I’m so glad that I removed all of those things from my life because I would of burned-out along time ago if I didn’t. So if you look at your life and you feel overwhelmed, the best thing you can do is to start to figure out where you can remove things from your life.
When I do my time management consulting with individuals, one of the exercises that I take them through is the Do, Delegate, Delete, Defer list. Where you write down all the activities that you are doing and then you start to put them in those four categories. It’s been a while since I did these exercises but I need to do it soon. The idea of the exercise is that you focus on the things that matter and remove the things that don’t matter from your life by either delegating the task to someone else, deleting it from your life, or deferring the task to a later date.
We can only do so much so we have to figure out which tasks are going to give us energy and which ones are going to drain our energy. It’s a good feeling to quit something that you don’t really want to do. I remember being on those three boards and I was miserable because I was dreading doing work because I had the business that I needed to focus on. Once I quit those things, I felt so free and I don’t regret it.
The same thing applies to relationships. There are people that I cut out of my life and I feel a lot better. I don’t want to be around energy vampires that will drain all my mental capacity. I need to have people around me that will lift me up and help me reach my goals and I will do the same for them. To remove toxic people from your life, you just have to stop hanging around them. If they are family members, call them out on their negativity. Tell them that if they aren’t will to make a change, then they aren’t allowed to complain.
If they are taking an active approach and just need to vent, I can understand that. It’s the inactivity that drives me nuts and needs to be removed from my life.
So look at your life and see what needs to be removed. It could be tasks that are low value and don’t give you much of a return or it could be people that drain your energy and leave you exhausted.
I used to believe that I could handle anything and that I could add more and more to my plate. Then comes a point where there is too much to do and not enough time. So you have to make a choice on you’re going to handle your day. Is it going to be filled with you doing the things you really want to do or is it going to be filled with complaints about how you don’t have enough time to do everything and you’re not making much progress? The choice is yours, which one are you going to choose?
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, to add your life, try subtracting things away from your life. This could be activities, tasks, or people. So do an audit of your day and see what needs to stay and what needs to be removed. Do this and you will live a much more fulfilling life with less stress and more growth. And who doesn’t want that?
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
