Today I read about the daily annoyances in our lives that are so tiny, that I decided to share them with you as it may resonate home to you loud and clear as we are all guilty of it and they’re almost embarrassing to talk about. (Like I do not iron my clothes daily). I’m not stupid and I don’t think I’m that lazy. But the thought of ironing my clothes daily fills me with dread walking over the iron and plugging it in waiting for it to be hot every single day is a pain.
Most people don’t talk about these things because they feel so trivial. Aren’t people starving? Why am I talking about my light bulb being out? But these minor annoyances actually add up to a lot. It’s like going to the beach on holiday and walking into a swarm of mosquitoes. One isn’t so bad (F U Mr Mosquito), but if you’re getting bitten by a hundred of them, you have a serious problem. It was not a Mosquito that bit me but Two Head Monster - find out in the Bathroom Fight a Bug Story.
The Law Of Sow An Reap
We can't beat the law. Our physical health, our mental health, our business success and our personal relationships are each governed by the same equation which requires us "to pay upfront". The fascinating thing about the law is that we never know when we will be rewarded. When we receive the tail ends of our effort. However, the rewards always come and the uncertainty of the time of arrival only serves to make life more exciting.
In other words, what we have in our life at the moment is a result of the sowing we have done until now. If we have flourishing relationships, it is because we have prepared the ground and planted the seed. If our business is currently flourishing, it is because we've expended the effort to get the results. If we speak well of others, they will speak well of us, if we rip people off then we will be ripped off. If rejoice in the success of others, we will be more likely to enjoy success ourselves. If we lie, we will be told lies. if we criticise, we will be criticised. If we love, we in turn receive love.
James Allen, in his book, "As a Man Thinketh" explains the law beautifully in a poem.
"Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all result of a law which cannot err.
Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realises that he is a creative power; and that he may command the hidden soil and seed of his being out of which his circumstances grow, he then become the rightful master of himself.
That circumstances grow out of thought every man knows who has for any length of time practised self-control and self-purification, for he will notice that the alteration in his circumstances has been in exact ratio with his altered mental condition."
Being ignorant will often stand by observing those who are outstanding and remark. "I wish I had his talent" or " I wish I had her luck", and they never see the months and years of effort that moulded that person's success. How often do we read about the "overnight success" in show business and find that this new superstar has actually been slogging away for fifteen years?
The beauty of nature is that it gives us back much more than we put out. When you plant a pumpkin seed, you don't just get back one seed! no nature is very generous. Plant a few seeds and you may end up with a truckload of pumpkins. again this principle works with everything we do, but first, we need to get out in the fields and dig!
Harmful self-distractions for your SMEs
We keep putting up with these distractions day after day, not recognizing the invisible cost of each individual annoyance. We never make the connection between these 50 tiny inconveniences...and the BIG things that we always seem too tired to do.
We say, "I need motivation," but really, we already have enough -- we’re just spending it one ounce at a time on tiny bullshit. Those little annoyances are like motivation mosquitoes. They suck you dry one bite at a time until satisfied.
"Think about what it would mean if we could fix those things, wake up every morning, and have a velvet-smooth day ahead of us."
Your egg pan is already on the stove, clean and shining in preparation for the day ahead.
Your outfit is ready and matched, waiting for you to slip it on for meeting your clients.
You already have reservations for dinner tonight with your loved one.
Your bath is already waiting for you with candlelight and dim light to relax in after a hectic day at the office.
You check your bank account and you see that your savings are intact; your business account has funding for you to carry on with your business and it's profitable.
You have read The Core Assets + The Cellar: A Winners Combination and attended The Cellar for three months and now that you've increased your profit by 25% you apply for your Girlfridayz Accreditation straight from the book.
Your meal prep is already done for the week ahead to help you manage your busy schedule
YES! THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE!!
To do this, I’m going to show you how I engineer my most productive days.
Don’t worry -- I’m not going to turn you into a robotic productivity automaton. In fact, I love binge-watching Netflix just as much as anyone.
Don’t judge
Today, I'm going to talk about FOLLOWING THROUGH. It’s one thing to have a bunch of dreams. But there’s nothing worse than starting something new...then getting distracted......and doing it over and over again or quitting when the going gets hard or super hard. Hell has a special place for people who start 25 things and never finish any of them.
Like no other time in history, we’re overwhelmed with options. We’re worried about being paralyzed by too many choice-architecture. About being people who start things, but never finish. Why is it so easy to talk a big game about losing weight...or starting a business...or moving to another city...but so hard to actually do it?
To put it bluntly, I don’t want to be on my deathbed saying this: I was meant to lose weight but face it I was destined to be fat because I was fat in my childhood until 21 years old when I lost 20kg in the UK and reach my ideal weight for my height 70kg.
Well, true another revealed I stopped smoking after 42 years of smoking cigarettes on and off, and I put on weight after this to the tune of 19 Kilograms. I decided to lose the excess weight to return to 70 kg, and I already lost 14 kg—Guess how much kg I need to shed before I return to my normal weight? this is really simple math.
That’s why I’m going to show you 3 of my favourite blueprint tactics right now. Use these and watch the difference in the next 7 days.
BLUEPRINT TACTIC #1:
If it’s not on your calendar, it doesn’t exist.
My customer Melvin Moreland uses a calendar planner to manage his to-dos. he permitted me to show you his calendar month page for you to see how he runs his business. If it’s not on my calendar, it doesn’t exist. I kind of use the same technique every important thing is on my calendar, diary, and textbook. We have a similar-looking planner but that gets things done.
Look at this one: Melvin bought The Core Assets + The Cellar: A Winners Combination and created business goals around his reading habit.
His overall business goal is to acquire more customers for his bakery based in London UK. What has attracted Melvin is the perceived secret The Cellar hold. He found it quirky and ascerbated his curiosity that the password to The Cellar is inside the pages of The Core Assets + The Cellar: A Winners Combination.
Melvin knows he is not a big reader but knows that reading a Marketing and Business Book will increase his customer acquisition 10 times folds. He is determined to learn how to promote his business and speak to the right audience for his industry.
He specialised in sourdough and store pastry because he studied as a pastry chef a few years ago. Marketing is not his forte and thought that a book would help him.
Therefore, he set a reading goal in his planner for Monday 7th November 2023 to start reading three pages of The Core Assets + The Cellar: A Winners Combination and apply its content to his business.
He records other business-related goals—purchasing a new outfit to meet an important client and visiting his mother on her birthday to celebrate the day with her. He is planning to make her a beautiful birthday cake.
This is a powerful to-do list that he would normally put in the back of his head...and it would never get done. Instead, Melvin, added it to his calendar so he always gets done.
Advanced tip: You can set up weekly, monthly, and quarterly "to-dos" for things like reviewing your systems, planning an annual negotiation, reading business and marketing books, listening to podcasts, participating in membership, a workshop or even checking in on your relationship. Get your planner calendar 2024 from Girlfridayz I can design one for you for just £12 (does include delivery or third-party VAT) interested email girlfridayz@girlfridayz.com or contact us through our website.
Even if a calendar is on your phone has an app — side note if Apple or Google add it in as an app it's because it is important. What is equally important is to have a customised design planner on your office wall with your business details and you can set general business goals for the staff.
Such as remember to leave your desk tidy at the end of the day. Or you can have one on your private office wall and jot down your task to be done to execute your job smoothly and timely because the money is on the list. It is useful and versatile because it serves your customers as they recognise your logo and business name and address, it serves your staff because they know who they are working for. It helps you increase your business growth, productivity and business profitability.
With all these added benefits let us design your business planner. View our artwork design gallery.
BLUEPRINT TACTIC #2: Take an Honest Bath
So many of us start our day off with a lie:
"Ugh, I’m tired...I’ll go to the gym after work"
"Ok, for real, I’m not going to eat junk food tonight" (said while getting dressed to go out, knowing you’ll be drinking 6 JDs and passing by that pizza place in your area. You’re DEFINITELY going to eat drunk food tonight. But you deny it)
"I’m going to wake up early tomorrow" (said while browsing X and Facebook at 9 pm...only to be doing the same thing 5 hours later).
This is where I take an Honesty Bath. As a single woman living in London, there's nothing more relaxing than sinking into a bubble bath, putting on some candles, listening to music, melting the day’s stresses away, meditating about my business and how can I support small businesses and SMEs better with my services provision and my life. I came to the conclusion that our business and all the tasks, standalone business support and marketing support that we provide at Girlfridayz Limited contribute to your business growth.
It is in that space that I wrote all my business and marketing books inserted Girlfridayz16 and developed my marketing self-contained short courses, templates and business ebooks that you find on La Bootik. My Business Tools 12 business tools calculators that you can use for only £7.83 per month. I realise that my business has grown enormously after 8 years of hard work and daily consistent effort.
I introduce to you the readers of this blog article about planning for future gains my sowing so far and more is yet to come. Here's The Belly of Girlfridayz Limited The Service Buying Customer Journey — Girlfridayz Limited is an award-winning, UK government-accredited online business — a one-stop shop where multiple services are offered, allowing our clients and prospects to access Marketing and Business services centralised in one place.
Uh...what I mean is, I get BRUTALLY HONEST about myself. This means I look back at the last month and say, "What did I claim I was going to do? What did I really do?" in other words self-reflection.
And then, in classic GTD (Girlfridayz To Do) style, I do these:
Delete
Defer
Did it
Example: If I claim I’m going to wake up every day at 7 a.m., but every morning, I just slap the snooze button until it’s 8 a.m...I’m not going to wake up at 7 a.m.! DELETE! this entry means that your preferred time to wake up is 8 a.m.
If I claim I’m going to make my bed every morning, but I have a huge project to work on and I haven’t made it in the last 3 weeks, I’m not going to make my bed while the crazy project is happening at work. DEFER! this entry does not mean you'll never achieve it, it means that you need to prioritise and learn time management.
Reveal: I was overweight and felt fat. I decided to lose the excess weight. I decided to go and do my shopping in another area of London or give my three-fold brochure about my business Girlfridayz Limited to small businesses in another area by bicycle. Well, I have been doing this every day in the morning or my lunchtime or in the evening plus lifting weight twice a week for 4 months I lost 14kg. Did It! Tick this entry and congratulate yourself with a slap on your back celebrate but don't rest on your laurels systemise it because the sets of actions brought you the desired outcome and set new goals.
I also stopped eating honey roasted nuts about six packs per day plus my dinner and the go-ahead 20% less fat 4 packets daily. Did it!
How I gained so much weight is: the truth is I binged on bad sugar and good food excessively over 7 months to beat the craving for cigarettes. Once that was gone I realised I had gained 19 Kg and people were telling me in my area you've put on weight, or rude people said, you used to be all nice and neat, but now you're big but you look well with it.
Now the same people who were rude to me asking how I lost the weight and wow you look nice and well Trisha amazing how some people are hypocrites.
This takes a lot of fortitude since you have to be ruthlessly honest about your strengths and weaknesses, and your past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. If you find yourself using the word "just" -- “Ugh, I’ll just start next week” or “I’ll just try harder this week” -- you’ve already lost. Because the next thought comes with an overload of plausible excuses as to why you have not done or started and a tendency to quit before you even start.
The best part? Once you make the decision, you can live GUILT-FREE and use your energy to commit to things you’ll actually do.
BLUEPRINT TACTIC #3: Say no (use this script)
I know people who have an inbox full of things they wanted to say no to, but they didn’t want to disappoint people. they also told themselves 'I didn’t want to be rude, but truthfully, I didn’t know how to turn people down politely'.
We ALL have this -- invitations, obligations, things we don’t really want to do. Usually, we either (1) say yes, then regret it later, or (2) ignore it, hoping it will go away until our ignoring it actually becomes rude or catches us.
In truth, wouldn’t you rather have someone be honest and say, "I wish I could help, but this isn’t the right fit" quickly...rather than dragging it on and giving you false hope? Exactly. So why don’t you do it? To remove all barriers, here’s a script you can use to politely say no:
"Hi NAME,
Thanks for this invitation. I’m flattered! Unfortunately, I’ve got my priorities set for the year and this just doesn’t fit in. Again, thanks for thinking of me.
-YOUR NAME
Send that "no" script to one person today. You’ll be amazed how it feels to clear out the cobwebs of obligations and start off fresh."
* * *
Remember those 50 tiny inconveniences we all face every day?
Maybe you only have 2 coffee mugs, so you have to wash one every morning.
Maybe you need a new shower curtain, but the last time you went to B&Q, they were all sold out.
Maybe half your pants are in your closet and half in your drawer, so you have to go back and forth
It’s not shallow to want to have a smooth day. In fact, top performers go out of their way to recognize these motivation mosquitoes -- those tiny annoyances that drain your mental reservoir -- and purge with prejudice.
NOW, my favorite part!
Let’s imagine all 50 daily annoyances you have are magically fixed.
What would your velvet-smooth day look like? Play it out from waking up -- really walk me through it.
If you don’t change anything in your business, your relationship, your physical health, or your finances, if you don't train your brain to retain and recall, if you don't apply what learned what will your day look like next year? Be really specific -- what will your day look like on November 4th 2024 if you don’t change anything?
I’ll share some of the best responses over the coming week. And yes, I read every single response or comment.