How to improve yourself in three simple steps

Welcome to the You Unleash Podcast with Femi Akimi, the podcast where we explore how to unleash your potential in the workplace, your hustle, and life in general with practical steps. Sometimes I'll use stories from my past, and trust me, I've got some stories for you. But sometimes I'll share just stuff I've learned, and other times we'll get people, the experts who know a lot more than I do, to come into the studio and chop it all up with us. This is podcast 4, so I'm really looking forward to the feedback we get. As usual, I've become a believer that done is better than perfect, so we had to go get the show on the road continuously and kind of get better as we go along. There's no point waiting. As they say, a closed mouth don't get fed. So why don't we just start? So, as usual, please don't forget to like the podcast, share it with your friends. Don't hoard knowledge, my friends. Don't hold on to it, share it and leave some feedback on the pages per usual. I have a very special gift, so wait for this at the end and make sure you hang on to the end just so you know what it is. But in the meantime, let's jump right into it. As I say, as usual. So a few days ago, I was talking to someone I know. I don't really know him, know him, but we're quite good friends. We get on, and we got to talking about Christmas, and then he just says, Oh, I just can't wait to shut down, I can't do any more work, it's the end. I just my brain has frozen over, etc. etc. It was a message of finality, or shall we call it, of satisfaction. Like I've done it, I've had my year and I'm ready to wrap it up. Now I understand Christmas is a time of celebration, the season of giving and the time of holidays. It also happens to be the end of the year. So, on some level, there is a temptation to chill out and just switch off. This is my first key point of today. As human beings, there's always a temptation to take the path of least resistance, or as Brian Tracy will say, we want to have our dessert before our vegetables. I mean, you want to have your chocolate pudding before you have your Brussels sprouts. Human beings have a natural desire to just hang around loaf and do nothing. We have a long life assignment to master this desire though. The reality is if you give anybody a chance, they'll sit on the sofa and do nothing. So we have to figure out how to master that desire and become very productive. Now, back to my friend who is wanting to shut down. Now, I'm all for shutting down, this is fine, but only for a very short moment, and certainly not without an important activity called self-reflection. Self-reflection is defined as serious thought about one's actions and character. Basically, it's looking it's about looking into the mirror and describing what you see. And what we're saying is you need to look at the mirror of yourself and go, How well have I done? Now, Cao Zhang, the thinker and philosopher, says, He who looks outside or she who looks outside dreams, but he or she who looks inside awakes. It's pretty deep. But what it means is if you keep looking outside, you'll be dreaming. But if you look inside, you will see yourself for who you are. It's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day aspects of life and forget to pause, self-reflect, and look at the bigger picture. Slowing down, slowing slowing down and kind of taking time to think about your life is really helpful in creating a better sense of who you are, who you want to be, how you'll get there. But this goes for your year as well. We get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of career, family, finance, business, relationship, the ups and downs, the emotional road across to that is called life, that we forget to pause sometimes and just ask ourselves, what on earth am I doing? And how and why am I even doing it? And if I'm doing it, am I even doing it well? So self-reflection helps us to build a better sort of emotional self-awareness. You know who you are, you're more centered. So by taking time to ask yourself the important questions, you just get a better understanding of your emotions, your strengths, your weaknesses, and the driving forces behind your life. Once you understand these important aspects of yourself, you become better able to adapt to changing situations, tough circumstances. But this applies to your year, it's about getting an understanding of your year and the things you've done really well, the things you didn't do well, so that you can adapt and you can prepare yourself for the next phase. But integrity even comes, so when you reflect, you get integrity as well. And I've done a I've done a short talk about this. If you should check me out on my Instagram page, Femi Akimi. Integrity is about being whole, it's about being clear about who you are. Integrity is, in effect, a whole number, you're not a fraction, you're a whole, and that's because you're clear. And it's the same with this: you get more integrity when you have time to reflect on your core values, you know who you are, no one can sway you. So having a clear understanding of what your values are, what's important to you, what's important to you, and what's at the forefront of your mind strengthens your decision making, and this applies to your year as well. When you reflect on your year, you know what's gone well, what hasn't gone well. By the time you go into 2020 or whatever the year is, you are clear, you are focused, you have integrity in your plans. Our lives often become a cycle of doing, producing, where we want to just maximize productivity and minimize time. And we're always acting and moving from one thing to the next, and we forget to stop and just think. But taking time to think allows for new ideas to emerge, and it allows us to not become stagnant when you don't pause to think, you just do the same thing over and over, and you just realize 10 years later you're still the same dude, you're still the same lady, and people just you become boring, you don't switch it up. And this life is about switching it up, about being innovative, transforming yourself. And you can only do this when you think, you reflect on yourself in your career, you go back to work in 2020 of a changed man or woman with a clear idea of how you want to switch things up in your family, in your relationships with your husband, your girlfriend, your boyfriend. You just come with new ideas, a clear game, and and no matter what your situation, this is important and it applies to our year as well. So, understandably, when we say self-reflect, I know a lot of us kind of just think, Oh, this is a mystical activity, but in actual fact, there are some simple techniques or methods you can apply to this that make it just a lot easier for you, and this is my gift to you, and I'll show you how to get it. But I'm telling you this: there is a simple way you can get a piece of paper, get a pen, and figure out how to just review your year, and or you don't need to do much, I'll explain that to you. But the approach is called the stop, start, continue. Now, for some of you, this is actually quite familiar, you've heard of it in the workplace, but you can actually apply it to yourself. So, why don't we just start with stop? Stop is what it means, it's a red sign. What are the things you need to stop or the things you've been doing that don't really add value to you or others? You just and you also need to think when you're thinking about this, think about the different hats you wear as a family person in your family, as a brother, sister, husband, mother, son, cousin in your family. What are the things you do that don't add value to yourself or others? In your business, is it a product? Is it a process? Is it a service? What are the things you need to stop doing? I think Tim Ferris, the author of the four-hour work week, came up with a very fantastic um idea where he said it's almost as important to have a not-to-do list. What are the things that are on my not-to-do list? And that's the same for you. What are the things you're going to stop this year as a business person in your career? Is it going to be really about being very submissive to your peers at work? Are you going to stop that in your finance, in your habits? Think through the things you you did in this place and why it's not good for you. This helps you understand as well. And I'm thinking I'm asking you to think about why it's not good for you because it kind of helps you understand the impact it's having on you. It triggers an emotion, and this emotion comes out and you never forget it. But if you're struggling with remembering, remembering, I would suggest looking back in quarters. You just look at January to February, April to June, July to September, and October to December. Look at those months and kind of break it down there and think about the things you want to stop doing that you did last year. Personally speaking, I want to cut down on binge watching TV series at the at the wrong time. Now, binge watching in itself isn't a bad thing, but binge watching when I have loads of things on my to-do list is not a good idea, it's not productive, it slows me down, and ultimately it's a waste of my time. But what I will do is I will think about a way to binge watch in a way that is productive and doesn't harm, or well, I wouldn't say productive, but it doesn't affect my productivity. You get it? So, what is on your stop list? What are the things you're gonna stop in 2020? And think about it as a family, business, career, finance, habits, or the relationships. There's a load of things you can think about. Now, the next one is start. Now, this is sometimes the opposite of things you want to stop. It also is things you just realize you need to start doing as part of your growth or in your pursuit of in your pursuit of getting better. Again, think about the different hats you wear in your family. What are the things you want to start doing? Maybe if it's as a wife, you want to start taking your husband and shippy dates, as a girlfriend, it's about surprising your husband a lot more. As a husband, it's being more romantic. I guess the same goes for the for um for both for both sexes or in your business, it's about innovating on your products in your career, it's about being more assertive. Um, think through the things in this space, um, think about things that will move the needle and transform your life, and also how to make your life tangibly better. Now, the reason why I say think about it is when you close your eyes and imagine it, you get a warm feeling, and you can actually imagine what your new life will look like, and then it triggers emotions and it triggers you a desire for you to want to do it. Now, personally speaking, I'm now looking forward to binge watching, but only after I have completed the major milestone, like created four podcasts, written the first chapter of my book, spoken at five events. I will binge watch, but only after I've done something tangible that means I deserve it. So, here's my question to you what's on your start list for 2020. And finally, continue. Now, you can't be all bad, right? You can't be so bad that you have to stop everything, right? Or start something new. There must have been some things you've done well over the year, and you have to be proud of yourself. But again, for continue, think about the things in the different hearts you wear that you've done well in your family, business, career, finance, habits, spiritually, um, in your relationships. A good way to identify this is to think of the times where you've received compliments from people. So think of this year, the times when people have come up to you and said, Hey, thank you for doing this, thank you for that. You really, I really appreciate it. Or think about the time where you've had a nice warm feeling, knowing you've done something worthwhile for others in the community. And usually you will know this when you feel good, like you know you've done something good. That's usually a sign you've done something good when you feel it warmly inside, and you don't need anyone to tell you. But another way to think about this is think of the times when you've had to defer short-term gain for long-term gain. So, let me give you an example of myself. Personally, I've always wanted I've wanted to buy a nice watch for myself for a long time, but I put it off until I could find a good deal financially that means it's worth it, or I do something so significant that I can say, yeah, this is a present to myself, and I want to continue that. I didn't do it last year and I want to continue doing that. But I also want to think as about continuing as a way of improvement. Now, I don't want you to just continue to do the same thing you've done well, just continue it. Think about how you can make it better, even a little bit. So, some things you do well, you do them better. For me, an example can be this podcast. I procrastinated about this for so long. People who know me know it took forever to do this, and it's okay, I think it's okay, but at some point I need to think about how I switch it up to make it even slicker and better. For some of you, this makes complete sense, everything I've said, and you can't wait to get on with it. And I applaud you, I encourage you to get a cup of your favorite drink. For me, I'll get a nice cup of cappuccino, a nice slice of cake, I'll find a quiet space, get a notepad, draw a column to my left, family, relationship, business, career, all the areas you want to talk about, and then across the top, I'll put stop, start, continue. And for each of them, I'll think about the things I want to stop, the things I want to start, and the things I want to continue. And doing this will just give you so much clarity around your self-improvement plan for 2020. You'll be like laser focused, you'll be like a missile, nothing can get you in your way. But for some of you though, you're thinking to yourself, I need an example to get me started. I I don't know what to do. And for those of you, I have included I've created a stopstart continue template to access it. Really, you just need to go to this link. It's a bit long, but I'll give you other options. The link is https semicolon forward slash twice, like you're doing https, trafero hyphen academy.com forward slash pl slash one three zero three nine three. That's a bit long. Doing that, or really just go to my Facebook page, you unleashed. So go to our Facebook page on you-onleashed and just it's right there, or just send me a message there and I'll respond to you, or just go to my Instagram page and send me a private message on you unleashed or femacy. I'll send you the link and you can get the um this template and you can um do it yourself. But listen, guys, I really want you to have an amazing Christmas, an amazing holiday. God knows you've earned it. I'm thinking about that, my friend. Maybe I was being a bit harsh because I didn't tell him anything anyway. But what I really want is enjoy the season, enjoy some time with your family. And for those of us who don't celebrate, it's the end of the year, anyway. So kick back and relax. But at the back of your mind, I want you to be clear about the things you've done well, the things you need to stop, and the things are going to continue. Okay, do that, and I'm pretty sure you go to 2020 laser-like, focus, ready with clarity. Because after all, if you don't target anything, you'll hit everything. But if you have a clear idea of where you're going, you'll get there. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of You Unleashed, where we share ideas of how to rocket in the workplace and life. Don't forget to share and like our podcast with your friends and let us know what you think. Um, I'm not where I want to be. We are not where we want to be, but we're definitely not what we used to be. And um, don't forget, done is better than perfect. Episode 4 is done, and it's in the books. Get unleashed and have a great holiday.