[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Suddar here aka the focus b. And on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness, and leadership.
[00:21] So if you want to take your.
[00:22] Performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.
[00:36] What are some of the key ways in which you can gain clarity? Clarity is absolutely fundamental if you want to achieve your goals, your objectives. It's the number one habit in High Performance Habits by Brendan bashard. And there's a reason for this. Without clarity, you can't really achieve anything, and also you'll feel stuck. So what are some of the key ways in which you can achieve this sense and feeling of clarity? In this episode, I'm going to share three main ways. The first one is to brain dump or to write everything down. Writing has been used for centuries and centuries, and this is because it helps you to organize your thoughts. This is the number one resource I use when I'm feeling unclear. I take out my notebook, pen and paper. It works so much better with an actual pen and paper than just on the computer. And I start to jot down everything, maybe different ideas, projects where I'm getting stuck. This is one approach and another approach is to just journal free spirits in handwriting and write down thoughts, the feelings, what's going on inside of you. What I've noticed when it comes to clarity is that more often than not, when you're not feeling clear, it's because something is holding you back. It tends to be fear, but there could be other reasons, but it tends to be fear of maybe going to the next level, fear of actually reaching that objective failing. And all of these fears are extremely common, and they prevent us from seeing clearly what we want or they make us doubt. So writing is a great way to see. Is this what you want? How would you define success if you achieve it, and to look into all of those aspects more in detail. The second way that I find very useful to gain clarity is to talk. And as an extroverted person, this is probably my favorite approach. And once more, in a similar way as with writing, it helps you to organize your thoughts. Now, don't just choose any person to talk to if you're specifically looking to gain clarity, because what happens in conversations is that sometimes you might be sharing an idea or something you're working on, and the other person gets inspired or remembers something that they're working on and share their insights. And this doesn't really help you to gain clarity. This is sometimes how flexible conversations go. Instead, try and focus and find a person who's a good listener. Maybe just say to a friend, look, I really would like it if you could just listen to what I have to share because I'm trying to gain clarity on this. And you could discuss things with this therapist or mentor or a coach, anyone who's a good listener because then they will leave you that space and that room to figure things out. How often have you been in a situation where you felt totally unclear about what to do? And as soon as you start to explain it to this friend, you gain that clarity? This is fantastic. I love it. I love talking and I love the process that happens because it helps us to organize our thoughts, like I just said. And the last way is meditation. And meditation really consists in just sitting. You can even do it standing or walking actually, but sitting with these thoughts, observing them, being able to detach from them and have that overview. And if you're not used to or familiar with meditation, I've shared several episodes on this content. I've also written blog articles on it. And it really consists in just sitting, breathing, counting your breath, maybe observing your thoughts. And if you're reluctant to the idea of meditation, first of all, I invite you to challenge yourself on this. But instead you can also just do mindful walking. That's another way to get that clarity. Okay, so let's recap writing, brain, dumping it all down, writing through all your thoughts and emotions. Speaking with someone who's a good listener will help you to articulate your thoughts in a specific way and will ask you maybe some insightful questions. And meditation and being calm. All of these three methods have in common that they help you to organize your thoughts, they help you to think in a more clear way and to get that level of clarity. What might happen if there are some things that you haven't worked on, like that fear that I mentioned earlier is that in spite of trying out these different methods, you might still not be able to gain that sense of clarity. Okay, so here are a few extra tools that maybe you can try. If maybe journaling talking with someone. And meditation hasn't worked, but try these first because they do tend to work. But if this hasn't worked, then we can look into exploring other ways. One way is to have a totally different change of setting because when you're in the same routine every single day doing the same things, it's hard to think differently, it's hard to think outside the box. And your mind will quickly go into repetitive, automatic patterns. So if you have a different setting, if you go on holiday for a week, or if you just work from a different environment, or you stay in a friend's house for a bit, your brain starts to think differently. It gets stimulated by the different environment. And this sometimes is enough to just suddenly have that insight, suddenly have that different way of thinking and can help you to gain clarity. So if you're feeling stuck and if you're feeling like, okay, this journaling meditating, it's not really helping you to get that clarity, then maybe trying a new environment could be one way to go about it. Another option is to seek inspiration and listen to things that inspire you, like this podcast or YouTube. If you're watching it on YouTube, having different sources of inspiration is a great way, again to stimulate your brain and to think differently and can really unlock certain ideas, solutions that you haven't thought of so far. So if you're struggling with the specific problem, something specifically you can't get clear on, then listening to content around this topic might provide you with that sudden insight or way forward. And this is one of the ways I use most. Listening to different podcasts really gives me a lot of ideas in terms of business growth and development and marketing and coaching and all of those things that I love. And so this is tremendously useful. And the last method that I would probably recommend is to take time out. If you're really struggling to gain clarity and this journaling meditation, talking with someone, working in a different environment, listening to podcasts isn't helping you to gain clarity, then the chances are that you're maybe overworked, could it be overwhelmed? And your brain isn't able to generate these new ideas to think creatively and to have this innovative mindset because it's tired, because it has been producing so much. And so you won't be able to gain that clarity from that space. And the only option in that case is really to take time out. So if you're not able to go on a holiday for two weeks, then fully disconnect over the weekend or sleep a lot longer, really, really prioritize your energy and your time out because you won't be able to have that clarity if you're overworked. I know that in such moments I tend to sleep super long, like eleven or 12 hours, going to bed extremely early, maybe 08:00 p.m. Sometimes just to ensure that I have that energy again in moments when my energy is lower, which happens to everyone. But if you able to catch it sooner, then it won't last as long and you're able to sort of get back on track and get reenergized. So I hope all of this makes sense. These are really some of the easy tools that you can apply in your everyday life to help you to gain that clarity. And clarity, as I've said, is the number one habit of high performance habits. Everything starts from being clear on where is it you'd like to go, what is it you'd like to achieve, where would you like to be, who'd you want to become. And when you gain clarity on these different aspects, makes your life so much easier, so much lighter, and everything else sort of falls into place after that. So apply these, let me know how it goes. Feel free to send me a message or comment. I'd love to hear your progress on this topic. Thank you so much for tuning in and wishing you a fantastic day.
[09:56] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Be show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback, so let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend.
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[10:16] Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.