TRANSCRIPT OF THE VIDEO:
Today I’m talking about “If your accomplishment gauge needs recalibration.”
And here's what I'm talking about. This is mainly for those type A people like me who want to achieve all the things, and try to cram so many things into your day, including the weekend.
Some backstory of what happened and how I tried to solve it.
On weekends...it was like Saturdays...I am a high achiever, and I want to get shit done, and I would cram in like eight things I want to do, or get done, on Saturdays. And it might not be work; it could be like, you know, go to the dry cleaner, go get that book, buy that thing, do grocery, cook, meal prep, whatever...workout, read the book.
And I was getting mad at myself weekly that I couldn't accomplish all the eight things I want to do on the weekends!
One day I was talking to one of my friend who is more of a type B. Hey, she gets shit done; she's a professor. But she's like, “Wait, you plan to get eight things accomplished on a Saturday? I barely get one or two things done, if at all, on a weekend. That's my rest time.” And for me the word like “relax” and “rest” actually stresses me out. So if you are like me, you would know what this means.
One thing I do pretty well though is I like to time track. I pretty much track my time of doing anything. So, not only I plan ahead of what I want to do, and timeblock it, I also use it as a tool to gather data on how much time things actually take, and how many things have been accomplished, actually, each week.
I've been doing that for a while, and I decided to actually look at the data, and I went back months and weeks, and realized that, realistically, I was getting “only” four things done a Saturday, just four things! So basically, I was aiming for eight each Saturday, and I was getting on average four things done.
There were days that I did bang out eight things. But, guess what? That day, I was stressed out to the max. Like, it's possible, but it's, you know, you feel, the Yay! I checked off the thing. But then the emotion, and the stress is there.
So, I realized that, on average, I can only achieve four things, and I feel okay.
If I do less, you know what, that happens, too!
I try to reuse that data to recalibrate my over-ambitious, over-accomplishment kind of personality, because I was beating myself up emotionally internally.
Every time I don't get the achievement done, like, “Oh, you're so lazy. Why didn’t you get out of bed earlier on a Saturday to get all these other things done?” But then you're like, “Wait a minute; As a human, I only get four things done, a week, so why am I punishing myself for not getting more done”?
There's a disconnect and recalibration needed between what you want to do and what's realistically possible that you don't burn out from a fucking weekend.
So, something to recommend for people who are like me who want to over-achieve but then get stressed-out they don't achieve their goals is, to actually try to time track, and track what do you actually get achieved on an average day or whatever day you want to start tracking. For me it was the weekend.
And then also note down how you feel, right? So let's say you get eight things done that day, you crushed your high goals. But then you were super burnt out and stressed out, you didn’t feel relaxed.
Or today you got four things done, you're like, “You know what, I got four things done, and I feel pretty okay!”
And the day I get two things done, I didn't feel as great for my own achievement but I also thought relaxed.
Because, for us type A, we don't know how to relax. Or now I reframe it as an active recovery because, you know, we keep on a go go go state, that's why it leads to burnout. And we assume that the more we feel like shit, the more we need to push harder and that's not the solution.
The solution is to actually give yourself a rest. Give yourself a break so that you can go back.
So, to conclude, really do a time track to see what's realistic that you can achieve, and track how you feel, and adjust accordingly to see what's realistic or not.
Have you time tracked? Has that helped you recalibrate what you set goals on achieving? Share in the comments below!