8 Steps to Be Overwhelmed and Overworked

Yesterday I was with a leadership team and we were exploring the topic of unconscious commitments.  An unconscious commitment is a result that is happening in your life that you say you don’t want.  You didn’t consciously create it, you unconsciously created it.

Mark, spoke up and said he was overwhelmed and overworked and wanted to create a different experience.  In my experience, one of the most effective ways to change an unconscious commitment is to take the time to see exactly how you created the result.  I asked Mark and all of the others on the team to imagine that they had to teach a class on how to create the result they wanted to shift.

“Mark, if I wanted to create being overwhelmed and overworked just the way you have, what would I need to do.  Write me a recipe to follow so that I could duplicate your result.”

Mark sat with pen and paper and ten minutes later had a detailed recipe that he shared with us. With his permission, he said I could share it with you.

1. Do not ask for help or advice
2. Put results first
3. Believe you are the only one capable of achieving the results
4. Over emphasize and over depend on your experiences
5. Believe that those experiences are the only right ones
6. Don’t share knowledge with your team
7. Be unwilling to experience negative results
8. Believe there is nothing to gain from negative results

We all agreed that if we followed this recipe we would certainly create similar results to Mark.  

The great news about taking the time to write your recipe is that you now have a map for how to create the opposite result.  Just follow the opposite of your list.

Many of you reading this will likely say that you at times feel overwhelmed and/or overworked.  What is your recipe for creating these results?  You may have some similar “ingredients” in your recipe as Mark, or perhaps you have a very different way you create your results.

Conscious leaders own all of their results, even the ones that they say they don’t want.  They also take the time to see exactly how they are creating their unwanted results so they can see a detailed map on how to create the change they most want.