Last week I watched the videos and did the exercises for Transformation Week, an online seven part workshop by Brendon Burchard and his wife Denise. The seven videos are each about 25 minutes long and include questions to consider about each days topic. The topics cover the six areas Brendon Burchard talks about in his book High Performance Habits – Clarity, Energy, Necessity, Productivity, Influence, and Courage, plus a video on the importance of Commitment.
I had watched the videos before, but this was the first time that I did all of the accompanying activities. The almost non-stop fast-paced nature of my work at the university, having an 11-year-old who finished 6th grade from home, a partner who’s dealing with her own work stress, and the overall chaos and ugliness in the world has made it challenging for me to keep from chasing after whatever new thing comes into my email, across both Slack and Team at work, and what my family asks of me (I’m asking a lot of them too). When I saw this series show up along with a subscription that I have, I thought perhaps this could help me.
The gist of the six habits are:
- Clarity – you know your why and live intentionally
- Energy – you take care of your physical and mental health, and you bring your good intentions and energy to your interactions with others
- Necessity – you make doing your best (and remember it’s your best, not mine or your friends, or your parents best) in the important areas of your life (health, relationships, mission, etc.) a must
- Productivity – you get the things that really matter done (so not just check off a to-do list of busy work)
- Influence – you treat others well, your a positive role model
- Courage – you are authentic and honest about your thoughts and feelings
- Commitment (the 7th day) is about doing things things consistently on a regular basis, not just occasionally.
Throughout the videos, a recurring theme was intention. It’s far easier to care for your health, to treat others well, to work on the things that matter if you act intentionally instead of just reacting to things as they come up. I feel like I’ve spent much of the past 100 plus days reacting instead of being intentional about what I’m doing. I don’t think that’s sustainable for anyone, and definitely not for me given my history of mental illness.
I don’t think that the pace at work or the chaos of the world is going to change any time soon so I need to change how I’m dealing with it. I need to be intentional about being intentional. I need to refocus on the person I want to be and the life I want to live and stop just reacting to everything that shows up in front of me.
You can watch the videos here (the first seven on the playlist) or sign up for Transformation Week for free here (this gets you access to the worksheets with the questions as well).
Featured image courtesy of 2il org under a CC-BY license
