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If you feel like you need to go more towards relaxation and your idea of relaxation is like going to a wellness retreat, that's great, but the reality is you aren't always gonna be there. So how do you learn to relax on a daily basis? What are things that you can add into your daily routines that are actually gonna help you move more towards relaxation if you feel like that's the direction that you need to go? Hey guys, this is Coach K, and you're listening to the Making Changes, breaking Barriers podcast, where we talk about you. This is about you, your mind, and your path. So here's the thing, guys. Change isn't just a buzzword. I know I talk a lot about change on this podcast, so sometimes I wonder if it starts to lose its power. But here's the thing. Change is such a powerful force that starts within each and every one of us. I've spent over a decade coaching individuals of all different levels, of all different sizes, male, female, college athletes to women in their sixties, et cetera, et cetera. And what I've seen as I've helped these individuals work towards their goals, what I've witnessed firsthand is how. Change can be such a winding road. It's not always easy, and let's be real. It can be downright uncomfortable. And I tell you guys that week in and week out, but that's really where the magic happens, is when things start to get a little bit uncomfortable. It's in those moments of discomfort that we discover who we truly are. And really, I know it sounds cheesy, but what we're capable of, so I'm here. Hosting this podcast week in and week out to remind you that you're not alone in this process. There's gonna be emotional and mental obstacles along the way as we're going through these transformations of change, but we're, we're in it together. All right? You're not alone going through this. So I know most of you do tune in, week in and week out, but for anyone who's listening to this episode and it's the first episode that you're listening to, I do wanna let you know that I release a new episode every Monday morning. Each and every week is a little bit different Every other week, I actually have a guest on the podcast where I do an interview of that guest talking about what. It is they have done in their life. And most of the time, I will say all of my guests have done something pretty incredible, whether it's start their own business from scratch or some sort of crazy athletic feat that they've accomplished and you know, many other things. But those interviews, you know, I've just loved doing that. It's been awesome for me to connect with those people. And I think it's been awesome for you guys as listeners to see. Hey again. There's other people out there just like me who are doing these really awesome things that maybe you want to take your first step towards. And then the other weeks is just me, and we'll dive into how to reshape your routines, align with your values, and cultivate a mindset that propels you forward. So I hope you tune in week in and week out. I really appreciate it. You can find me on your favorite podcast platform, whether that's Apple Podcast or Spotify, and I do ask if you enjoy what you hear, show some love by leaving a rating and review. I would super appreciate it. So let's go ahead and dive into today's topic, which is all about this delicate balance and balance of what the balance between relaxation and productivity. These words seem to not really go together, right? When I think about relaxation and when a lot of people think about relaxation, you're thinking about. Just laying back on a beach with the ocean in front of you, or maybe you're thinking about meditating at a wellness retreat, right? When I think about productivity, I'm thinking about pushing myself on hard on a workout. I'm thinking about, you know, working long hours on a project that I'm working on, or something along those lines. Those two things feel very different, but the reality is, In order to have achievements in this world in order to be successful in whatever it is that we're trying to accomplish, I really do believe that there's this delicate balance we need to find in order to, number one, not be get burnt out, and number two, actually get done what we're trying to get done. Okay? So that's what we're gonna dive into today. And I am gonna give you four factors that I believe are pivotal in finding this balance. So I'm excited to get into this with you guys today. Let's go ahead and do it. So we need to work hard in order to achieve, we need this productivity, we need challenges. We need goals, right? There's not. Endless amounts of education out there, and endless amounts of people out there talking about goal setting and talking about productivity and talking about, you know, implementing healthy habits for no reason. Right? There is beauty in this, there's benefit in it, and in order to really do things that are big, right? In order to achieve things, in order to accomplish our goals, we have to put the work in. There's no getting around that. There's no quick hack to climb to the top of Mount Everest. There's no quick hack to start your business and make a million dollars in your first five years. There's no hack to those sort of things. That just takes hard work and within that, it takes productivity, right? It takes us day-to-day. Setting a schedule for ourselves and saying, Hey, we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that, and we start checking things off and we get things done. If we aren't productive and we aren't getting the things that we need to get done, we're. Honestly, probably not gonna achieve those things. We're not gonna climb to the top of Everest and we're not going to make that million dollars in the first few years of our new startup business. Those are just two kind of random examples that come to mind, but you guys get the point. We need that productivity. There's no getting around that. But we also need to take care of ourselves and part of taking care of ourselves is understanding how to relax and this taking care of ourselves part, I think, is lost on a lot of people, and I don't blame you. It's kind of part of the society that we live in. Our society is not good at. Taking care of ourselves. We are not good at figuring out this balance between productivity and relaxing. We think you have to be like one extreme or the other. You're going, going, going right, like grind culture. You're working if you're gonna start your own business. How many times if, if you're someone out there who's ever thought about starting your own business, and let's say you were, you were talking to someone about it, maybe it was a parent, maybe it was a friend or something. Has anyone, did anyone ever say to you, You gotta be prepared to work like 12 hour days, right? For some reason it's like ingrained in our head that if we're gonna do something like that, if we're gonna go off and try and do something on our own or do something really cool, that we just have to be ready to like sacrifice everything and that we have to be ready to like not sleep anymore and not take care of ourselves and not eat healthy. 'cause we're just not gonna have time. And I'm sorry, but I just don't. Believe in that. All right. I think that there is this balance that we can find. Unfortunately, I just think that our society's not very good at it. We're not good at finding ways to relax To be honest, to be quite frank, just reducing stress. We're a very stressed out world. So how can we quiet our brains, right? How can we quiet our body, reduce our cortisol levels to an ideal level in order to find this balance? We all know being overly stressed is not good. All right? We all know being overly stressed is bad, but do we know? Why do we know that? Having high levels of stress in another way to say that, having high levels of cortisol in our body, Actually suppresses our growth process. Okay? Having high levels of cortisol actually suppresses our digestive system. Talk about something that people want to be on point, right? People want their digestive systems to be on point, not only to not have stomach discomfort, but also to keep weight off, right? To keep fat off, right? Having high levels of cortisol Actually suppresses our digestive system, something that we do not want. In addition, it actually also suppresses our reproductive system, right? So if you're someone who you and your partner are actually trying to have children at this point, high levels of cortisol are not great. And, and lastly, high levels of cortisol change. Just how our immune system responds. And to be quite frank, it, it weakens our immune system. We're more likely to get sick, we're more likely even to get injured when we have high levels of cortisol. In high levels of stress in our body. Okay? So being overly stressed is not a good thing. This is not gonna result in this balance that we're looking for between relaxation and productivity. But when our body is in relaxation mode and we're actually able to do this, we're actually able to relax and we're able to bring those cortisol levels down and bring that stress down. A different part of our nervous system takes effect and, and works to relieve the impact of the stress response. So as a result, the body starts to release chemicals to do a bunch of things like lower stress hormone levels, right? Bring that cortisol down, relaxes the muscles, it lowers blood sugar, it lowers. Blood pressure lowers heart and breathing rate. When we are able to relax, we actually reduce inflammation in our body. Okay, and, and lastly, this increases our immune response. So again, we're less likely to get sick. So relaxation in many forms is gonna be really great for our body. But I do think that there's this misconception that relaxing means that like we're meditating, right? Or maybe it means to some people that we're like VEing out on the couch, or we're going to some sort of like wellness retreat for five days. Okay? And maybe those things are true. I'm not necessarily saying that those things aren't relaxing, but there are other ways to relax too. Sometimes it's time with friends. Okay, time where. We're out being social and we're really letting the stress of everything else go by our wayside. This could be a form of relaxation that actually results in all those positive benefits that I just listed out. Relaxing in some instances could actually mean exercise, and while this may not actually be reducing tension in your physical body, so to speak, because maybe we're lifting weights or maybe we're doing some sort of. Intense workout. It can very much be decreasing stress and increasing the release of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, or also known as like the happy hormone, right? So this is gonna be something that has a pretty big positive effect on our mentality and on our body as a whole. So the balance of both of these things, productivity and relaxation, is really tough. All right? So I'm not necessarily gonna get into all the different forms of relaxation and like how to relax today. That might be another podcast episode. But my point here that I wanted to make is that in our society, productivity is generally a bit easier for people. It's more ingrained in us to to grind right? To like, to work hard and like do all these things. It's less ingrained in us, especially for those people to say, okay, now I need to relax so that I don't totally burn out on what I'm doing and I'm able to sustain this for a long period of time. All right. And in addition, the other point I'm making here is that there's not just one way of relaxing. There's many ways, and it doesn't just mean that we're veggie out on the couch, although that may be needed. Sometimes there's different forms of relaxing that can all result in some of those positive benefits. So the balance of both of these things, productivity and relaxation, is tough. It's probably a balancing act that we'll need to navigate pretty much every single day of our life. Okay. And the reason for this is like most days are different. Yeah, you may have a pretty, you know, normal routine, but think about this, I mean, like Monday through Friday for most people are very different than Saturday through Sunday. So how do you find that balance? Maybe you have kind of like two different routines and two different ways that on those days you're doing both of those things, being productive in the ways that you want. Maybe in the work week, that means that you're being more productive with work and maybe in the, on the weekends you really wanna prioritize, like your physical health or eating a certain way or something along those lines. Same thing with relaxation. During the week, maybe taking 45 minutes for yourself in the morning to journal is a form of relaxation, whereas on the weekends you have a little bit more time. So it's, you know, going to the river with your kids and being able to like hang out with them is a form of relaxation for you then. Okay, so my point here is that. Every day's gonna be a little bit different. And so it's always gonna be this balancing act between figuring out what's really gonna work, what's really gonna help me keep moving forward to be able to achieve my goals with finding this balance between productivity and relaxation. Habits really help with this. I'm not gonna totally get into that today, but obviously as we start to ingrain these little habits one by one, things start to feel a little bit easier. It's not like everything just feels new all the time, and I'm like trying to figure out. Every little piece of my life, every single day. You know, habits do help with that quite a bit. So if you feel like you have a lot of things to change right now, know that it won't always feel like that as long as you do, start taking those small steps forward and do start make, making those small changes. But things do happen that are out of our control, that are out of our ordinary Monday through Friday schedule and our ordinary Saturday through Sunday schedule. Things happen that can take us out of our routines, and I think we just need to be aware of it, right? We need to be aware of what this balance looks like for each individual between productivity and relaxation, and with everything that's kind of always evolving in our lives. How do I continue to find this balance or at least reach for it? Be aware of it. Be aware when you are starting to get off balance so that you can find that balance again, find that sweet spot. So how do we do this right? How do we do it? How do we find this balance? So I'm gonna give you right now the four pivotal factors for navigating the fine line between relaxation and productivity. Number one, the first pivotal factor for finding this balance is gonna be don't over complicate it. All right? This isn't rocket science. You know what makes it really hard to relax when stress is really high. Okay? And you know what makes stress worse? Stressing about being stressed. It's like if your boss came up to you and said, Hey, I have these 10 different things that I need you to do, and I'm gonna list off all 10 of them. But hey, it's okay. Don't worry about it right now. I don't want you to think about it right now. Are you really gonna be able to sit there and not think about these 10 things that this person just asked you to do? Right? No. Probably you're gonna start maybe worrying a little bit, or at least you're gonna be like, start making checklists in your head. You're gonna start wondering, how am I gonna do these things? Who do I need to contact, et cetera, right? It would be so hard to not actually think about it. Think about what your boss just asked you to do. This is similar to stress. If you keep telling yourself to stop stressing out, and you keep trying to come up with this complex plan of how to do that, right? Like, I'm so stressed right now. I need to change all these different things in my life. I'm gonna create this plan that has X, Y, Z, a, B, C. C E D F, you know, like all of these different components to it, you're probably gonna only end up more stressed because the reality is you are overcomplicating the situation. It's gonna be very hard to find this balance between productivity and relaxation, because guess what? You're actually probably adding more to your place. So you're getting more towards that productivity and maybe even going over the edge a little bit in distress and getting further away from relaxation. It also reminds me of this meme. It always seems to come up on my feed during the holidays, but it says something along the lines of like, what's worse than eating? You know, an excessive amount of calories in holiday food, which a lot of us end up doing during the holidays is at least one day or a couple days it says, you know, so what's worse than this? Well, The stress of being worried about all the food that you're eating. And the reason for this is because of those cortisol levels, right? When we start actually stressing about the food that we've eaten, instead of just letting our body do its thing, letting our digestive tract do its thing like it normally would, now we're increasing those cortisol levels in our body. And what did I say before about what happens when we do that? It starts to suppress our digestive system. Okay, so not only are we doing one thing that didn't feel great, now we're, you know, actually kind of like making it worse by stressing about it. So keep things as simple as possible when it comes to both relaxation and productivity. Simple is gonna be what is sustainable. If your idea of productivity is going from zero workouts per week to, you know, working out every single day for an hour and a half every day, it probably won't last. Right? And your balance may be thrown off even more than it was. Okay? Find something that is gonna be a lot more simple. That can be a small step towards. Productivity. If you feel like that's the direction you need to go more towards. If you feel like you need to go more towards relaxation and your idea of relaxation is like going to a wellness retreat, that's great, but the reality is you aren't always gonna be there. So how do you learn to relax on a daily basis? What are things that you can add into your daily routines that are actually gonna help you move more towards relaxation if you feel like that's the direction that you need to go? So that's the first pivotal factor of finding this balance is. Don't overcomplicate it. Okay. Number two. The second pivotal factor of finding the balance between relaxation and productivity is to align your actions and words with your desires, dreams, goals, and values. I think it goes without saying that aligning your actions with your dreams, goals, desires and values is important, right? If we're gonna get anything done, whether it's relaxing or being productive, this is gonna require some sort of action on our part. We're gonna need to be intentional about doing something right, but we're doing okay. We're taking some sort of action, but I think what goes. A little bit more under the radar is what are our words saying about our desires, dreams, and goals and values. And I think this is so important because actually what comes out of our mouth a lot of times is what we end up believing. All right? So as much as we want to believe that, hey, tomorrow morning I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna go work out, if what I'm saying out loud, maybe the night before to my partner is like, uh, I don't know. Like we will see how the morning goes. We'll see if I get up or not. The reality is probably in the morning, you're not getting up, right. We're not providing ourselves with a lot of confidence through our words that these goals are super important to us. Okay, so. On the flip side, if that person in the evening says to their partner, even if they have a little bit of doubt in their mind, but if out loud they say, yep, alarm set for five 30, I'm getting up and I'm getting this workout in. I will guarantee that the percentage of that person actually gets up and gets that workout. Workout done is significantly higher than the first example I gave. But in addition to this, knowing what our values are, knowing what our priorities are in our life, knowing what our dreams, our desires, and our goals are is so important. And so if, if I'm saying this and you're like asking yourself, you're sitting there and you're like, I don't really know what those things are. For me, I would say that's a really important first step. It's a really important first step to understand where it is that you're trying to go and what you're trying to accomplish, and what it is that you really desire in this life before all of a sudden you start taking steps and making game plans and, and taking actions. Right? Because the reality is if you don't know that first thing, Then you're just moving in a direction of who knows where, right? No one really knows. So that's the second pivotal factor. Number three. The third pivotal factor between finding the balance between relaxation and productivity is to set clear boundaries. So what do I mean by this? I've talked about boundaries in this podcast before. Boundaries are so important. I think life gets tricky, complicated, and drama filled when we do not have. Boundaries. Okay, so I think about three main categories. Number one is gonna be with work, most of us work. And if you don't work, then like you're probably doing something. Maybe it's taking care of the kids, which believe me, I also believe is work. Okay? So I think in this first category, it's super important to have clear boundaries with when you're working and when you're not, because. What is gonna happen if you don't have those boundaries is you're gonna end up either not working enough. So we're gonna go more towards their, towards that relaxation side of the, you know, line than the productivity sign. We're not gonna get done what we need to get done. We're not gonna perform. Ultimately, that's probably not gonna feel good because we're gonna get negative feedback and maybe not like, The promotions that we want or the forward advancement as we want. Okay, so that's not gonna end well. On the flip side, what also can happen when we don't set these time boundaries of when we, when we're working and when we're not, is that we're gonna work too much, right? If we don't have our cutoff cutoff time, even if it's, you know, 7:00 PM or you know, 5:00 PM whatever it is. We can find ourselves working into the evening and again, that's probably not gonna feel good because that's taking away from maybe family time or time where you wanted to dedicate to yourself. Maybe it was a workout or it was cooking a nice dinner. So if you don't have those clear boundaries, I think finding that balance, finding that ideal spot on that line of relaxation and productivity is gonna be really difficult. The second place where I think we need to set really clear boundaries is with family and friends, but really more so family. But I know everyone's situation is a little bit different. What are these people asking of you and what can you give? And that boundary doesn't need to be set in stone. I think sometimes that's another misconception. We think if I set this boundary with someone, this is how I, it's always gonna have to be, and they're always going to think this of me or expect this of me. And the reality is that's just not true. Like maybe this is a boundary that you need for this week. Okay. Like maybe with Cora, for example, maybe a boundary that I have for this week is I am, I have, I know I have a lot on my schedule. I know my training schedule is really big. I know my work schedule and my to-do list is really big. So my boundary this week is like, Hey, I, I am not gonna be able to go out and do any social events this week. Okay. And I set that boundary for myself. You know, if you want to, that's great, go for it. But I'm not gonna be able to, right? So maybe that's just a boundary for this week. Doesn't mean I'm never gonna go to a social event again. It just means for that week that I'm not going to, but that's the clear boundary that I'm setting, right? So having these boundaries with family and friends is gonna be super important. And then the third category for setting boundaries is gonna be with ourselves. And what I mean by this is really like listening to our body. Do you listen to your body? Do you listen to your physical body? And when it needs to break, do you listen to your mental body and when it needs a break? Also, on the flip side, do you give your body. The movement. It craves when it craves it. I, I have that, I don't know if anyone else has that, but sometimes my body is craving movement and it could be still easy to like sit on the couch and watch TV even when it's craving that movement. But do I listen to my body and I, and I say, I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna go take the dogs for a walk. And when I do do that, it. Feels so good, right? It's like really what my body needed in that moment. So setting clear boundaries with myself is saying, Hey, I'm gonna listen to my body and my boundary is if my body is saying that I truly need a break, then I'm gonna take it. Sometimes my body is saying like, Hey, I need more fuel right now, then I'm gonna give it that. I'm not gonna deny my body like what it's asking for. So my boundary for myself is that I'm gonna listen to my body and I'm gonna do take the appropriate actions based on what it's telling me. Okay. That takes quite a bit of body awareness. It takes, you know, that takes practice and skill to be able to be good at. So that is number three, setting clear boundaries. The last pivotal factor I have for you guys today to find this balance between relaxation and productivity is regular reflection. It is super important that we are in a regular schedule of reflecting on our achievements, on our moments of stress, on instances when we felt truly relaxed. On instances where I kind of lost my cool, or when my body seemed to wanna give up, when I started to feel burnout. This self-reflection helps us fine tune our strategies and adapt to changing circumstances. Okay. And, and it really ensures that we are able to sustain this equilibrium that we're, that we're searching for between relaxation and productivity. Like every day that we live is just one data point. It's just one example. It's one learning moment. For us to figure out how can we get better and better at finding this equilibrium. It's never gonna be perfect, right? Like, sometimes we are gonna get outta balance. You know, I, I found for myself that a, for many, many years, whenever I would leave my house, meaning not just for like to go to the grocery store, but whenever I would go on some sort of trip, whether it was a three day trip or a seven day trip, or a two week vacation, whatever it was, I would totally get outta balance and it would take me weeks. After getting back home to feel like I was able to find that balance again. Well, time after time, I started to just learn. I learned little by little, and I'm not saying I went on one vacation and then ever since then, everything's been good, but little by little I figured out what I need to do for myself. When I go and do those things, and in order to enjoy them and not feel like when I get back home, it's taking me a month to get back on track and a month to find my balance again. Okay, so every instance, every day is a learning moment, but if we're not doing that regular reflection, if we're never really thinking about like, oh, am I actually feeling stressed? Or like, am I actually being productive if I'm making progress towards what I'm trying to achieve? If we're not doing that regular reflection, we don't give ourselves those learning moments. So although I left that one for last, regular reflection is super important and I do believe actually it's gonna be like really hard to continue to find that balance and sustain that equilibrium if we're not doing that regular reflection because our lives are always changing. Things don't stay the same, and we need to learn from each moment in order to keep being good at that or get good at it in the first place. So those are the four pivotal factors for finding the balance between relaxation and productivity, which I feel like is a vital balance. Find. It's a vital equilibrium to find in order to achieve what we're trying to achieve in order to make progress towards our dreams and our goals and our desires. So take that and kind of think about how that applies to your life and how you can maybe take one thing, one thing and maybe tweak it or change it or learn from it, or whatever it may be, in order to get you closer to that balance between relaxation and. Productivity. Last thing, before I leave you guys, I do wanna remind you one more time that if you enjoy the Making Changes, breaking Barriers podcast and you're here week in and week out, or maybe this was your first episode and you really liked it, I would super appreciate if you go to Apple Podcast and leave a rating and review. So you can click five stars if you feel like I deserve it. And then also leave a couple sentence review. I would super appreciate it. Not only does that just feel good to me, but it also helps the platforms. Then go and push my podcast to more viewers so we can get this message out. So go ahead and do that right now. I would super appreciate it. But last thing I'm gonna leave you with is changing your path will not be easy. It will be challenging, and I'll say that over and over again, but it will be worth it. So do a self-check today. Are you on your path of Bjo Mountain? And if not, what path are you on?
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If you feel like you need to go more towards relaxation and your idea of relaxation is like going to a wellness retreat, that's great, but the reality is you aren't always gonna be there. So how do you learn to relax on a daily basis? What are things that you can add into your daily routines that are actually gonna help you move more towards relaxation if you feel like that's the direction that you need to go? Hey guys, this is Coach K, and you're listening to the Making Changes, breaking Barriers podcast, where we talk about you. This is about you, your mind, and your path. So here's the thing, guys. Change isn't just a buzzword. I know I talk a lot about change on this podcast, so sometimes I wonder if it starts to lose its power. But here's the thing. Change is such a powerful force that starts within each and every one of us. I've spent over a decade coaching individuals of all different levels, of all different sizes, male, female, college athletes to women in their sixties, et cetera, et cetera. And what I've seen as I've helped these individuals work towards their goals, what I've witnessed firsthand is how. Change can be such a winding road. It's not always easy, and let's be real. It can be downright uncomfortable. And I tell you guys that week in and week out, but that's really where the magic happens, is when things start to get a little bit uncomfortable. It's in those moments of discomfort that we discover who we truly are. And really, I know it sounds cheesy, but what we're capable of, so I'm here. Hosting this podcast week in and week out to remind you that you're not alone in this process. There's gonna be emotional and mental obstacles along the way as we're going through these transformations of change, but we're, we're in it together. All right? You're not alone going through this. So I know most of you do tune in, week in and week out, but for anyone who's listening to this episode and it's the first episode that you're listening to, I do wanna let you know that I release a new episode every Monday morning. Each and every week is a little bit different Every other week, I actually have a guest on the podcast where I do an interview of that guest talking about what. It is they have done in their life. And most of the time, I will say all of my guests have done something pretty incredible, whether it's start their own business from scratch or some sort of crazy athletic feat that they've accomplished and you know, many other things. But those interviews, you know, I've just loved doing that. It's been awesome for me to connect with those people. And I think it's been awesome for you guys as listeners to see. Hey again. There's other people out there just like me who are doing these really awesome things that maybe you want to take your first step towards. And then the other weeks is just me, and we'll dive into how to reshape your routines, align with your values, and cultivate a mindset that propels you forward. So I hope you tune in week in and week out. I really appreciate it. You can find me on your favorite podcast platform, whether that's Apple Podcast or Spotify, and I do ask if you enjoy what you hear, show some love by leaving a rating and review. I would super appreciate it. So let's go ahead and dive into today's topic, which is all about this delicate balance and balance of what the balance between relaxation and productivity. These words seem to not really go together, right? When I think about relaxation and when a lot of people think about relaxation, you're thinking about. Just laying back on a beach with the ocean in front of you, or maybe you're thinking about meditating at a wellness retreat, right? When I think about productivity, I'm thinking about pushing myself on hard on a workout. I'm thinking about, you know, working long hours on a project that I'm working on, or something along those lines. Those two things feel very different, but the reality is, In order to have achievements in this world in order to be successful in whatever it is that we're trying to accomplish, I really do believe that there's this delicate balance we need to find in order to, number one, not be get burnt out, and number two, actually get done what we're trying to get done. Okay? So that's what we're gonna dive into today. And I am gonna give you four factors that I believe are pivotal in finding this balance. So I'm excited to get into this with you guys today. Let's go ahead and do it. So we need to work hard in order to achieve, we need this productivity, we need challenges. We need goals, right? There's not. Endless amounts of education out there, and endless amounts of people out there talking about goal setting and talking about productivity and talking about, you know, implementing healthy habits for no reason. Right? There is beauty in this, there's benefit in it, and in order to really do things that are big, right? In order to achieve things, in order to accomplish our goals, we have to put the work in. There's no getting around that. There's no quick hack to climb to the top of Mount Everest. There's no quick hack to start your business and make a million dollars in your first five years. There's no hack to those sort of things. That just takes hard work and within that, it takes productivity, right? It takes us day-to-day. Setting a schedule for ourselves and saying, Hey, we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that, and we start checking things off and we get things done. If we aren't productive and we aren't getting the things that we need to get done, we're. Honestly, probably not gonna achieve those things. We're not gonna climb to the top of Everest and we're not going to make that million dollars in the first few years of our new startup business. Those are just two kind of random examples that come to mind, but you guys get the point. We need that productivity. There's no getting around that. But we also need to take care of ourselves and part of taking care of ourselves is understanding how to relax and this taking care of ourselves part, I think, is lost on a lot of people, and I don't blame you. It's kind of part of the society that we live in. Our society is not good at. Taking care of ourselves. We are not good at figuring out this balance between productivity and relaxing. We think you have to be like one extreme or the other. You're going, going, going right, like grind culture. You're working if you're gonna start your own business. How many times if, if you're someone out there who's ever thought about starting your own business, and let's say you were, you were talking to someone about it, maybe it was a parent, maybe it was a friend or something. Has anyone, did anyone ever say to you, You gotta be prepared to work like 12 hour days, right? For some reason it's like ingrained in our head that if we're gonna do something like that, if we're gonna go off and try and do something on our own or do something really cool, that we just have to be ready to like sacrifice everything and that we have to be ready to like not sleep anymore and not take care of ourselves and not eat healthy. 'cause we're just not gonna have time. And I'm sorry, but I just don't. Believe in that. All right. I think that there is this balance that we can find. Unfortunately, I just think that our society's not very good at it. We're not good at finding ways to relax To be honest, to be quite frank, just reducing stress. We're a very stressed out world. So how can we quiet our brains, right? How can we quiet our body, reduce our cortisol levels to an ideal level in order to find this balance? We all know being overly stressed is not good. All right? We all know being overly stressed is bad, but do we know? Why do we know that? Having high levels of stress in another way to say that, having high levels of cortisol in our body, Actually suppresses our growth process. Okay? Having high levels of cortisol actually suppresses our digestive system. Talk about something that people want to be on point, right? People want their digestive systems to be on point, not only to not have stomach discomfort, but also to keep weight off, right? To keep fat off, right? Having high levels of cortisol Actually suppresses our digestive system, something that we do not want. In addition, it actually also suppresses our reproductive system, right? So if you're someone who you and your partner are actually trying to have children at this point, high levels of cortisol are not great. And, and lastly, high levels of cortisol change. Just how our immune system responds. And to be quite frank, it, it weakens our immune system. We're more likely to get sick, we're more likely even to get injured when we have high levels of cortisol. In high levels of stress in our body. Okay? So being overly stressed is not a good thing. This is not gonna result in this balance that we're looking for between relaxation and productivity. But when our body is in relaxation mode and we're actually able to do this, we're actually able to relax and we're able to bring those cortisol levels down and bring that stress down. A different part of our nervous system takes effect and, and works to relieve the impact of the stress response. So as a result, the body starts to release chemicals to do a bunch of things like lower stress hormone levels, right? Bring that cortisol down, relaxes the muscles, it lowers blood sugar, it lowers. Blood pressure lowers heart and breathing rate. When we are able to relax, we actually reduce inflammation in our body. Okay, and, and lastly, this increases our immune response. So again, we're less likely to get sick. So relaxation in many forms is gonna be really great for our body. But I do think that there's this misconception that relaxing means that like we're meditating, right? Or maybe it means to some people that we're like VEing out on the couch, or we're going to some sort of like wellness retreat for five days. Okay? And maybe those things are true. I'm not necessarily saying that those things aren't relaxing, but there are other ways to relax too. Sometimes it's time with friends. Okay, time where. We're out being social and we're really letting the stress of everything else go by our wayside. This could be a form of relaxation that actually results in all those positive benefits that I just listed out. Relaxing in some instances could actually mean exercise, and while this may not actually be reducing tension in your physical body, so to speak, because maybe we're lifting weights or maybe we're doing some sort of. Intense workout. It can very much be decreasing stress and increasing the release of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, or also known as like the happy hormone, right? So this is gonna be something that has a pretty big positive effect on our mentality and on our body as a whole. So the balance of both of these things, productivity and relaxation, is really tough. All right? So I'm not necessarily gonna get into all the different forms of relaxation and like how to relax today. That might be another podcast episode. But my point here that I wanted to make is that in our society, productivity is generally a bit easier for people. It's more ingrained in us to to grind right? To like, to work hard and like do all these things. It's less ingrained in us, especially for those people to say, okay, now I need to relax so that I don't totally burn out on what I'm doing and I'm able to sustain this for a long period of time. All right. And in addition, the other point I'm making here is that there's not just one way of relaxing. There's many ways, and it doesn't just mean that we're veggie out on the couch, although that may be needed. Sometimes there's different forms of relaxing that can all result in some of those positive benefits. So the balance of both of these things, productivity and relaxation, is tough. It's probably a balancing act that we'll need to navigate pretty much every single day of our life. Okay. And the reason for this is like most days are different. Yeah, you may have a pretty, you know, normal routine, but think about this, I mean, like Monday through Friday for most people are very different than Saturday through Sunday. So how do you find that balance? Maybe you have kind of like two different routines and two different ways that on those days you're doing both of those things, being productive in the ways that you want. Maybe in the work week, that means that you're being more productive with work and maybe in the, on the weekends you really wanna prioritize, like your physical health or eating a certain way or something along those lines. Same thing with relaxation. During the week, maybe taking 45 minutes for yourself in the morning to journal is a form of relaxation, whereas on the weekends you have a little bit more time. So it's, you know, going to the river with your kids and being able to like hang out with them is a form of relaxation for you then. Okay, so my point here is that. Every day's gonna be a little bit different. And so it's always gonna be this balancing act between figuring out what's really gonna work, what's really gonna help me keep moving forward to be able to achieve my goals with finding this balance between productivity and relaxation. Habits really help with this. I'm not gonna totally get into that today, but obviously as we start to ingrain these little habits one by one, things start to feel a little bit easier. It's not like everything just feels new all the time, and I'm like trying to figure out. Every little piece of my life, every single day. You know, habits do help with that quite a bit. So if you feel like you have a lot of things to change right now, know that it won't always feel like that as long as you do, start taking those small steps forward and do start make, making those small changes. But things do happen that are out of our control, that are out of our ordinary Monday through Friday schedule and our ordinary Saturday through Sunday schedule. Things happen that can take us out of our routines, and I think we just need to be aware of it, right? We need to be aware of what this balance looks like for each individual between productivity and relaxation, and with everything that's kind of always evolving in our lives. How do I continue to find this balance or at least reach for it? Be aware of it. Be aware when you are starting to get off balance so that you can find that balance again, find that sweet spot. So how do we do this right? How do we do it? How do we find this balance? So I'm gonna give you right now the four pivotal factors for navigating the fine line between relaxation and productivity. Number one, the first pivotal factor for finding this balance is gonna be don't over complicate it. All right? This isn't rocket science. You know what makes it really hard to relax when stress is really high. Okay? And you know what makes stress worse? Stressing about being stressed. It's like if your boss came up to you and said, Hey, I have these 10 different things that I need you to do, and I'm gonna list off all 10 of them. But hey, it's okay. Don't worry about it right now. I don't want you to think about it right now. Are you really gonna be able to sit there and not think about these 10 things that this person just asked you to do? Right? No. Probably you're gonna start maybe worrying a little bit, or at least you're gonna be like, start making checklists in your head. You're gonna start wondering, how am I gonna do these things? Who do I need to contact, et cetera, right? It would be so hard to not actually think about it. Think about what your boss just asked you to do. This is similar to stress. If you keep telling yourself to stop stressing out, and you keep trying to come up with this complex plan of how to do that, right? Like, I'm so stressed right now. I need to change all these different things in my life. I'm gonna create this plan that has X, Y, Z, a, B, C. C E D F, you know, like all of these different components to it, you're probably gonna only end up more stressed because the reality is you are overcomplicating the situation. It's gonna be very hard to find this balance between productivity and relaxation, because guess what? You're actually probably adding more to your place. So you're getting more towards that productivity and maybe even going over the edge a little bit in distress and getting further away from relaxation. It also reminds me of this meme. It always seems to come up on my feed during the holidays, but it says something along the lines of like, what's worse than eating? You know, an excessive amount of calories in holiday food, which a lot of us end up doing during the holidays is at least one day or a couple days it says, you know, so what's worse than this? Well, The stress of being worried about all the food that you're eating. And the reason for this is because of those cortisol levels, right? When we start actually stressing about the food that we've eaten, instead of just letting our body do its thing, letting our digestive tract do its thing like it normally would, now we're increasing those cortisol levels in our body. And what did I say before about what happens when we do that? It starts to suppress our digestive system. Okay, so not only are we doing one thing that didn't feel great, now we're, you know, actually kind of like making it worse by stressing about it. So keep things as simple as possible when it comes to both relaxation and productivity. Simple is gonna be what is sustainable. If your idea of productivity is going from zero workouts per week to, you know, working out every single day for an hour and a half every day, it probably won't last. Right? And your balance may be thrown off even more than it was. Okay? Find something that is gonna be a lot more simple. That can be a small step towards. Productivity. If you feel like that's the direction you need to go more towards. If you feel like you need to go more towards relaxation and your idea of relaxation is like going to a wellness retreat, that's great, but the reality is you aren't always gonna be there. So how do you learn to relax on a daily basis? What are things that you can add into your daily routines that are actually gonna help you move more towards relaxation if you feel like that's the direction that you need to go? So that's the first pivotal factor of finding this balance is. Don't overcomplicate it. Okay. Number two. The second pivotal factor of finding the balance between relaxation and productivity is to align your actions and words with your desires, dreams, goals, and values. I think it goes without saying that aligning your actions with your dreams, goals, desires and values is important, right? If we're gonna get anything done, whether it's relaxing or being productive, this is gonna require some sort of action on our part. We're gonna need to be intentional about doing something right, but we're doing okay. We're taking some sort of action, but I think what goes. A little bit more under the radar is what are our words saying about our desires, dreams, and goals and values. And I think this is so important because actually what comes out of our mouth a lot of times is what we end up believing. All right? So as much as we want to believe that, hey, tomorrow morning I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna go work out, if what I'm saying out loud, maybe the night before to my partner is like, uh, I don't know. Like we will see how the morning goes. We'll see if I get up or not. The reality is probably in the morning, you're not getting up, right. We're not providing ourselves with a lot of confidence through our words that these goals are super important to us. Okay, so. On the flip side, if that person in the evening says to their partner, even if they have a little bit of doubt in their mind, but if out loud they say, yep, alarm set for five 30, I'm getting up and I'm getting this workout in. I will guarantee that the percentage of that person actually gets up and gets that workout. Workout done is significantly higher than the first example I gave. But in addition to this, knowing what our values are, knowing what our priorities are in our life, knowing what our dreams, our desires, and our goals are is so important. And so if, if I'm saying this and you're like asking yourself, you're sitting there and you're like, I don't really know what those things are. For me, I would say that's a really important first step. It's a really important first step to understand where it is that you're trying to go and what you're trying to accomplish, and what it is that you really desire in this life before all of a sudden you start taking steps and making game plans and, and taking actions. Right? Because the reality is if you don't know that first thing, Then you're just moving in a direction of who knows where, right? No one really knows. So that's the second pivotal factor. Number three. The third pivotal factor between finding the balance between relaxation and productivity is to set clear boundaries. So what do I mean by this? I've talked about boundaries in this podcast before. Boundaries are so important. I think life gets tricky, complicated, and drama filled when we do not have. Boundaries. Okay, so I think about three main categories. Number one is gonna be with work, most of us work. And if you don't work, then like you're probably doing something. Maybe it's taking care of the kids, which believe me, I also believe is work. Okay? So I think in this first category, it's super important to have clear boundaries with when you're working and when you're not, because. What is gonna happen if you don't have those boundaries is you're gonna end up either not working enough. So we're gonna go more towards their, towards that relaxation side of the, you know, line than the productivity sign. We're not gonna get done what we need to get done. We're not gonna perform. Ultimately, that's probably not gonna feel good because we're gonna get negative feedback and maybe not like, The promotions that we want or the forward advancement as we want. Okay, so that's not gonna end well. On the flip side, what also can happen when we don't set these time boundaries of when we, when we're working and when we're not, is that we're gonna work too much, right? If we don't have our cutoff cutoff time, even if it's, you know, 7:00 PM or you know, 5:00 PM whatever it is. We can find ourselves working into the evening and again, that's probably not gonna feel good because that's taking away from maybe family time or time where you wanted to dedicate to yourself. Maybe it was a workout or it was cooking a nice dinner. So if you don't have those clear boundaries, I think finding that balance, finding that ideal spot on that line of relaxation and productivity is gonna be really difficult. The second place where I think we need to set really clear boundaries is with family and friends, but really more so family. But I know everyone's situation is a little bit different. What are these people asking of you and what can you give? And that boundary doesn't need to be set in stone. I think sometimes that's another misconception. We think if I set this boundary with someone, this is how I, it's always gonna have to be, and they're always going to think this of me or expect this of me. And the reality is that's just not true. Like maybe this is a boundary that you need for this week. Okay. Like maybe with Cora, for example, maybe a boundary that I have for this week is I am, I have, I know I have a lot on my schedule. I know my training schedule is really big. I know my work schedule and my to-do list is really big. So my boundary this week is like, Hey, I, I am not gonna be able to go out and do any social events this week. Okay. And I set that boundary for myself. You know, if you want to, that's great, go for it. But I'm not gonna be able to, right? So maybe that's just a boundary for this week. Doesn't mean I'm never gonna go to a social event again. It just means for that week that I'm not going to, but that's the clear boundary that I'm setting, right? So having these boundaries with family and friends is gonna be super important. And then the third category for setting boundaries is gonna be with ourselves. And what I mean by this is really like listening to our body. Do you listen to your body? Do you listen to your physical body? And when it needs to break, do you listen to your mental body and when it needs a break? Also, on the flip side, do you give your body. The movement. It craves when it craves it. I, I have that, I don't know if anyone else has that, but sometimes my body is craving movement and it could be still easy to like sit on the couch and watch TV even when it's craving that movement. But do I listen to my body and I, and I say, I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna go take the dogs for a walk. And when I do do that, it. Feels so good, right? It's like really what my body needed in that moment. So setting clear boundaries with myself is saying, Hey, I'm gonna listen to my body and my boundary is if my body is saying that I truly need a break, then I'm gonna take it. Sometimes my body is saying like, Hey, I need more fuel right now, then I'm gonna give it that. I'm not gonna deny my body like what it's asking for. So my boundary for myself is that I'm gonna listen to my body and I'm gonna do take the appropriate actions based on what it's telling me. Okay. That takes quite a bit of body awareness. It takes, you know, that takes practice and skill to be able to be good at. So that is number three, setting clear boundaries. The last pivotal factor I have for you guys today to find this balance between relaxation and productivity is regular reflection. It is super important that we are in a regular schedule of reflecting on our achievements, on our moments of stress, on instances when we felt truly relaxed. On instances where I kind of lost my cool, or when my body seemed to wanna give up, when I started to feel burnout. This self-reflection helps us fine tune our strategies and adapt to changing circumstances. Okay. And, and it really ensures that we are able to sustain this equilibrium that we're, that we're searching for between relaxation and productivity. Like every day that we live is just one data point. It's just one example. It's one learning moment. For us to figure out how can we get better and better at finding this equilibrium. It's never gonna be perfect, right? Like, sometimes we are gonna get outta balance. You know, I, I found for myself that a, for many, many years, whenever I would leave my house, meaning not just for like to go to the grocery store, but whenever I would go on some sort of trip, whether it was a three day trip or a seven day trip, or a two week vacation, whatever it was, I would totally get outta balance and it would take me weeks. After getting back home to feel like I was able to find that balance again. Well, time after time, I started to just learn. I learned little by little, and I'm not saying I went on one vacation and then ever since then, everything's been good, but little by little I figured out what I need to do for myself. When I go and do those things, and in order to enjoy them and not feel like when I get back home, it's taking me a month to get back on track and a month to find my balance again. Okay, so every instance, every day is a learning moment, but if we're not doing that regular reflection, if we're never really thinking about like, oh, am I actually feeling stressed? Or like, am I actually being productive if I'm making progress towards what I'm trying to achieve? If we're not doing that regular reflection, we don't give ourselves those learning moments. So although I left that one for last, regular reflection is super important and I do believe actually it's gonna be like really hard to continue to find that balance and sustain that equilibrium if we're not doing that regular reflection because our lives are always changing. Things don't stay the same, and we need to learn from each moment in order to keep being good at that or get good at it in the first place. So those are the four pivotal factors for finding the balance between relaxation and productivity, which I feel like is a vital balance. Find. It's a vital equilibrium to find in order to achieve what we're trying to achieve in order to make progress towards our dreams and our goals and our desires. So take that and kind of think about how that applies to your life and how you can maybe take one thing, one thing and maybe tweak it or change it or learn from it, or whatever it may be, in order to get you closer to that balance between relaxation and. Productivity. Last thing, before I leave you guys, I do wanna remind you one more time that if you enjoy the Making Changes, breaking Barriers podcast and you're here week in and week out, or maybe this was your first episode and you really liked it, I would super appreciate if you go to Apple Podcast and leave a rating and review. So you can click five stars if you feel like I deserve it. And then also leave a couple sentence review. I would super appreciate it. Not only does that just feel good to me, but it also helps the platforms. Then go and push my podcast to more viewers so we can get this message out. So go ahead and do that right now. I would super appreciate it. But last thing I'm gonna leave you with is changing your path will not be easy. It will be challenging, and I'll say that over and over again, but it will be worth it. So do a self-check today. Are you on your path of Bjo Mountain? And if not, what path are you on?
