🦊Does doing less better require Strategic Sacrifice?
Dear You,
Sacrifice sounds so dramatic! The true meaning of sacrifice is a person surrendering an animal or possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure. Ok, that is dramatic. But giving things up, like jobs, habits and even relationships, that feel SO IMPORTANT and essential to us for a greater good feels like a sacrifice, a really big deal. But let’s apply this to our day-to-day lives to help us thrive ~ to feel more satisfied and do work and life better. Giving up what is less important is a key strategy to DOING LESS BETTER.
“On the topic of strategic sacrifice… I ended up leaving Google. Leaving my career I had worked so hard to build. It was necessary at the time for me and my family, but so much opportunity came from that sacrifice.” ~ Liana
Doing less better is a business concept. In business (and in life) doing more and more, bigger and faster, has been an expected way of operating to reap greater monetary rewards. It’s a corporate lie and a personal growth lie we tell ourselves. It’s an old paradigm that is unsustainable. This frenzy is not a good strategy and often backfires, in business and in life. In fact, John Bell, former CEO of Suchard Chocolates (does anyone else love Toblerone?) wrote a book about this, “Do Less Better: The Power of Strategic Sacrifice in a Complex World.” No need to read the book. The gist is to keep it simple and focus on what really matters. Explore strategic sacrifice, or something less dramatic.
Michele says it even better! She calls it PRUNING. Pruning plants keeps them healthy. Pruning things that don’t serve you keeps YOU healthy. It’s a good analogy. You can cut out something big (like quitting your job or taking a career break) OR you can take it day by day and prune just a little here and there to do life better.
Challenge: Ask yourself, or ask a friend or colleague!: What can I cut out today that will help me to do less better?
Go beyond the little personal time sucks (um, social media) and think about something that you can do less of to be more productive, or more satisfied:
At work, can you shorten your meetings to 45 minutes to leave a 15-minute re-charge window before the next task? Is that social-media post really generating more revenue for your business? Do the benefits of a face-to-face meeting outweigh the cost of time spent getting there (and I am ALL about the face-to-face meetings)?
In life, is watching the news each morning productive for you or is it better to spend more time exercising or listening to a podcast? Is it more fulfilling to cut out the back and forth texting and have a quick conversation with that same good friend instead? Studies show a quick chat with a friend gives you a boost!
Ask yourself the questions. Take time to dig deep.
Find or create a productivity journal and write down your answers.
Writing things down reinforces a better understanding of yourself and integrates new behaviors. Ok… you can use a scrap of paper or your iPhone. Or be really radical and COMMENT below.
Join us on THIS Thursday, Feb 3rd for a FREE webinar "Removing Your Roadblocks - Stopping Your Saboteurs" REGISTER HERE. This is a high learning, low-interactive webinar, so you can sit back and listen, or engage. The choice is yours! We hope to see you there.
🧡 Michele & Liana