The Distraction Detox: Reclaiming Your Focus and Achieving Your Wildest Dreams

In this episode, we're talking about the importance of identifying and eliminating distractions in order to achieve your goals. I share some of my own struggles with distractions, such as watching my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers and scrolling through social media, and how I've learned to overcome them.

The key takeaways from this episode are:

• Identify your goals and write them down. This will help you stay focused on what is important.
• Block out time for the things that are most important to you. This will help you avoid distractions.
• Take breaks and breathe. It's important to give yourself time to relax and recharge.
• Don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone. Trying new things can help you grow and achieve your goals.

 #productivity #goals #distractions #timemanagement #focus #achievement #mindset #success #motivation #personaldevelopment 

Transcript

Hello, Hello! And welcome back
back to the show. All right. I guess we'll kick things off with a little bit of life update. Here we are, middle of January, and just now finally getting the Kid back to school. We got
smashed
by a nasty, nasty snowstorm last week. I guess it was maybe week before, whenever I don't know. Anyway, the kids were out of school for the entire last week, plus 2 weeks prior to that. So they were out of school for 3 entire weeks.
and just now trying to get a normal routine started for this year. It has started off as a doozy. As I mentioned, we got the snowstorm here, and the crazy fires going on out in La.
So one of my favorite cities on the entire planet is burning down. So that has been, you know, a cause of distraction for me, which is, you know, perfect segue. Lead into what this episode is all going to be about because there was something else that's been distracting me for months, and it finally ended this past weekend.
So, as you know, I'm a huge Pittsburgh steelers fan. That is my lifelong favorite football team, and this year, you know, I usually try not to focus too much on it. I try to allow myself just to
remove myself from it, because I can get so emotional, so caught up in the season, specifically trying to watch games. I'm a guy that screams and yells at the TV. And it's like, Why are you doing that? Oh, my God, what the fuck are you thinking, you know, like I have any control over that. So I try not to pay any attention to it. But this year, for whatever reason, they showed a lot of the games on TV. And even more importantly, I guess, or above and beyond that, you know, as the season started.
there were very low expectations. We had a lot of off season, things happening going on that
the analyst expected to really cause us to have a really really rough season. And I keep saying we? I'm not part of the team. This is part of my need to disassociate, disconnect, love the team, but not be trying to connect myself to it. Anyway, I digress
the team.
They felt like they were gonna have a really rough year this year. But
for whatever reason they were able to put together, a really, really, really strong 1, st 2 thirds of the season. They actually ended up going 10 and 3 and a lot of the analysts who, you know, it started out the season, saying, You know, this is going to be Mike Tom's 1st losing season. He's never had a losing season in 18 years. This will be his 1st one. Now they had shifted their story, saying, Mike, Tom was a genius, and
these guys are a legitimate contender to go to the super bowl and win it. So this got me caught up in the hype. I've been watching way too much football these last couple of months.
because it's on Monday night. It's on Thursday night. It's on Sunday afternoon. I would catch myself, not just my team, but catch myself getting caught up in the stories of all of it, because I was curious how it was all going to play out. And there's a lot of other stories going on in the Nfl. The Nfl. Is amazing at creating storylines that intrigue you and entice you to want to watch more and more and more. And that's exactly what I fell into. I fell into this trap
of watching more and more and more football to stay up with the storylines of what was going on, because there was a record breaking, running back potentially. You know, this year there were teams that had never, ever been to playoffs, or, you know, for the longest time, who were now becoming one of the most dominant teams in football. You had my team.
The team that I'm you know, is my favorite, the Pittsburgh Steelers. They were doing extremely well. So a lot of these storylines that really distracted me got me caught up in it. And this is something I want to talk to you about is really looking at your life and asking yourself.
Where am I allowing distractions to take my attention away from the things that truly matter?
Now, if you've sat down and you've put your vision together, you have a list of things that you can sit down and look at and say, Okay, this is important to me. This is important to me. This is important to me. These are the things that really matter the most in my life.
What are you allowing to distract you from those things? As I just mentioned for me, football was a big one here, you know this last couple of months. My
favorite teams, you know, team. Their season is now over, so I am able to put that to bed. I was actually very thankful in a certain way Saturday, when they got their asses handed to them, because then I could put that whole thing to bed and say, You know what? Thank you, because now I can stop being distracted by football as much. There's another storyline going on that I'm still kind of paying attention to, but I'm not as caught up in this whole thing as I was.
That's not the only thing I mean. If you're a sporting fan in general, there's baseball, there's hockey, there's Nba, there's soccer, there's just tennis. There's all kind of golf. There's there's so many sports that you get caught up in year round, where you could constantly be distracted by these things.
and you can find yourself in a situation where you know you need to be working on your business. You don't need to be working on your relationships. You know, you'd be working on your goals and your dreams and your aspirations. But what's happening instead is you're getting caught up in these storylines. Maybe there's an Nba team that's running for a championship, you know, they're trying to maybe
get back to back championships. And like, Oh, my gosh, this is historic. I need to watch this, or maybe there's a golfer who's having an amazing season, and you like golf. And so you're watching them going. Oh, my gosh! They're crushing it! They had a terrible year last year, but now this year they're just crushing it. So you get caught up in these stories, and you're allowing yourself to focus on those things instead of the things that are important to you.
So it could be sports. And if you're not in sports, hey? That's okay. That just happens to be the 1st thing that I want to share with you. It could also be, maybe it's television shows, you know
stranger things is coming out this season this year sometime, supposedly. Who the fuck knows man because they keep dragging that damn thing out forever. But stranger things is going to have a new season this year, supposedly, and when it comes out, you know that's 1 of those things that so many people will jump really headfirst into and say, Oh, my God! I got to binge watch this season. Then we got to talk about it, you know. A few years back. It was game of thrones. People are all caught up, you know, before that it was breaking bad. There's so many TV shows that are constantly out there that are just
really amazing. Engaging shows that you can get caught up in and get caught up in that conversation. If I've got to catch up on this episode, or I've got to binge watch all of these shows.
and let me let me
share this really scary fact with you.
I don't know what the number is, but I mean, there's literally like thousands and thousands of hours of movies and TV shows that are released daily, not like weekly. But I'm like daily.
There is 0 chance that if you sat down right now and just watched television constantly from this point until the day that you died and never slept 50 years from now, 100 years from now. You can never consume all of it. It's just impossible, my friend. I'm sorry. I know there's shit out there that you want to watch, but you're never going to fucking. Be able to watch it all.
So why are you allowing yourself to get caught up and suck that time from you.
Now I'm not going to sit here and say, I never watch TV. I'm not going to say, I never get caught up in any of these TV shows because I do. There are some of them that I really enjoy, some of them that I really like, and can be very satisfying to watch.
But we have to be very conscious of these moments, and
not allow them to dictate the vast majority of our time in our schedule and take us off track of the things that are most important to us.
Okay, so maybe it's not TV shows. Maybe you're really good about. You know, TV is just not my thing, James. I don't really watch any of it. What about politics? Are you getting caught up in the political drama that's going on back and forth. We just had, you know, the presidential cycle.
I don't know who the fuck you are. If you're trying to sit and tell me that you caught up in that on some level. I think we all got caught up in it on some level, thankfully. That's winding down. We're getting ready to have the inauguration here in about a week or so so that will hopefully transition very smoothly we move into the new cycle, you know, with a new president, and we roll into that.
But there's always some political drama going on, or there's always some kind of news cycle in this 24, 7 news cycle we've got. It's impossible again, just like television. It's impossible for you to turn that TV on and not see more and more and more and more and more news, and a lot of it's cycled. A lot of it's repeated. A lot of it is
over the top and dramatic because they want those ratings. They want to get your attention. They want to keep you watching it constantly. So they're going to try and get people pitted against each other gonna get people fighting against one another just so they can get more ratings, get more viewership, get higher attention span. Well, I should say higher attention spans. But get more attention from people.
Social media is the same kind of thing that's another one. You could never possibly consume all of it, even if you tried. But it's very easy to dive into that rabbit hole of consuming Tiktok videos. Or, you know, Youtube videos, all these things that are out there to distract us, and they're not.
I don't think anybody's putting these things out there with any ill will, any ill intention they want to entertain us. They want to make our lives in theory a little bit better, at least, according to them they want, like, I say, they want that entertainment factor, and that can be a great thing. It's a wonderful thing if it's done in moderation. If it's done in a time, that's not taking away from what you're trying to accomplish in your life.
So if you look at these things,
Where or are you? Let me don't even let me not assume that you're doing this hopefully, you are being really, really good with your time. And you're really paying attention to how much time you're spending on
working on your goals every single day, and you're prioritizing those. And you're doing those 1st and foremost, because that's what I think can really make a huge difference, you know, Andy Frisella, he talks about doing a power list is what he calls it. And there's a lot of people that have talked about these things. It's the same basic principle. But it's sitting down
writing out your top 3 things for the day that you need to get done. These are the 3 most important needle moving activities for my life or my business. For whatever it is I'm striving towards and doing those first.st
Now, once you get those done then feel free to go watch as much TV as you want, then feel free to go watch, you know, football or sports, or the political drama, or
all that fun stuff you can get caught up in that more. But are you prioritizing the things that are important to you first? st And again, this all circles back to the vision. I'm going to always bring that back, because if you've got a strong vision, if you've got a written out clear vision of what you want your life to look like and what you're striving for, then it makes it so much easier to
look at your time, how you're spending your time and say, this is either getting me closer to this goal, or it's getting me further away from it. At any given moment I can stop and take a pause in my life and say, Hmm, you know, is me sitting down and watching this football game going to get me closer. My goal is going to get me further away. And, matter of fact, last night was a perfect example. There was a you know, playoff game on the television.
I had busted hump all day long pretty much yesterday, and really got a lot of work in. I was very proud of the things that I got done, took a little bit long to get some things done. But here we were rolling into the evening, and I said, You know what I'm gonna sit down and watch this football. I'm gonna watch some of this football game.
And as I sat there and I watched it, I recognized Number One. There were 2 teams playing, but I had 0 real interest in what happened to them. It could gone either way. I mean, there were storylines again back to this whole idea, these stories that suck us in there were storylines on both teams that I was very
into and could have, you know, enjoyed looking at. It was both around the quarterbacks.
But as I sat there just maybe 1015 min of watching, I'm like
I could be reading a book instead of watching this
this football game, and not to say that, you know, watching the football game would have been bad. But I had some books that I've been wanting to read, and hadn't really. At least
I started to say I hadn't had time for, but I hadn't made time for it yet, and here I was taking this time to watch this football game, but I was able to stop and think about what's important to me. What's important in my life? What are my priorities. What are the things that I have written down that are important to me? And one of those things is, is reading every single day and educating myself for every single day, and learning something new whenever possible.
So why am I taking time over here watching this football game that is really of no interest to me when I could be taking that time and reading reading a really good new book. So when you have that clarity, when you have that vision. When you have that written down, it makes it so much easier to say, Am I just sitting here trying to find something to fill time
when I could take that time and go off and do something that's more important to me, because this is something that I've caught myself before. You know we have Netflix, we have Hulu. We've got all these streaming services, Disney Plus. And whatever else that's out there, Youtube, I mean any of these things.
How many times have you caught yourself? And maybe I'm alone. But how many times have maybe you caught yourself
sitting in front of the Netflix?
You know Netflix on your TV, and you're scrolling. And you're scrolling. And you're scrolling. You're flipping through. And you're flipping through. And you're looking for TV. So you're looking for movies. You're looking for something to watch. And you just you spend 20 fucking minutes trying to find something to watch. And then when you find something you're like, Yeah.
I don't really love. This isn't something I'm like blown away by. But I'm gonna go ahead and watch. I'm gonna spend an hour watching this thing just to pass time.
Those are the perfect moments when you can take that time and instead, step back.
Say, wait a minute. What's really important to me what is on my goal list? What is it that I've been telling myself that I don't have time for? But the reality is, I've just not made the time for it.
Now, some of this, too. What happens is we don't make time for it because it's uncomfortable. It's not something we're used to. We're used to
as soon as we get some work done, or as soon as we have some free time sitting your butts down in front of the TV or grabbing the phone and scrolling through Instagram, scrolling through Tiktok, maybe watching some Youtube, or whatever else. You know, we're just used to these
habits that aren't being productive
again. Nothing wrong with it. That's who we were. It's what we've done in the past.
and it feels wrong. It feels very uncomfortable to try and do something different. But
what can we do? Different
to get a different result in our life? Because that's what's going to get you that different result that you're looking for this year. You know, we talked about this recently, you know, if you do last year's habits, you're going to get your last year's results. We've got to do new things this year if we want new results next year.
So when you find yourself falling into those old habits of sitting down watching TV, or scrolling on your phone, or forcing yourself almost to do something to fill your time instead. Just breathe for a minute.
This is something else that I've had to get back in the habit of really working on. When I have 5 min. I don't need to fill that 5 min, and you don't need to fill that 5 min. You can just sit down and breathe.
stare at the wall, stare out the window, just close your eyes, and maybe meditate for a couple of minutes.
Just soak in life, you know. How often do you just stop and pause.
Let's slap and pause right now let's do it for like 10 seconds.
Okay, I don't know if that was 10 seconds I was trying not to count. I'm trying to be present in the moment. But you get my, you get my point here sometimes. It's nice just to sit and breathe, and there was a little bit of uncomfortability, especially knowing that I'm recording the audio here. And I'm recording a video here. And if you're watching the video, then you're seeing me stare at the camera for 10 seconds, not saying anything, so that feels a little bit awkward.
but taking that time to stop, and taking that time to pause, and taking that time literally to just breathe. It's so refreshing. It helps you catch your thoughts, it helps you
really gather your thoughts and
think about what do I want to do what is really meaningful to me right now. What's important to me right now? Where am I distracting myself when I don't need to be? And I don't say shouldn't be, but when I could be finding things that are again more in line with what I want out of my life.
so take some time this week.
Look at
number one, look at your goals, look at your vision, because the other part of this, too, is when you've got that solid vision, and you're working on it. You're going to find less and less time to be distracted to me. What I seem to find is
when I'm wanting to distract myself with television or scrolling on the phone or anything else like that. It's because I'm not working on something that's exciting me.
I'm in some mundane task, or I'm confused. I don't really know what I'm wanting to do. I don't know where I need to be. I don't have a solid plan laid out of what I'm planning for that day. And so I'm in that struggle, boss. I'm in that survival mode, mentality almost of I don't know what to do right now. So let me just let me grab a phone so I can scroll through Tiktok
or let me, you know, flip on the television. Just so I can fill some time, because then I'll feel comfortable. I'll feel okay.
even though that's not giving me where I want to go. I still feel comfortable because something I've done for so long, maybe something that you've done for so long. And so, instead of feeling that comfort.
allow yourself the discomfort, do something different.
But look at that vision, get that vision crystal clear.
get focused on it. Start filling your time with things that get you to that goal
and look at where your time wasters are. Look at where these things are that aren't getting you closer and closer to your goal again, watching television in of itself isn't bad. There's a lot of great TV shows that I love watching. I love watching sports documentaries. I love watching things around athletes and their.
They're working on their skills, their crafts. Right now, I'm watching a Netflix show called Sprint about. You know, the track and field world, and watching these people and their coaches talking to them, and the mindset shifts that they're having to make. And all these things. And I do this for football, and just pretty much any sport, because it's all mindset all mindset. But there's so much mindset work in these things, and I love watching people push themselves to be the literally best in the world at something
so TV in and of itself isn't bad
watching politics or news or current events in and of itself isn't bad, because it's very important to stay up to date. It's important to know what's going on in the world.
and let's talk about what else would we have on here sports teams, you know. Hey.
that can be fun that can be enjoyable. That's something that I can connect with people on. And you know it's something that I I love supporting a team and being a part of a culture and being part of a group. But it's when these things start consuming us. And when they start taking up all of our attention or the vast majority of our attention, because once we start focusing on something, it takes something like 15 to 20 min for us to shift into a solid other attention space. So
if I'm here trying to work, and suddenly I'm looking over the football game. Or suddenly, I'm scrolling tick, tock. It's gonna take me 1520, 25 min to get back fully on track to where I need to be.
So let's let's block out some time for the things that are most important to you. Look at that vision. Get yourself some time blocked out, focus on the things you need to focus on and let go of the rest of it. And in the meantime get out there. Have an amazing fucking day, and I'll see you next time.