From Clogged to Flow: What Your Shower and Your Productivity Have in Common

How would things change for you if you thought of productivity as a natural part of who you are? Just completely natural productivity, something everyone was just born with.

Productivity is your ability to achieve goals. So when you feel your goals are always out of reach and you struggle to even accomplish the small tasks that might take you to your big goals, you think you have an inability to be productive.

In reality, it's not that you're incapable of being productive, your productivity isn't missing, it's just clogged up like an old shower drain.

The only way to unclog it is to get to the root of the clog and pull it out so you have a nice clean-flowing drain once again.

I use the image of the drain for you here because I want you to think of all the things you "think" are going to help you become productive but actually end up adding to the clog down the drain. Things like tips, tricks, and hacks that actually add more tasks to your ever-increasing list, yet another goal-setting planner, webinar or course, and yes, even hiring a coach.

If you are struggling to accomplish your day-to-day tasks without getting stressed out because of all the chaos and fires you have to keep putting out, the overwhelming disorganization and mess at every turn, and you feel like you just need a break from all of that so you can finally stop and breathe for a minute, maybe actually get a good night's sleep for once, how is adding more stuff to this pile going to fix that?

Now I know you've done this already, I know I have, and it never works out. It's like looking down at the shower and noticing that the water is filling up rather than going down and thinking that stuffing the washcloth down the drain might help the water start going down. It makes no sense at all.

So what works to fix a clogged shower drain? A plumber's snake. You call in the professional and they start cranking the snake down the drain and eventually pull out a big hairball and all things flow once again.

What's going to work to fix your productivity? You gotta pull out all the blocks. A lack of productivity is typically created when you distract yourself from doing something that you think you should be doing but isn't something you really want to do.

So the question then becomes: why don't you want to do the thing that will take you to your goal?

Sometimes it's straight up fear: fear of success, fear of failure, fear of doing the actual thing, fear of being rejected or abandoned, any kind of fear, it's just gonna shut you right down. The fear doesn't always even make sense... it can be tied to a past story or a memory that triggers an old fear.

Sometimes though, it's because the goal you've set isn't what you actually want. Maybe it's something you're just good at or something you think you should want but when you get down to it, it's just not what feels good so you avoid it with a vengeance.

What it always, as in 100% of the time, boils down to is that your "big hairball" is an emotion. Getting to the root of the emotions you're feeling when you try to do things is the key to unclogging the shower drain of your productivity. This is why it doesn't matter what productivity tool you decide to use, you're not going to use it. It's also why time management programs don't make it any easier to manage your time.

Quit stuffing more things down the already clogged drain. Get to the root and pull it out first.

That's when you can start playing with tools and planners. The funny thing is, once you're in flow, you really don't need those things anymore because your productivity is just natural. Productivity becomes an extension of you living life. When you find the the things you really want to do, your goals to achieve, and there's nothing standing in your way anymore, you just do the tasks and achieve the goals, one after another, until you have to create new ones because you've done them all.

The Productive Flow process is like that plumber's snake:

Emotion · Energy · Time · Focus

Four little steps and that hairball is out!

Check out the video I created this morning all about creating your natural productive flow or book your free productivity breakthrough session if you'd like to learn more about calling in a professional to clear that clogged shower drain for you.

I'd love to know how this issue resonated with you! Be sure to comment below and let me know your thoughts and please share so others can learn all about creating their own natural productivity instead of stuffing more things down the already clogged drain!