Is Your Efficiency Hurting Your Ability to Do What Matters Most? Guest blog post by Dina Haggenjos
Is Your Efficiency Hurting Your Ability To Do What Matters Most?
Have you noticed the satisfaction of checking off a to-do list item doesn’t feel as potent, as satisfying as it used to be? Maybe you have lists, you have post-its, a calendar, some are even color-coded …but despite all this, and your ability to rattle off what your child wants for their birthday, where THE favorite toy is in the house, what your partner’s greatest struggle is right now, and how much leftovers are in the fridge you find yourself quietly wondering “Why can I not do the things I want to do? Why is it so hard for me to carve out time for myself? Am I even on this list anywhere?! How am I ever going to reach the goals I have for myself when I can’t imagine adding one more thing?”
Have you felt these things before?
I want to do two things in this article:
Introduce myself
Help you determine if efficiency is hurting your ability to do what you desire most, and what to do about it.
Let's start there, efficiency.
IS YOUR EFFICIENCY IN THE WAY OF WHAT YOU WANT MOST?
Efficiency has been defined as:
doing/juggling a lot of things, checking boxes, “working or operating quickly”, “productive for the desired results”, “being super mom” or “super dad” or “super human”
With that in mind, I want to pose a few questions in regards to us being efficient:
Whose desired results are you meeting? Do they involve you at all?
Just because it’s quick and productive in the traditional sense, does that mean it’s good all the time?
Is it of high quality? Does it have a great impact on your life?
What if being a super mom/dad/human was more about us and less about what we do for other people? What if, being a super-whatever was like saying “you are super at honoring yourself and that makes me want to honor myself more.”
EFFICIENCY’S EFFECT ON US LONG-TERM.
Fast food is quick, it’s efficient, and sure sometimes it can meet a need. But if we only ever had fast food how would that affect us over time? You know the answer, there have been plenty of documentaries and books all about the ill effects of fast food as a regular staple of one’s diet.
Once and a while - OK. Repeatedly, every single day - not only will it affect you but all those around you as your energy (among other things) diminishes from lack of nourishment.
Think having a short-term vision vs having a long-term vision. Efficiency gets A JOB done, but does it impact THE job? The job of living our life to the fullest and living aligned to our values so that we may do the things we really want to do (and not just think/long to do them)?
I understand the urge to be efficient. With more life comes more responsibility, more people and things demanding our attention - this is if we’re lucky. As the responsibilities increased, balls kept being added and it became a juggling act. You didn’t have time to reassess what doesn’t serve you anymore, or what kind of act you wanted to design - you became caught in what I call tangled efficiency.
Here are just a few of the ways tangled efficiency long-term can have us feeling:
I don’t have a great relationship with my food/body/health.
I don’t have the energy I once did or the confidence.
I have difficulty carving out time for myself.
I start then stop on things for myself.
I am too exhausted after attending to everyone else first.
THE ALTERNATIVE TO EFFICIENCY.
Flow and integration of our values, desires, our lives paired with our mind and bodies is the alternative to efficiency. And from a woman's perspective, I don’t know any two practices more empowering to our true nature (our hormones and chemistry in our bodies throughout the month, our nurturing nature, our workflows, our life flows, all of it).
Flow - an act of moving in or as if in a stream. 2 : the ebb and flow. 3. To move around/within something - “flow state.”
Integration - the act or process of uniting different things.
Take the image below and how efficiency can look and feel vs flow and integration. They feel different right?
HOW TO GET MORE FLOW AND INTEGRATION.
I tell the women I coach that, a well goes dry when parts of it are neglected. Efficiency forces us to attend to only parts. But it does not have to be this way.
If we take a brave step and focus on having more of a long-term vision as we meet our daily demands, and do the work to reassess, get super clear, align our values to our actual (very unique to us) lives, then we can truly start living in a more integrated flow-state.
We get to more flow and integration by attending to our whole selves, and not just parts.
We attend to our human side - and work hard to understand and love our bodies (instead of just changing them), because real lasting change comes from a place of love first, not hate. We work on nourishing our bodies from the inside out with both fuel and pleasure, balancing our energy, our sleep, and other foundation health markers.
We attend to our being side - and learn how to manage our mindset, our emotions, our stress, and what creativity and play look like in our daily lives.
And most importantly, we attend to our Bridge - these are the elements that make actually working on our whole selves possible. It’s understanding our cyclical nature and how we can plan our day/month/year in line with it, it’s vision and clarity around our desires and our willingness, the bridge is also our boundaries and our organization.
We go back to our juggling act and we assess it from all angels and we work to design the act we always wanted, the one our hearts long for - it does not mean we’re completely unhappy with what we currently have - it means we want to make the most of what we have.
This opportune, oftentimes raw crossroads we find ourselves in, is where my passion and work lies, so it’s a great time to introduce myself and share a roadmap to flow and integration.
I'm Dina Haggenjos, a holistic life +integrative health & nutrition coach for women, Founder of Free WELL, mom of twin girls and one boy, wife, and an inner power enthusiast. #MoreIntuitionLessRestriction in mind, body, health, life is my jam.
I offer individual and group coaching - both virtually (you can be from anywhere) and in-person for the local Cincinnati women.
Coaching with me is a great way to address your whole self, mind, body, nutrition, and lifestyle so we can find your flow and integrate your life with your desires.
I have never been a fan of the “know better, do better” approach because there is so much more that goes into doing and lasting transformation than just knowing.
If you’re interested in more flow & integration for your life, check out my newest self-paced program Wellspring Within Her - it offers the best blend of support (online learning, 1:1 coaching, and community - it’s a powerhouse!). And for those that love just one-on-one attention, we can do this work too.
My email letters (I like to call them use-letters) go out to the FW community when I feel I have something of use for you. If interested, subscribe here.
If you have a question about working together, I offer a free consultation or write to me with your inquiry.
Connect with me on Instagram, LinkedIn, or on the Free WELL Blog. My intention with being in these spaces is to build community, share what Free WELL is up to, and be perfectly imperfect human beings together.
I love exploration into positive evolution, inspired action, reinvention and life crossroad stories when we use and strengthen our power within, instead of not waiting for someday to be happy and feel good about life!
Here’s to more flow and integration in your life!
I believe in you.
Guest blog post written by Dina Haggenjos