Why Productivity Coaching Is Not The Solution You Need To Succeed

---

---

To understand why productivity coaching is not the solution you need to succeed, you first need to understand why you’ve sought (or are thinking of seeking) out a coach to begin with.

Typically, we go into business thinking that we’re going to make lots of money easily. Sure, it’ll be a struggle at first… but once we get things rolling, it’ll be a breeze. We think we’re going to do our thing, meet people, have fun, and the money will just flow and money will make us happy and therefore fix all of our problems. Of course we know on a conscious level that money doesn’t fix our deep-rooted problems but still, this is the feeling we seem to have anyway.

Once you are actually knee-deep in your business, you come to the conclusion that money (and leads) are not exactly pouring in the door and the lead generation tactics taught are either very expensive or feel icky and unsavory so either you don’t do them consistently or you don’t do them at all.

The business you do have, seems to come in as feast or famine. It’s either 14 hour days, struggling to keep up, or long stretches of no business and no paychecks. You become completely overwhelmed and wonder if this is ever going to work for you. The thought of having to give up your freedom and get, like, a real 9-5 job though… unthinkable.

Even if you do manage to get a solid business up and running, you still find yourself with the 14 hour workdays, struggle to find (and keep) good help, and end up stressed-out and overwhelmed, wondering how you’ll ever bring it all into balance.

In comes the productivity coach. You think this is your saving grace. This one person will swoop in and somehow make you magically do all those things you know you’re supposed to but really don’t want to do. They will hold you accountable and be the “boss” you need to push you so you can finally achieve the success and balance you have always known yourself capable of achieving.

Right?

If you’re with me so far… hang onto your hat because I’m about to explain to you exactly what your problem is, and I’m talking the REAL problem, the deeply rooted issue that is the exact same reason you chose this entrepreneurship thing as a career to begin with and why this career is the perfect fit for you, even if you are currently doubting yourself.

For most of us, our lives have not been easy. In fact, our childhoods were downright awful- full of trauma and/or chaos. I’ve literally heard the entire spectrum of this in business owners. Everything from simply moving around a lot all the way down to extreme and sickening abuse. The point is, we left our childhood feeling like:

we never had control over anything that happened to us

we didn’t have anyone we could depend on aside from ourself

we didn’t know what it felt like to have a real “home” in the way we saw others have

That translates into an adult who:

strives for freedom at all costs

is comfortable taking risks because chaos is “normal”

will not trust anyone but themselves to do what needs to be done

will always seek to be the person who gives to others (in the way we always wanted, but never had, for ourselves)

will always search for “home” and be eternally frustrated when we cannot create what we most want

struggles with time management, focus, and creating/maintaining personal boundaries

runs on stress and anxiety

cycles between motivation and overwhelm

Essentially, we want to have a calm, relaxed, balanced life where we feel really good and truly happy and are able to bring happiness to others. Yet, every time we see that on the horizon, we self-sabotage because calm = boring for us. We cannot function without constant activity… at least we feel we can’t.

---

---

This is something I’ve dubbed “The Clutter Cycle” and it goes like this:

Emotional Clutter – Physical Clutter – Financial Clutter – Total Overwhelm

The emotional clutter is all the stuff that happened to you as a kid and every disaster you’ve survived since. All that stuff you push down deep and decide you don’t want to feel anymore so you never clear it out, you just try and forget about it. It creates big giant holes inside of you that you then try and fill with other stuff.

That other stuff is physical clutter. This is your attempt to feel good, create happiness, and finally get yourself together. This takes the form of lots of purchases. Everything from excessive clothes and shoes to organizational tools and planners you never use to houses and cars you are always trying to one-up on. Bigger and better is never big enough or better enough.

Physical clutter also takes the form of lots of activity and responsibilities. you get yourself involved in so many different projects and experiences, you don’t leave any time for yourself. This includes saying, “yes” to everything that comes your way, successfully distracting you from what you really want to accomplish as you are always “doing” for other people.

This is why you can’t manage your time well, seem to always be running around and never actually accomplishing anything, you lose focus, and are totally disorganized. This is also where you run into financial clutter as you get yourself in over your head in purchases, subscriptions, payments, daily spending habits, etc. and fight the control of a budget.

That brings you to overwhelm… where you completely shut down, stop doing all the things you know you need to, which lands you in even more trouble, more stress, and more overwhelm as you realize you can’t pay your bills because you aren’t making enough money.

All that stress, financial pressure, not getting enough time to yourself, and loads of residue from the emotional clutter that began it all, creates even more issues as you run into problems in your romantic relationship, don’t feel you’re doing the job you want to as a parent and/or as a friend, and then feel more and more guilt pile up. This can then instigate poor food choices, weight gain, and health problems.

If you’re sitting there reading this, realizing I have just described your entire life and present situation, Entrepreneurship is the PERFECT career for you.

Let me tell you why…

Owning your own business means you will never get bored, you’ll always have just the right amount of chaos in your life, and you can maintain the freedom you so desperately crave, without anyone telling you how much money you can make. You just have to do it in the way that works best for you which is through building real, genuine relationships and giving back to your community (and your tribe) in big ways.

That’s where the hard work comes in. In order to be the person you truly want to be, you have to find the calm in the middle of your hurricane. That means going back to the source of your pain, and healing it.

Healing your emotional clutter is the key to finding balance and building a business you’re proud of. Productivity coaching only tells you what to do in your business, not how to heal the pain that’s blocking your business success to begin with. Hiring a productivity coach is akin to having your parent come back in and tell you what to do. Since this is the control you were accustomed to as a child, it makes sense that when life (and your business) has gotten out of hand, this is the same (subconscious) pattern you return to.

It simply repeats a life-long pattern for you and since being controlled by another person puts you right back into the emotional drama you’ve been running away from your entire life, it eventually feels icky and just doesn’t fix the problem…

In order to break the clutter cycle, you have to work backwards through it. First addressing the overwhelm by building a solid self-care routine, creating and maintaining personal boundaries, and building a solid time-blocked schedule that allows for the experiences you truly want and eliminates the ones you don’t.

Then working through your finances, making things simplistic again, building a manageable budget (and sticking to it), and removing every single thing you don’t need to be spending money on.

It’s important at that point to begin sorting through all the actual physical stuff in your life. How much clutter do you have piled up everywhere? Sort through everything you don’t want and don’t need- even the stuff you think you might use someday but probably really won’t. Be bluntly honest with yourself. Sell what you are releasing or donate to a good cause and bless someone else with the things you know don’t bring you peace or happiness. Stuff cannot fill that void.

Then it’s time for the most important and most difficult step of all- dredging up all the yucky you have buried for so long. Pulling it all out, looking it all over, thinking about what it gave you, and then letting it all go. This process is intense and takes time but is so worth the transformational results that it brings.

Once that area is healed, and even while you’re working on it, building a business based upon the modern methodology of community tribe-building techniques within an ideal client avatar system works much better for someone with your personality than the tired old sales tactics most companies and coaching systems are still training to. That style of business-building means you’ll work less and earn more, creating a sustainable business and lead generation pipeline you won’t have to fight for.

In the end, the search you embark on for a productivity coach is really a search for balance. You want to feel good about yourself and about the business you run. You want to find success financially and still have time for the people you love. You want to stop the vicious “clutter cycle” once and for all and bring yourself, finally, HOME.

For more info on “The Clutter Cycle” and how to heal your productivity once and for all, check out my new program coming very soon, Heal Your Productivity™.