Redefining “Productivity”
I’ve been thinking a lot about productivity - about this conditioned compulsion to produce. About the incessant need to get more and more done in the the same (or less) amount of time.
While going to bathroom has become a porcelain throne to check emails and send out just one more reply, taking 20 minutes to eat lunch away from work (aka undistracted) is believed to be a luxury to most of my clients! To me, that reality is completely backwards. Which really got me thinking…
From the moment we wake up, most of us check our phones and check our emails - checking for what other people need from us as soon as we open our eyes. We usually don’t abandon this mindset until around 5.00 pm (if we’re lucky) or later. Often, to satisfy this internal obligation to be “productive” we fill the remaining hours of the day with vigorous exercise, tending to external relationships, and even more work! I’ll just get ahead for tomorrow. We have conditioned ourselves to be in a constant state of producing.
Given the fact that this is the parameter of success most of us are conditioned to measure ourselves against, I’ve been noticing a lot of guilt surfacing. A lot of thoughts that sound like ‘you should be more productive’, ‘have you really earned down time today?’. When these thoughts surface, I’ve noticed what soon follows is a little posse of shit talkers - thoughts and beliefs that actually do the opposite of my intention - to garner more motivation and clarity to create from a space of flow. Instead, it’s resistance to rest I have not earned, its judgement and doubt for not feeling creative, its overwhelm from impending failure I have convinced myself is truth.
When I watch all this nonsense cascade into my mind, at first, I feel the gripping, the impulse to produce. Then, I realize that these thoughts, these fears, these attempts to clutch onto some external derivative of my worth do not serve me.
Of course, I’m an advocate for hard work, discipline, and whole heartedly chasing what you desire (which means putting in the hours that requires), but at the same time, there’s such freedom and peace in letting go. In the acceptance and honoring of what your body and soul are craving. Ironically, once I give into that, as uncomfortable as it may feel, I am able to be productive without forcing myself to be productive. That natural state of productivity is when the magic happens. When time flies, when I’m in amazement at what I have written, at what I have created, at the ideas that can’t flow out of me quick enough.
What if you took a moment to ask yourself what it means to you to be productive? What if your definition of productivity differed from the definition that has been propagated to you via media? What if when you ask yourself ‘Did I have a productive day?’, you redefine productivity to mean the sum total of all the small moments you chose to create happiness, to create joy, to create connection in your day.
What if when you reflected after a long day, you took inventory of how many times you smiled, how many times you had a nice conversation or genuine connection with someone else - whether it be a connected conversation with a loved one or the eye contact and acknowledging smile between you and a stranger on the street. What if we redefined productivity to mean all the times you showed up for yourself, all the times you chose to love yourself during the day, all the times you chose to fuel your body with nutrient dense, whole foods, all the times you chose to speak with compassion and kindness to yourself, all the times you caught yourself comparing yourself to others and gently re-steered to a kind and loving embrace of self?
What if that was what it meant to be productive? Wouldn’t the creation, the work, the inspiration flow more easily? From a place of wholeness and peace as opposed to guilt and ego? Isn’t listening to your body’s cry for rest and restoration really one of the most productive things you can do for yourself, for your ability to create, for your connection to self.
Like I said, I am a big proponent of hard work and determination (and yes at times that means meeting deadlines where perhaps our heart isn’t fully in it), but finding harmony in being productive and producing your own happiness is an essential endeavor. Too often chasing the high of productivity, by society’s standards, begins to slowly consume our perception of self, our worth, and propels us into a never-ending cycle of having to earn rest, earn love, and earn worthiness - which I am here to passionately challenge and invite you to do the same.
I am here to give you permission to redefine productivity. To empower you to define what it means to you to have a productive day. To choose rest, to choose stillness, and to choose cultivating peace and still feel productive.