How I Freed Myself From Productivity Mindset
Greetings spiritualists and welcome back! 🙂
I received a question from one of our readers and my dear friend, Caroline, about how to release the “need to be productive”, as well as how I view my time spent on tasks and leisure. With a few WhatsApp audios and texts, I was able to chat with her and answer her questions.
With her permission, this is now a blog post for the rest of you!
Backstory: I went through a really bad burnout between December 2020 and December 2023. I ended up quitting my job in healthcare in September 2022, roughly halfway through this burnout period.
What I am about to share with you is how I was able to divorce myself from the need to be productive so that I could live freely. Due to the forces of nature, I had to learn to slow down, listen to my body, and work at snail’s pace for a really long time. Once I was forced to stay still, I realized how much pushing I was doing all these years.
Part 1: How to Free Yourself From The Need to Be Productive
The first part of freeing yourself from a limiting belief that is keeping you stuck is to confront your belief system, lovingly. Most of our limiting beliefs actually came from outside of us - school, upbringing, culture, religion, etc. So having a familiarity that the subconscious mind has made meaning of a certain behavior or preferred belief system is a great starting point.
Taking it a step further, you have to find the many sub-beliefs that are tied to this same belief. It’s likely that there are multiple beliefs tied to the same theme, needing to be productive. More on this in a minute.
And lastly, remembering how long you’ve had the belief system for, likely decades, can also help you to understand why it’s so hard to let go of this need to be productive.
Part 2: So Like… What Do You Do Now?
The only way to change something sustainably is to love it. This is what I wrote about in my newest e-book on releasing limiting beliefs. I personally use a technique called EFT, an acupressure tapping technique. Basically what you do is confront yourself for the dialogue that’s been playing… “Even though I feel the need to be productive, I deeply love and accept myself.”
As you work through the dialogues that have been playing in your head, you may find that your worthiness was tied to being productive. Inherently, your worthiness is unchanging, always there, and magnificently large. But because of conditioning and the ego, your worthiness gets diminished, and then attached to things outside of ourselves. So that’s how the dialogue becomes, “I need to be productive, because then I am more worthy of love or abundance, etc..”
Now there is a conditional value tied to it, which makes it extra ingrained and difficult to release. This is why I like EFT because you can quickly get into the subconscious, and figure out what stories are tied to that one thing. You can use other techniques as well, and keep in mind it may take several tries to really get down to the deep healing.
We also have multiple parts (ie., the hardworker, the pusher, the inner critic, etc.) that were developed out of survival as young people. These parts work in the background as well to micromanage situations to ensure your “success and approval”. Using EFT (or any other preferred method), you can have a dialogue with those parts, and still love and accept them, because they’ve gotten you to this point. AND they are holding you back in some ways, so now it’s time to shift this and their jobs.
The work of actually confronting the beliefs and parts is the hardest part because it’s going to bring up a lot of negatively charged feelings. As you release negativity (by feeling your feelings) and make friends with those parts and limiting belief systems, you’ve now neutralized what’s going on underneath.
The final step is reprogramming your subconscious. Intellectually, I could tell you “you don’t have to be productive to be loved.” And consciously you could say, “yeah that makes sense.” But until you do the work of reprogramming the subconscious, your behavior will still match those underlying beliefs systems, unconsciously. Meaning, you’ll still try to be productive, working counter to your inner goals.
Part 3: How I View My Time Spent on Tasks and Leisure
After having left work, I had to divorce myself from the need to be productive because physically I couldn’t. That being said, the nature of the things I do now that matter to me are not rooted in productivity. Because what I do now is largely creative and from the soul, I need space to rest and be in a state of receptivity in order to intuit great ideas. All of our great ideas come from Source.
In order to be in tune with Source, I have to get out of my mind and be in my body. Being in a receptive state is a high-vibrational state. Going from a productivity clinical pharmacy queen to what I do now with creativity – it’s a completely different way of being. In order to have a new outcome and way of life, I have to be a new person.
So for me, the way I view my tasks now is: Is this aligned? Impactful? And simple?
Aligned
With regards to the tasks, I will only do from my being. I will only do something if it is in alignment with my soul, my values, and what my body wants to do in this moment. Everything I do, therefore, is super intentional.
If for whatever reason I’m not feeling well enough, or there’s something blocking me from being more productive, or I simply forgot, I am surrendering that over to the universe to complete in God’s timing. Maybe that was the will of the universe, and that’s okay.
Impactful
I had to shift my mindset from productive to impactful. What has the most impact and moves the needle the farthest on your to-do-list? What gives you a healthy sense of fulfillment? What makes you lose track of time completely because you are enjoying it so much?
Or, let’s consider you don’t feel great and you need a self-care day, a day to heal a past trauma or trigger, or your feelings. That healing is still felt by the collective! Which to me, is still impactful.
Simple
And lastly, simple. Most of the time we are “productive”, we are actually just doing “busy work”, which makes people feel productive, when they’re really not doing anything at all. There is an 80-20 rule: 20% of what we do gives us 80% of the results, and 80% of what we do only gives us 20% of the results.
So simplifying my to-do list means focusing on what actually moves the needle - again - what’s aligned and impactful - the best things for my energy!!
To Review: My Ethos With Doing
Is this Aligned? - with my soul’s values and my body’s readiness, as well as the will of the universe
Is this Impactful? - what gives myself (and others) the most reward?
Is this Simple? - shortening my to-do list to things with a HUGE impact that is both aligned and impactful!!!
A Word on Time Management
The last thing I’ll say about time management is it’s a hoax and a trick of the ego. Most of us believe we are “bad at it” because the ego always wants more and faster and perfect. It also wants an excuse to judge you.
We are not meant to be infinitely fast. Remember, life comes in seasons and cycles. So trust your feelings on what’s doable, have self-compassion, and remember it’s okay to go slower than you think. Slow is good! We want impactful, not rushed 🙂
Wrap-Up
Deconditioning old paradigms can be intense and hard work, but I promise you, it opens up the path to freedom and abundance, joy and love. It is totally worth it. It moves the needle in your own life as well as for the collective consciousness. And ultimately, that’s what our souls really want!
Thank you for reading with me and have a great week!!
Did this post inspire you? If so, how? Write in the comments or hit reply on email!
Love,
Angeli
“The great benefit of slowing down is reclaiming the time and tranquility to make meaningful connections–with people, with culture, with work, with nature, with our own bodies and minds” ~ Carl Honoré
Are you wanting to up-level your life but are finding yourself stuck? Check on my newest e-book on Releasing Limiting Beliefs!! A simple self-study tool designed to set you up for success in life by releasing the beliefs that keep you stuck, and reclaiming who you really are. Your birthright is to achieve your dreams, and I am here to help you :)
And whenever you are ready, here are my other self-study tools intended to be of service to you on your spiritual path!
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What else do you need help with on your spiritual path? What are you wanting to learn? Message me (reply on email) and I can create blog topics to help the group! Thanks so much!