Everyday Confidence Podcast
Confidence Quick Tips
28 - Improving Your Confidence by Dealing With Distractions
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On today’s show I’ll be dealing with something we’re all guilty of sometimes… getting distracted. Even though getting distracted doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, it can have huge effects on your confidence and self esteem.

So, today, we’re going to go through some ways to stop that happening.

If you have any questions, or comments, please leave them in the comments section below.

Steve

 

 

Podcast music: Is ‘Sweet Life’ by Twisterium.
Music Link: https://www.twisterium.com

Podcast Transcript:

 

Hello and welcome to episode 28 of the everyday confidence podcast from the skillfulmind.com. I’m your host Steve George and today I want to ask you to push on in spite of distractions.
 
Hello again. I hope your week’s going well so far? Today I want to bring your attention to something we all do from time to time. And that’s ‘get distracted’. Sometimes we see it as a welcome distraction. It gives us a chance to regroup. Reset our direction. Or maybe it even gives us an excuse to move on to something different. But whatever it is, giving in to it is never beneficial in the end. It doesn’t matter how much you wanna believe you’re doing the right thing by giving in to the distraction, you always lose out in the end.Now obviously when I use the word distraction, I mean anything that takes your attention away from the task you’re supposed to be concentrating on. So, that could be email, or social media notifications, phone calls, requests from other people. Anything at all that stops you doing what you’re supposed to be doing.
 
So, whenever we get distracted, there’s an immediate emotional reaction. Sometimes it’s a feeling of relief if we’re struggling with something. Or, sometimes it’s acceptance. Sometimes it’s stress, or anxiety, that we’ve not been able to finish what we started. But all these emotions are caused because we’ve accepted that giving in to the distraction is inevitable. And it really isn’t. Short of an emergency situation, there’s nothing that can’t be left until you’ve finished.
 
Even if it seems incredibly important in the moment. I don’t know, maybe you’ve been waiting two days for that crucial email, or you’re desperate to see if someone’s liked you’re crazy cat video. But what ever it is, it can wait ‘till you’ve finished.
 
When you wait until after, to check those distractions, you won’t have to suffer the consequences of the emotions we spoke about earlier. Because you won’t have those emotions. PROVIDED you make the commitment to ignoring the distractions before you start. If you just roll into the work without that commitment, as soon as something pops up, you’ll start feeling guilty and you’ll be desperate to have quick look… just in case!
 
If you set up a commitment before you start, when the distraction pops up, you can just say to yourself… “I’ll deal with that once I’m finished” and then carry on with the important stuff.
 
And there’s another, even worse consequence of giving in to the distractions. It can start to make you feel less confident. If you keep giving in to distractions, it can start to make you feel like you don’t have the strength, or commitment to do anything successfully. And that can be a bit hit to your self-esteem.
 
So let’s go through a few ways you start to control those distractions. As I said a moment ago, start off by making a commitment to yourself that you’re not going to give in to distractions while you’re completing that particular task. Whatever that task happens to be. Now, that’s a great start, but it’s not always going to be enough. Even with the best will-in-the-world, some distraction are still gonna pressure you for attention. So, what else can you do?
 
Well, the obvious answer is to stop the distractions in the first place. So, turn off your phone, put any social media notifications on silent. Tell the people around you that you’re going to be busy for a while and you don’t want to be disturbed. Whether that’s work colleagues or loved ones at home . Okay? So do whatever you can to disable the distractions you know about before you start. And by doing that, the number of times your likely get distracted is cut right down, so keeping to your commitment not to give in to the distractions you do get, is going to be much easier, because there’s much less chance you’re going to need to use it.
 
Right, so now you know what to do, what benefits does ignoring distractions really have? Well, one of the main benefits is that when we get distracted, our confidence comes under fire. We’ve essentially decided to change direction, or essentially ‘give up’ on what we thought was important. And when we do that we’re subconsciously telling ourselves that we made the wrong decision in the first place. But, by working on in spite of the distractions, you’re telling yourself that the decision you made initially was the right one. And that if you’re committed, you can successfully do, whatever you set your mind to.
 
And this one thing is a great confidence booster. Just knowing that when something’s important to you, you can give it 100% focus, moves you up the confidence ladder and makes you feel better about yourself.
 
Being able to get the job done even when there’s temporary setbacks. Because it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you’ll never stop the distractions completely. There’ll always be something that comes up, or someone who didn’t know you didn’t want to be disturbed. But by taking care of what you can control and committing to not be drawn away by the ones you can’t, you’ll build your self-confidence, keep your focus and remind yourself that you can do anything if you put your mind to it.
 
As well as that, you’ve kept control of the situation. You’ve not been thrown off course by things that really can wait until you’ve finished and you’ve added another success to your catalogue.
 
Once you’ve finished the important project, you’ve got plenty of time to take care of all the other stuff you’d normally be distracted by. Only this time there’s no guilt, stress, or anxiety because you’ve made the conscious decision to do it now. It’s not the distraction itself that’s the problem. It’s the fact that it is a distraction. Once you’ve finished the important stuff, that distraction becomes just the next thing on your to-do list. It’s not a distraction any more.
 
It’s all about setting priorities. Get the important stuff done first, then you can take care of the other stuff after. That way, not only will you feel better about yourself, but other people will start to have more respect for your time as well.
 
Okay, so to quickly recap… Turn off any notifications you can. switch off your phone, or at least put it on silent. Tell the people around you, you don’t want to be disturbed. Then commit to not getting drawn in by any distractions you couldn’t predict.
 
You’ll be surprised how much difference it makes.
 
That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please tell your friends about it. Show notes will be at theskillfulmind.com/podcast/28. Enjoy the rest of your week and I’ll speak to you soon. Bye for now.

 

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