Distractions are everywhere. In a hyper-connected world, our attention is constantly pulled in multiple directions, and it’s easy to get sidetracked. Whether it’s a text message, a social media notification, or an unplanned conversation, distractions can significantly impact our productivity and energy. In this episode of the Own Your Awesome podcast, host Miranda Von Fricken delves into the pervasive nature of distractions, shares personal anecdotes, and offers strategies to stay focused and aligned with your goals.

The Nature of Distractions

Distractions aren’t inherently bad; sometimes, they can be a welcome relief from emotional or mental stress. Miranda starts the discussion by acknowledging that distractions can provide temporary comfort, like a surprising phone call from a friend when you’re feeling down or a catchy song that uplifts your mood. However, the crux of the conversation focuses on how certain distractions can pull us away from our larger goals and priorities, thereby impacting our progress and overall well-being.

Identifying the Source

One key aspect Miranda emphasizes is the importance of recognizing the origin of distractions. Whether it’s the endless pings from your phone or internal thoughts about your to-do list, identifying what’s causing the distraction is crucial. Miranda candidly shares her own struggles, stating that distractions often arrive from external sources like barking dogs or delivery packages but can also stem from internal factors such as overthinking or anxiety.

Practical Tips vs. Energetic Solutions

While practical advice like turning off notifications is universally known and effective, Miranda urges listeners to also consider energetic perspectives. She believes that distractions often have a deeper, spiritual origin. By recognizing these, we can develop more holistic strategies to overcome them.

Practical Tips for Reducing Distractions

1. Set Boundaries: Create designated times for different activities. For instance, shut off emails and texts during deep work sessions.
2. Environment Optimization: Ensure your workspace is free from unnecessary interruptions. This might mean closing the door or using noise-canceling headphones.
3. Task Management: Use planners or digital tools to prioritize tasks and keep track of your goals.
4. Selective Availability: Activate notifications only for key contacts or urgent matters to reduce constant distractions.

The Energetic Approach to Distractions

Miranda also encourages listeners to consider the energetic and spiritual aspects of their daily routines. This approach involves diving deeper into one’s core values, mission, and purpose.

1. Morning Routines: Create spiritual or grounding practices in your morning routine that align you with your purpose. This may involve prayer, meditation, journaling, or reading a devotional.
2. Mindful Moments: When you feel off, take a moment to center yourself. Miranda shares how she sometimes disconnects entirely to sit in stillness and reconnect with her inner self.
3. Intentional Breaks: Align your breaks with your core values and let them rejuvenate your spirit. For example, stepping outside for a breath of fresh air or engaging in a quick physical activity.

Aligning Actions with Core Values

A powerful way to resist distractions is by aligning your actions with your core values. Miranda suggests identifying your non-negotiables and ensuring that your priorities align with these values.

1. Identify Core Values: Reflect on what truly matters to you. Is it family, health, financial stability, or community service? Knowing this will guide your decision-making process when distractions arise.
2. Non-Negotiables: Decide what activities or commitments are essential. This might mean Sunday church services, as Miranda illustrates, which she never skips in favor of a brunch invitation.
3. Selective Socializing: Balance social activities with your commitments. Communicate clearly with friends when you can participate without compromising your priorities.

Implementing and Sustaining Focus

Miranda encourages listeners to recognize and address distractions promptly. The end of the year often brings additional challenges in maintaining focus. Here are some tips to stay on track:

1. Regular Assessment: Periodically review your goals and the distractions you face. This can help you stay on course and adjust strategies as needed.
2. Continuous Adjustment: Remain flexible without compromising on core values and priorities.
3. Community Support: Share your struggles and solutions with a supportive community, just like Miranda invites her listeners to share their distraction stories with her on Instagram or LinkedIn.

Conclusion

Distractions may seem inevitable, but with a strategic approach that combines practical tips with deeper, energetic solutions, you can significantly minimize their impact. By aligning actions with core values and taking proactive steps to maintain focus, achieving your goals becomes not only possible but inevitable. Stay connected with Miranda Von Fricken for more tips and inspiration as you continue to own your awesome!

Transcript:

Miranda [00:00:00]:
Hello. Hello. And welcome to another episode of the Own Your Awesome podcast. I’m your host, Miranda Von Frickin’. I am oh, man. I feel like I say this every time, but I’m just so pumped for these conversations. Clearly, I am feeling myself again. I’m back, biatch.

Miranda [00:00:20]:
Thank you, Jesus. I’m back. Alright. Here’s what I wanna talk about today, and it has a lot to do with what I’ve been experiencing in the last, we’ll say, month or so. And it’s it’s been good and bad, and I know we all have it, and it’s distractions. I wanna talk about distractions. It’s hard to make shit happen when you’re constantly allowing distractions to come in and pull your focus from the work you need to do. So sometimes distractions are wonderful.

Miranda [00:00:59]:
Right? Like, if we’re feeling sad or when I’m completely in a ball on the couch crying and grieving the loss of my brothers, a distraction is welcomed. Right? Like, I love it if somebody shows up and says hello and I hang out or, you know, like a song comes on that pulls me out to redirect my focus. That’s a happy distraction. It doesn’t always happen like that, but it absolutely can. I I wanna talk about the distractions that pull our focus from achieving the things we have on our heart. So recently recently, I have been feeling myself, like I said, and I’ve been getting back to work. But I’m finding myself easily distracted by little things, like conversations on LinkedIn or the phone ringing. Yeah.

Miranda [00:01:51]:
Turn off my notifications. I hear you. Everybody’s said that to me before. But part of and I can also turn on turn on just my daughter’s notification or just my husband’s. Like, I know all the tricks. I wanna come at this from, like, an energetic perspective, not just a practical perspective because we could easily Google how to not be distracted, and you wouldn’t even have to listen to this podcast. So what’s the point? Right? No. The point that I wanna bring to your attention is a couple things.

Miranda [00:02:19]:
1 is very spiritual faith based, and one is a little more practical. So I find my distractions are a 100% from the devil. Woo, crazy girl coming out. Here we go. Telling me the truth, people. I find that whenever I I feel like I finally click with something, whether it’s in my morning routine or I get into a book and I’m really loving it, I’ll get a I’ll get a text of a a conversation that doesn’t even need to happen or Francesca’s, the clothing store, will send me their 25% off, which I appreciate. But I often find that it’s not just my phone. I’m just being silly about those examples.

Miranda [00:03:02]:
But it could be the dogs barking. It could be, you know, the mailman dropping off a package and it happens to hit the door in the wrong way. Like, I find that I’m easily distracted, and not just by outside factors, also inside factors, like, in my own brain of, like, my to do list. Right? Like, I’m easily distracted, and I not only think that it’s pulling my focus from what I’m doing, but it’s prolonging my success. It is draining my energy, prolonging my success, and hindering me from doing the things I promised I’d do, keeping the promises to myself, achieving certain goals. So I wanna have this conversation, find my post about it on all the social sites. Really, just Instagram and LinkedIn. Those are my two places.

Miranda [00:03:55]:
But I wanna talk distractions because as the end of the year nears, we are going to get super distracted and need the need to do some things to make sure we’re still focused on our priorities. Right? So if we say to ourself, making x this month, x amount of money this month is a priority, yet your friend calls you and says, can you go to lunch? And you know lunch isn’t typically an hour. It goes like 4 hours because you’re both Chatty Cathys. That’s a distraction. Right? So we need and it’s beyond just the text messages or the emails and turning off your notifications. It’s the saying yeses to things that are not priorities. So what do we need to do? And I’ve learned this throughout the years and I’m implementing them again because they do fall off, and it is a seasonal dilemma for me. It typically is more towards the end of the year when I’m pushing to achieve a a financial goal or a business goal or, you know, like, a personal goal that I’ve been working on or wanna do something before the New Year starts because we all know that in January, we set some new goals or whatever.

Miranda [00:05:03]:
But it’s usually this season, so I have to, like, remember the things that work for me when I’m feeling distracted. So I go back to basics. For me, it’s remind my I’ll sit and get quiet, turn off all the distractions, and I’ll say to myself, what are my core values? Why am I here on this Earth? Why did God put me here? It’s not to go to lunch with my girlfriends and be distracted for 4 hours. Although, I get to go to lunch with my girlfriends. I’m not saying don’t do that, but there’s a time for that. And if it’s replacing something that’s more important, like calling in the right client that will help you to pay your mortgage or helping your kid to study for math because he’s failing math right now. Like, I’m just saying, like, there are priorities and it stems back to our core values. So what are your core values? What are a few nonnegotiables that you can attach to your core values? And then what are your priorities that are aligned with both your core values and your nonnegotiables.

Miranda [00:06:10]:
These priorities are essentially the answer to any distraction that comes your way. Right? So if someone says to me alright. On Sundays, I go to church. If someone says to me, oh my god. We’re doing brunch on Sunday at this time. We’re all going. Can you meet us? And and my my insides are like, hell, yeah, brunch. I love me some, scrambled eggs and cheeseburgers.

Miranda [00:06:41]:
Like, let’s fucking do this. I love some mimosas and then an hour later, a a margarita. Like, I’m so in for brunch. However, if my priority is to get in shape, is to go to church at my normal time, to be surrounded by the normal community that in that time and see those people and feel my soul, I’m probably not going to go to brunch. Actually, what I can do to to kinda satisfy both sides of me so I don’t feel deprived is say to the person inviting me, oh, my god. I love brunch. I cannot wait, but I gotta be late. Save me a seat.

Miranda [00:07:22]:
I’ll meet you there. I know I can’t go to brunch first and leave early to go to church. That ain’t gonna happen. I know I know I know me. So what I have to say is, yep. I’m coming, but I’m going to be late. I’m going to go to church because that’s the time I go to church. I’m gonna work out in the morning, probably a little extra because I know I’m gonna be eating some stuff.

Miranda [00:07:45]:
I’m gonna work out. I’m gonna go to church. I’m gonna drink some extra water, and then I’m gonna meet you. And I’m gonna be late. Save me a seat. I can’t wait to see you. Even if I get there at the tail end, that part of me is still going to experience the excitement and the socialness that I I am craving with my girlfriends. I can’t wait.

Miranda [00:08:06]:
They’re probably already going to be buzzed, though. They’re going to have that pitcher of mimosas probably done, maybe even their second one, and I’m gonna be there to drive them all home. So everybody wins. Let’s be honest. But, I mean, I’m I’m being silly here, but that’s what’s happening. Right? So one day, I’m doing my morning routine, and I’m feeling off. I’m like, oh, nothing’s clicking. Like, you know how I’ve explained how things click for me, like, in the morning where I know it’s gonna be a a good day, or it doesn’t click, and I’m just like blah for the rest of the day.

Miranda [00:08:35]:
I need to get them to that point where it clicks. So I either need to pray more, I need to read an extra chapter in my devotional, I need to, you know, journal more or work out or something. Something needs a click for me, and if I can’t get it there, I’m usually screwed. But I can typically get it there. I do give myself some grace on certain days, but sometimes I really need to force it. So the other day, I’m in my morning routine, and it wasn’t clicking. And so what I ended up doing is just, like, turning off the phone. No distractions.

Miranda [00:09:04]:
I already posted on LinkedIn, so I knew I was gonna start getting some notifications. That was my first mistake. I should have probably done that later. But I put the phone aside and I just got really still. And I decided to not do anything, but just sit there in in the still distractedness. And I had to breathe through it because the craziness in me wanted to just go, go, go. Right? Like, the the all over the place version of me had 50,000,000 thoughts. I wanted to see what people were responding on LinkedIn.

Miranda [00:09:36]:
I wanted to, you know, go for a walk right now, but I I knew I had to do the mental spiritual part first to get it to click so that the physical was easier and then the work came supernatural, and and I could just hit it harder and get more results in less time. So I finally got myself to the point where I’m like, alright. I’m ready. Thank you, God. I’m I’m ready. I’m there. Let’s do this. And the minute I say let’s do this, I know I’m on.

Miranda [00:10:02]:
So I was like, alright. Let’s do this. So I wanted to finish reading this book I’m reading, The Prayer Circle, and I wanted to finish reading it. The minute I sat down, opened up to the page, I thought I had turned off my notifications, and I I got a text. I got a text. It was a random morning text about a friend at work, and I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Like, this is legit the devil. Like, he saw me.

Miranda [00:10:29]:
He knew I was getting to the point where I’d say, let’s do this, and he pounced the minute I was ready. What did I do? I opened up the text. I was like, I was so mad that I opened up the text because I knew that would set me off. And I feel like I’m rambling, but we’ve been there. You’ve all been there with me. I know I’m not alone. So I once I realized what what was happening, I put the phone in a different room, and I said, not today, Satan. I’m I’m getting in the zone.

Miranda [00:10:56]:
And so I got in the zone, and I finished my routine, and it was a wonderful day. So what I’m asking for you today is to start to recognize the distractions that are popping up in your life that are keeping you from completely owning your awesome. Right? Like, not just owning it, but living it out, embodying it, like, making sure you’re doing the things you need to do to achieve your goals. The end of the year is creeping up, friends. I mean, we’ve got a little bit of time. I mean, mere weeks. And it’s not a big deal because it doesn’t mean the world’s ending. Just because the end of the year is coming doesn’t mean the world’s ending, although it looks like it out there.

Miranda [00:11:35]:
But it it just means that there are goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year, the beginning of the month. Shit. The beginning of the week. And if we allow these distractions to consume us, we’re it’s just being waste we’re wasting our time and our energy on these distractions. So what has been distracting you? I would actually love it if you would send me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn. I’m Miranda dot von Frickin on Instagram, Miranda von Frickin on LinkedIn. Send me a DM that just says distractions, and tell me what’s been distracting you lately. Because I’m I’m thinking of working up, like, a free masterclass or a free PDF or something that can be real practical, because that’s what I I said at the beginning.

Miranda [00:12:22]:
It’s gonna be a little energetic, which it turned out to be a lot energetic and practical. The practical may be a part 2 because the only real practical advice I have for you is to acknowledge when you’re being distracted and then find a solution to not let that specific thing distract you again. And if you’re struggling with that, of course, let me help you. Send me a DM. If you’re like, nope. I already found the solution. I used to get distracted by this. I don’t anymore because I do that.

Miranda [00:12:50]:
DM me that too. Like, I wanna know. I’ll I’ll share your awesomeness. I’ll use your example on a future podcast. I want to be able to educate and inform and inspire everyone who’s listening to live their best life. Right? As generic as that sounds, but that’s ultimately what we’re here to do. Live out our calling, completely serve the people around us, and just live this beautiful life that we were called to live, and we can’t do that distracted. So shoot me a message.

Miranda [00:13:19]:
Thank you so much for listening to this beautiful topic of distraction. I can’t wait to see what I get in the DMs, and I will share with everyone what your responses were. I can’t wait to share that. Thank you again for listening, and until next week, keep being awesome.