My pal, David Sparks, recently wrote about getting trapped inside a cycle of “false urgency”, and he has begun asking himself a regular question: “Where have I created false urgency?”
I spent years working as a marketing director for a large organization, and the overwhelming cultural vibe was based on urgency: Everything was urgent all the time. We were constantly changing directions, doing new things, and reacting to whatever urgent issue was arising. Sometimes things were actually urgent, but often it was “fake” urgency.
When I quit that job and began working for myself, it took me years to detox from that urgency mindset.
Even in my work and life, I felt that if something was’t urgent, then it wasn’t even important. And so, as a result, I would often neglect any task or area of life that didn’t have an urgent and pressing matter.
This urgency mindset creates a HUGE dilemma!
When we have an overwhelming urgency mindset, it blurs the lines between that which is actually important and that which is not. Everything begins to feel important all the time… and that, in turn, creates a lot of anxiety, stress, and worry that otherwise need not exist.
In the Focus Course, we have a whole section of our training dedicated specifically to this exact issue because it is so common and so difficult to get out of.
One of the ways we help folks overcome an urgency mindset is by helping them to (1) identify the important work and then (2) celebrate that work.
This simple cycle of Identify < > Celebrate can slowly re-train your brain to value (and even seek out) non-urgent tasks and activities. The result is less stress along with more motivation to work on long-term important areas.
If you’re curious where you land, we created an Urgency Assessment that you can take for free. It’s completely anonymous and works great to give you a baseline.
