SUMMER REPLAY:  Unlock the “Fresh Start Effect” with Weekly Preview

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Joel: While we’re on hiatus, we’re not just shuffling the archive. We went through everything, like scoured it. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen like those card catalogs they use to keep in libraries. Well, that’s actually how we keep all the episodes of Focus on This. And you should have seen Marissa and I pulling out the drawers and like rifling through, finger, finger, finger, thumb, thumb, thumb, all the way through every one of those cards, and we found all the best episodes.

[00:00:31] Marissa: Yeah, and we really asked ourselves the question, which episodes would we want every listener to have heard? And that’s exactly the criteria that we used in these episodes. These are our very best. Some of them are past host of, what do they say, the ghost of-

[00:00:48] Joel: Christmas past …

[00:00:49] Marissa: past. This is like the- Yeah … the host of podcast past.

[00:00:53] Okay? Yeah. But we hope that you really enjoy these, and we think that you will. We think these are gonna be super relevant and super helpful, even though they weren’t recorded last week.

[00:01:04] Joel: The truth is, it was a challenge to narrow these suckers down, ’cause the archive is vast. I mean, the truth is, just like that library catalog, the, the card catalog at the library, it was like thousands upon thousands of millions of episodes.

[00:01:17] I might be overstating it, but a lot of episodes. And what that meant was we had to find the best of the best, and this is one of the ones that made the cut.

[00:01:26] Marissa: So go ahead and hit play and enjoy.

[00:01:34] Blake: So Courtney, you know I’m a licensed psychologist, right?

[00:01:38] Courtney: Ye- yeah.

[00:01:39] Blake: Uh, I- It’s another, it’s another- Yeah … it’s just a side thing that I did. Um- Oh, okay … no, I’m just kidding. I’m not a psychologist. But I have learned this thing- Mm-hmm … that real psychologists have discovered, which is this idea of landmarks, passing landmarks, creating a reset.

[00:01:59] So think about it, like, when do people mostly set their goals? When is our big goal-setting event?

[00:02:05] Courtney: Right. New Year’s.

[00:02:06] Blake: New Year’s, right?

[00:02:07] Courtney: Yeah.

[00:02:07] Blake: When do you start feeling all reflective about your marriage?

[00:02:12] Courtney: Uh-

[00:02:12] Blake: Your anniversary, right?

[00:02:13] Courtney: Anniversary, yeah. Yeah?

[00:02:14] Blake: Yeah. Or, or maybe your birthday. You- Mm-hmm … hey, I’m another year, what do I want this year to be?

[00:02:20] There’s… it’s almost this… it can be totally an arbitrary thing sometimes, but having a landmark creates this natural reset.

[00:02:30] Courtney: Yeah.

[00:02:30] Blake: You, you following this?

[00:02:31] Courtney: I’m totally following you.

[00:02:32] Blake: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so today we’re gonna talk about the fresh start effect, and we’ve got four steps for you to leverage that effect in your life.

[00:02:46] Welcome to another episode of Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the whole wide internet, so you can banish distractions, get the right stuff done, and finally start loving Mondays. My name is Blake Stratton, and I am here with my wonderful co-host, Ms. Courtney Baker. Hello, Courtney. How are you?

[00:03:10] Courtney: Hey, Blake. Happy Monday.

[00:03:12] Blake: Happy Monday unto you.

[00:03:14] Courtney: Yeah. And we should say our friend Verbs, our other co-host, is out today, um, but should be back soon. And Blake, I have on actually my Happy Monday T-shirt, for those of you that won one on our 100th episode. Uh, it’s really fun. Very

[00:03:33] Blake: cool.

[00:03:34] Courtney: Yeah.

[00:03:34] Blake: Very cool. I can tell

[00:03:35] You seem a little bit happier with the shirt on. I think you should wear it every day.

[00:03:39] Courtney: Yeah. I, I think I should too, and just see if that, uh, makes every day as happy as Monday. Uh, we’ll- … see how that is.

[00:03:48] Blake: All right. So we introduced this idea called the fresh start effect. Mm-hmm. This concept of … I mean, do you ever feel like this, Courtney, where you’re just like, you go through a day or a week and you go Gosh, I wish I could just start that again.

[00:04:04] Like, I, I do this with my daughter. She’s two, but sometimes, you know, two-year-olds sometimes have preferences that you don’t totally- No … understand the logic, but, like, it has to be… Like this morning- Mm-hmm … her, her waffle that I made her broke because she was trying to eat it, and that was a problem.

[00:04:23] Mm-hmm. It was a problem that the waffle- Mm-hmm … was not whole.

[00:04:27] Joel: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:27] Blake: And so she let me know that that was a problem in the way that two-year-olds

[00:04:32] Joel: do.

[00:04:32] Blake: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so I said, “Oh, Fel- Felicity, that’s so sad. Do you wanna have a redo? Can, can we do a redo?” And she goes, “Yeah.” And so then we, we made another frozen waffle and, and we had a fresh start, a redo.

[00:04:46] So I mean, Courtney, do you ever feel like you need to… I mean, I don’t know what your waffle routine is in the morning, but have you ever felt that way?

[00:04:53] Courtney: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think a lot of times where I feel that most severely is when I mess up, you know? When you know, you have some kinda interaction and you’re like, oh my gosh, it’s…

[00:05:05] That sometimes it even sits with you over the weekend or, like, for a longer period of time ’cause you’re like, that interaction or maybe it was, you know, a conversation with a coworker or a friend or a spouse, it just, you said something you shouldn’t have said or something you didn’t intend, and it’s like, ugh, I just wanna, I wanna, like, clean the slate, you know?

[00:05:23] Yeah. Clear the deck and kinda start over.

[00:05:26] Blake: Yeah. Like, when you cussed me out last week, that was really intense. And I was like, wow, I think you need a fresh start. Um-

[00:05:33] Courtney: Oh, yeah. Yeah … I,

[00:05:35] Blake: I feel like for me it’s, like, getting to the end of the week, and sometimes I’ll look, uh, at, like, what I actually got done or, like, the results.

[00:05:43] You know, I’m, I’m part of our sales team, and so, like, I’m always looking at conversations I’ve had, deals that closed or

[00:05:49] Joel: didn’t.

[00:05:50] Blake: Mm-hmm. And sometimes I get to through the week and go, wait a second, I felt busy, but I feel like I’m not close to my goal right now for the month or week, whatever. And I, I felt like, oh gosh, that conversation didn’t go well, or I got distracted over here and whatever.

[00:06:05] Courtney: Mm-hmm. And

[00:06:05] Blake: then I’m just like, you know what you know what? I need to just sort of, you know, like a movie director, have another take. Yep. So-

[00:06:12] Courtney: Yep, totally …

[00:06:12] Blake: if you’ve, if you’ve felt that way listening, um, it’s okay. You know, that happens. That’s life. It’s not about getting it 100% correct all the time. But I like the hack that we’re talking about today.

[00:06:26] Mm-hmm. The, the fresh start effect. So Courtney, do you wanna talk about, I guess, how that works, then we can get, sort of get into the practical steps?

[00:06:36] Courtney: Yeah, so I think, like we’ve named a lot of examples and times where you certainly do need that kind of like resetting and, you know, we talked early in the episode about those big events like New Year’s or birthdays or even the beginning of school if you have kids, you know, that there’s kind of a natural landmark that gives us kinda mental clarity for something new to begin.

[00:06:58] But what’s really incredible is the full focus system really has that built in, and one of those ways that it’s built in is with your weekly preview. You know, you can kinda use that to, to reset. You know, no matter what happened last week, no matter if email ran your to-do list or, you know, none of the important things got done, you can use that time to clear the deck, um, and start fresh.

[00:07:29] And so that’s… We’re gonna give you some steps on how to utilize that a- and make that true every week.

[00:07:35] Blake: Awesome. Well, let’s dive into the four steps to leveraging this concept of the, the fresh start effect in your life. Courtney, what’s the first one?

[00:07:45] Courtney: Yeah, the first step is just to name the beginning, and really what this is is just the mental shift that I was just talking about.

[00:07:52] You can just do your weekly preview to do it. You know, you can kinda get in the habit of it, um, and it’s just like, “Okay, I’m gonna plan for the next week.” But it’s really important to frame that as a fresh start, you know, that it is, it is really you’ve cleared the deck. You know, anything that happened last week, you’re gonna process that as part of your after action review, but then from that point forward, you’re really looking, uh, to the future and you’ve really got that fresh start.

[00:08:19] So this is, again, it’s not really action oriented. It’s all about shifting your mindset and saying, “Okay, this is the beginning of the fresh start. This is the beginning of this new week that I’m going into.” So, uh, I don’t know, Blake, do you kind of… Does that help when you’re thinking of your weekly preview, like that mental shift?

[00:08:39] Blake: Yeah, it, I, I feel like when I do my weekly preview, it’s kind of a activation trigger to shift. Uh, to me, the mental shift is I’m exiting achieving mode and doing mode and acting mode, and entering into strategic mode, almost like I’m zooming above the trees- Mm-hmm … and kinda looking over my own life. And it’s, in a way, kinda detaching from the experience of, of the week is mentally really helpful for me because it reminds me that, oh, I’m actually…

[00:09:19] Even if the week was really hard or my month has been hard, I’m still powerful to create the life and, and, and the results and experiences that I wanna create, and it’s kinda stepping into that and going, “I get to, I get to clear the deck, and I get to sort of do some life design right now,” is super empowering to me, I find.

[00:09:41] Courtney: I, I, I feel like it’s worth stating, what you just described, I feel like is the perfect definition of productivity You know, it’s that intentional thinking about what you’re doing. You know, I think a lot of times we think of productivity as actually the, like, actions. But what you just described of actually, like, pulling out of that and looking and being cognizant of, like, how you’re going to spend your time is a really great definition of productivity, and it’s built in so well with this system.

[00:10:13] Blake: So do you think that we should call Michael now and have him agree to me writing the forward to his next book? Is that what, is that what you’re saying?

[00:10:21] Courtney: That’s exactly

[00:10:22] Blake: what- It sounds like that was what you were saying …

[00:10:23] Courtney: that, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

[00:10:25] Blake: Right? Okay. Okay, cool. All

[00:10:26] Courtney: right. Yeah. I, but I feel like if you’re gonna be part of the forward, then I should also, um-

[00:10:32] Blake: Well, you can

[00:10:32] Courtney: do the prologue

[00:10:33] be in the forward. Okay. Okay, great. I’m glad that we have that settled, and, um, Michael will be excited to hear that. Are there

[00:10:39] Blake: prologues in nonfiction books? I don’t, I don’t think so. But, um-

[00:10:43] Courtney: You know what? We

[00:10:43] Blake: can be the first … you could do, we could do the afterword. We could, you could do the afterword. You know, be kind of a- Yeah,

[00:10:47] Courtney: I could-

[00:10:48] Blake: You could do the call to action, right?

[00:10:49] Y- that, that, that’s kinda your zone. Okay. So that’s step one, name the beginning. Let’s do step two. This is, this step is accept your missteps. Accept as in receive-

[00:11:02] Courtney: Mm-hmm …

[00:11:02] Blake: your missteps. So, um, I’m an expert at missteps, so I could talk about this one a little bit, Courtney. This is, uh, this is the part of the weekly preview where you allow yourself to be honest about what happened, including the stuff that wasn’t so great.

[00:11:25] So this, for me, comes out in the section where I’m writing down my big three from last week and being honest about, you know, did I, did I get that done? How far along did I get it? Did I do what I say did I do what I said I wanted to do related to those three objectives? Mm-hmm. And then in that after action review section, where I’m being honest about, hey, what worked and what didn’t work, which I think is a very gentle way of framing where did I screw up?

[00:11:51] Oh, this didn’t work, or this did work. Yeah. But it, the importance of this step is the honesty of accepting your missteps means it, it, it sets you up to succeed and have a fresh start in, in a more, more than just sort of a rah-rah way, but in a more tangible, useful way. You can’t improve- Mm-hmm … on what you don’t acknowledge is broken, right?

[00:12:15] You can’t fix something that you don’t acknowledge is not working. So that’s what this step is about. Courtney, do you have anything to add?

[00:12:22] Courtney: Well, I think this can be really hard for kind of achievement-driven people. You know, I think it’s… I think people can kind of fall on two ends of the spectrum, and Blake, I suspect you and I probably fall on the opposite ends of it.

[00:12:35] Um, there’s like, you know, those people that really see their missteps and kinda can fall into, you know, feeling discouraged and kinda sitting with that maybe longer than they- Hmm … need to, and then the other extreme is, like, you don’t wanna acknowledge it at all. I wonder which- You know, you’re just like- I wonder which sides-

[00:12:50] let’s just plow forward … I wonder which sides

[00:12:51] Blake: we’re on with that.

[00:12:55] Courtney: Everybody listening is like, “Yeah, we don’t need you to tell us.” Um, I think that’s why it’s such a good practice for whichever, um, side that you may lean towards of just, again, I think the way that you said it, it’s a really gentle way of saying, you know, where, where did you…

[00:13:12] What went wrong? But in a way that feels really, um, objective and just actionable of saying, “Okay, this, this didn’t go the way that I wanted it to, but I can improve it. I have a lot of agency, and I have a fresh start, uh, to do that differently this coming week.”

[00:13:30] Blake: Yeah. A couple of, uh, perspective shifts with this.

[00:13:33] If it’s this- if this step is hard for you to really acknowledge th- you know, the missteps or to be honest about what’s not working, you just kinda wanna blow past that and go, “Yeah, I know. S- some, some crap happened. Let’s move on to what I gotta do next.” Uh, or, “Let’s, let’s go bigger,” or, “Let’s try harder.” Um- Mm-hmm

[00:13:49] a couple of things. There’s an illustration that I heard once that I think was super helpful for me to learn to embrace the struggles, rather than try to resist them or pretend they’re not happening. It’s, um- Yeah … think of those missteps or those challenges or mistakes as, uh, resistance, right? They’re, they’re literal resistance to you hitting your goals.

[00:14:12] Well, if you were training for, you know, like a athletic trainer, you’re training to be a bodybuilder or something like that, no bodybuilder who’s like, gets super ripped says, “Man, I got so buff, um, even though I was lifting all those weights.” It’s like, no, no, no, no, you… That doesn’t make sense. Mm-hmm. You get so buff because you’re lifting all of those weights, right?

[00:14:38] The resistance and acknowledging it and, and going through it is what empowers your success. So if you wanna be- Yeah … if you wanna be really buff, so to speak, embrace the resistance. That would be my perspective tip for you.

[00:14:56] Courtney: I think that is so, so good. I love that so much. I feel like, you know, a lot of times we talk about as a company, we’re a performance coaching company, and a lot of times you hear that language with athletes.

[00:15:09] But I think for all of you listening, like whatever your career is, that is your, you know, your perform… You need to think about that as like that is your arena. That’s where you per- perform, you know? And so I think that analogy is, is really, really powerful of you have to do the reps. You’ve gotta go through those things, and that’s why we value experience, uh, so much in hiring.

[00:15:31] You know? It’s because you have had to go through that, uh, that resistance. That’s really beautifully said. Like…

[00:15:53] Blake: All right, Courtney, what’s step three?

[00:15:56] Courtney: So step three is define the win, and this is all about defining the win for your upcoming week. You know, you’ve got this fresh start, but you need to determine, you know, as you move forward, what is going to be a win for that fresh start? And so that’s exactly where your weekly big three comes in.

[00:16:19] You know, just like New Year’s or your birthday or these kinda landmark things that we talked about, you know, usually you come up with, you know, what the destination is gonna be with that fresh start, if it’s a new workout routine or a new, you know, schedule with the school year you’re rolling out. You know, it’s important to determine what that destination is going to be, and that’s exactly where your weekly big three come in, and you’re gonna write them down, just exactly what it says to do in the weekly preview.

[00:16:48] Blake: Yeah, and I wanna double down on what you just said at the end there, Courtney, writing it down. I found if- Mm-hmm … if I’m coming off of a week where I, I feel not great, maybe I feel rushed or I’m just trying to get through the weekly preview, and, you know, you end up, what you end up writing as the big three is, like, the name of a project that you’re working on.

[00:17:09] You know? It’s like, oh, recruiting project. Yeah. Hiring whatever. You know, it’s like it’s too vague, or you don’t write it down at all ’cause you go, “No, like, my week’s packed. I kinda know what I need to do.” There’s a lot of- Mm-hmm … power in writing down, defining what the win will be. So write it down as if it…

[00:17:30] You know, a question that I’ll ask is what’s the result that would bring me a lot of excitement? You know, it, it has to be, you know, what’s reasonably gonna be achievable given my other commitments this week, but what would make me really excited? What would that outcome be? And write it down inter- in terms of an outcome.

[00:17:47] So if you handed it to someone else on your team, they would be crystal clear on what that outcome is s- a- a- and would be able to even hold you accountable to it. You may wanna take that step, too, but the point is, by writing it down physically, it’s gonna stick in your mind a lot better and kick in that fresh start, uh, motivation that you need.

[00:18:08] Courtney: Right. Yeah, and I, I think that idea of, you know, what’s the win gonna be, you might even r- this week, just to test it out, cross out weekly big three and just write, you know, weekly wins. Ooh, I like that. Uh, I do think there is a, a certain amount of, like, challenge with that. You know, it’s like, oh, is it… You know, I’ve gotta work to, like, check off these w- to get these wins.

[00:18:33] It’s gonna take, um, some time. So I don’t know what Joel Miller, our chief product officer, uh, would say right now about my suggestion to mark out weekly big three, but- Yeah, you’re, you’re, you’re defacing his

[00:18:41] Blake: life’s work. It’s not a big deal Um, let’s move on to our last step. This is step four, which is try again.

[00:18:51] Try again. So this is the beauty of a new start, a fresh start, right? Uh, if you think about New Year’s, it’s like new year, new me, you know? You cross over that threshold. Yeah. This is … This step is simply the part where you get to give it another shot. Y- y- you know, keep shooting your shot. You know? Shoot or shoot.

[00:19:14] Um, you don’t need to wait for a new quarter or your birthday or New Year’s to do this. You can start right now. And the weekly preview is nice because it’s almost a ritual that can kick you into that gear of a fresh start. You know, you have a fresh set of pages, daily pages, and your fresh weekly big three.

[00:19:34] So yeah. Uh, one thing I, I guess I wanna say about the try again step is To, there’s another way, I don’t know if it was Michael or if it was Joel that used this word first, but a word that we use a lot around here is experiment. You know, to treat things- Oh, yeah … like experiments takes some of that pressure off-

[00:19:57] Courtney: Mm-hmm

[00:19:57] Blake: a little bit and allows you to go, “Oh, yeah, what we’re trying to do is grow. What we’re trying to do is develop and explore, and to, and to, yeah, have success. But we’re going about it in a way that is through trial and error and through experimentation, a systematic kind of process.” And so if you find yourself needing some emotional, uh, relief when you think about trying again, think of your next week as an experiment.

[00:20:21] “Hey, I tried something last week.” Right. “Maybe it didn’t work so well, but I got a fresh start and I’m gonna try something new, and then I’ll evaluate the results next week.”

[00:20:30] Courtney: Right. I think that’s, I mean, because intuitively in that word, like, you would not expect a scientist to conduct an experiment and to like, it be perfect the very first time.

[00:20:40] Blake: Right.

[00:20:40] Courtney: You know? You’d be like- That’s not the

[00:20:41] Blake: point.

[00:20:42] Courtney: Yeah … yeah, no, you’re gonna have a series of failures, and you’re gonna learn from those. Um, and that’s, that’s what is gonna ultimately, hopefully, have greatness at the end of it. Um, and yeah, it, again, I think this episode, a lot is just reframing some of these, uh, things in our, in our minds.

[00:21:02] And I, you know, sometimes that takes reps to kind of really habitualize. Um, but I’m really hopeful that these can help you as you go into the next week. And, you know, sometimes with a new thing like this, a fresh start, you know, I love with fresh starts, just like when I start a new workout routine, I might get like a new, uh, new shoes or a new workout outfit.

[00:21:24] You know, like, do your weekly preview at a fun place. You know? Like, make it an experience. Um, give yourself a little bit of luxury as you kind of have a fresh start, um, next week.

[00:21:35] Blake: So you don’t have to feel stuck, ladies and gents. If you’re feeling stuck on the journey towards your goals, you don’t have to stay there.

[00:21:44] Leverage the power of the fresh start effect. I’m gonna start saying it that way, Courtney, all right? So- … when you open your weekly preview this next week- Okay, okay … think, “

[00:21:54] Joel: The

[00:21:54] Blake: fresh start effect.” Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Every time you do your weekly preview, think about that. It’s a fresh start. And, and follow these steps.

[00:22:04] Name the beginning, accept your missteps, define the win, and of course, try, try again.

[00:22:15] All right, Courtney, any final thoughts for the focus on this listeners?

[00:22:19] Courtney: Well, just the way that you say that reminds me so much of the Holiday when Cameron Diaz, you know, like her life- Yeah. … is being narrated. You know, she’s that.

[00:22:29] Blake: Absolutely.

[00:22:30] Courtney: Uh, everybody’s gonna think of that this week when they’re doing their weekly preview.

[00:22:34] Well, I just, my final thought here is when you are doing your weekly big three, I know sometimes for me, I find that I may lose sight of that during the week if I’ve, you know, just got my planner open to my daily pages. Um, so as you’re going about this, you know, if you’re thinking about those what are the wins gonna be for this week, I highly encourage you to, you know, stick up a Post-It Note or, you know, write it on your whiteboard.

[00:23:02] What are the wins for that week? I think that extra visibility will really help you as you pursue this fresh start.

[00:23:10] Blake: Awesome. Well, thank you everybody for joining us on another episode of Focus on This. The word on the street is this is the most productive podcast on the World Wide Web, so share it with your friends.

[00:23:22] Don’t be shy. Tell them that you think they are completely unproductive, and you would like to change their life. And don’t forget to join our Full Focus Planner community on Facebook. Listen, Facebook is a scary place, but there’s a safe community filled with a lot of smart people that are there to help you.

[00:23:40] That’s right. The Full Focus Planner community. Search it out on Facebook. It’s really

[00:23:44] Courtney: amazing. Yeah, that’s right, and we’ll be back next week with another great episode. Until then, stay focused.