263. 3 Questions to Power Ongoing Growth

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Ken: Marissa, we are four weeks into January. Everybody’s going full throttle. I know we talked to a lot of high achievers who are always trying to figure out how do we optimize our lives? How do we maximize our schedule? How do we continue to achieve our goals? And we have actually found. A secret weapon, and it will be counterintuitive for most people, but if you listen today and hear what we have to say, it could truly be the secret weapon to exponentially grow in your personal life and actually achieve your goals.

[00:00:33] Are you ready for this conversation?

[00:00:34] Marissa: I am ready and I cannot wait to dive in. I feel like this is such a powerful episode and concept and we have really amazing questions for you guys today that are simple and yet extremely powerful for pushing you on your growth trajectory. So let’s go ahead and jump in.[00:01:00]

[00:01:01] Welcome to another episode of Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet so you can banish distractions, get the right stuff done, and finally start loving Mondays. I’m Marissa Hyatt, and I’m here with Ken Freyre.

[00:01:15] Ken: Hey, happy Monday.

[00:01:17] Marissa: Happy Monday.

[00:01:18] Ken: Two weeks in a row, we’re back together. It’s awesome.

[00:01:20] Marissa: I know this is the way it’s supposed to be done. And it makes it way more fun and hopefully much more interesting to listen to for you guys who are tuning in.

[00:01:30] Ken: I get bored with myself within like two minutes of listening. I’m like, okay,

[00:01:33] Marissa: it is, it is very different feeling to have to record by yourself and you’re kind of like talking to nobody and everybody at the same time, trying to keep the conversation going by yourself.

[00:01:44] It’s, it’s a. Challenging act to do this is much easier and much more enjoyable.

[00:01:49] Ken: And it’s fun to talk to you.

[00:01:50] Marissa: I know. Well, and I can’t believe that we’re almost to the end of January, like 2025 it’s here and it’s in full force. And, um, you know, the [00:02:00] last couple episodes, I feel like this is almost like going back to the basics, but it is so powerful.

[00:02:06] These are the things that the full focus planner is totally built on. And, uh, really what we as a company. Preach because this is the fundamentals for success. Like if you think about what you’ve just set out to do in 2025, these are the practices, the strategies that are really going to help you move forward on accomplishing all of those goals and priorities that you just set out to accomplish.

[00:02:33] And. Don’t discount simple solutions because I think those are the ones that actually are the most effective.

[00:02:40] Ken: Yeah. You know, I was talking to someone yesterday and there’s this business ad is it says simple scales, complex fails, right? And I was thinking that simple grows, complex plateaus. Yeah. I came up with that on the spot yesterday.

[00:02:53] I’m like, I’m writing that down. I was like, Oh,

[00:02:55] Marissa: yeah, I’m on that. Hey, put that

[00:02:57] Ken: on the full focus planner. There you go. You know, [00:03:00] I’m, I’m coded, but it’s that’s that concept, right? Like simplicity, we want simplicity and that’s what we’re going to talk about. And as we think about simplicity, one of the most simple, but yet profound ways to grow.

[00:03:11] Is to analyze our experiences. The biggest problem though, is that we don’t stop enough to think about experiences and how they mold us, right? We’ve heard the saying experience is the best teacher, but the reality is that that’s kind of right. But it’s only true when we slow down long enough to learn from our experiences.

[00:03:35] So what we need to do is we need to look back on what happened and look ahead to what will adjust moving forward. And if we don’t do those things, we will never grow to the potential that we’re fully called to. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to show you how to get there with three simple questions.

[00:03:52] We suggest you ask yourself, Every week and you will start to see some exponential growth. Let’s [00:04:00] jump into it Marissa

[00:04:01] Marissa: Yeah, and these questions actually come straight out of our weekly preview process So again, if you are a full focus planner user, you know these well And if you’re not don’t worry because you can still ask yourself these questions each week I recommend doing this at the same time every single week Setting kind of a ritual with yourself.

[00:04:20] I historically have always done this on Sundays where I look and, you know, look back on the week prior and then look ahead to the upcoming week. However, now that we have our double one coaching program, I now lead calls on Fridays with our clients through this process. We do this together. We really kind of dive deep.

[00:04:40] We talk through the challenges in the week prior. And strategies to overcome those in the coming weeks. So we’re going to kind of do a version of that with you guys today, but I love doing this. It’s one of my favorite things that I get to do every single week. And it’s honestly really nice on Fridays to wrap the week up in this way, you know, kind of like.

[00:04:58] Put a bow on it, leave it [00:05:00] until you come back on Monday mornings. If you’re listening to this on Monday morning, it is not too late though, to do this for the week prior. So take out a notepad, grab your full focus planner and let’s dive into question number one, which is what worked.

[00:05:15] Ken: You know, too often what we found is that we’re so focused on where we fall short that we don’t notice what’s working and I fall to this all the time when I’m done with a, with a task where I’ve, um, succeeded, you know, I’m like, okay, cool.

[00:05:28] What’s next? Or I’m constantly looking at what’s wrong. I have a sales coach, uh, Marissa, you know him well. And, uh, Every time I send him a call, it’s always like, what did I do wrong? He’s like, do you ever celebrate yourself? I’m like, no, I’m a recovering perfectionist.

[00:05:42] Marissa: Let’s have an honest moment. Like how often are we like, Hey, let me give a little pat on my own back about what we’re doing this last week.

[00:05:50] I mean, frankly, never, if I didn’t go through this process, I wouldn’t do it either and can, I know you’re an enneagram one, so you’ve got that kind of interface [00:06:00] that is probably. Making this question challenging for you because you just are looking for improvement. So it’s like, okay, I just want to get better at the things that maybe I’m not great at.

[00:06:09] I’m not an Enneagram one, but I think all of us have some version of that happening, whether it’s we’re just angsty and we kind of want to get on to the next thing or we really do have that inner critic of. What did I do wrong? But starting with what actually worked, like where did you go? Right. Last week is really exciting for us.

[00:06:31] You know, otherwise we are going to get discouraged or worse. We kind of stop. Taking the actions that are the ones that are actually working for us. And sometimes, you know, it can be more effective to maximize our strengths than focus on our weaknesses. Obviously, you know, you guys may have heard of the strengths finder assessment.

[00:06:53] And that whole assessment is built on this concept of if you focus on your strengths and maximize those, you’re actually going to [00:07:00] get further ahead than if you try to correct the things that you know, or maybe your weaknesses or the things that you’re struggling the most in. So I love this idea of focusing initially on what worked and figuring out how can we do more of that.

[00:07:14] Ken: Yeah. And when it comes to your goals, right, you could ask a very specific question and that’s what’s helping you make progress. I was thinking about during the holidays, what really actually helped me make progress was not actually the action itself, but a trigger that I used for the action. And it was that I was trying to find time, especially during the holidays, we were traveling and all this stuff.

[00:07:36] And it was just really hard. Cause we’re connecting with family and I would try to sneak away to work on stuff. And my wife would get so mad. She’s like, what are you doing? I’m like, ah, nothing like, but then I said, how do I make progress with this? And it was this trigger. Super simple, but I literally just sat down with my wife and I said, Hey, I would like to take some time every day to be able to work on my [00:08:00] projects or things that need to get set up.

[00:08:02] And she’s like, okay, well, what do you want to do? I’m like, can we just sit out every morning and just find a time that I could work on this? And she was like, sounds great. I just set up a little trigger and I asked that question, but I remember seeing it when I was doing my, my planner, my weekly preview is like, what did I do well?

[00:08:18] And I was like, Oh, I just asked my wife and it worked. You know,

[00:08:22] Marissa: I think accountability is a huge or having some kind of partnership when it relates to our goals is so important. I know that as you were talking, Ken, that made me think of, we talked on earlier episode about, I have this goal this quarter.

[00:08:37] Specifically about getting back and in the habit of working out on a daily basis, and I know I’ve struggled in the last quarter and I didn’t do great just because of that. Life happened, work got busy, and I was dealing with some health stuff that made it, you know, kind of challenging for me. And so this quarter, I was really committed to making that happen.

[00:08:58] And so one of the things that I’ve realized when I [00:09:00] look back and I’ve been really successful on my goals is having somebody to check in with on a daily basis and having that encouragement, that accountability. And so I’ve enlisted, My sister Madeline and my best friend Kayla, the two or the three of us, uh, we have a group text and we all individually had set very similar goals and then through a conversation realized, Oh gosh, we all have basically the same goal.

[00:09:26] And so we were like, let’s be accountability buddies and all of us were like, How does this work? I don’t know. Okay. Why don’t we just plan to check in every single day? And if we haven’t heard from one of us, we will kind of gently nudge each other, um, to making it happen. And this week I was doing my weekly preview.

[00:09:45] And that was one of the main things that worked so well for me in the last week was having that accountability, being able to check in with somebody every day. So maybe that’s true for you. Maybe it’s not. You know, can, it sounds like having, um, kind of a check in with your, your [00:10:00] wife, having, asking for what you needed was really effective.

[00:10:03] So for those of you listening, ask yourself what worked really well in the last week that helped you make progress on your goals.

[00:10:12] Ken: Yeah. And

[00:10:13] Marissa: then go do more of that. It’s really kind of that simple.

[00:10:17] Ken: And sometimes you might not be able to figure it out, right? Like, you’re like, Oh, I don’t know what worked. So another different type of way to ask the question is what rhythms or decisions are taking you where you want to go?

[00:10:29] Marissa: That’s really good.

[00:10:30] Ken: Right. So sometimes that’s super helpful. It’s just like, Oh, well, what decision did I make? I made this decision to get up every morning or to work out like that might be helpful. All right, Marissa, what’s question number two?

[00:10:41] Marissa: Question number two is what didn’t work. So we, you, you, We started with what is working, you know, what went well, what’s working, what are some things that we had wins in that we can celebrate that we can go try to maximize in the coming week.

[00:10:54] But now we need to ask the question, what didn’t work? Obviously we don’t want to repeat the things that [00:11:00] aren’t. Effective for us, right? So we need to identify what those are. And I think one of the things that stands out to me about this question is how nonjudgmental this question is. You know, it’s not like, what did you do wrong or where did you fail?

[00:11:14] Where did you go wrong? It’s what didn’t work. Okay. So this isn’t necessarily about you. It’s just in your strategies within the last week, what didn’t work for you? What didn’t work? So the point is just to notice, okay. The places where making an adjustment would improve your outcomes going forward. So rather than beating yourself up and, you know, saying, gosh, I totally, I missed three of my workouts, or I didn’t make priority for a specific meeting that I needed to have that was important for a work goal, or I didn’t hit my sales goal or whatever it was, rather than beating yourself up, ask yourself, just analyze or what contributed to that.

[00:11:58] You know, what didn’t [00:12:00] work for you? And so maybe it was because you didn’t have that accountability that we were talking about. Maybe it was you didn’t have those items scheduled on your calendar. This is an area I see so often, including for myself that goes wrong really quickly for people is when they don’t prioritize the things that actually are priorities.

[00:12:19] If you don’t put it on your calendar, it’s very likely that it’s not actually going to get done. So that may be as simple as that. If you just put it on your calendar in the coming week. Problem solved, right? This doesn’t have to be a big inner moment where you’re, you know, beating yourself up about things.

[00:12:34] This really can be that simple.

[00:12:36] Ken: Yeah. You know, as I, as I think about all my Enneagram ones out there, this is our favorite question, right? I was like, well, what didn’t work? And sometimes it could even, you Like you said, it’s non judgmental, but it could lead to us, like, analyzing ourselves, like, Oh, what’s wrong with us?

[00:12:50] Another way to ask it too, that’s been helpful, is like, What might be holding you back? Right, you’re looking at outside circumstances and asking yourself, What are the things [00:13:00] that held you back this week? Great example, I went to bed too late. I try to go to workout at 6 a. m. That means I have to wake up at 5.

[00:13:08] 30 in the morning. And if you guys have been listening to the podcast, you know I am a natural night owl, right? So sometimes what holds me back is me going to bed at 12 o’clock at night. Well, then I know that I’m like, Oh, you know what? I don’t have enough energy. I don’t have enough motivation, right? I don’t have the perseverance because of that.

[00:13:25] Just think about that. Maybe things that might be holding you back are you’re going into a meeting unprepared, right? Staying up late. Like I mentioned, starting the day without a clear plan for what you’ll eat. For a lot of you who in January committed to health, or wellness goals, right? This is going to be a big one, like setting a plan for yourself to say, what am I doing today?

[00:13:49] Marissa: You know, this is true for me. I know that when I don’t meal plan, I don’t have a plan. And so obviously I’m going to do what I have to do in the moment. And it ends up that, you know, my [00:14:00] day might be meeting heavy that day. And if I don’t have something prepared In my fridge or I know exactly what I’m supposed to be eating that day.

[00:14:08] I’m just going to order on Uber eats. I don’t have the time or the, the energy, the capacity, the brain space to try to figure out a perfect solution in the moment with life happening all around me. Right? So sometimes it’s, we just didn’t prepare well enough. And one of the things that I love about our wellness planner is we have a space for you to either plan out your meals for the day.

[00:14:31] Or document them kind of keeping that in mind. So when you might look back at the week prior, you go, well, what didn’t work is that I didn’t plan out my meals. Well, you know, I didn’t plan what I was going to be eating and therefore I wasn’t able to hit the goals that I had, or it didn’t give me the energy or the focus that I needed to be able to perform at my best, which I think is a big one.[00:15:00]

[00:15:04] Ken: Pro tip, when you’re planning for your meals, also plan for your snacks. Yesterday was a great example. My wife, we’ve been trying to cut out all processed sugar for the kids. So they made these muffins and I was like, Oh, they must be healthy muffins. Now, to give you context, I, for this quarter, decided I’m not going to do any dairy.

[00:15:23] So my wife, I asked her, right, I said, Hey, are these like healthy? Can I eat them? And she’s like, Oh yeah, sure. So it was like in the evening time. I ate one and I, as soon as I ate it, I felt absolutely miserable. And I was like, what in the world is going on? I was kind of like hunched over. I was like, this does not feel right.

[00:15:42] You know, this morning I was talking to my daughter and my daughter was like, Hey, did you eat one of those muffins? And I was like, yeah, she’s like, oh yeah. Mom put the sugar chocolate in there, which for those of you who know, I haven’t had real sugar since may of last year and there’s milk in it. And Greek yogurt.

[00:15:59] And I’m [00:16:00] like, I just broke all my, my streaks here. And it’s all because I wasn’t prepared. You know, it’s not on my wife’s fault, that’s on me. I should have known what I could and could not eat and what was in those muffins, right, and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, not being prepared led to that.

[00:16:16] And I was like, okay, well, I’m starting all over. That’s fine.

[00:16:19] Marissa: I think that this is so key because this can kind of, this idea of being prepared Can probably sum up, you know, the majority of the things that didn’t go well in the week prior, you know, I, um, done a workout program or programs from a specific online trainer for years.

[00:16:38] Her name is Autumn Calabrese. And one of the things that she says all the time, Because being prepared isn’t half the battle. It is the battle. And I love that because when we’re not prepared, when we don’t go in with a plan or a strategy, everything goes out the window. And so one of the things that you might identify as you’re looking at the week [00:17:00] prior is you didn’t set your daily big three each day.

[00:17:03] You weren’t prepared. You didn’t walk into the day with a plan. And that means that you weren’t able to accomplish the plan. You weren’t able to actually make progress. You got swept up in the day to day. And that is so normal. If you don’t come in with a plan, it’s going to be hard to actually execute on any type of plan, right?

[00:17:20] You’re going to get swept up. So the point is really you’re you’re reflecting on your performance, noticing what you want to be different moving forward. And this is the key to turning your experience into learning. So you don’t have to have a lot of judgment here. This isn’t about like, where did you go wrong?

[00:17:36] Where did you fail? Why do you suck at keeping promises to yourself or anything like that? This is just what didn’t work. Period. End of story. What didn’t work and then be able to identify that so you can change that behavior moving forward, which leads us to question number three, which is what will you change moving forward?

[00:17:55] So we have identified what worked. We’ve identified what didn’t work. And now [00:18:00] we have to figure out what to do with those both of those things that we’ve identified. So implementation truly is everything here. Like you don’t act on what you’re learning, then who cares? It’s what’s the point, right? There’s no reason for you to identify all of this if you’re not going to do something with it.

[00:18:17] So this is like just leaving, you know, this massive goldmine, you know, right there on the ground because you’re not actually doing anything with it. So once you notice that you’re off course, you’ve obviously got a Correct that course and change your direction. So maybe to make this doable, you need to limit yourself to just a couple adjustments that you’re going to make in the coming week.

[00:18:39] So you don’t have to change everything at once. Maybe you’ve identified eight different things that either worked or didn’t work and you want to change those moving forward and you’re only going to pick three of those things moving forward or four of those things moving forward. This doesn’t have to be a laundry list.

[00:18:56] That you have to go try to change every single behavior, you know, that’s [00:19:00] gonna be a recipe for disaster.

[00:19:01] Ken: Yeah, and and people wrongly assume that they’re like, oh, well, whatever didn’t work. I’ll just do the opposite.

[00:19:08] Marissa: Yeah, and

[00:19:08] Ken: that’s what I’ll change and it’s like no, no, it might be something completely different.

[00:19:12] So you’re looking at what worked what didn’t work and then based off of that you’re picking one or two things that you’re gonna do this next week that is gonna change.

[00:19:19] Marissa: Yes.

[00:19:20] Ken: It’s not just the opposite of what didn’t work. And I know I used to do that all the time, I’m like, well, all this stuff was wrong, so I’m just gonna change it.

[00:19:26] And it’s like, well, I don’t have the time or the energy. So like, what’s the one or two things that I’m going to do to change moving forward?

[00:19:33] Marissa: Well, and I think this is really important. We’ve talked about this in so many episodes since really the beginning of this podcast, but I think it’s really important.

[00:19:41] Incremental progress is what makes, you know, leads to big results over time. And so, you know, we think these little adjustments, well, we often think we have to take massive action. And so we end up, you know, saying I’ve got to totally change my map and my entire strategy. I’ve [00:20:00] got to completely overhaul my life this next week and, you know, get everything in order.

[00:20:04] And the truth is, That typically just leads to burnout. You might have a couple of weeks where you feel really strong about that. Um, maybe you’re going through that right now. Maybe you just set a bunch of goals for the new year resolutions. You came out of the gate really hot, really strong. And now you’re, you’ve run out of steam.

[00:20:20] That’s okay. You don’t have to continue to do that moving forward. And in order to be able to accomplish your goals, you just have to make incremental progress little by little. Progress in order to lead to big results. These three questions that we’ve talked about, they’re all inside of our weekly preview inside of the full focus planner.

[00:20:42] So whether you’re using the regular, you know, original full focus planner or new wellness version, they both have kind of this as a framework to help you set you up for success for the coming week. You know, as you’re kind of thinking and reflecting on these questions today, Monday, Monday [00:21:00] morning.

[00:21:00] Typically for most of you as you’re listening to our episodes and you’ve got a whole week in front of you. So just ask yourself when you look back at last week, what worked, what didn’t work in the last week? And then as you look ahead, what do I want to adjust moving forward? You know, what do I want to change in this coming week to really set myself up for the best success possible?

[00:21:21] You know, growth really starts with looking back and then. looking forward. So hopefully these three questions will help you do just that. It doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective.

[00:21:33] Ken: Not at all. Keep it simple because like I said at the beginning, simple grows, complex plateaus. Let’s help you keep growing.

[00:21:40] Marissa: That is a Ken Freire quote.

[00:21:43] Ken: We’re posting it. TM it. Boom.

[00:21:44] Marissa: All

[00:21:47] Ken: right. Well, thank you all for joining us on Focus on This.

[00:21:56] Marissa: This is the most productive podcast on the internet. So [00:22:00] make sure to share it with your friends and be sure to join us in the Full Focus Planner community on Facebook so you can benefit from the creativity and encouragement of people chasing big goals just like you.

[00:22:11] Ken: And we’ll be here next week with another great episode.

[00:22:15] Marissa: Until then,

[00:22:16] Ken: stay

[00:22:18] Marissa: focused.