The Freedom of Structure

This is episode 295 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast, where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport, and life. And now, your host, executive coach, and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Welcome. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast. I'm so excited to be with you today because we're talking about freedom. I want you to have more freedom, freedom in your life. So today, this is all about the freedom of structure. I recorded a podcast ages ago, probably two years ago, I think it's episode 177, called Lean On Structure. And it was one of the most popular podcasts. I had so many people come back to me and say, this really made a difference for me. I really like this concept. And it's. You may have heard, discipline equals free equals freedom. But this is more specific because what we struggle with the most is finding the ways to keep us on track, finding us the. The ways to keep us in action, to keep us making progress, to keep us in growth. So today, let's explore that. The key ways that you can keep going and growing or taking action in the way that you want in the direction that you desire your life to go. So it's all about your life. It's all specific to you. But when we don't know what to do or how to make it happen, or we're frustrated because we haven't made something work or we haven't been consistent in an area, typically it comes down to this. There's not enough structure, but it could be the tiniest structure I'm talking. So here's. Here's the way I think of it. I just got. I just arrived up north where, as I've mentioned before, I'm working on an amazing project called Wickcliffe Lodge. I've been restoring this old fishing hunting camp for the last four years. And there's an. A mower. It's not that old of a mower. It's an amazing mower. We need this mower desperately because there's a whole bunch of stuff, a whole bunch of land. I should say say this before I go on. If you've noticed in my podcast, I don't edit out the flubs and the bloopers, and I don't edit them out because I want more authenticity in my life and I want more authenticity in the world. So you're going to hear bloops, blunders, coughs, sneezes, things like that in my podcast. Not because I don't believe in professionalism, but because I Believe that we need a little more of that injection it in our lives. Because so many things are so polished or fake or not real. So if you hear me flub, then it's still in here. That's why. All right, back to the mower story. There's a lot of grass here. That's why we have a mower. We need to mow the lawn. It's a Husqvarna riding lawnmower. It isn't the best, it isn't the worst. It's all fine and good. But with this Husqvarna mower, one time I was mowing and I realized that the blades were right next to the ground. There was something wrong. I could kept trying to adjust the lever to make it, say 3 inches blade of grass or 2 inches or whatever, and it just wasn't working. I couldn't figure out what's going on. I happen to have a brain that works well when it comes to mechanical things. Even though I'm not a mechanic or anything like that. I typically understand structure. So I go start poking around with this Husqvarna lawnmower. And I notice that the whole. I don't even know the name for it, but the whole piece that holds the blades is down low to the ground. And then I notice that if I lift it up or lower it, then it can. It can change. It can go lower or go higher with my hands physically, but that it doesn't seem to be working when I move the lever. So I look and I discover and I poke around and I finally see this one thing. And there's a hole that matches to another hole that would align this whole piece that holds all of the blades. And it's not. There's two holes that. And there's nothing in them. I'm like, okay, I think there needs to be a pin in here or something like that. And I end up finding something that will fit in there. Turned out to be a little screw. I put a screw in there, I put a little nut on it and I held it up. And then, sure enough, that was the right piece. There was something that probably bobbled out, fell out, and then it wasn't working. So I put this pin in. That pin is exactly what I'm talking about for your life. It is the tiniest little piece of structure that makes so many other things work. I couldn't mow the lawn if that one little pin wasn't in place. The blades, the whole structure that holds the blades was dragging on the ground. And it wasn't mowing the lawn. It was like digging into the ground without that piece, one little pin, one little piece of structure. And I say this to you because that little pin is just the little thing that you might need in some area of your life. This is what I'm talking about, this little bit of structure. So first, before we go forward, I often like to define the concept. So this concept of structure for freedom, the freedom of having that little pin in your life is one that I like to go with, the definition of structure. First. There's a noun and there's a verb. So the noun is the arrangement of, and relations between the parts or elements of something complex. Now, that Husqvarna lawnmower story. That's exactly it. That whole lawnmower is fairly complex. There's an oil can, there's a gas can in it. There's a seat. If I get off the seat, the motor stops. If I move the seat forward or backwards, it's not positioned. I can't reach the forward or the reverse. There's a break. There's all. There's a choke. There's all kinds of things. It's a complex system, but I can't get the outcome. I can't get the actual lawn cut if that one little pin wasn't in place, that one piece of structure. Now, there's a number of structures in that complex system, but that one pin stopped everything. Sometimes all it takes is that we see where that little pin is, where we have that one piece of structure that's going to give us the freedom of the outcome that we want. In this case, a nicely cut lawn. So that's the noun. The verb is to construct or arrange according to a plan given. Give a pattern or organization to. In other words, to structure. All right, I'm going to make a little bit of a different definition for our purposes, because we're applying it to our work, our life, our relationships. So in this one, I'm calling this a thing, a person, a ritual or habit, or even action that supports the desired values, actions, and life that we want. That's the definition that I'm bringing to this conversation. A thing, a person, a ritual, a habit, or an action that supports the desired values, actions, and life that we want to live. All right, so why would we do this? Here's some of the benefits, Some of the benefits. And. And I looked into the research of this. If you see me on YouTube, you're not listening to the podcast. If you see me on YouTube, you. Some of the environment that I'm in. I'm in this beautiful lake house. I'm looking out on a lake. I feel so unbelievably grateful for being able to work in this environment and be working on this project is a dream come true. Now, I tend to not blur my backgrounds because I want again, that authenticity in life. I've said this twice on this podcast because this is one of the structures which is a habit that I have in place in my life in order to live into my values of connection. So that's why I explained that out, because this is a little. We structure me being authentic, including certain things, including the flubs, including the background, so that it lives into it structures a life of mine that lives and supports into the values of connection. For me, really being authentically connected. All right, let's carry on the benefits. So I did some research for you. I love the science behind things. I love benefits. I want to know that the thing I'm choosing to do is going to have the impact or outcome that I want. And I'm sure you do too. So benefits of having some sort of rule or structure or system, things like that. We increase our own productivity and. And efficiency. We want that typically because most of us have busy, busy lives. And I don't want just to have a busy, busy live I life. I want a busy life because the busy things that I'm doing have purpose. They bring joy. They bring value to other people. They go in the direction that I want to go. So if I have greater efficiency and productivity because of structure in my life, bonus. Yes, that is what I want. Awesome. Awesome. So a study, this is from Deloitte in 2022, shows a 30% increase in operational efficiencies for businesses using standardized procedures, aka structure. Standardized procedures. All right, so it streamlines workflows. It reduced time spent on routine tasks. It minimizes the need for constant decision making. All right, so there's our efficiency and productivity. What else? It also gives us consistency and quality control. There was a study in. It was called BMJ Quality and Safety. This is in 2019. This study demonstrated that a 23% reduction in surgical complications with the use of a checklist. A checklist. Ask pilots. My husband is a pilot. Ask Pilots. Checklist, checklist, checklist. So that there's no room for forgetting something. You have a simple little structure and what does it do? It increases the quality and increases the consistency of the performance. Who doesn't want that? Give ourselves the gift of making it easy. I want this to be as easy as possible. All right, what else? More benefits enhanced employee engagement and reduce stress. So providing clear rules and procedures helps employees understand their own roles. When they don't have a step by step or a checklist or a clearly defined role for themselves. I see this over and over. Then they're confused. They don't know whether they're doing it right or wrong. They don't know what they're supposed to do next. And the last thing you want is a floundering employee because then they're not happy. If they're floundering because they don't know how to succeed, you're not going to keep them. They're going to find a place where they can make themselves happy with what they can progress with. All right, so in this one, Gallup, you might have heard of Gallup's strengths finders or Gallup polls. Gallup in 2021 in one of their reports found that organizations with clear guidelines experience a 17 increase in employee productivity. I love it. All right, another one benefit. Improved decision making. Oh, I just made an AI GBT on decision making. It's the AI ultimate decision making guide. If you want it, let me know. I will give it to you so you can try it out. Decision making. This is such an energy drain. When we're going between this or that or we're not sure that we're going to make the right decision, what happens is paralysis. So just like I said before, I'm seeing this a lot with the people I work with. Number one, that I said a moment ago, the roles. When employees don't have clear roles, Major problems. Major, major problems. When people are having trouble with making a decision, they tend to go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. They don't actually take action forward. And all it takes typically is having a whole bunch of other things nicely structured. What does that do? It clears our brain space in order to be able to think more deeply, think, think more purposefully. So what happens is there's a research in Nature human behavior in 2020. It highlights that reducing decision fatigue enhances subsequent decision quality and productivity. So the way that we reduce decision fatigue is by having systems in place so we don't have to redecide every time we're doing the thing. I don't redecide what workout clothes I'm wearing. They are just out. I know exactly what I'm wearing the whole week so that I don't have to redecide every morning when I'm foggy. I don't have to redecide. Every morning when I'm not feeling like making that decision. So those are some of the things that reduce decision fatigue. So improve decision making. And another benefit, this is the last one I'm going to share, although there are more. I tried to scale it down. This one is scalability and growth. When you have structure in place, it's far easier to scale and grow anything. Scale and grow, scale and grow. So Companies like Microsoft SpaceX attribute part of their success to rigorous use of standardized procedures enabling consistent performance and innovation. They're constantly innovating. Why? Because they have a structure to do so. They're constantly having a high quality of performance. Why? Because they have the systems in place. So what it does is it these documented standardized processes make it easier to replicate success, scale operations and train new employees efficiently, supporting business growth. All right, I could give you more research. I'm going to do one in. There's another bit of research on healthcare checklists. Those are fantastic. Another one by McKinsey Company. They highlighted that companies with well established standard operating procedures, you might have heard these called SOPs, saw a 20% increase in operational efficiency and a 50% reduction in errors. Now, I don't want to just give this in the context of business because I love business, but I also love life, relationships, our best wellness, our best performance as individuals. So we really want to bring this over and across into the real world. And I thought of a number of examples for me that how does structure create freedom in my life? And I looked at past memories, memories of teaching my kids how to ride their bikes, me learning how to ride my bike. When I thought of me riding my bike, the first time of being able to pedal alone was with training wheels. I had training wheels on my bike. And although I really wanted to ride my bike without training wheels, I was riding my bike by myself. There wasn't somebody pushing me. I was on my bike. I was so proud of my brand new bike. It felt like I pretended it was a horse. It's like hi ho, silver. Yeah, I know that's, that was me. But I could go. I could go. And it motivated me. That little bit of structure motivated me to make more progress. It motivated me to learn how to the, how to ride the bike without the training wheels. The training wheels, that little bit of structure gave me freedom. Now when I gave the mowing the lawn example earlier, that little pin made that whole mower work, gave that nicely mowed lawn. That couldn't have happened otherwise. However, you may not think of the mowed lawn as Being freedom. So go to the things that you really want to have happen. If a mode lawn is your thing and you needed that pin like I did, that might have felt like freedom for you too, like it did for me at the time. However, you might be looking for that feeling of financial freedom, that feeling of ease in your relationship. You might be looking for the you want to focus more on the excitement and creation and innovation in your work instead of the boring, tedious tasks. So if that's the case, put in little structures that make things easier, make you have to think less, and just be able to know that that system is there. And all you have to do are a couple little wee things. Make it so easy for yourself. I think of the guardrails and bowling structure. Our kids. We had such fun with our kids when they were young, taking the whole family out bowling. We would try to find things that we could all do together. Well, it wasn't so much fun for us to have the guardrails up because we wanted to challenge ourselves. We were ready just to go for the regular center bowling. But the kids would feel disappointment after disappointment when they didn't know how to bowl yet very well and they wanted to have fun. Those guardrails made it fun. They're the best things ever. Prevent the gutter ball. Awesome. And then it enabled them to have more confidence and practice and keep going and have fun in the process. Beautiful thing. I move quickly in the morning, Very quickly. I like to get up, get going, get outside, work out and then and eat and get ready and then I'm set for my day. But if I haven't set out my clothes, if I don't know what I'm eating for breakfast, if I don't have my clothes for the day, not just my workout clothes, but my clothes for the day, it changes everything about how quickly I can move because I have to slow down and decide. Slow down and decide. Now. Those are not the areas that I want to have to slow down and decide. If I need to put my thinking brain on and really think about something, it's going to be in a business project, in a key relationship, decision, in something that has to do with our family or our future. That's when I'm really slow, slowing down to put that thinking time in. But I don't want that first thing in the morning when I want to get outside, work out, get ready and get to work. That's what I want in the morning. I don't sit down and read a book. I do not drink coffee in the morning, I move and I go. And I don't want to sit around looking through my clothes deciding what I'm going to wear to work out in or what I'm going to wear for the day. So that's all been pre done the night before or on the end of the weekend so that I know what's going on for the week and secret to tell you because I really don't care. I wear some things two days in a row because I don't want to think. I don't want to think about what to wear. I don't care that much. I will put thought into it if I'm doing a presentation, I will put thought into it if I have certain things happening that week and I need to wear certain clothes for it or the weather is a certain way. But I don't want to think about that all the time. Only when I choose to hydrated. You will see me right here. I have this massive flask. It's got to be. This one I think is 2 liters. No, probably a liter and a half. Huge water bottle. Yes, you just heard me drinking water. If you're on the podcast. Water is one of my structures. I drink water. I have water with me at all times, whether I'm driving, whether I'm sleeping. There's water next to my bed. There's water with me at all times. Why? Because I think better and perform better when I'm hydrated. So it's just a rule which is a structure that I have in my life. Water is with me at all times, period. If I'm traveling in another country where the water is questionable, I buy a water bottle in the airport. If I am traveling, I had to have my own refillable water bottle with me at all times. I always have water with me. If I don't, it's very unusual. And it's likely a situation where it's different than normal. And then my structure has perhaps failed. But the reason we have these structures in place is so that you're not in that situation. And the example I gave of being on site to work and go back into the reconstruction or the story, the restoration of this camp, because I'm changing location because I'm traveling, because I'm in different environments, that's where the workouts can go down the tubes. Eating can go down the tubes. Profit and loss statements or bookkeeping for the business can go down the tubes because there's so many other urgent things happening and so much stimuli. And if that's the case, then things suffer and they struggle. And I don't want that. And that's why leaning on structure is so important. What else? Daily metrics in my business or monthly metrics in my business? Another little structure. I'm just giving you random examples so that you can kind of spur your own mind on to think of the structures in your life. Another one is having running shoes in the gym or in a gym bag at all times. Then I'm not thinking about the runners. They're just there. They're always there. I have never been a person to forget runners or not have them available because they're part of the structures that I have in my life. I'm not going to go somewhere without runners because they're so key in my life. I want to be able to go for a great walk, maybe even a run or a workout, wherever I am, whether I have. Whether I have equipment or not. So the only thing I really need is runners. So then I just make sure I have that, and boom, it's done. Feels good. All right. So the thing about having structure, not only you having your own back and giving all these other benefits that I talked about, it's purposeful for you. So the. What I want to see happen today is really you to understand what to ask of yourself in order to find the structure. That's the key pin. I'm talking about that key lynch pin, that key pin in the mower, that. Without that pin not getting that grass cut. So we want this key, this pin, this one structure that's going to really help you in whatever area you want to go. Now, oftentimes you'll hear me structure. You'll hear me bucket. The three spheres of influence. So three areas of your life. In self, in career, mission, and in relationships. It's really easy to know that these three spheres are going to influence your life in massive ways. The quality of your life, the direction of your life. So when you know which of those three spheres of influence are most important for you right now, then we can look at what are the key types of structures that I might need in that sphere of influence. So you want to be able to ask yourself these key questions. What do I need in this one main, most important sphere of influence for my life? So, for instance, if you chose, I'll give an example for me in the past with my business, if business was a key sphere of influence in my life, the biggest, most important part of my life that needed focus. Now I have a family, I have children. It doesn't mean that they're not more important to me than my business. But it means that the business was the key focus simply because that's what needed the most attention in order to serve my family, in order to put food on the table, in order to serve myself or my progress. So it was a key part of my life. Now when I looked at that and I was doing all the bookkeeping for it, that was a structure that I didn't want to have to do myself. So I found a key person to become the structure called a bookkeeper. And that became the structure for that one area to help with the growing of the business. So you can see how the structure that you might need might be a person. So you're going to ask yourself what part of my life, self, career, mission or relationships might need some support where I'm looking to grow in some area. So this is what I want you to take a look at. Do you need a structure that is an action structure, meaning it's a structure that's going to help you take some action, move you in some form or another. And I don't mean it has to be a progressive movement. It means movement because taking the action is going to tell you whether you're going in the right direction or not. Taking action does not guarantee progress. Taking action does not guarantee that you're going to get the result that you want. It does support progress, it supports growth. It just doesn't mean that you're going to get the actual outcome you want. But the action is critical in order to learn that. So the first thing could be an action structure if you need some sort of action in some area. The second structure that I want to point to is a maintenance structure. Let's say you are doing really well with working out every day. But like I mentioned earlier, you're picking out your workout clothes or you're filling your water bottle in the morning, or you're doing certain things. Instead, create a structure that maintains that habit so that you don't have to think about it. You've heard me talk about my salads. I eat a salad for lunch every day. I make three of them in a row. I do that on repeat over and over and over again. It's a structure that I have that helps me maintain the act of salad eating every day. Because that's what I like. That's what I want. I want those leafy greens and veggies and healthy meats in, in a format called a salad every single day. And that's the structure. So that thing is a Maintenance structure. Now, there's a third type of structure I want to point to, and it's a progress structure. The progress structure is one that's going to help you move forward. It's going to help you get to another level. So for instance, if we go back to the action structure, an act, action structure is often someone, it can be a person, someone that keeps you accountable. So examples of an action structure could be. These are some that I have for myself. It could be a, a coach. I have a coach in my life that coach. I might ask that coach, please keep me accountable on these two things. I want to take action on this or take action on that. Another action structure could be a workout partner or an alarm setting. And I'm not talking about the wake up alarm. It could be a midday alarm to meditate. It could be an alarm to. I had an alarm for, I don't know, probably a year or more. I had an alarm on my, on my, my phone to give affection to my husband. That's a structure right there. And it was a structure for me to take action. Now it wasn't exactly what type of affection to my husband, but something. He didn't even know what was going on. It was just a reminder for me because that's how I wanted to show up in the world. So I set an alarm on my phone at a time I thought we would be together intentionally to give affection to my husband and remind me because I knew that he wants that and I wanted to give that. But I just forget. So I wanted a structure. My brain goes in other places. So I set an alarm to give affection to my husband. Now that might seem impersonal, but for me it was better than the even more impersonal action of just forgetting. Because I was so busy with things that I was excited about doing. And that's something I was excited about doing too. But it just tended to be something I would forget. We have a morning, Monday morning, 20 minute quick gathering called a power up. That power up is a structure. Let's go with some maintenance structures. This is one that supports a current action. So let's say you're taking that action, but you want to make it easier and easier because you're going to find decision fatigue, brain fatigue. You don't want that to stop you from taking an action that is a great action to keep taking. So for instance, the bookkeeping. The bookkeeping was a great action for me to take for my business, but I really was struggling with continuing to do it. I would have to. It Would take time out. It was becoming really challenging for me to fit that in. Even though I'd schedule it, There were so many other things that I felt were better uses of my time for the business. So what did I do? Put in a structure called a bookkeeper. Awesome. Bookkeeper comes into the business. Another thing that's a maintenance structure for me is roughly the same bedtime and wake up time every day. So I go to bed usually between a 30 minute stuff span of time, somewhere between 10 and 10:30. Usually could be between 10 and 11, but somewhere around there I usually get up sometime between, usually around 6 o', clock, sometime between 6 and 6:30. So that's a structure as well. And that's a maintenance structure just so that it maintains my sleep, it maintains my productivity, it maintains the actions that I want in my nighttime ritual. Those are some examples. Another progress, another structure is the progress structure. But this is one that grows a current action. You're already in action. It's not looking to maintain that action, is looking to progress that action. It's looking to cause some growth. So this might be a structure that's a little more intentional. So for instance, when I had to really restrict what I was eating for the autoimmune illness and really make sure that that was dialed in, I had to the progress was going on this restricted eating plan. But I had to find a way to support that progress. And one of the things I did was look at standing food orders. So we found a farm that had organic meat that was very close by. So I was considering making a standing meat order. We have a food delivery service that we cook our own meals called hello Fresh. We did that one. This is not an ad, by the way. I'm not getting any sort of. But I do want to tell things that have worked for me. And it doesn't mean that I think hellofresh is the be all end all. But it's worked for us in so many ways to help progress. When it came to teaching the kids how to cook, boom. Hellofresh progress. For me to be able to try a new eating plan that was the standing food order progress for the business. When I gave the example of the bookkeeper, well, then I started to have the bookkeeper make projections. The bookkeeper decide some things that I was missing that she could see that needed to happen. I put that in the hands of the bookkeeper. So then what was a maintenance structure called the bookkeeper, if she just did exactly what I told her to do, now became a progress structure. Because She I gave her instructions to look for ways to progress the business, look for things that are missing, look for ways to follow up on unpaid bills or things like that. So what we want to look at, and I'm going to give you some questions here, is what aspects of your life is the most important to focus on? Is it the self? Is it the career mission? Is it the relationships? And within that aspect, when you find the most important one, what feels like it needs more support? So what? Do you need more support in taking action? Do you need more support in maintaining action? Do you need more support in making progress? Because those are the key types of structures that you're looking for. Once you narrow that down, do I need more action? Do I need more maintenance of action or do I need more progress? And in that action, once you can narrow that down, then you're going to see which structure works best. Because if you have a mismatched structure in your life, it's not going to support the desired values or outcomes that you want in your life. So we don't want the mismatch. But you're going to be able to gain clarity when you understand, do I need more action? Do I need more maintenance of action? Or do you? Do I need more progress in action? So how might a very specific structure help in that? What do you need? And this is where you really want to pause. What do you need in that area? And I've given you areas of personal, such as the workout, such as the food. I've given you areas of the examples of areas in the business and examples of areas in relationships as well. Even the alarm for affection for my husband. So non romantic, to create romance. That's what I'm saying. I'm basically saying that you have to structure romance because it's something that if you're not taking the action, create a structure for yourself. The most wonderful thing you can do is make it as easy as possible for you to perform the thing as easy as possible. Don't make it hard on yourself. Don't tell yourself that. Okay, I'll remember. Okay, I'll do the thing. No, put some structure around it to give yourself the freedom. In fact, it gives you you more than freedom, it gives you joy, it gives you more fulfillment because then you're not beating yourself up for not doing it. Give yourself the gift of the structure and all you're going to do is look for where do you need it? What type of structure do you need? Action, maintenance or progress? And what can you do to create more consistency in that area. So take a look, take a listen, take a feel so that you can figure out where you need just a little more structure. Take a moment of silence to listen to yourself and listen to what your mind, what your heart, what your gut says to you. I need some support in this area. I need a pin in that lawnmower to make this sucker work. What is the thing in your life that you need structure with? And once you structure it, make it as easy as possible, set it in your schedule, have it as an alarm, rely on somebody else, make it as easy as possible so that you can get that thing done. Because it's going to enrich your life, it's going to fulfill on your values. And that. That's why I brought up authenticity earlier in this podcast. That feels so good. It feels so good to have that in your life. So I want you to give yourself that gift of these little bits of structure for massive freedom in your life. And I hope some of the examples have helped. If this helps you, if it helps someone else, by all means share the podcast. We're hoping to reach whoever needs support in this manner. So have a wonderful rest of your day. Celebrate those little structures, celebrate what you've been able to accomplish so far and keep supporting yourself. This is a act of having your own back. And if you need any review, go back to the episode on Leaning on structure back in 177. I think you will love that episode too. Support yourself, have your own back, support each other. Have a wonderful wet rest of your week.

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