Engagement Is Intention In Action

Foreign. Welcome to the Meaningful Revolution podcast. We try to help you engage in your life even more so that you live a life of fulfillment and put your good out into the world. I am your host and certified high performance coach, Sean Butner. And today we're going to be talking about engagement and why it's so important for your personal revolution. Because it's the goal, right? We all want to be actively participating in our lives. We want to feel like we're living our life. And when you don't really have that engagement in all different areas of your life, that's when you can't sustain progress. That's when you get exhausted and wore out. And we don't want that for you. So, you know, when we are effectively able to engage in our health, in our careers, in our relationships, in our well being, in our finances, and the list goes on and on, we are more resilient. We are able to withstand things that happen that are out of our control a little bit easier. We are able to be more motivated, so we're less distracted. We're less impacted by the craziness that happens with people out in the world. We are more disciplined in our approach and we are constantly growing and pushing ourselves to serve at a higher level. And so that's why, you know, engagement is so absolutely important to us living our meaningful revolutions. And when we don't, again, we fall into those, you know, areas of distraction, of pettiness. We, you know, hurt our health because we've put maybe work over everything else and we're unbalanced that way. So we're not eating right, we're not getting the right sleep and nutrition. We are, you know, dealing with relationships where maybe we have kids that don't really, you know, love us, you know, because they just don't know us because we're not around. You know, maybe you've plateaued in your career because you're not fully engaging and advancing your career in that particular way. So the list goes on and on, on what happens when we're not fully engaging in all cylinders. And as a high performance coach and a human being too, I'm here to say that that's part of life. It's not a deficiency. If you're so focused on work or so focused on family, you're so focused on your health at the expense of other things. But the balanced approach is healthier, right? You're going to not run into blind spots that could throw you off track even more because you're so focused on one different area of your Life. So, and I bring this up too because I've been someone who, who has really focused on work the last five years. Of course, you know, three years ago I started my business as a coach full time. Right. So I went from my side hustle to my main gig. And you know, the bad thing about working from home and owning your own business in this regard is there are no like physical boundaries between work and home and play and family time and time with your spouse. And so, you know, if you've ever had that feeling of you don't have a great distinction between when you're on for work and when you're supposed to be with family. That's exactly where I've been last three years. And so how do you manage that and how do you do it in a way where you're not going to hurt your performance because of neglecting relationships or neglecting your health or neglecting nutrition? Right. And so that leads us to the first thing we really need to consider when we're thinking about engagement is that one of the reasons why people don't engage in the number one reason from my coaching practice is that people don't engage in their lives because they're exhausted. It's hard to be on top of everything when you feel wore out. And so if you've been burning the candle at both ends, you know, you've been working 80, 100 hour weeks trying to get your business afloat, trying to, you know, save that project in your organization, you know, that's not sustainable over the long time or over the long term. And you know, when you get exhausted, that's when people quit before it's time or when it's not strategic because you're just so overwhelmed or stressed out that it's not awesome. So, you know, if we're thinking about how do you, how do you tell if you're really engaging in all different areas of your life? If you are exhausted, it's probably because something's not balanced. And what I mean by that again is that you're probably neglecting parts of your life that could give you energy, that could help you be healthy, that could help you feel, you know, well in the world. That's what I want to say. So it's really important as a high performer, as a meaningful revolutionary, if you joined the movement here, to really be concerned about how are you taking care of your energy, how are you looking out for exhaustion? Because exhaustion is one of the cues that most high performers and meaningful revolutionaries use in saying, like, oh, I need to Examine this. I need to reflect on this. I need to fix this. So remember that exhaustion is the number one cause for not engaging in your life. Second thing to really think of and second thing that I really believe is that, you know, avoiding things in your life, is that also a call to change? You know, when you are avoiding your health, when you're avoiding working, when you're avoiding, you know, taking care of your well being, it's generally a coping strategy for something that might have happened, you know, could have been a family member passing away. I know a lot of people, myself included, when they have a family member pass away. While my mom passed away in 2014, I went head down, heads down into work in my sophomore job. And I wasn't doing that well because I also wasn't taking care of myself because of grief. And like, things like this happen all the time. But the thing is, is over time again, when I notice that, oh, I'm gaining some weight, I'm not feeling as energetic before, oh, like I am avoiding taking care of myself because of this grief that happened. Really intense sad moment that it time to change, right? It's time to reengage in healthy eating and drinking less and eating better and getting more sleep and those types of things. And so that's, you know, one again, another call to change is when we are avoiding things in our lives. That's another way of saying disengage other common places where people will come of avoid. It's finances. You know, sometimes if you're overwhelmed or have a lot of funny things and it could be really stressful looking at your bank statement, looking at all your bills and so you just, you know, out of sight, out of mind. And then it becomes a bigger problem later. And this was definitely me too. Right after college, you know, when my student loans started to come in, it got really overwhelming. And it took everything in my body and soul to open up those student loan payment things to sit down and figure out, like, okay, like I can, you know, budget $30 for food this month. And so it's like rice and beans and doing that whole thing in order to make sure that I'm, you know, covering all my bills. And it really was terrible. But it also, that engaged, constant engagement got me to realize I'm really stressed out about this. Got me into marathon training because I was that stressed out. I did something crazy and I just signed up for the Chicago Marathon because it was 100 bucks and I could train outside for free. But it helped me realize too that I could burn off Emotions in order to really think about the problem that was happening, which is like, oh, I gotta figure out this finance stuff. And ultimately finance is just a numbers game. So that, that really helped me along the way. So that's the second thing to be looking out for. You know, avoiding things in your life is a call to change. A third thing to think about is that engagement is intention in action. And so as someone personally who could be caught in their head or having clients that, that will have this pattern where they know what they need to do to get back on their health plan, to connect with the kids, to level up in their job, but they're unable to follow through, right? And so you have the intention to change, you have the intention to engage in this part of your life, but it's gotta be backed up by action. You gotta get into action. You have to be putting stuff on your calendar. You have to be very disciplined in honoring that commitment to yourself, that if you say you're going to do something, you're gonna follow through. And so that's another way to look for. Are you not engaging in certain parts of your life? Are you missing, you know, softball games with your kids or soccer games with your kids? Are you missing date nights with the wife or husband or partner? Are you, you know, you keep skipping lunch because you're so stressed out about the project that you just gotta work through lunch, starve yourself to the end of the day, and that'll throw off all your energy and stuff. So, you know, it's looking at your actions and looking at, where can I get back and get a little bit more proactive in the different arenas of my life? And so I want to throw that question to you, like, is there an area in your life where you're not actively not thinking about it and your initial thought might be like, no, I'm pretty, pretty great. But humans have a really spectacular mechanism where you just have the blinders on. And so if you really think about that question, you might surprise yourself with what shows up. So, you know, again, are there things in your life that you are avoiding that you need to be a little bit more proactive on? Or if you were 10% more proactive in your life, in your health, relationships, career or general well being, what would be different? So that's another way to kind of look at that. So take some time to journal this, of course, think about it and if you would like, leave a comment on Apple podcasts on what came up for you, or if there's any of this that's really speaking to you because I'd love to hear from you all what's really landing properly and what you guys like. And it'll help me improve the podcast. So definitely do that in the comments on that podcast. Or you can check out the YouTube channel too. Leave a comment there. Just say if this is resonating with you or what you really love about the episode. So thanks. Fourth thing to think about when you're like, am I fully engaging in my life? Am I fully feeling the, the meaning and fulfillment of my life is that the areas where you're self sacrificing is really just justification to ignore other parts of your life. So and what do I mean by self sacrificing? You're like, well, I have to be the one that's at the office for 16 hours a day because if I don't do it, nobody else will. So I'll sacrifice time with my family again. I'll sacrifice lunch and eating and taking care of myself. I'll sacrifice that work, sacrifice getting solid amount of sleep or socializing with people because I have to do this and so don't. And I'm gonna be a little bit pushy here, but don't kid yourself that your, your self sacrifice in those different areas is just you trying to justify bad habits. You know, I know it's a little challenging, but and I say this with a smile on my face, if you're listening to the podcast, you can't hear. Maybe you can hear the smile, but. So it's a little bit of a nudge. Anya. But it's true. I. Isn't it true? I know it is. It has been in my life and I've seen it time and time again with client. I've had a client over the pandemic who is for a couple more examples. You know, worked at a job for like 17 years, was fired and basically didn't have anything right. So this idea where she told me and she started crying when over this conversation that she poured her heart and her life and you know, she was single and didn't know she had any other skills that were transferable and and like was expecting this company to take care of her until she retired and then you know, to go from 60, 70 hour work weeks where you're just so focused on this to then not having friends around, not having a family, not, you know, having those connections was really tough for her. But it's self sacrifice during those years leading up to that point where she got fired. Not to blame her obviously, but as an Illustrative point that so focused on work, she sacrificed, you know, everything else for it. And then when that went away, she was completely lost. And so. And sometimes that's why you go and seek a coach when you've had those big movements where your identity has completely shifted because you poured your identity into your work in this particular case. But it's important to know that everything goes away over time. And so, and I say again, say that with a smile because it's kind of true. So I want to joke about it, but, you know, everything will go away. So what happens when you take away parts of your life? Especially the things that you're so super hyper focused on? Like, it's really, really important to think about. So are there areas in your life where you are telling yourself in your head that, hey, this thing right here is completely reliant on me and you're neglecting other parts of your life? That's something worth journaling about. And then finally, fifth belief that I have is that active participation in our lives creates joy. And what do I mean by that? Like, if you want to feel happiness, you want to feel connected to your community, connected to the world and spirituality, it's in action. It's in actively engaging in these different areas of your life. And in my experience, you take a look at anyone that's really super impactful in business. You take like a Steve Job. You can take a look Warren Buffett, you could take Sam Walton, you could take any of these. You know, I was gonna say the GE guy, Jack Walsh, all of those business leaders, what they have in common is passion for what they're doing, right? You know, Warren Buffett will read eight hours a day doing research on investments. And, you know, they say on average, you'll make one investment a year based on all of that reading every day. Super hyper focused on, you know, do it, you know, figuring out what to invest in. Or you take a look at Steve Jobs and, you know, gets characterized as a jerk a lot, you know, but he's also hyper passionate and really cared about doing the best product ever. And so that passion and care for, he was really healthy, paying attention to what he was eating, a lot. Read a ton of stories about that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, you know, both of those guys, super passionate about what they're doing, super focused on keeping up their energy to sustain what they have to do, because you can't be out of whack and sustain that level of work ethic and contribution. So all that to say is you really need to actively participate in different areas of your life if you want to feel happy, right? You could think of like Viktor Frankl's man's search for meaning, right? In the worst circumstances as, you know, a survivor of the, you know, concentration camps in World War II, that the people that survived in his, you know, he was a psychologist that was in the camps, but the people that found service to others, the people that found meaning in spite of suffering were able to survive and were able to recover quickly and were able to find joy in terrible circumstances. A really amazing thing to think about, you know, And I really love that book because it illustrates that no matter the situation that the human spirit can endure and when you actively engage in your situation, even if it's terrible, you can still create a sense of service and meaning and joy. So with that said, guys, again, the five things for today were that exhaustion is the number one cause for disengaging in your life. Two, avoiding your life is a call to change. Three, engagement is intention and action. Four, self sacrificing is really just justification to ignore other parts of your life. And five, active participation in our lives creates joy. So if we can keep these in mind, if we can keep engaging in our lives at a higher level, then we can really feel our personal meaningful revolutions. We can have a greater impact in our communities and organizations and, you know, have that ripple effect go out. So with that said, this is Sean Butner signing off. If you really love this episode, we'd love to hear from you. So please comment on Apple podcasts or check out the YouTube channel all linked in the show notes here and leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you. With all that said, guys, go out there live with more joy, more growth, more impact in your communities and we'll see you next week. What is your meaningful revolution? Right. On the podcast, we talk about people that have done a lot of work and getting clarity about what their mission is, what they find fulfillment in, what is helping them engage in their life more and in the hopes of inspiring you to do so for yourself. But how do you go about doing that, right? Maybe you are new to personal development, maybe you're new to wanting change in your life and you don't know how to get to that next step. Well, good news. I got a three day challenge for you that will help guide you through just that. It's the Meaningful Revolution Challenge where we'll spend three days together, one hour each, where on day one, we'll talk about clearly defining your personal Meaningful Revolution, which is your fulfilling transformation. It's your purposeful impact. It's that authentic movement that gets you up and excited out of bed every morning to go out and chase and create in the world. Because I believe if we have more people living into their personal meaningful revolutions, that we will have a lot more people engaged in their lives, which helps us out in society, it helps us provide more for our families, it helps us feel better about our lives. And these are all things that we all strive for, right? I feel like we all strive for joy, growth and impact in life. And a lot of that revolves if you can achieve those three things, you have your personal meaningful revolution. So I'd love for you to join us in this free three day challenge which is live. And so like I said, on the first day we'll go through clearly defining your personal meaningful revolution. The second day we'll talk about building your plan and the components of that so you can know your next steps and follow through and you know, feel a little bit of momentum there. And then the third day we'll talk about your commitment to that vision and habits, strategies, tactics to help the make sure you follow through. So I love doing these challenges because one, I get to know you guys more. You know, I get to understand, ask you questions. You know, there's a place each day for some question answers and for some one off coaching if you're struggling with something in particular. As a certified high performance coach, I am a coach first. I love coaching people. It's my bread and butter and it's not me telling you what to do, but it's us co creating and figuring out a solution together to whatever is getting in your way. So love to do that for you. Join us in the Meaningful Revolution challenge by clicking on the link below wherever you're watching or listening to this podcast. So see you in the challenge, guys. You got this. This is the year to step up that vision for your life, to really build into that vision and to to get some momentum going into this new year. So join us. See you there.