I’m Melissa Shanahan, and this is The Law Firm Owner Podcast Episode #215.

Welcome to The Law Firm Owner Podcast powered by Velocity Work for owners who want to grow a firm that gives them the life they want. Get crystal clear on where you're going. Take planning seriously and honor your plan like a pro. This is the work that creates Velocity.

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode, where we are picking up where we left off with Monday Map/Friday Wrap. Last week, I opened this up with a bit of a disclaimer. I offered some foundational concepts when it comes to planning your time, and really understanding why it's important.

Generally speaking, we could all probably agree that it's helpful to have a plan. But really geeking out on that and understanding why that is, what's the advantage, and how does this actually make a difference in your world, these are the foundational concepts that you need to understand and probably remind yourself of.

Nothing I'm sharing is rocket science, but it's reminders that we are not focused on. It is not front and center for us. So, that makes it very difficult to stick to something like planning your time and honoring your plan, because you don't have the foundational awareness right there.

That's why I'm giving these foundational concepts. It’s to do a refresh on how you think about productivity, how you think about your time, and why how you think about your time is so important. Last week, we covered foundational concepts when it comes to planning your time.

This week, we're going to be talking about foundational concepts about honoring your plan. We will give the nuts-and-bolts next week, when I start to go into the playbook. But this is important. If I just give you the playbook, and you're going to follow a set of instructions and you don't have this underneath you, it's going to be more difficult to follow the instructions properly, number one. But then, number two, be able to stick with anything.

Inside of our sphere, over here at Velocity Work, our members and clients, we keep the conversation alive. By keeping the conversation alive around these foundational concepts, it helps people stay engaged in this kind of work, the work that they really do care about. They're not alone in this. They are part of a community where this is what's talked about. These principles are just understood in the background.

Because of that, we operate in a very specific way. We strive to; no one's perfect. But it is about making sure these things stay alive because we all lead very busy lives. This stuff isn't just going to stay top of mind. So, putting yourself in a position where it is kept top of mind for you, is very helpful when you're putting these things into actual practice. Because your awareness is so high around some of these things, it really sticks differently because of that.

Okay, today, we're talking about planning your time and foundational concepts around planning your time. This episode is going to be a little more heady than last week's episode, because we're going to go into talking about how your brain works. If you understand how your brain works, then you can start to work with it.

This comes down to awareness. That's the whole thing about foundational concepts. It's just helping you become aware of the truth so that then you can make headway. Today's awareness is really about how your brain works in understanding, on default, what that looks like so that you can decide if you want to reroute what's going on.

Okay, so last week, we talked about planning your time. We talked about why it's important. We talked about how to think about it. We talked about how important it is to be strategic. We talked about how time is currency. So, how you spend your time is extremely important and should be very well thought out, it should be considered.

Now, once you do the work to bring those foundational concepts to life, which there are steps in the playbook that help you do that, then the priority is to honor the plan. I've said this plenty to members clients and probably hear on the podcast, people do not take planning seriously enough. They plan, but it's a half-baked plan.

It doesn't feel like it is, people think that they make really great plans, but they aren't thought through from different angles. Barriers aren't considered when they are making their plans. So, they make a plan. If you were tasked to take a step back and poke holes in your own plan, you would find them. You would see how ‘oh’ my gosh, this was never going to pan out the way that I had anticipated, or the way that I wanted it to. This was never going to give me, or lead me, to success.’  

I don't mean success like long-term success, I mean success with the plan, actually executing the plan. So, if you have a whole schedule for yourself that you set up in a week, and you try to make that happen, but you didn't think through it well enough, there's all kinds of reasons that you get thrown off track. Then, of course, you're going to fall short.

But you could have prevented that if you just would have considered some things ahead of time, and tried to poke holes in your own plan ahead of time, you would have been on a much better path. But people don't slow down enough to do that. That's what this process will help you do. To slow down and take the steps you need to take so that you can poke holes in your own stuff.

So, that your plan is much more intentional, and will set you up for success when it comes time to actually honor the plan, when it comes time to execute. So, execution and honoring your plan, if you aren't making a very good plan, you're screwed when it comes to honoring your plan. That has to be taken seriously.

Then, if it is… It's never going to be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. We will, I'm sure, talking about this more as the episodes go on. But if you do take it seriously, you're going to have less barriers because you've thought through things differently. Which means it's going to be so much easier to honor your plan.

So, this whole section about honoring your plan, you can just throw it out of the window. If you're not going to take planning seriously, you are definitely not going to be able to honor your plan well, because your plan isn't good. That is something to think through.

People get caught up in this part of it, and they think they're just doing a crappy job honoring their plan. But when I talk to them about it, and I dig in with them about it, it's realizing that it's not their fault. The execution part of you, that showed up to do what you said you were going to do, tried, but the plan sucked.

So, we have to go back to planning, and figuring out how we can plan better and differently, and poke holes in our own stuff to be able to set ourselves up for a more frictionless experience when it comes to execution.

Honoring your plan is a whole thing. Because if you have planned really well, then the concepts that I'm going to be talking about today, they apply. If you haven't planned really well, you don't even get the chance to apply what we're going to be talking about today. It's important to note that.

Okay, so let's assume that you really did take planning seriously, and you planned really well, it may not be perfect, but it was really well thought out and deliberate. So, now it becomes showing up, doing what you said you were going to do, avoiding distractions or other tasks that are just not in line with where it is you're really trying to go.

When you consistently honor your plan, you build momentum and you make steady progress toward the goals. This progress can be incredibly motivating. It can help you stay on track, even when things get tough. On the other hand, when you fail to honor the plan, you risk losing that momentum, and you miss out on valuable opportunities for growth and success.

Procrastination, distraction, and poor time management, these all lead to missed deadlines, decreased productivity, and a lack of progress towards your goals. I recently heard a podcast where someone called this the “doom spiral,” where you’re disappointing yourself, you're not getting things done, and that begets more of the same thing. It was called the “doom spiral.”  I thought that was a really interesting way to put that.

For example, let's say you have designated a certain time on a certain day of the week; 11am on a Tuesday. This is the time to focus on an important priority for your business. You have it slotted into your calendar. When the time comes, if you neglect your plan and instead get caught up in checking emails and attending to other minor tasks…

This all seems very innocent and virtuous. I have a client that calls this “virtuous procrastination.” It's like, these other things need to be done too. I'm going to do those things right now. They win for some reason, in the moment. We'll talk about that reason in just a bit. But that seemingly small lapse in honoring your plan has a significant ripple effect.

So, by failing to prioritize and focus on that important task, you miss out on a valuable opportunity for growth, or delay the progress of a project that otherwise would have propelled your business forward. Over time, these missed opportunities and delays add up. Which greatly increases the odds that you will stunt your business's growth and your personal success.

By not honoring your plan, you inadvertently sacrifice the long-term goals that you have set for yourself and your business. Now, unfortunately, many people fall into the trap of thinking that the key to productivity is simply cranking out more work. They push themselves harder and harder, counting on sheer effort to lead to better results.

But this approach, of focusing on output for output sake, is ultimately counterproductive. This route will lead to burnout, decreased motivation, and worse performance. Instead, what to focus on, the key to true productivity, lies in focusing on the precursors to output. Understanding how your brain works and using that knowledge to create significant change in your productivity.

Your brain is the ultimate productivity tool, and learning how to optimize it helps you achieve your goals, yes, but also in living a more fulfilling life. One aspect of the brain that has a significant impact on productivity is the ability to delay gratification. This is a skill. This is a skill that involves resisting the temptation of immediate pleasure in order to receive greater rewards in the future.

The word “pleasure” feels like a weird word to use here, but you'll see why in just a second. Instant gratification is a common default setting of our brains. We are wired to seek immediate satisfaction, avoid discomfort, and conserve energy. We are instinctively inclined to give into the urge of “now.”

The more repeatedly we give into immediate gratification, the more likely we are to be derailed from longer term, more meaningful goals. So, none of this really matters if you don't aspire to create remarkable results for yourself. But you do aspire to create remarkable results for yourself because you wouldn't be listening to this podcast, if you didn't.

Let's talk more about delayed gratification. Delayed gratification refers to the act of postponing immediate satisfaction, in order to prioritize long-term rewards or more meaningful outcomes. To cultivate delayed gratification, you have to strengthen resilience to your brain's impulses, and instead focus on the bigger picture.

Now, this necessitates an override of what your brain wants in any given moment. So, you have to train your brain to take this unnatural course of action, which looks like the opposite of what we just stated a minute ago when I talked about instant gratification. It's the opposite of seeking immediate satisfaction, avoiding discomfort, and conserving energy.

So, the opposite then becomes, and this is what you have to train your brain to take this unnatural course of action, which is to pursue delayed gratification, move towards discomfort, and put the effort in. There are so many studies out there, at this point that, prove that delayed gratification is among one of the most effective personal traits of successful people. Though delayed gratification can be challenging to master, the rewards are insane. The ability to forego immediate satisfaction in favor of a larger, more significant, reward down the line. Many of us feel inept at that skill. So, wanting to get better at this skill of delaying gratification, you have to ask the question, what is the underlying quality or characteristic of a person that allows them to consistently practice delayed gratification?

What is the precursor to that just being how they roll? Ultimately, it's self-discipline. People don't like to hear this, but that's because they have a warped understanding of self-discipline. Self-discipline is not willpower. Willpower looks like self-discipline, but it's the knockoff version. Self-discipline is not about being rigid or having an internal drill sergeant. It is much more sophisticated than that.

When people think about it, in the ways I just talked about, they have an aversion to it. Maybe they want it, but it feels like this perfectionistic way of being that is tough and rigid, and so people are uninterested. But if you can understand the sophistication of self-discipline, you're better off.

Self-discipline involves overriding the brain's natural desire for immediate gratification. To do that, what's required, is engaging and strengthening a part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functioning. So, it does things like decision making, planning, and impulse control.

When we engage in self-discipline, we are essentially training our prefrontal cortex to override the brain's natural reward pathways. When we avoid self-discipline, and we give in to impulses and urges, we are reinforcing these default reward pathways in our brain. That makes it more difficult to engage in self-discipline in the future. So, it's a losing loop.

The more often you delay gratification, the more you strengthen your prefrontal cortex. That means that you are more able to withstand the urge to give in to immediate satisfaction or immediate pleasure. Because remember, pleasure again, that may sound like a weird word, but if there's something in front of you you don't feel like doing, it feels good to not do it, there's a sense of relief that comes with not doing that thing.

So, the more that you slow down and delay gratification, slow down so that you aren’t just giving into an impulse, and you delay gratification, the more you strengthen your prefrontal cortex. The more that you strengthen and use your prefrontal cortex on purpose, the more you're able to withstand the urges that arise, that are not in line with where it is you ultimately want to go.

Now, let's talk about laziness, laziness versus procrastination. Okay, so laziness is seen as a negative quality in most cases. With many people using the word to critically describe themselves or others. But it's important to understand that laziness is simply the quality of being unwilling to work or use energy.

It's not the same thing as procrastination, which is the act of delaying or postponing a task. Procrastination can be a result of many different factors, anxiety, fear of failure, lack of motivation. Developing self-discipline is a key factor in overcoming procrastination, and becoming more productive overall. This involves learning to tune out distractions, stay focused on your goals, bigger picture, and endure discomfort or resistance when necessary.

Laziness is something that many people I meet use to describe themselves in moments like this, where they're giving into urges. But the kind of people that are drawn to me, and to Velocity Work, are not lazy people. That's, literally, never the case.

The only time people in my world, including myself at times, objectively exemplify laziness is when they understand the concepts to cultivate more self-discipline, but they don't engage in the work. They don't take any steps towards it. When you engage in the work, you are voting for self-discipline.

When you do not engage in the work, yet you understand and you have knowledge and you have an awareness around self-discipline… some of the concepts we're talking about today, delayed gratification versus instant gratification…

Then you are voting for allowing your brain to run on its default pathways, its default reward system, the brain's reward system, instead of voting for using the prefrontal cortex to be in charge more of the time. Putting you on a path of engaging in activities that align you with where you really want to go, not with what you feel like doing in the moment.

So yes, I do think all of us have those moments. All of us meet ourselves in those moments, and we choose the lazy option. But that doesn't mean we are lazy people. It doesn't mean that we are inherently lazy, it just means that we are choosing a lazy act in the moment. That's very different.

I'm saying all this because having a hypercritical view of yourself, if you find that this is difficult for you, doesn't help anything. There's no upside to it. Because, by the way, every human deals with this. Every human's brain has a natural reward pathway.

There are some people that choose to engage in a way that overrides that, which is a meta skill, and is the gift that keeps on giving. It is the thing that will line you up with where you ultimately want to be, with the results you ultimately want to create, versus spinning in a loop that keeps you from your ultimate desired outcome in any given area of life.

Okay, let's talk about the brain's reward system. We've mentioned it here, so let's dig into that a little bit. Because this is the part, that if you can understand it, you can really help yourself get ahead of this and use your prefrontal cortex.

The brain has a reward system that's responsible for motivating us to seek out things that bring us pleasure or relief. The system is activated by a neurotransmitter called dopamine, which is released in response to rewarding experiences that provide relief or pleasure. So, in short, we are wired to continue behaviors that trigger the release of dopamine.

Going back to what I just said, I know we kind of all know that dopamine plays a part in this. But I really want you to understand this. This reward system is activated by dopamine. Dopamine is released in response to experiences that provide relief or pleasure.

So again, this is basically saying we are wired to continue behaviors that trigger the release of dopamine, because every time we exhibit a behavior that triggers dopamine, it makes us want to do it again. This is the reward loop. It's the reward system. So, understanding the mechanics of your brain's reward system offers insight into how you can develop the self-discipline necessary to delay gratification.

Okay, reward system; it is three components. I'm going to go through each of these. The first component is the trigger, the second is the behavior, and the third is the reward. Then, dopamine is released. So, the trigger is discomfort, dread, resistance, temptation, frustration, anxiety, whatever, right?

There is a trigger when we are dealing with something challenging or unpleasant. The discomfort is the trigger. Then, we answer that trigger. We answer that discomfort by abandoning effort. This is what we call answering the urge.

The reward is the feeling of relief. By relief, another way to think about this, is it's a feeling of lessening pain or discomfort, or removal of pain or discomfort or anxiety. Whatever the discomfort is, the reward is relief, then dopamine is released.

Okay, I'm going to run through that one more time, because then I'm going to show you what happens when this pathway goes on long enough; there's a short circuit that ends up happening. But before I go into that, I want you to understand that this is the way the brain works.

The first component of the reward system is the trigger. The trigger is any sense of discomfort. So, if you are sitting down, at 11am, to do the thing that you said you were going to do, and for some reason there is discomfort associated with it, dread of doing the thing that you're supposed to do, or a sense of resistance, frustration, anxiety, or just a temptation to exit stage left, when that happens, that's a trigger.

The behavior that is automatic from our brain, the default way of operating, is to abandon effort. Like, “Oh, nope, I'm going over here.” So, you're answering the urge. You don't stick with it, you escape it. The reward is the feeling of relief. When you have that feeling of relief, then dopamine is released. Dopamine is a powerful neurotransmitter, so it is reinforcing this pattern.

Okay, so now, what they have learned, and you can look up this research, is that when you repeatedly indulge in instant gratification… So, when you repeatedly allow this natural pathway, over and over and over and over again, it has this detrimental impact on the brain's dopamine reward system. Where just giving in to the urge of that immediate satisfaction, the reward system is triggered, and it releases a surge of dopamine before you even get the reward.

What that looks like is, there's the trigger, which is discomfort. Then there's the behavior, which is abandoning the planned effort that you were going to put forth. You abandon it. Dopamine is released, and then you get the relief, the reward, which is the feeling of relief.

So, dopamine short circuits this whole pathway, which makes it even more sticky. It's not like all three steps don't have to happen and then dopamine is released. The first two steps happen, dopamine is released, and then, of course, you get the relief. But you got the neurotransmitter hit before that.

This is for people who have a pattern of giving in to instant gratification. This is what is happening in the brain. The dopamine reward pathway, the dopamine reward system, is firing faster than it needs to or than it should have. There's a name for it, it's called anticipatory dopamine release.

That can lead to chronic rash decision making in the short term, and that has significant long-term effects on your goals and on your wellbeing. Understanding this gives you the power to take control. Your brain has an addiction to the dopamine, when we're talking about this reward system. To what degree? It depends on the person and the behaviors that have been exhibited previously. But it doesn't really matter to what degree, this is all overcome-able.

So, now let's talk about this. Let's talk about how to shift or trade instant gratification for delayed gratification. The only way to do this, the only way to get your prefrontal cortex to override what is happening, is you have to slow down when this is all playing out. Not only have an awareness and be a witness to what is playing out; that's the first step. But the second step is doing something different.

We're going to talk about this. Now, before I go into this more, what I want to say is, this is why a process like Monday Map is so important. Because it gives you the opportunity to be aware. You are supposed to be doing this thing at 11am, on a Tuesday, and you are not. Just stop. Instead of  running and continuing on, and getting other things done and moving fast, stop.

Be willing to sit for a moment with the fact that you are supposed to be doing this, yet, you are not. Taking that pause, I call it the prefrontal pause, is everything. This is where change happens. This is where when you talk about how you’re transforming how you operate, this is where it happens.  

So, if you can learn to take that prefrontal pause and observe and sit with this, then make a different decision that's going to be better for moving forward... Sometimes that decision doesn't mean do the perfect thing.

The decision is, “I don't get to do anything else. So, I can sit here and I can do nothing. But I don't get to do something else. I need to sit with this. I don't need to escape it and go do something different. That is my pattern, and this is my opportunity to interrupt that pattern.”

You can imagine, that if you haven't taken time to do Monday Map, if you haven't allowed yourself to be guided through some steps that force you to be really intentional about your upcoming week, and how you're supposed to spend your time, spend the currency of your time, then being able to take this pause, and being able to interrupt your patterns, is nearly impossible.

The act of being intentional, and planning in a really well thought out way, is what allows you to have an awareness that will allow you to take a pause so that you interrupt your patterns. Then you can respond differently. You can do something differently. So, it is about slowing down. But you can't really do that unless you've done the work of planning.

So, this ability to transform how you operate requires that you practice planning and honoring your plan. These are two different skills that make it so that you can be the kind of person that more automatically can override this reward system that your brain is operating on.

Be someone who, more of the time, delays gratification versus gives into, in any given moment, what you feel like, versus doing the hard thing now and seeing the results, the fruits of your labor, on the back end.

When you take the prefrontal pause, it's the way to develop self-discipline because it will allow you to deal with the feelings of discomfort, of dread, of resistance, of frustration. Whatever it is in the moment that you are feeling, that feels like it's blocking you from actually doing the task at hand, when you experience that the pause just lets you sit with it.

Sometimes, if I'm having trouble pausing, I will say “stop,” out loud. Which sounds crazy talking to myself out loud, but it helps. I just say “Stop it. Sit still.” That helps, for some reason. So, you could try that. But when you face an urge to avoid a task, you have to interrupt it, whatever it takes.

Because it is interrupting your brain's natural desire for immediate gratification; that is what you're doing. By taking this pause, it gives space to breathe, and it allows the discomfort to arise, so that you can fully process the emotions and then move forward with your intended course of action.

I have read more than one book that says it takes 90 seconds. An emotion that you sit with and breathe through won't last longer, the strength of it won't last longer than 90 seconds. So, you can use that as a litmus test. I do generally find that that's true if I'm breathing.

If I'm sitting there in the frustration, and I'm not actually trying to move through this discomfort, then, for me, I think it does hang on longer. When you pause, you give the space to allow that discomfort, whatever the discomfort is, to just take over your whole being, take over your whole body and take deep breaths through it.

Then, it does process; it moves it, it moves the emotion. Then, it's easier to get yourself to a place where it's not going to feel easy, but it's going to feel possible to just move forward with the course of action, without using a bunch of willpower. That's not what we're trying to do here.

Remember, we talked about it earlier, willpower is a cheap version of self-discipline. It's not worth developing that. It's worth developing self-discipline. So, allowing an emotion to arise, and really be fully felt, is the important piece of dissipating the emotion. Because it allows it to run its course. I think this is the hardest part of the process.

But you can't develop self-discipline without this. I mean, I'm talking long game self-discipline. People think, when they exercise willpower, that that is self-discipline. That is not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about a muscle that gets stronger. It's a practice that gets easier over time, if you do it this way.

Again, I think it's the hardest part. You probably heard me last year, if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, when I did an episode with Chris Nicolaysen about 75 Hard and my experience with it, the anger that I felt at times, because I was on the hook to go do things when I didn't want to do them. I wanted to sit at home with my family.

It was very difficult to move through that emotion, but it was necessary. It made all the difference, and it did develop a muscle for me. So, it develops emotional resilience, and it cultivates self-discipline. The emotional resilience is what allows the self-discipline to be a factor that is a part of how you roll. This kind of training is the key to changing your brain, to reshaping your dopamine reward system.

It's about learning to experience urges that are detrimental to the long-term gains, your long-term interest, without giving in to the urge. Doing this over and over and over and over and over again, is how you train your brain. It does become easier; I can say that from experience. I can say that because of the people I've worked with, and watching them and hearing their experience of it. It gets easier, but not without repetition with this practice.

One of my dear friends and brilliant woman, named Brooke Castillo, says that discomfort is the currency for your dreams. I love that quote. I think about it all the time. This is what it's talking about. It's this episode, is what it's referring to. This kind of material. Embracing the discomfort is key.

When faced with the urge to abandon your plan, crappy feeling states are going to arise, and stuff that you just don't want to deal with; frustration, anxiety, all the things; discomfort. That's normal. Because discomfort accompanies new and challenging tasks. That's part of it.

If you remain committed to the task anyway, you experience the negative emotions on the front end. But if you give in to the urge to abandon your plan, that may provide temporary relief, but the negative emotions are going to resurface on the back end, in the form of regret, guilt, self-criticism, defeat. So, there's really no avoiding the discomfort.

If that's true, it's better to face it head on and have something to show for it in the end, then to delay it, feel the discomfort on the back end, and have nothing to show for it. This really is about the discomfort. Honoring the plan is about the discomfort.

In closing, as we wrap up these foundational concepts of productivity and time management, you can gain insight into your own behavioral patterns and make deliberate choices about how to spend your time, through a process like Monday Map. It's an effective tool. It builds discipline. It builds a deeper understanding of yourself, which ultimately leads to greater freedom of time and money.

Get clear about the future you are creating. This is the macro, right? You have to know what you're aiming for. You have to make a plan to get there; a strategic plan, high level priorities, setting goals, etc. Then you have to honor that plan, you have to fulfill that plan.

The way you do that, is to then focus in applying this to the micro. Monday Map/Friday Wrap is a tool that will help you do just that. If you don't focus in on the micro, you are not going to make the macro happen. But you have to have the macro first.

So, my invitation to you is to get involved so that you create some clarity for yourself about the future you are creating, about the vision that you have for yourself, about the bigger, longer-term goals that you have.

Then, we can work backwards and then figure out, high level, what are the things that need to be put into place, the priorities that need to get done. Then, you can use this tool to move and fly further, faster, towards where it is you say you want to go.

All right, next week, we will be going to the playbook, so stay tuned for that. If you are interested in getting involved with us, go to VelocityWork.com. If you are interested in Mastery Group, you will find information there. You can join the waitlist because we do open enrollment quarterly, as it stands right now. The next enrollment is in August.

So, if this is something you think you want to put into practice and have some accountability and community around, and for, then get involved. Get your name on the wait-list, you'll know when enrollment opens. If you're interested in this stuff, we would love to have you.

All right everybody, have a wonderful week. See you here next Tuesday.

Hey, you may not know this, but there's a free guide for a process I teach called Monday Map/ Friday Wrap. If you go to velocitywork.com, it's all yours. It's about how to plan your time and honor your plans. So, that week over week, more work that moves the needle is getting done in less time. Go to velocitywork.com to get your free copy.

Thank you for listening to The Law Firm Owner Podcast. If you're ready to get clearer on your vision, data, and mindset, then head over to velocitywork.com where you can plug in to Quarterly Strategic Planning, with accountability and coaching in between. This is the work that creates Velocity.