Pick your path: boundaries, decisions, focus

What problems are you battling with this week? If it's one of these three things, I have some useful stuff that might help.

1. Setting boundaries
2. Making hard decisions
3. Struggling to get focused

1. Setting boundaries

Boundaries are values on legs - they're how we actively safeguard what we care for instead of getting swept up in the rhythms and dramas of other people's lives and priorities.

Here are a few things that might help you with your boundaries:

• This podcast episode, with Lauren Parsons on ThriveTV. We talk about how to create personal policies to protect yourself from burnout, depression and unhappiness - without justifying your boundaries as the means to an end. We talk about how to choose guilt over resentment, get real on 'positive thinking' and discuss how to tell what your personal signs are that you need a new boundary.
  Listen on Spotify
  Listen on Apple Podcasts
• This article, which defines what a boundary is, and gives you a 5 step process to create some new boundaries of your own.
• This LinkedIn post, where I talk about being an introvert - and a travelling public speaker! - and how I've learned to protect my energy and bandwidth.
• Not An MBA - Week Two is all about boundaries and is a game-changer for many students. June is enrolling now.

2. Making hard decisions

If you're a person, you've got choices to make. But nobody teaches us how to make good decisions - or even what a good decision looks like.

It's annoying, actually, because decision-making isn't some kind of voodoo science - it's a process you can learn and get better at.

Here are a few articles you might find useful:

• How to make hard decisions more easily (new)
• 3 myths about decision making
• Useful decision frameworks
• Use your values as a hack

You might also like these courses on the AM Academy

• Strategic Planning Fundamentals
• Nail Your Strategic Plan

Or this book, which has a whole module on decision making.

Or go the whole hog and sign up for Not An MBA.

3. Struggling to get focused

Focus is HARD. There's far too much information coming at us on the daily. Filtering it all out, battling our own anxiety, and making progress is a daily practice.

Here's a couple of relevant articles:

• How to focus more clearly
• Freshen up your focus

Or skip the reading and go straight to this kick-ass resource - there's a guide, a video and a workbook for you to immediately set about prioritising your time and energy in a way that makes your life easier.

Stay tuned next week for more useful problem-solving links, tackling stress, guilt and fear.

PS - have a favourite resource? Let me know!

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