3. Your Roles in Life

Trina Gray, host of the Calm and Confident Podcast, shares a pivotal lesson learned in 2013 at a Franklin Covey Institute event about managing life roles. She emphasizes that roles are fluid and should not be overloaded, suggesting six key roles including self-care. Trina recounts her experience of managing over 12 roles, leading to burnout, and how she simplified her life by focusing on fewer, more impactful roles. She advises listeners to prioritize roles, balance feelings and metrics of success, and regularly reassess their roles to maintain productivity and well-being.

Topics

The Five Choices to Extraordinary Productivity

Trina shares a pivotal lesson from February 2013 when she attended a work group with business leaders, hosted by the Franklin Covey Institute.
The conference introduced the workbook “The Five Choices to Extraordinary Productivity.”
Trina explains how the lesson has impacted her life and how she has spent over a decade teaching it globally.
She encourages listeners to think big about the shifts they could make after the episode.

Trina’s Life in 2013

Trina describes her busy life in 2013, including being a wife, mom, sports mom, gym owner, and leader of a large direct sales team.
She highlights the challenges of being highly productive but frazzled.
Trina recounts how the conference exercise of listing current roles made her realize she had more than 12 roles.
The moderator’s comment about having more than five or six roles prompted Trina to reevaluate her productivity and success.

Redefining Success and Productivity

Trina shares how she started backing off from some of her extra commitments to focus on fewer but more impactful roles.
She provides examples of changes she made, such as sponsoring her kids’ soccer team instead of coaching.
Trina decided to close her mastermind group to focus more on speaking and growing her direct sales team.
These changes led to a more productive and less frenetic life, culminating in a highly successful year in 2015.

The Importance of Self-Care

Trina emphasizes the importance of including “self” as a role in one’s life to ensure personal growth, health, and hobbies.
She explains that having a primary role of self-care frees up space for other roles.
Trina shares feedback from women she mentors, highlighting the relief and insights they gained from this lesson.
She introduces three big tips for managing roles in life: roles are written in pencil, not permanent marker; roles do not need to be ranked; and one should be a role (self-care).

Practical Tips for Managing Roles

Trina advises that roles change over time and can be written in pencil, allowing for flexibility.
She suggests that roles do not need to be ranked, as all can be important and weighted equally – in a circle, not a list.
Trina emphasizes the importance of self-care, which she calls “manager of self,” as a primary role.
She provides examples of how to balance roles by looking at one’s calendar and ensuring all roles are represented over the course of a week.

Defining Success in Roles

Trina explains that success in roles can be measured by both a feeling and a metric.
She shares an example of a business owner who wanted to feel creative and impactful while also achieving a certain number of new clients each month.
For a parent, success might involve feeling like a good mentor or leader, spending quality time with each child, or having conversation at family dinners.
Trina highlights the importance of considering both how one wants to feel and show up in a role, as well as a relevant metric.