15 Days to a Better You: Redefining Productivity and Personal Growth with Mike O’Connor

Full show notes, links, and video available at https://www.unshakablehabits.com/mike-oconnor

Episode Summary

In this episode of Unshakable Habits, Mike O'Connor shares valuable insights on how to achieve your goals and find your purpose in life.

 If you've ever felt stuck or unsure about your future, this episode is for you!

Mike discusses the importance of self-assessment and reflection in achieving long-term goals. 

He shares his own struggles with finding purpose and highlights the need for discomfort and gut checks to recalibrate one's mission and vision.

To make things more practical, Mike suggests some deep dive exercises to help listeners determine their current position and desired destination, allowing them to gain a sense of purpose and navigate obstacles more easily.

You also learn practical strategies to reduce anxiety before important events like job interviews. As well as how changing your environment and creating new triggers support your desired habits

Host Stephen Box also provides practical tips for habit-building, mindful practices, and self-improvement techniques. Together, they offer guidance on creating an unshakable foundation for personal growth and embracing the journey of self-discovery.

Join Stephen and Mike in this inspiring episode as they explore the power of reinventing one's identity, embracing personal evolution, and charting a course towards a more purposeful and fulfilling life.

10 Questions to Ask Yourself From This EpisodeHow can connecting your real self to the position you're applying for impact the success of an interview?What are some effective practices to reduce anxiety before an interview? How do they compare to hours of research?How can changing your environment and triggers help in building new habits?What are some strategies for incorporating self-improvement and self-reflection into our daily routines?Mike emphasized the importance of setting goals and regularly assessing progress. How do you currently approach goal-setting? How can you improve this process?What are some accountability measures you could put in place to support your personal growth journey?How can biases, such as first impression bias and halo effect, be used to your advantage in professional interactions?How can impostor syndrome affect how we show up in interviews or professional settings? How have you experienced this in your own life?What are some strategies for overcoming personal and professional struggles during challenging times, like the COVID-19 pandemic?How do you currently align your personal values with the organizations you work with? What steps could you take to strengthen this alignment?
Quotes We Loved“When you start with things that are high impact and low complexity, it's really helpful because you're almost sort of doing this, 80/20 analysis” - Mike O'Connor"Once people get habituated to doing it, if they see that positive benefit, they have that positive feedback loop that you can really start to layer on more stuff." - Mike O'Connor"The most brilliant people I've ever seen and worked with, the most accomplished people, everybody has biases. It's really hard to step outside that. You're never going to work outside the boundary of those biases, but you can learn to work with them." - Mike O'Connor"What I wanted to do was have somebody do a really deep dive into their values, into the version of themselves that they want to be. Then start to reverse engineer from that to look at your practices, to look at your actual habits, to do deep time audits, and social media audits, and all these other sort of fairly extensive things and really sort of hold that up against the brand of yourself." - Mike O'Connor
Guest Bio

*Links for resources...

Full show notes, links, and video available at https://www.unshakablehabits.com/mike-oconnor

Episode Summary

In this episode of Unshakable Habits, Mike O'Connor shares valuable insights on how to achieve your goals and find your purpose in life.

 If you've ever felt stuck or unsure about your future, this episode is for you!

Mike discusses the importance of self-assessment and reflection in achieving long-term goals. 

He shares his own struggles with finding purpose and highlights the need for discomfort and gut checks to recalibrate one's mission and vision.

To make things more practical, Mike suggests some deep dive exercises to help listeners determine their current position and desired destination, allowing them to gain a sense of purpose and navigate obstacles more easily.

You also learn practical strategies to reduce anxiety before important events like job interviews. As well as how changing your environment and creating new triggers support your desired habits

Host Stephen Box also provides practical tips for habit-building, mindful practices, and self-improvement techniques. Together, they offer guidance on creating an unshakable foundation for personal growth and embracing the journey of self-discovery.

Join Stephen and Mike in this inspiring episode as they explore the power of reinventing one's identity, embracing personal evolution, and charting a course towards a more purposeful and fulfilling life.

10 Questions to Ask Yourself From This EpisodeHow can connecting your real self to the position you're applying for impact the success of an interview?What are some effective practices to reduce anxiety before an interview? How do they compare to hours of research?How can changing your environment and triggers help in building new habits?What are some strategies for incorporating self-improvement and self-reflection into our daily routines?Mike emphasized the importance of setting goals and regularly assessing progress. How do you currently approach goal-setting? How can you improve this process?What are some accountability measures you could put in place to support your personal growth journey?How can biases, such as first impression bias and halo effect, be used to your advantage in professional interactions?How can impostor syndrome affect how we show up in interviews or professional settings? How have you experienced this in your own life?What are some strategies for overcoming personal and professional struggles during challenging times, like the COVID-19 pandemic?How do you currently align your personal values with the organizations you work with? What steps could you take to strengthen this alignment?
Quotes We Loved“When you start with things that are high impact and low complexity, it's really helpful because you're almost sort of doing this, 80/20 analysis” - Mike O'Connor"Once people get habituated to doing it, if they see that positive benefit, they have that positive feedback loop that you can really start to layer on more stuff." - Mike O'Connor"The most brilliant people I've ever seen and worked with, the most accomplished people, everybody has biases. It's really hard to step outside that. You're never going to work outside the boundary of those biases, but you can learn to work with them." - Mike O'Connor"What I wanted to do was have somebody do a really deep dive into their values, into the version of themselves that they want to be. Then start to reverse engineer from that to look at your practices, to look at your actual habits, to do deep time audits, and social media audits, and all these other sort of fairly extensive things and really sort of hold that up against the brand of yourself." - Mike O'Connor
Guest Bio

*Links for resources mentioned in this episode can be found at: https://www.unshakablehabits.com/mike-oconnor

Mike O'Connor is the owner of The Actualized Self, a company that specializes in career and personal performance.

Mike is a former director of career discovery at Williams College, a prestigious institution where he competed with other top schools to recruit the best and brightest students.

During his time there, O'Connor noticed that many of these students were only a few steps away from achieving their full potential, but were hindered by a deep sense of impostor syndrome and shaken confidence.

Inspired by conversations with his psychologist wife and their observations of friends and clients, O'Connor set out to help individuals recalibrate their self-worth and raise their personal standards.

He embarked on a journey of deep introspection and research, combining his own experiences with the coursework he led at various universities, as well as studies on social sciences and behavior.

O'Connor developed a methodology that involved delving into personal values and envisioning the ideal version of oneself, then reverse engineering practices and habits to align with this desired self-image.

Through activities such as time and social media audits, he encouraged individuals to examine their habits and compare them to their desired brand of themselves.

Ultimately, O'Connor aimed to provide people with a new operating system and a sense of accountability, allowing them to make significant changes in their lives and reach their full potential.

With his unique approach, he hopes to help others overcome anxiety, improve performance, and find happiness and contentment in their personal and professional lives.

Links & Resources

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Episode: 36

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