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Tag: destress

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2020 4 Dimensional Wellness Emotional Honesty Energy Boosters Happiness Live Happy Inspiration Reduce Stress Self Care and Self Love

There are TWO types of Busy Person…which are you?

Busy people

Life is busy. You sure don’t need a life coach to tell you that! However – there are two kinds of busy. Which one is more you?

There is active, focused, conscious busy …and there is frantic, rushing, juggling, largely unconscious busy.

The first feels energising, focused, controlled, productive. Let’s call that Purposeful Busy.

The other feels overwhelming, stressful, and out of control. That would be Stressful Busy.

Life is always going to be busy. It’s the 2020’s. That just how it is, we don’t really get to change that. What we DO get to control though is WHAT KIND of busy we are personally engaged in

BOTH are going to keep you doing stuff all day. Only one is going to not just feel good but move you nearer to where you want to go and the kind of life you want for ourselves.

We can all be busy all day and knackered at the end. That however doesn’t tell us if we have been being busy about the right things.

The defining factor is

WHAT ARE YOU GETTING BUSY ABOUT?

How much has been about obligation?

And how much about positive choice?

How much has required willpower? And how much has been breezy inspired action?

Stop. Take a minute. What ARE you filling your day with – to be so busy?!

Is it purposefully in alignment with the life you want to have for yourself a year, 3 years from now?

How much of your day is a building brick for the future, and how much is going through the motions or obligation driven?

A year from now if you want to be promoted is your busyness a small step in driving that outcome, or is it just busy work that someone else didn’t want to do that you didn’t want to say no to?

A year from now if you want to be strong and fit and in your old jeans is skipping that spin class because you were so busy a step towards that goal or a step away? What were you busy with instead?

A year from now if you want to be credit card debt-free did you take a tiny action towards that goal today? Or were you too busy to make a packed lunch and ate on the run again?

All these things are teeny tiny choices.

But that is how we get ANYWHERE! Lots of teeny tiny choices in a row.

To create anything of meaning in our life.

We have to be busy doing the right things.

Being busy per se is not enough.

The time will pass anyway.

It will get filled with tens of thousands of tiny choices anyway.

The difference between Purposeful Busy and Stressful Busy is a very clearly defined future goal, and the commitment to move towards it each day, in a tiny way – NO MATTER WHAT. Even if its inconvenient. Even if it means we let someone else down.  Even if we say no to some other stuff.

When we don’t do this – it means that our priorities shift weekly, daily, hourly, depending on who needs what. That is where we are Stressful Busy. That’s why we feel like we are rushing, and juggling between everything.

Because we are.

There is a better way.

When we have a purpose and we prioritise it.

When we are Purposefully Busy we are not LESS busy.

We are just busy about the right things.

 

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2020 4 Dimensional Wellness Happiness Live Happy Inspiration Positive Thought Strategy

Why worrying makes bad stuff happen!

Stop worrying

Worrying is a pointless activity. Fact!

Worrying is focusing on a fear that is not currently present.

It’s worrying about a thing that may or may not happen later.

Most of the time it doesn’t even happen, but all that mental energy, emotional energy and headspace is gone, you can’t get that back.

And here’s another thing. Worrying actually makes the thing you are worrying about more likely to happen.

Yep, that’s right.

Worrying actually makes the thing you are worrying about more likely to happen.

How?

Well, firstly, worry makes you filter. Filtering is selective awareness of what’s going on around you. Our brains are built to filter because otherwise we couldn’t cope with the sheer volume of information around us.

Here’s an example of filtering. I got a new car a couple of years ago. I wasn’t that fussed about what I got as long as it was small enough so I could park it  (ie. v small) and that it wasn’t another unreliable money eating machine.  I settled on a blue Mazda 3 , never really seen one before but it ticked all the boxes and we got a good deal. Then, when driving about in the shiny new reliable blue Mazda 3 a funny thing happened. They are EVERYWHERE! Blue Mazda 3’s? Every third car is a blue Mazda 3. So many in fact that twice I tried to get into the wrong parked car (der…that’s why we now have a sticker on the back window to stop me doing that).  Blue Mazda 3’s are super common but I honestly had never noticed one before I bought one, then I see them everywhere. Why? Filtering. My brain is filtering for the thing I put my attention on so I see it everywhere.

It’s how the brain works. So, if you are worrying about a thing, you are actually far more likely to find evidence for it as you have primed your brain to search for it. That makes worries far more likely to become real.

Reason number 2 that worrying makes the thing you don’t want more likely to happen is the basic Law Of Attraction. The more thoughts you put out there by continually worrying about a scenario you don’t want, the more likely The Universe is to energetically bring that back to you. That might be too woo-woo for you but I can assure you that it’s the truth. The Universe is programmed to bring you what you want. And it assumes that what you want is what you think about all the time. Worrying is a repetitive thought pattern. Hence, that’s what you are far more likely to get.

So, whether you like the brain science filtering explanation or the more woo-woo Law Of Attraction one, you can see that worrying is bad. And pointless.

Worrying is meditating on the thing you don’t want to happen.

So, stop it!

Decide what you DO want to happen, however unlikely that may seem, and focus your thoughts and energy on that.

It will make a HUGE difference to how enjoyable your day is and the outcome of the thing.

Have a great worry-free day.

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Digital Detox Live Happy Inspiration Positive Thought Strategy Reduce Stress Self Care and Self Love

Why you DON’T need a Digital Detox …

I will improve my Digital Discernment

Digital Detoxes: they are all the rage, are they not?  Pretty much the answer to almost any ill.

Feeling anxious: have a digital detox!

Stressed out: digital detox!

Exhausted: definitely a digital detox.

Well, here’s the reason why I think we can do better than a Digital Detox:

A Detox is a short-term fix. By definition, it’s a snappy way to rid ourselves of toxins… before we inevitably go and do the exact same thing again. Basically  – we detox, we feel great, we make all sorts of good intention promises…then we retox. We are back snarfing the Pringles and the G & T’s a week later like the juice cleanse never happened (despite what we might have proclaimed about vegetables being life the minute it finished).

The principle works the same digitally as with a juice cleanse detox. You go offline for 3 – 5days. Feel really uncomfortable for the first day, twitchingly reaching for your phone by reflex, but by Day 3# you’ve not felt this relaxed in years! You are SO going to keep that up! Who needs a phone! A week later back on planet earth you are checking Facebook and Insta a dozen times a day as per. We detox. We bounce back. The pull to our phones is strong. It’s estimated that we check our phones between 120 and 200 times a day. A DAY. Yikes.

I prefer an on-going process of Digital Discernment over a Digital Detox any day. This is about curating your digital space in a way that improves your mood and physiology long term, reducing stress and comparisonitus. It’s about quality over quantity; gradually improving the quality of your digital life over time.

This might include things like:

  • Unfollowing a #thinspiration PT on Insta that although is supposed to be #likesuperinspirational actually always makes you feel bad about yourself.
  • Removing yourself from Facebook groups that don’t add value to your life but bore or annoy you.
  • Not responding to work emails out of hours. Period. If it’s that urgent THEY CAN CALL YOU. (I know. Old Skool).
  • Unfollowing that family member/friend/acquaintance who’s endless #humblebrag updates on their political views / their MLM business selling oil/face cream/shakes or their 900th cute dog/couple/baby pics makes you grit your teeth.
  • Reading the comments on anything to do with the NRA, MAFS, GDPR or anything else that drives you to distraction.

 

There has been much made recently  – and rightly so – of the way the data we have (wittingly or unwittingly) put out there digitally has been used to manipulate or sell to us. The temperature has suddenly been raised about the information we put out. What also deserves some focus is the information we are taking in.  Our digital diet has a bigger-than-you-think impact on your mood and your motivation.

Get as discerning with your digital space as you do your diet. Does it make you feel good or bad?  Is it nourishing your psyche or soul?

Curate your content with discernment. Look for quality and continue to refine it long term.

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Live Happy Inspiration Positive Thought Strategy Reduce Stress Relationships Self Care and Self Love

Relative Harmony #2

Relative Harmony #2

A seasons sprinkling of final top tips for a harmonious festive season for you today, plus a little Christmas gift for you at the end!

#3. YOU teach other people how to treat you, and you are allowed to update that treatment from 1985.

One of the core principles I work on with my clients and my Wellbeing Warrior programme members is, “What you allow is what you endorse”. Essentially, we teach people how to treat us. We educate others what is acceptable to us by the way we lay out our expectations and the way we react to their behaviour around us. Strengthening our boundaries is the way we keep the good stuff in and bad stuff out. It’s that simple, and in adult life we are generally pretty okay at it. When it comes to family though…well…whoa….that can be a whole different kettle of fush and chups. If we have been allowing a certain behaviour since childhood for example, when we had minimal say in the matter, it can be much harder to assert a new boundary as an adult of, “it’s not okay to speak to me like that”. However, it can be done.

You are allowed to have different standards of behaviour that you expect for yourself and your life than you did in 1985. And you are allowed to update that standard and bring it into 2018. Being able to firmly state “It’s not okay to talk to me like that” and reiterate it with consistency to the point that it becomes the new standard is possible. I would pick your battles here though, some are so small and you may see your family so infrequently, it might not be worth the drama to you. But, for the big things if it needs an update; be firm, don’t whine, don’t argue. Just state what you need and expect, spell out the consequences and follow through if need be. You are a grown-ass man/woman: you are allowed.

#4. Don’t sweat the small stuff (and most of it is small stuff!).

Most of the Christmas stuff is small stuff, isn’t it? The detail of it all. That’s what causes most of the arguments and overwhelm: the myriad of tiny details and expectations of ourselves and others. Being able to stop, step back and gain some perspective is key.

The big picture is that however annoying someone might be in the moment (and like we said last week, no one pushes buttons so effectively as family!) you actually love them. The big picture is we love them very much.  That for every family member tearing their hair out about the way that Dad insists on making such an all-encompassing performance about the turkey or Aunty Pat’s penchant for un-PC jokes after too many sherry brandies, there is someone silently weeping that they do not get to spend that time with those that they love or loved. The big picture is that the small stuff is not worth sweating and that Christmas is something you feel not something you do. The details only matter if we let them. The big picture is really where it’s at.

I do hope you are spending your festive season with people you care about and who hold you in their warm embrace. I wish you all the most fabulous Christmas time, thank you for being along for the ride this year and I can’t wait for more in 2019.

I do have a special Christmas present for you all to thank you for reading this year, and for all the amazing emails and messages you have sent me. I have ONE scholarship to my online life coaching programme ~Wellbeing Warriors~ to gift to you lovely readers this festive season! To enter just hop over to www.louisethompson.com/winascholarship and take 30 seconds to enter to be in to win a year of your best wellbeing with support from me! One lucky winner will be drawn on 21 December 2018 and advised by email.

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Live Happy Inspiration Positive Thought Strategy

Got To Get

Got to get

Want to know a magic trick where you can instantly change your mood and motivation just by changing one letter that you habitually use? Of course you do. Who doesn’t want to feel more enthused and less resentful, to procrastinate less and do more?

Okay, so it’s this. What have you GOT to do today? Finish that report? Do the washing? Pick the kids up from school? Go for a run? Make dinner for 5? Take the car for a service? Grocery shop? Review the budgets? Got to answer your email?

Each day is packed with so much stuff that we just have to get done. There is a great pithy quote that sums this up to perfection “Life is just one damned thing after another” (variously attributed to many, including Winston Churchill and Elbert Hubbard). And some days it sure can feel like that. A hamster wheel of getting from one thing to the next, to the next. There are so many things to get done, it never stops. No wonder we can get resentful and some days can feel like a grind.

And if that’s just modern life, just reality, how can we change that?

Well, we can shift our perspective instantly through changing the language that we wrap our experiences in. Words are the magic emotion carriers that define our experiences. Read these out loud to yourself and see if you can feel the change in your emotional response:

I’ve GOT to pick the kids up from school today

I GET to pick the kids up from school today

Different, right? The first sentence we can feel resentful, rushed, harried. The second evokes gratitude, luck, happiness. After all, there are many people who would give anything in the world to go pick their child up from school. Perhaps their children are grown. Or they are doing week about and don’t get to see them for another 6 days. Or they have lost a number of pregnancies and would give anything to go hold a little one’s hand and pick up a piece of appalling potato cut “artwork”. So, I get to pick the kids up from school today? The experience becomes infused with a whole different emotional response.

Try this:

I’ve GOT to answer my email.

I GET to answer my email.

Trickier example maybe, but the same principle applies. The first is filled with frustration and pressure, the second with purpose and resolve. Having email does mean that we actually have a job! That there is work to be done that we are being financially compensated for. That our opinion or service or expertise is being sought in some way. A complete absence of email these days is an indication of no work, no job. So, I get to answer my email. Great! Let’s get on with it.

We know the language we use with others is tremendously powerful. We know that some well-chosen words can have the impact of healing or transform a situation in a moment. We also know that some words once spoken can rip a life apart in an instant such that it will never be the same again. Our words have tremendous power – and we are generally hyper-conscious of that in our interactions with others. In our interactions with others, we select them with care.

Here’s the thing. The words you habitually use with YOURSELF are even more powerful. If your internal dialogue is full of “I’ve got to” and “I have to”, you are going to feel trapped, resentful and frustrated. Often. It’s disempowered language. It denies the reality of the choice you have in your life.

Empowered language such as a simple switch to “I get to….” will profoundly affect how you move through your day. This morning I felt the pressure of a deadline looming, a column I’ve got to write for y’all. That’s not the most inspirational place for me to approach what is actually an opportunity I feel profoundly grateful to have each week. I get to talk to you, about what’s on my mind, and hopefully, uplift, inspire or give you something meaningful to ponder. I get to be able to do this, to have my own column. How cool! And yes the deadline does seem to come round with a cunning regularity that seems more frequent than the week that it actually is! However, I haven’t GOT to do this; I GET to do this. I get to write for you every single Monday. How lucky am I. It’s a pleasure and never a chore that I get to do that – heartfelt thanks from me today to you, dear reader, for reading and making this a part of your Monday and a part of what I get to do for a living.

Action Step: What have you got to do today that you feel frustrated or resentful about? Change your language about getting to do it instead, and feel your mood and motivation rise.

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Resilience

Resilience #2 Times are Tough

Resilience part 2

Five more strategies on cultivating resilience for you today; how to bend not break when going through a tough time.

  • Keep your self-care practices high. There is no more important time to be taking good care of yourself than during a crisis. Unfortunately, this is often when it feels the hardest to do so! It’s difficult to connect with eating nourishing food being a priority when you have suffered such a huge loss that nothing can fill it. However, improved self-care is exactly what we need to do at this time. We can meet adversity with more resolve when we have slept well, have eaten well, are hydrated, and up and dressed ready to face the world, even when we just want to hide under the duvet and hope it will all go away. Going back to basics with sleep/nutrition/exercise non-negotiables, gives us a platform of physical resiliency to deal with whatever faces us emotionally. A crisis situation is what it is, but it is always going to be better to face it with a good night’s sleep and a full belly than wired and tired. When life is so hard, it’s hard to know what to do next replenish your foundation with some loving self-care, regroup and move forwards from there.

 

  • It’s not fair isn’t helping. A huge amount of focus and energy can be wasted on railing against the unfairness of the event, whether that is raged against an organisation, situation, person or Mother Nature herself: that this situation we find ourselves in shouldn’t have happened. It’s not fair. That may very well be absolutely true, or at least feel very true, but the real question is: is getting stuck in the mindset of “it’s not fair” helpful at this time? Could that negative mental energy that is resisting the unwanted reality be better channelled into coping solutions that make the right now feel even a little more comfortable?

 

  • Lean on your team. I’ve written before that a great mantra for life is to “give when you can but take when you must”. If this is your time to lean on others, lean without embarrassment or fear. Be accepting that, on this occasion, it’s your time to take and that is okay. You don’t have to instantly reciprocate. You can be held, and there will be people who will be glad to do it in terms of emotional or logistical support if you clearly raise your hand. Don’t brush them off with “I’m fine”. It’s okay not to be fine, and to lean on your team.

 

  • Find the value in collective reliance. Often we are not alone in going through a difficult or painful situation; it’s a path we are sharing with others. Not being alone in your experience can be incredibly heartening, as a bonding “blitz spirit” develops enhancing everyone’s baseline resiliency. You may find someone doing it tougher than you, and you can boost confidence in your own coping skills by showing them the way.

 

  • Get out of your head. Nothing has the power to stop us sleeping, and fill our every waking moment with anxiety than hitting a big, painful and unexpected speed bump in the road of our life. It can lead to a mind racing out of control with thoughts of helplessness, rage, revenge, powerlessness or fear (amongst many others) that becomes almost impossible to shut off. Painful and stressful thoughts are far better managed on paper than in your head. Journaling can make an enormous difference and bring an element of calm and clarity to an anxiety fuelled internal dialogue. Getting stressful thoughts out of your head and onto paper is a tremendously effective coping strategy, as is getting out of your head and into your body. Exercise and movement of any kind, from walking, swimming through to knocking seven bells out of a punching bag will help you get out of your head and create a space for clarity, inspiration and strength to emerge.

 

Tough times bring an opportunity, albeit totally unwelcome, to develop our own capacity for resilience.

We often surprise ourselves that we are stronger than we know and can withstand more than we ever imagined. As someone wise once said to me, “life is tough, but so my darling, are you”.

Read Resilience part 1 here

 

Categories
Dream and Goals Emotional Honesty Love the Skin You're In

Congruence & Alignment – why it should matter to you

Congruence & Alignment – why it should matter to you.

Congruence:
Big Word.
Big Impact.

What is it? And why should it matter to you? Well lean in darling, listen closer…I want to talk about Congruence today and why it’s the number one reason why you are not getting what you want in your life.

If you are not enjoying the amount of money you have in your life, you probably have a congruence issue.

If your body does not look and feel like you want it to feel, you probably have a congruence issue.

If your work-life balance and stress levels are not where you want them to be, you probably have a congruence issue.

Congruence. Agreement. Harmony. Corresponding. Alignment.

I see a lack of congruence all the time.

The woman who wants very much to have more money, but who also believes that rich people are inherently selfish.

The guy who is way overweight and wants to be slim and fit but also believes that eating healthy is hard and expensive.

The woman who wants more free time and relaxation but who also thinks that everything has to be done perfectly and you can’t relax until it’s done.

Listen up, yo!

If you DESIRE one thing, and I know you really, really WANT it: that’s GREAT. You should want it. Dream higher. Want better. Seek improvement. That’s good.

Your DESIRE isn’t the problem.

The reason you are not getting it, and keep not getting it, is not because there is something wrong with you wanting it.

The problem is that you have a lack of CONGRUENCE with what you believe ABOUT it.

The money can’t come if you believe rich people are selfish. You will subconsciously sabotage yourself from reaching the desire as you don’t want to be selfish.

The fit body you so want to live in, and you want to enjoy, can’t come if you believe eating healthy is hard and expensive because you will sabotage your eating habits on a regular basis.

The healthy life-work balance and the new calm zen you so want to be, cannot come into existence because you won’t be able to stop yourself from sabotaging your efforts to do yoga, meditate, journal, chill in front of a box set, with the need to get things done, at work and home. It will always override it.

You can’t DESIRE one thing, but BELIEVE the opposite and GET IT in any kind of consistent or long term manner.

It just CAN’T happen.

You need to have CONGRUENCE or alignment between what you DESIRE and what you BELIEVE about it. Really deep down, believe about it.

Step one to being wealthier, or slimmer, or fitter, or less stressed isn’t joining a gym or looking for a new job. The first step is getting congruence between what you WANT and what you THINK about it.

When you do that?

Well, then my dear, everything just clicks into place.

Congruence means ease. Congruence delivers ease. It means the end of self-sabotage. It cuts to the chase. No more “trying” to lose weight. You just lose the damn weight. No more “trying” to relax more, you just chill out when you need to, no apology necessary. No “trying” to get more money. You budget, you sell some stuff, you save, you change jobs, whatever you need to do. It just gets done. No struggle. No fight.

Congruence dials you into ease and flow. It reduces the amount of effort and willpower required. It cuts self-sabotage off at the knees. Now – doesn’t that sound like a more relaxing way to get what you want?

Categories
Dream and Goals High Energy Happiness Live Happy Inspiration

Hold On when you want to Let Go

Hold On when you want to Let Go.

As your friendly, neighbourhood Life Coach, people ask me all the time how to “Let Go’.

How to Let Go of past hurt. Betrayal. Abandonment. Lack of love. Lack of courage. Lack of integrity when it counted. Regret. Poor choices. Appalling experiences. It’s a jolly good question.

The Ghost Of Experiences Past can haunt our present and cloud our future. Rob us of joy in the now by applying a subtle fearful filter of “what if…”.

What if that happens again? What if I’m not good enough? What if I can’t fix it?

What if this is all there is? What if things don’t change? What if it was all my fault?

When we find it hard to Let Go, it means we have too tight a grip on what is past. It means we are still pulling hard on the rope of the past, and while we do that – the past pulls back. It imperceptibly defines our present.

We may so want to Let Go of what happened before. Of course, we do! Looking back and reliving something painful is clearly no fun. And yet, what happened, happened. It was real for us. And so that lingering Bad Thing that blindsided us can quietly stalk our every current move.

From what I observe when we have something big we need to let go of, we need to change our focus from wrestling unsuccessfully to Let Go and instead decide to consciously and deliberately Hold On. The reason it’s so hard to Let Go is because it suggests a void. A vacuum. And as humans, we are not great at stepping into wide-open spaces. We find them scary.

That’s why we need to not look at Letting Go in isolation. It’s SO much easier to Let Go of something if we have something else to Hold On to. A vision of a new career. A delicious new relationship. An energising plan for a new hobby. A training programme that creates the fitness and body we desire. A strategy for exiting the outgrown career. The blueprint for a new living space. We can fill the void with something exciting and compelling to Hold On to, drawing our focus forwards.

I had a wonderful client, a strong and resilient cancer survivor. The cancer had been in remission for over 3 years, yet it stalked her every waking moment. It had something to say about everything. From what she was choosing for breakfast to what her possible new career might be. It cast a shadow over her every move and kept her tied to the worst time of her life. We had much work to do.

One day she came into my coaching room and said she had met a group of new people on a training course, and during the usual “go round the room, what’s your name, who are you and why are you here” thing, she didn’t mention her prior illness. For once she didn’t define herself in that way by her past. She spoke of her excitement for the course and its possible impact on her future career direction.

She spoke as a healthy woman creating a new life and enthused about her possibilities. It was the first time in many, many years she had not defined herself in terms of her prior horror.

She interacted with all her new contacts as a lawyer. A mother. A surfer. A smart, professional woman. She had an amazing few days. It was a real watershed moment. I don’t mind telling you we both shed a tear when she said how once she had Let Go of defining herself by the past horror, and held tight to that uplifting definition of herself, that she had so much more fun and connection as she grabbed hold of her new path in life.

The key here is to Let Go by finding something else to Hold On to.

You can start to let go of that appalling old relationship by holding on to the qualities you would like in a new one that is a much better fit.

You can let go of whining about your terrible job by holding on to some concerted job seeking activities and updating your CV to make it the best it can be.

You can let go of feeling like you are not enough when you compare yourself to others with more money/perfect family/great job by holding on to relishing the things you do have, which might be a great partnership or good health or connected friendships.

We will always be a product of our past and what has happened to us. The extent to which we let it define our present and future, however, is up to us and how committed we are to holding on to an alternative that uplifts us. You can start to gently Let Go of the past by finding something more compelling in your present or future to Hold On to, starting today.

Categories
High Energy Happiness Self Care and Self Love

Start your day right – Part 2

Start the day right part 2

This week, we are continuing on with how to start your day off on the right foot so you can make time for self-care and ease into your day instead of hitting the ground running.

4. Get grateful before your feet even hit the floor

This is such a good tip for bringing more ease and lightness to your morning. When you press snooze on your alarm* start listing things in your life you are grateful for. Happy moments from the previous day. Just start listing them and developing this as a habit. You will probably snooze back off, but this at least gets your brain with the programme that we are choosing to start the day on a positive note. You will be surprised how quickly this becomes a habit.

ALARM>>>BEEP. Ohhh…okay…what was good about yesterday? What were my happy moments? What am I grateful for?

It breaks the bad habit of waking up and within seconds being on the anxiety train of “oh God…I’ve got to get XXXX done today, and then YYYYY is probably going to….”

While you are still between the sheets, break the habit by establishing a new, far more empowered habit of starting your thoughts each morning with appreciation.
*Unless you are some kind of human unicorn who bounces out of bed before their alarm trilling, “I’m a mmmmmmmmmorning person!!!! Hello, world!!! ” In which case, you need no help, you’ve got it covered.

 

5. What would I like to go RIGHT today?

One of the reasons we sometimes have a bad day is because we self-create it by expecting to have a bad day. We wake up and our mind automatically starts off on a train of thought about how underprepared we are about that meeting. And that we are going to be really pushed to get to the dentist and back. And I bet the traffic will be really bad too because it’s raining. And if Tom doesn’t sort that thing out like he promised then….and so on. It’s a really easy train of thought to follow – we start with one thing that might not go that well, and then it links seamlessly to another…and another…so before we know it, we are stressed out about our day before we have even got out of our pyjamas.

You can change this by consciously directing your thoughts. We humans can have a real tendency to gravitate towards the negative without us even realising it – so help yourself turn that around by popping a post-it note on the bathroom mirror where you clean your teeth – and as you brush ask yourself the very deliberate question – What could go RIGHT today? And then link that to something else that could go well, or that you can think of an ideal outcome for. Start deliberately challenging your focus towards the positive.

What are 3 things that could go right today? What would be an ideal outcome?

1. ___________________________________________________________________________________________
2.____________________________________________________________________________________________
3.____________________________________________________________________________________________

6. Stop looking at technology first thing

I know I know, I go on about this a lot. Technology is our friend, and fantastic in so many ways. But honestly, if you are looking for a day that’s calm, focused and full of fun/achievement/peace of mind – whatever it is you are after – then checking your email and social media when you are still in bed or still shuffling about in your PJ’s is not going to serve that.

1. Unless you are a heart surgeon on call or similar, no email you have is that important/time sensitive that it cannot wait for 15 – 30 minutes while you ease yourself into your morning in a calm way that works for you.

2. When you check your tech, you are immediately taking yourself out of your own agenda and headspace, and immediately putting it into someone else’s. Reading that email about the problem with production splits your mental focus before the day even begins.

It takes the focus off you, and what you (and your family) need to set you up optimally for the day, and puts a large percentage of it in the office/school/someone else’s stuff. Start the day doing your own stuff. If you want to be calm, happier, more successful in whatever it is you are into – have those few moments at the start of the day focused on what you want, not the 19 other people’s agendas in your inbox. It will allow you to start the day with clarity and perspective.

I commit to not checking my tech, and staying in my own stuff til………am.

Categories
High Energy Happiness Live Happy Inspiration Self Care and Self Love

Human Duracell Bunny

We take care of our smartphones better than we take care of ourselves

The inimitable Arianna Huffington was speaking in New Zealand last year. Founder of The Huffington Post and listed as the 52nd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes, to say I was excited is an understatement.

Arianna has always fascinated me. Not only is she a media and political heavyweight, what appeals to me most is that she has shouted loud about the bottom line value of wellbeing in big business. That we have a personal and corporate responsibility to take care of our wellbeing. Her bestselling book “Thrive” documents her journey from collapse from fatigue back to wellness. There are so many parallels with what I write about here, and my book “The Busy Woman’s Guide to High Energy Happiness” about my own journey from collapse from fatigue back to wellness. I couldn’t wait to hear her speak.

She did not disappoint. She was radiant and spoke with real power.

I’m going to share my favourite analogy from her speech as it resonated so strongly:

“We are taking care of our smartphones better than we are taking care of ourselves”.

She has a point.

You know how it is, when you notice the battery on your phone is running down: oh my God, I’ve only got 12% battery left! It’s an almost panicky feeling. I know I am not alone in asking a café to recharge my phone, or being at a meeting and charging it mid-meeting. ONLY TWELVE FREAKING PERCENT BATTERY LEFT?!! What will I do? Must charge that phone. Immediately!

However, the day I collapsed at work from extreme fatigue, never to return, I was down to, what, 3% of my body’s battery? But I had never stopped and prioritised recharging it. I just assumed my personal battery was infinitely recharging. Like I am a one woman Duracell Bunny.

Stupid, right?

We check and look at our phone battery life all the time. We get it charged if it’s running low. That’s important goddamit! Can’t be without our phone.

How often do we check in and look at the level of our own body’s battery? Nowhere near as often.

I think we have our priorities a little bit messed up.

Arianna is right.

“We are taking care of our smartphones better than we are taking care of ourselves”.

So, stop. Right now. RIGHT NOW! What does your personal battery readout say? Are you at 80% or 45% or 12% of vitality, energy and wellbeing?

Scan your body and find out. Put a percentage on it.

If it needs charging, then do what you would do with your phone. Charge it up.

We need a high charge to power through life and attend to what is important to us with ease and grace.

This is an easy new habit to commit to. Check in with your personal battery level each time you check your phone charge. If it’s running low, give it a quick boost with a walk round the block. A chat with a friend. Five minutes’ quiet time. Going to bed early. Ditching the coffee for a peppermint tea. Little recharging pit stops that keep your battery topped up.

Take care of yourself better than your smartphone.

There is only one of you. You are far less easy to replace.

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