Categories
Emotional Honesty Energy Boosters Happiness Live Happy Inspiration Reduce Stress Resilience

Feeling Behind Before You Even Begin

Now – do you start the day almost feeling behind before it even begins? In a panic about getting done all the things you need to get done that day? If so, you are so not alone.

Feeling harried and under the gun first thing is very common and highly detrimental, both emotionally (feeling stressed), and physiologically (by flooding your body with stress hormones before you have even cleaned your teeth). Feeling behind before you even begin sets the tone for a stressed out day to follow.

Obviously there is the “I don’t have enough time” thing, but – if you are a regular Wellbeing Wednesday reader (thank you!), you will know you actually already have all the time you need: you just have to better prioritise what you choose to do with it.

So – let’s be practical. If you are feeling stressed and under time pressure in the morning you actually two options:

  1. Get up earlier / press snooze less / go to bed earlier

Or

  1. Streamline the morning. Either make something more efficient or, don’t do it at all and stop feeling like you ”should”.

Most people I work with are generally operating from a sleep deficit position as it is, which makes the option 1 even less palatable, putting option 2 way out in front. If you are currently feeling like you “don’t have enough time” in the morning what would you like to deliberately choose today so you can start your day with more focus and calm tomorrow?

Where can you be more efficient?

Set out your gym kit the night before?

Leave your yoga mat in the car?

Buy a stash of protein bars so there is always one to grab on the way out?

Or what can you decide, on reflection, just isn’t adding enough value to your morning to justify the time stressor it creates?

Maybe you can delegate it (“I’d like you to stack the dishwasher before you leave please; you are 45 / 17 years of age: does that seem reasonable to you?”) or just not do it at all?

Perhaps that routine morning walk with the neighbour or rushed dinner prep actually creates more stress than relieving it?

What can you adjust in the mornings as a permanent way of making you feel you have just a little more time and breathing space?

What could you deliberately choose today so you can start your day with a little more focus and calm tomorrow?

 

Categories
Happiness Live Happy Inspiration Positive Thought Strategy Reduce Stress

Define Your Choices

We are lucky, lucky people. Lucky!

We live in a time and location of almost infinite abundance and choice. We have more choices at our disposal than any generation that came before us. We have the sum of all human knowledge accessible 24/7 in the palm of our hands. We live in the age of not just unlimited information, but of unlimited choice. It’s a great time to be on planet Earth.

Our choices define us. Who we are. The life we lead. The future that’s coming for us.

Our choices lay bare our priorities and our principles. Even when we think we have no choice we always have a choice. The only thing we HAVE to do is breathe, everything after that is a choice. Annoying, but true.

Our choices reveal our true priorities. Not what we say our priorities are – but what they REALLY are. Other people’s choices say the same about them – they are a literal demonstration of true priority in action.

We think we are not choosing when we are.

The truth of life is that in every moment that we say YES to one thing, we are saying NO to something else.

  • We say yes to being kind and patient to the supermarket checkout person and no to being irritable and rushed.
  • We say yes to Netflix and couch time and no to a walk before dinner.
  • We say yes to one form of income and no to another.
  • We say yes to letting someone go before us in the traffic and no to closing the gap and making them wait.
  • Or we say yes to playing with the kids and no to playing with our phone.

Life can sometimes get off course when we forget that every single moment we absolutely have a choice.

What and who are you saying yes to? What and who are you saying no to?

A million tiny sovereign choices, every hour, day, week are what comprise our life.

Your choices define you. Choose well.

 

Categories
Emotional Honesty Happiness Live Happy Inspiration Reduce Stress Relationships Self Care and Self Love

How to give YOURSELF a Time Out

Much is made (by wellbeingey, feelgoodery people like me!) of “Being Present”. That we will all be healthier and happier if we are more connected to “the now” and present with who and what we are doing, when we are actually doing it. True Dat.

There is however another equally important, yet far less discussed perspective to the “Be Present” position.

I also think it’s important to  know:

It’s TOTALLY okay not to be “on” 24/7 and engaged in every single convo going on around you.

It’s TOTALLY okay to have an enjoyable, meandering, noodle on Instagram on your phone.

It’s TOTALLY okay not to listen to every single word someone wants to share with you.

AS LONG AS YOU OWN YOUR ABSENCE.

If you can be present, and you choose to be present: BE ALL THERE.

If you don’t have the capacity, the time, the attention, the mind space: LET THEM KNOW.

OWN YOUR ABSENCE.

It’s yours. You can do that. It belongs to you.

Be clear. Be unambiguous.

Say “I can see you have something on your mind you want to share but I just cannot give you my full attention right now. Can we talk properly over dinner?”

or

“Hon, I adore you, I’ve loved chatting with you over coffee – but I just need to check my email. I’d like to take 10 minutes and then resume the chats! – is that cool with you?”

or

Turn your phone on silent, go lay on the bed, and play on Instagram to your heart’s content with no one else expecting anything from you in that moment. Immerse yourself and enjoy.

If you are not going to be present (which is fine, no one can be all the time) OWN YOUR ABSENCE with clarity and intent.

 

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Categories
Emotional Honesty Live Happy Inspiration Positive Thought Strategy Reduce Stress Self Care and Self Love

Perfectionism Alert!

I will be happily less than perfect

Nothing drives burnout like a healthy dose of perfectionism. Dialling back the tendency for perfectionism might just be the greatest decision you make for your wellbeing and stress levels.

Depending on our personality type, it can be hard not to react to the parade of perfect presented around us. So much media content (traditional and social) magnifies perfect that it can be viewed, not as inspirational and aspirational (and with a healthy pinch of salt), but as evidence that we are somehow not quite good enough.

That we just don’t have our shit together in a world where everyone else miraculously seems to. But… if we just push that little bit harder, get up that little bit earlier, keep things just that bit more organised and make a just a few more lists, we might just get there. Perfect hangs tantalisingly just out of our grasp like a carrot on a stick.

The thing is, perfect is a mirage.

Like the oasis in the desert, it’s not really there. It’s an unstable image that changes according to our perception and viewpoint.  Striving to reach that place of perfection is absolutely exhausting, and for every step nearer we take, it will get another step further away.

You can choose to dial down the perfectionism this year with a few simple decisions:

  1. Do something with – Shock! Horror! – 80% effort. Knowingly don’t do something to the best of your ability! Woot! Pick something that’s not that important and do it okay. Just get it done. And move on. Not everything has to be perfect. Pick something that is of moderate importance and just get it done, not perfect but done.
  2. Do something with – even more shock horror! – just 50% of your best. Whoa! Pick something that really doesn’t matter that much and just get it done any old how, and move on. Realise you don’t even think about it ever again and that time, energy and capacity is better invested elsewhere.
  3. Cut a corner. On purpose! Like, BUY A CAKE for the bring a plate thing. And just don’t sweat it. Stick it on a plate. Grab a drink. Move on. Some things just don’t matter that much, and applying the quest for perfect to them just makes us tired, not perfect.
  4. Delegate something. Know that it won’t be done to the same high standard that you do it yourself. Be okay with that. Done is better than perfect.
  5. Save perfect for when it REALLY counts, not as your default setting. The make or break presentation that’s going to win the new account. Measuring out the medicine to the exact dose required. Being on time for your brother’s wedding. Bust “Perfect” out of the bag when it really matters, not as a matter of course.

Trying to live up to perfect all the time is fantastically stress-inducing and an incredibly knackering way to live. Let in a little more rest, relaxation, and create space for spontaneity and happiness to run their magical ephemeral course. There is a lot more to life than doing it all right all the time and ticking everything off just so.

Real life surely is not an instagram highlight reel of perfect.

Cut yourself some slack, release the grip of perfect and know, for the vast majority of the time, progress is better than perfection, and done is far better than perfect.

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

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.

Categories
Simplicity and Time Management

6 Signs You Need A Break

6 Signs You Need A BreakIf you are thinking “I haven’t got time to read this article! I’m too busy!!!” then reading this article is EXACTLY the thing you need to do! Life is busy – I get it – but when is it too busy? Here are 6 signs you might need to redress the balance:

1. You find yourself saying “I don’t have time” multiple times a day. The more we reinforce that message to ourselves the less time we magically seem to have. “I don’t have time” is one of the most stress inducing sentences in the English language. I would personally like to ban us all from saying it – it’s a stressful lie (yes, lie, you heard me right!) we keep telling ourselves. It’s far more accurate, and much more calming, to tell ourselves (and others) the truth “I’m choosing to prioritise this thing/task/person right now – and I’m good with that”. Life is full of choices – let’s stop fighting time and own the fact we get to make empowered choices about what we put in it.

2. You are USING coffee to get through. That’s USING coffee, like using a drug, as opposed to having a coffee because it tastes nice. Be honest. If you are habitually USING coffee to create energy boosts, rather than just drinking it to enjoy it, you need to have a think about when you can take a break and recharge your mind and body properly. Feeling tired is a message of truth from your body that it needs rest, not an infomercial from Starbucks that you need a double shot latte!

3. Your phone is surgically attached to your body. Yeah. That. If you are checking your phone a zillion times a day you may be getting addicted to the dopamine response it creates. It’s a sign that you need to slow down and unplug – just for a bit. Try setting some digital boundaries and have at least an hour before bed with no screen to wind down and let your natural melatonin production recalibrate. Want to really scare yourself – download an app that tracks how many times a day you check your phone, and collates, to the minute, how many hours you spend a week on Facebook, email etc on your phone. It’s pretty illuminating!

4. If you are waking up feeling tired. If you are finding that sleep is not as restorative as it once was and you are actually waking up feeling tired you might be suffering from the early stages of Adrenal Fatigue. This can get serious but is very easy to remedy if you catch it early and listen to your body. Talk to your GP, or take the quick quiz here to see if this is an issue for you.

5. You wear “I’m sooooooo busy” like a badge of honour. If your answer to “How are you?” is a run down of your perpetual busyness rather than “I am excellent thank you – how are you?” it’s time to look at getting off the treadmill for a bit.

6. You can’t think of the last time you had fun. Life if supposed to be fun, yo! It’s not meant to be one long never ending To Do list. A sure sign of overwhelm and needing to desperately slow down is when you can’t remember when you last did something for fun, or had a heap of spontaneous fun. If you can’t recall the last time you laughed til you cried your balance is seriously out of whack.

Life is a marathon not a sprint, y’all. We are not designed to live at “flat out” all day, every day. We can do it temporarily, but then it’s important to regroup and recharge for the next campaign. If you have answered “yes” to two or more of the above take a moment to diarise some well deserve downtime for gorgeous yourself and plan some restorative relaxation, connection and fun time. You gotta look after this body of yours – it’s the only one you are ever going to get!

Louise Thompson, wellbeing coach

Categories
High Energy Happiness

6 Signs You Need To Slow Down + 3 Easy Solutions

6 signs you need to slow downIf you are thinking “I haven’t got time to read this article!!!” then reading this article is the FIRST thing you need to do! Life is busy – I get it – but when is it too busy?

Here are 6 signs you need to redress the balance:

  1. You find yourself saying “I don’t have time” multiple times a day. The more we reinforce that message to ourselves the less time we magically seem to have. “I don’t have time” is one of the most stress inducing sentences in the English language. I would personally like to ban us all from saying it – it’s a stressful LIE (yes, lie, you heard me right!) we keep telling ourselves. It’s far more accurate, and much more relaxing, to tell ourselves (and others) the truth, “I’m choosing to prioritise this thing/task/person right now – and I’m good with that”. Life is full of choices – let’s stop fighting time and own the fact we make choices about what we put in it.
  2. If you are waking up feeling tired. If you are finding that sleep is not as restorative as it once was and you are actually waking up feeling tired you might be suffering from the early stages of Adrenal Fatigue. This can get very serious but is very easy to remedy if you catch it early and listen to your body. You can take a quick quiz here to see if this is an issue for you.
  3. You are USING coffee to get through. That’s USING coffee, like using a drug, as opposed to having a coffee because it tastes nice. Be honest. If you are USING it, rather than just drinking it, you need to have a think about when you can take a break and recharge your mind and body properly.
  4. Your phone is surgically attached to your body. Yeah. That. If you are checking your phone a zillion times a day you may be getting addicted to the dopamine response it creates. It’s a sign that you need to slow down and unplug – just for a bit. Try setting some digital boundaries and have at least an hour before bed with no screen to wind down and let your natural melatonin production recalibrate.
  5. You wear “I’m sooooooo busy” like a badge of honour. If your answer to “How are you?” is perpetual busyness rather than “I am excellent thankyou – how are you?” it’s time to look at getting off the treadmill for a bit.
  6. You can’t think of the last time you had fun. Life is supposed to be fun, yo! It’s not meant to be one never ending To Do list. A sure sign of overwhelm and needing to desperately slow down is when you can’t remember when you last did something for fun, or had a heap of spontanteous fun. If you can’t recall the last time you laughed til you cried your balance is seriously out of whack.

Life is a marathon not a sprint, y’all. We are not designed to live at “flat out” all day every day. We can do it temporarily , but then it’s important to regroup and recharge for the next campaign. If you have answered “yes” to two or more of the above here are a few resources for you to help you take a well deserved pit stop:

Do you need to slow down?

positive balance, Louise Thompson, wellbeing, life coach,

Categories
Positive Thought Strategy

Instant Anxiety Reduction – Bam!

Instant Anxiety ReductionWhen life gets frantic and we feel anxiety creeping in, it can paralyse us and make even the simplest decisions reeeeeeeeeeally hard! We can feel this anxiety in the body, our shoulders get tense, our breathing turns shallow and we just want to get this thing SORTED RIGHT NOW GODDAMMIT! Here are my top strategies for instant anxiety reduction. Bam!

1. Know you always have a choice. There is nothing you HAVE to do other than breathe, everything after that is a choice. They may be hard choices granted but you have choice nevertheless. I try to be grateful that I am living somewhere in the world where as a woman I have complete control and choice in my life, not everyone is so lucky.

2. Hit pause. Breathe. Stop and Breathe. Breath through your nose only, breathe right down to your belly for a count of 4, then out through the nose for a count of 4. Repeat for 6 full breaths and then refocus on the task at hand from a calmer place.

3. Is it a problem or a fact that’s making you anxious? If it’s a problem then there IS a solution, take your time, step back and Figure. It Out. If there is no solution, well, then it’s not a problem that you have honey, it is a fact. So accept it, however tough it make be, and move on. Focus where you can make a difference not where you can’t.

4. Walk away. If a solution isn’t really presenting itself then walk away and engage in a right brain activity. Painting, exercise, baking. Your subconscious will then have the space it needs to help you come up with an anxiety reducing solution. The time I need yoga, space, a walk most is EXACTLY when I think I don’t have time for it. So be brave and go for the counter-intuitive option and take the space you need to decompress and gain perspective back.

5. When anxiety strikes repeat the following mantra to yourself, as you breath in, and again as you breathe out. Nice and slow. 6 full breaths. “ I have everything I need, and all is well”. Now doesn’t that feel better?

6. Ask yourself “Will this thing matter 10 years from now?” The answer 99% of the time is “Hell No”, so choose not to sweat the small stuff.

Ahhhhhh….now doesn’t that feel better? Tell me how these strategies work for you, and your top tips for dealing with anxiety.

Louise Thompson

Categories
Reduce Stress Relationships

The Secret to Handling Grief and Loss

The secret to handling grief and loss

Do not let your tragedy define you.

 
Sometimes life is hard. Truly crappy stuff can happen to some truly lovely people. Being a good person unfortunately is no defense against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that everyone has a story; everyone has been through tough and unexpected stuff. Loss of various sorts is as certain in life as taxes.

Given then that loss in life is so certain for us all, why I wonder as we as a human race so bad at handling it? It’s a fact, we are going to lose stuff, important and sometimes irreplaceable things, so shouldn’t we get better at it? It’s an inevitable part of this beautiful thing we call life.

It is common for our tragedies to come to define us if we let them. That our wounds can turn us into someone we are not if we are not vigilant and do not process our grief in a conscious way. This becomes a second tragedy in it’s own right as it robs us of joy in life after the original tragedy occurred. Sometimes for many years after.

My client John had suffered a serious heart attack 3 years ago. A senior corporate Accountant based in Melbourne he had had a very close brush with death. Quite obviously this rocked his and his families world in a significant way. However being youngish and fitish he recovered well and a year or so after the quadruple bypass he was signed off by his consultant to a routine annual check-up. Recovered well that is physically. Mentally and emotionally John couldn’t seem to let go of the tragedy. He constantly worried he was about to drop dead at any minute. Every big family occasion would be coloured with thoughts of “this might be my final birthday celebration with them”, every holiday with the idea it might be the last. This injected a relentless air of misery to the most innocuous happening, sucking the joy out of the moment. He kept it hidden but it was there, following him like a shadow. He had started to become defined by his wounds. By the loss of his trust in his health.

Here’s the thing. There are some losses we can never replace. The loss of a loved one. The loss of our health. The loss of our fertility. The break up of a marriage. There are some things that just cannot be regained. And there are some losses which can. The car can be replaced. The house can be fixed. So, in a time of loss, replace what you can, and fix what you can. It might not be an exact substitute for the original but try and replace the feeling you had from the original. If a knee injury means you can no longer run marathons then don’t stop exercising all together find another physical activity that gives you as similar a buzz as possible. Hire a trainer. Find a pool. Try cycling. Try boxing. The key is to stop defining yourself as a marathon runner who can no longer run. It’s to define yourself as someone who loves to move, loves to exercise, who enjoys their new found sport of sparring.

If it is irreplaceable, and some losses just are, then after an appropriate time of grief, choose to stop the struggle. Stop wresting with it or you will forever define yourself by what you have lost rather than what you still have. It makes the present unbearable as our loss becomes a lens through which we view the world. Every child we pass on the street is a reminder we cannot have our own, every person we pass jogging is a reminder that that is something we can no longer do.

It’s a miserable way to live.

Viewing life through the lens of loss means we are experiencing life either in terms of what we have lost (which is past) or what we can no longer have (which is future). It means we are not experiencing life in the present moment. The present moment is where joy lives. The lens of loss cuts us off from experiencing real joy as it did for John post heart attack.

How to put down the lens of loss? It’s not easy. Of course it is not. But you owe it to yourself to do it. To close the chapter on what has been lost. Does that mean you will forget? No, or course not. But it means that you can honour and remember without colouring your present.

When experiencing loss:

  1. Replace what you can. Remember if it’s not a direct substitute that’s okay, try and replace the feeling state if you can’t do a direct replacement.
  2. Remember experiencing loss is an inevitable part of the human experience. It’s sad. It’s crap. It hurts, but it is inevitable. It will happen to us all.
  3. If you can’t replace what you have lost then grieve my friend, grieve and honour your loss. Take your time, make space, and hunker down to grieve. Grief is not meant to be stifled; it is meant to move through you. It’s the clever mechanism our body has to allow us to heal. Don’t deny your pain. Feel it and grieve and honour your loss in whatever way you need to.
  4. Choose a time to draw a line under that grief. You will know when it’s time. To close the chapter on it. It will always s be a part of your story, but it’s time to move into a new chapter or you will be forever defined by your loss. It’s really helpful to do this in a symbolic way. To write about your grief and burn it in a small ceremony. To throw some fresh flowers in the water in your favourite deserted bit of ocean and say a prayer or poem. To plant a new tree in the garden. Whatever feels symbolically releasing for you. Release it energetically into the universe.
  5. Let it go. Let it wash away. What you have lost will always be a part of you, but do not let it define you. Do not let your present be defined by what you have lost. Focus hard on what you have.
  6. Be present. Be present. Be present. Keep your thoughts on what you are experiencing in the here and now. The laughter of your children at the beach, the feel of your body as it moves through the water, the quiet companionship of a good friend.

The people we read about who seem indomitable, who have overcome unbelievable odds to be come para-olympians after horrific injury, or someone like Oprah who was systematically abused as a child but has gone on to make an incredible success of her life. They seem different from us. Extraordinary beings. Which in many, many ways they are. But at the root of that greatness has been the ability to suffer great loss without letting it define their future. They have made a conscious choice to grieve their loss, but then to cleanly move forward past their loss to create a new definition of themselves. Do not let your wounds turn you into a person you are not.

Louise Thompson

 

Categories
Uncategorized

6 signs you need a digital detox…and 3 quick tips on how to do it

 

A truly fascinating study by Time  in the US shows that 68% of us are taking our phones to bed, and 36% are texting and Facebooking whilst eating out at a restaurant. That people, is craaaaaaaaazy! No wonder we are stressed, wired, and struggling to sleep properly!

Whilst smart phones are undoubtedly amazing it’s also important to consider there is a hidden cost to continual connection. Did you know that continually checking your phone is actually an addictive behaviour. According to Psychology Today we get a little rush of dopamine every time we check and feel the instant gratification of  “I’m needed/involved/wanted” with a comment or message.  This rush is addictive (Pavlov’s Dogs, anyone?), so the more we check the more addictive it becomes, and the more we want to keep checking. It’s a very strong feedback loop, and it has a real knock on effect in terms of how we feel:

 For example, do any of these sound familiar? 

  • Feeling really scattered, can’t concentrate on things for more than a few minutes at a time
  • Shorter and shorter attention spans: cultivates a short term perspective. Long term goals are less likely to be achieved.
  • Multitasking reducing creativity and innovation
  • Lack of connection to the present moment: less joy found in what we are doing at the time, the TV show is less interesting, the interaction with our friend is disconnected and distracted
  • Connection and engagement in real life with real people is reduced, and joy and happiness goes down, dissatisfaction goes up.
  • Overstimulation also reduced sleep quality and disrupts the natural rhythm of life.

Listen, the reality is that the vast majority of us are not heart surgeons on call to save lives. Picking up that email or voicemail a couple of hours later 99% of the time MAKES NO DISCERABLE DIFFERENCE. AT ALL. TO ANYONE! Truly. The vast majority of us just do not need to be continually plugged in.

The fact is if you are continually recharging your phone you may well benefit from a Digital Detox: taking time to disconnect and recharge mind, body and spirit. Take time to reconnect with nature, get some perspective on the big questions and priorities in your life out of the addictive loop of instant gratification.

So, if you tick any of these boxes you may be in need of a Digital Detox:

  • Your thumb on your dominant hand is sore from all the scrolling.
  • You look at your phone first thing when you wake up.
  • You get a bit twitchy and anxious if separated from your phone
  • You get paniced when the battery is running low
  • You are feeling hurried and lacking in concentration

 How To Digital Detox?

Simple. Go out to dinner and leave the phone at home, taste the food, enjoy the conversation you are having at that moment. Have a “Phone Curfew” at home at 8pm. Both phones off so you can truly connect with your partner or kids. Get out in nature and connect to the real world and leave the phone behind as you feel the sand beneath your feet. Have a “Phone Free Dinner Party”. All the phones go in a box at the door and everyone picks them up when they leave, and not before. See the engagement, proper listening and FUN increase. Have a Personal Development Digital Detox and download my free “How to be a Time Ninja” ebook, go to a café and spend a couple of phone free hours figuring out how to make 2014 your most rocking year ever.

Just set one Detox rule, and see the difference in your connection to yourself and to others. Come tell me how this impacts your life on Facebook, and share this with anyone you think needs a little more reconnection!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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