Tag Archives | improving your life

YOUR NEW NORMAL

As you restart ‘normal service’, how about making it a new normal? We’ve all slipped into habits that are not useful to us, so let’s not fall back into those same habits as we begin our normal life routines again.

Have you been working too hard and exhausting yourself? Work smarter: take breaks, do something different when you’re fed up, get more sleep.

Have you been feeling stressed? Take more care of yourself: allow yourself to stop sometimes, give yourself some treats, do something that relaxes you.

Have you been finding it hard to fit in time with family and friends? Timetable them in your planner: make one night a week your social time, your family time, and stick to it.

Have you had so many items on your list of things to do that it’s overwhelming? Pick three out each day that you’ll do and leave the rest on a different list in a different place. Choose one that has been hanging over you, one that really matters, and one you fancy doing. And if you have time to spare, do a bonus one from the other list!

Have you had days where you didn’t have a moment of happiness or laughter? Make it a priority to find something that makes you smile, gives you a warm glow every day.

Above all, remember that this day is your life – keep some perspective. Each day can give you a sense of satisfaction, of achievement, and of loving and being loved. If you put off the things that really matter to you until you have time for them, they may never happen.

Make each day count in making your life happy and fulfilling – we never know if it may be our last chance.

Happy New Year – and new normal!

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YOUR NEW NORMAL

As you restart ‘normal service’, how about making it a new normal? We’ve all slipped into habits that are not useful to us, so let’s not fall back into those same habits as we begin our normal life routines again.

Have you been working too hard and exhausting yourself? Work smarter: take breaks, do something different when you’re fed up, get more sleep.

Have you been feeling stressed? Take more care of yourself: allow yourself to stop sometimes, give yourself some treats, do something that relaxes you.

Have you been finding it hard to fit in time with family and friends? Timetable them in your planner: make one night a week your social time, your family time, and stick to it.

Have you had so many items on your list of things to do that it’s overwhelming? Pick three out each day that you’ll do and leave the rest on a different list in a different place. Choose one that has been hanging over you, one that really matters, and one you fancy doing. And if you have time to spare, do a bonus one from the other list!

Have you had days where you didn’t have a moment of happiness or laughter? Make it a priority to find something that makes you smile, gives you a warm glow every day.

Above all, remember that this day is your life – keep some perspective. Each day can give you a sense of satisfaction, of achievement, and of loving and being loved. If you put off the things that really matter to you until you have time for them, they may never happen.

Make each day count in making your life happy and fulfilling – we never know if it may be our last chance.

Happy New Year – and new normal!

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WORK-LIFE BALANCE

The phrase work/life balance has been around for a long time now, yet we still don’t really pay it enough attention. For many people nowadays, it means trying to take their holiday entitlement and occasionally getting home at a reasonable hour. Yet it means so much more than this.

Yes, it does mean that working all the hours God sends is not good for your health and well-being – or your productivity! It is important to get away from work and take a break. Yet often we only use this time to do more ‘work’ – the household chores, ferrying children to and from activities, making sure we visit family. That is not balance, that is doing two or more jobs!

We find balance when our life outside work takes us out of work mode, so that we satisfy other aspects of who we are. If we do physical work at work, maybe we need something mentally stimulating in our life outside work. If work is very analytical or logical, maybe we need to do something with the creative part of our mind outside work. If work is stressful, we need things that relax us – the list goes on!

Many of us have an over-emphasis on one aspect of who we are through our work, and leave other aspects untapped and unused. Yet all of us are a mixture of characteristics, which need to be used for us to feel whole and satisfied. Research clearly shows that those who use a mixture of their characteristics are far more likely to stay physically and mentally healthy than those who are over-using one part of themselves.

And remember that being creative doesn’t have to be ‘artistic’: it could be cooking a different meal, or re-arranging a room in your house. Similarly, doing something physical doesn’t have to be exercise in the gym: it could be gardening or going for a walk in the park.

What does matter is that we engage in activities that use a different part of our mind and give us a different sense of satisfaction.

This isn’t about having to do yet more in your busy life, it’s about feeding your soul, growing into who you really are. However much we love our work, we all need to expand into a life beyond work, rather than just do what needs to be done and then get back to work.

So go on, bake that cake, arrange the lunch with friends, go for that walk, increase that balance in your life!

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THE MAGNETISM OF EXISTING CONDITIONS

I love this phrase! It’s a quote from Russell Brand, and perfectly describes how we all get pulled back into the way things are, rather than the way we want them to be. We are used to our existing conditions, we have adapted ourselves to handle them, and we have habits formed around them, so we go with the familiar attitudes and behaviours, even when we don’t like them or feel right with them.

It’s no wonder that we find it hard to change things, because we have to re-consider more than the simple change itself. Think about it: if you decide to enhance your physical fitness, you have to revise your attitude to exercise and your diet, you have to find the right form of exercise for you, the different foods, and then you need to find time to put it into effect – and all that in the middle of an already busy life!

Even if you succeed in doing all this, you then have to deal with others questioning what you’re doing: why are you going swimming twice a week instead of coming out for a drink with us? You could skip it this once. Why don’t you want a curry? You used to like that every week. So it’s not just your habits that pull you back, it’s also the expectations of others, who know you as you were, and try to keep you in the place they understand and are familiar with. This applies even more if you are making a change to something which is not the norm in our culture, because then the pressure to return to the norm comes form everywhere, not just family and friends.

So how do we break the magnetism of existing conditions?

  1. We identify what we’re aiming for. Before we start to implement any change, we write down what it is and how we will benefit from it when we achieve it. We can then refer back to this to remind ourselves why we’re doing it, when it feels a bit hard.
  2. We become aware of when the magnetism is at work.

We recognise that we will tend to go back to default habits, and that others will also pull us back to what’s familiar for them

  1. We use what we already have.

We notice anything we already do that fits with how we want to be, and build on that. Fro example, if you leave work at 6 pm instead of 7 pm on Fridays already, you could leave at 6 pm on one other day of the week.

  1. We adopt a gentle approach to changing things.

We take simple steps towards what we want: we take 5 minutes in the morning to meditate; we walk upstairs instead of taking the lift; we only answer emails in the afternoon.

  1. We find allies.

We actively seek out people who will support and encourage us in the change we’re making – friends, work colleagues, people who are doing something similar.

  1. We have another go!

It is normal to slip back into old habits, to ‘fail’. We don’t progress and develop lineally, and we do have to deal with that magnetism! So don’t give up, dust yourself off, and have another go.

Over the years, you have successfully adopted new ways of thinking and behaving. It happens naturally to us as human beings – so you know you can. As a child, we do it all the time, but not consciously, by active choice. Now we’re grown-up, we can make conscious choices to improve our lives in ways that work for us. It’s not necessary to either have to fight to make a change, or to have to give up because it’s too hard. Just use the natural way that we have as children, and gradually break that magnetism. Go on, make that first step now!

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DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Have you noticed how much of our lives tend to slip away in routine? Some of it consists of habits and customs we develop to allow us to live on automatic pilot.  Other parts are accepted norms of behaviour that we don’t question. Examples include what we eat and when we eat it, where we sit, in our home and in meetings, what we say to people as a greeting – the list goes on!

There is a usefulness to routine – it allows us to think about something else, or not think at all!  But it can also close down our creativity, our curiosity and even our consciousness of being truly alive.

We all tend to enjoy a break from routine, such as a holiday, and re-find our sense of fun, our vitality.  My question is, why wait?  Every day we have an opportunity to do something different, to take a break from routine, and re-vitalise ourselves.  Sometimes it may be on a grand scale: a friend of mine recently decided to take two of those days in lieu that often accumulate at short notice, and just got in the car and went somewhere she had never been to before, with nothing booked or planned. It was a lovely adventure that gave her back her energy. Or it may be on a small scale: yesterday I cooked a recipe I have never tried before, and it was delicious!

And what about at work? How many routine reactions do you have? What do you ignore that makes you uncomfortable? What do you accept that you really find unacceptable?

Just imagine how much better workplaces would be if only we challenged more, asked for proper explanations, as our routine, instead of simply thinking that it had to be that way. If we didn’t simply accept the status quo, we would feel better and the world would be a better place.

When we do something different, we wake ourselves up again, remind ourselves that life is an exploration, and we are here to learn, to be creative, to make things better, and to have fun.  We revitalise ourselves and tap back into our inner child, who thought life was meant to be good, and always getting better. Don’t let life slip by – do something different today!!

  1. Suggest a better way of doing something at work today
  2. Make one change in your routine today and notice what effect it has on you.
  3. Do something different in one of your ‘routine’ interactions – smile at someone you usually frown at, talk to someone you usually ignore, give a different response next time someone says, “how are you?” – and notice the effect on you and the other person.
  4. Plan to do something really different – go somewhere you’ve never been, experience something you’ve never tried.

 

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EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE

How many times in a week, a month, do you find yourself thrown by something you weren’t expecting: a negative reaction to something you said; someone being awkward when you were expecting co-operation; an extra meeting put in the diary in the space you were going to use to catch up – the list of possibilities goes on and on!

An aspect of emotional intelligence that we don’t often pay attention to is our emotional resilience when something unexpected happens. The word resilience means originally to bounce back

It is so easy to get knocked back in our culture. We tend to see the world as conspiring against us anyway, and so fall too easily into self-pity and being a victim of circumstance. This is not because we are naturally pessimistic, but because we are surrounded by confirmation of the cultural belief that most things don’t work in our favour, unless we are very lucky! The media, the news we are given, our everyday comments on events, all suggest that the world is not on our side.

Resilience has a foundation in the belief that things do work out, and that we can have control of how we live our lives. Although you may have evidence given to you that this is not true, when you stop and examine your history, you will realise that there is also evidence that it is true, that things do work out as often as they don’t if not more so.

The belief that things work out is very useful, because it prompts you to find a way to make things work, no matter what happens.

This doesn’t mean that you have to be happy about everything that happens, or positive – that would be being a victim again. After all, resilience is bouncing back – you need to fall or hit the wall first!

When we develop emotional resilience, we react differently.

a.       We forgive ourselves if our initial reaction is negative, and just let it go.

b.       We pick ourselves up and get on with things, just like a child who has fallen over when learning to walk

c.       We take a deep breath and choose how to respond to the situation, in a way that leaves us feeling OK with it.

d.       We consider what the learning is for us in the particular circumstance, and actively take the learning.

So this month, take a little time to develop further your emotional resilience:

  1. Take an example where life dealt you an unexpected blow in the past. What have you/could you learn from it, in a positive sense?
  2. Identify 4 ways in which the world has conspired with you, by offering you unexpected changes that were useful to you.
  3. As you receive some ‘knock’ this month, stop and go through the process stated above.

 

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HOW ARE YOU THINKING?

Often, when we are pensive, others will ask us what we are thinking about.  There is a more important question: How are you thinking?

It is how we think about things that has a dramatic effect, on both us and what happens.  Consider it for a moment.  If you are thinking about your summer holiday, it can have a different effect on you, depending on what sort of thoughts you are having.  Remembering the fun you had and feeling again the sense of relaxation and happiness will make you feel good, and ‘feed your soul’ for whatever you are doing now.  Adding to that memory, thoughts like: ‘I wish I was there now instead of here’ will create some resentment and reluctance in your performance in the here and now.

Similarly, when we think about the future, if we imagine things working out, we approach them with a positive mind-set and generally manage to overcome any obstacles.  However, if we are anxious or negative about them and imagine things not working out, we approach them in a way that betrays our feelings about them and often create the very story we didn’t want.  On top of that, we approach what we are doing immediately with that same mind-set and often upset other apple-carts that had nothing to do with what we were thinking about!

Because we think all the time, we are often unaware of the fact that we are in control of our thoughts – we can catch ourselves and choose to think in a different way about things

If we stop the spiral of negative or anxious thinking in ourselves, we do ourselves and the world a favour.  That sort of thinking creates stressful chemistry in our bodies and wears us out, physically and emotionally.  And it doesn’t help us to deal with things better, it perverts and narrows our perspective and wisdom.  The knock-on effect is that we deal with whatever we are doing less effectively and, with the people around us, less usefully.

On the other hand, choosing to have more useful thoughts calms our body chemistry down and reduces our stress, leading to us being more effective.

So, how do we choose to have useful thoughts?  When you find yourself in that negative spiral, ask yourself some of these questions, until you find one that works:-

What different angle could I take on this?

  1. How would someone who wasn’t anxious or negative about this be thinking about it?
  2. Is how I am thinking about this helping me to deal with it and, if not, what would be more useful?
  3. What would distract me from thinking about this at the moment, so that I can regain some perspective?

Our thoughts are very powerful in creating our realities which means that it is worth our while to take back control of them, so that they are more useful in creating the reality we want.  So have a go – don’t let them run the show!!

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CHANGING YOUR ‘STORY’

We often talk on our programmes about how you can change the story-line in your life, because you are in charge of it. There has been a lot of discussion in our household about the new era we have entered into – the age of Aquarius – and how it is the time to really create the story you want in your life. And it has reminded me that there are a couple of things that are vital to making that transition easier, and more comfortable.

Firstly, we need to be clear about what our criteria are for accepting or rejecting things that have been a part of our lives up until now. This applies whether it is changing jobs, friends, or possessions – it applies to everything. What I mean by criteria is clarity in why you will choose to reject or accept something. For example, I have decided to have another grand sort-out and established that I would only keep in my life those things that make my heart sing. It is a simple but very effective criterion!

Secondly, and equally importantly, we need to be in touch with our own ecology signal – the message from our ‘guts’ that tells us if something is right or wrong for us at this time. This signal will help us to stay comfortable with the change by helping us to pace it to suit ourselves in a true sense.

An example for me was my books: I knew that only some of them genuinely make my heart sing still, yet it is a long-standing habit to buy and save books in case I want to read them again. After much consideration, I decided that I could divide my books into three categories: ones I didn’t want any more and could give away; ones that I love to dip into and have my notes in; and ones that I may want to read again, but can happily store on kindle rather than as physical books. Now I can go through them and clear many of them whilst still feeling good about it – my ecology signal says yes!

When it comes to adding to our story, we equally need to pace ourselves to stay comfortable – this is not an all or nothing game! So go gently, perhaps adding a little bit of new activity, or a gentle beginning to changing a non-useful habit.

It doesn’t matter what pace you go at in changing your story, so long as you do keep gradually evolving that wonderful life of yours. And if you do decide to go for the ‘grand slam’ like I tend to, you are still entitled to keep it comfortable for yourself!

So stop for a moment, next time you are sitting having a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, and ask yourself: ‘Is there anything I want to take out of my life, to evolve my story today, or is there anything I still need to keep even though it doesn’t really fit?’ then ask yourself, ‘what do I want to begin to add into my life to evolve it and myself further?’ And enjoy the answers you get..

 

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WHAT IF WE WOKE UP TO GOOD NEWS?

I sat down the other evening, mulling over what my day had been filled with and what tomorrow would hold. The T.V. was on in the background and the local news reader was reporting on the day in the region I live in.

It dawned on me that almost everything that was being reported was either filled with dread or contained a negative slant of some kind.

It was also at that point that my head did its usual thing of wandering off to find a nicer place to sit!

While it was there in “Better Place”, it picked up a paper that had been left on a bench.

At the top of the front page of the paper was the name of the paper – THE SUN.

But this was a different paper, no red top banner; instead it had a big circular sun in bright yellow. Inside the big yellow circle was a smiley face.

The slogan next to the big yellow sun was “The happy people’s paper”.

At first glance the front page story looked like any other National Paper – a picture of a person crying. On closer inspection, the story headline explained the tears; “With a little help from my friends”.

The story on the front page of this paper was about a lady who had lost her job due to the economic cutbacks being faced by everybody across the country.

Not one to sit around, she decided to use the time she now had to do something she had always wanted to do – Gardening.

Starting with her own garden, she transformed what was a neat, tidy garden into a horticultural masterpiece. This prompted words of amazement and wonder from her neighbours. This quickly spread to the rest of the street and further across the town she lived in.

Soon, there were knocks on her door, people from surrounding towns wanting to see this now well publicised garden. It turned out that the people of this town had spread the word. It was their way of letting people know that this woman was valued in their community and needed a little help. As part of their story, they had told of her plight, that she had lost her job but had used the time she had to make something beautiful rather than just slip away, not be seen and become a statistic.

Going back to the front page picture on the paper, the reason for the tears was that one of the people that knocked on her door happened to be the owner of a landscape gardening business and was so impressed with the lady’s efforts, they offered her a job! – Tears of Joy!

Now she has a job again, doing something she truly loves and all because the people that live around her rallied round someone when they were having a hard time trying to cope with all the bad stuff.

Of course, my head came back to sit in “This World” and thought about where it had just been in comparison to where it was now.

We have many different mediums for communicating news these days. Technology has expanded this into almost every home in the country. But nothing has ever come close to creating the impact that human behaviour can.

No newspaper or news programme can ever be more powerful than the human spirit either. When we combine to “do good”, we create magic – And you can’t deny just how good it makes you feel when you have been part of something good!

Whether it’s a donation of money or time to your favourite charity, or popping over the road to see if a neighbour is okay or just wants a chat and a cuppa, let’s create a better newspaper to pick up each morning –

We can do it with a little help from our friends/neighbours/colleagues etc, etc…

 

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“FOUR YEAR OLD FEET”

So, you’re beginning the day, you gently swing your sleepy legs over the edge of the bed and stretch – the same as you do every morning.

You look at the clock, 6.30am again – Same as yesterday’s clock. That floorboard creaks as you walk on it, reminding you that you must do something about it. The tiles at the bottom of the stairs are cold on your feet, reminding you that you forgot the slippers again.

And so it continues, you’re daily routine. The cups, the two sugars, the saucepan and porridge oats.

The slightly impatient call from the bottom of the stairs to the sleeping family that lets them know you have given them an extra 5 minutes slumber!

How quickly we fall into routines that, over a period of time become uninspiring and enhance that feeling of monotony.

But wait…. the sound of smaller, lighter somehow excited feet are heard.

These are feet that woke up with a purpose – These feet wanted to feel that carpet squirming between their toes!

These feet now want to jump down those stairs in front of them – maybe from the top all the way down! They thrill at the cold of the floor tiles underneath them at the bottom of the stairs, making them move faster.

Attached to these feet are also two excited legs and a body that holds up a face that is brighter than sunshine. This is because through these eyes, nothing looks the same!

In the world of this four year old, every day is new. The previous day is somehow partially wiped from memory so that the opportunity to create magic today is presented.

Every task or challenge, from waking up to getting dressed or brushing teeth is embraced with gusto!

We live in busy times, our lives are sometimes so full that we just climb on the treadmill with everyone else and join the queue, not really thinking about where we are heading because it’s the same as yesterday.

So the challenge is…. slip back into those four year old feet again tomorrow morning and feel the carpet between your feet; look out of the window at a new and different day and grab it with both hands.

Re-frame what always happens into something with a wonderful, slightly odd and exciting feeling, the one you lost touch with when younger – And love it. Then at the end of the day, sleep soundly and dream of where those four year old feet might take you tomorrow?

 

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