Hi Everyone,
Here’s my first email for 2017. I hope you had a good break over Christmas and New Year.
My Festive Season was quiet, meaning that I didn’t socialise a lot but connected with a few friends and spent quite a deal of time reflecting on where I was at this point in my life and where I wanted to direct my energy in the coming year and beyond.
Which wall is your ladder against?
Years ago, I read Stephen Covey’s best selling book, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. The bit that stuck in my mind was his metaphor of climbing the ladder of success, one rung at a time. And his question: what would it be like to get to the top of the ladder, peer over the top, and discover with horror that you had placed your ladder against the wrong wall!
A Chinese friend of mine reinterpreted the metaphor: what if you got all dressed up to attend a party, then, when you arrived, it was the wrong party! Yuk! Whoops!
How to get things done
This year on the internet everyone and their dog seem to be writing about how to get things done. Understandable, given the exponential explosion of information that daily bombards us. Email would be a prime example. How often, I go to my email account to find a particular email, only to be sidetracked by innumerable other emails that all seem - at the time - relevant and important.
It’s very easy to feel totally overwhelmed and who doesn’t feel overwhelmed from time to time? I’ve decided it’s part of the human condition and my best answer is to accept it and get on with doing the things that are important to me - like writing these newsletters to you.
So this newsletter is about what I’ve decided I can realistically do to stay focused on the things that are important to me and get them done in 2017: while still taking care of the ongoing essentials like sleep, meals, exercise and recreation.
Your important things and ways of staying focused on them will likely be different from mine but some of the processes may be the same.
The Willpower Gap
A major problem that I have is running out of will power quite early on in the day. It turns out that quite a lot has been researched and written on this. I was surprised to learn that we really can run out of willpower! That is one reason why it can be so hard to stick to a diet or start to exercise regularly - and so hard to maintain ‘new year resolutions’: they are resolutions and they do require discipline and will power to sustain them.
Strategy #1
One strategy that has been found by many to be effective is to attach new behaviours to existing habitual behaviours. For example, my exercise physiologist suggested that to improve my balance (something that I wanted to address in the New Year) I could consider standing on one leg while cleaning my teeth. There is no doubt that I will clean my teeth at some points in the day so to incorporate standing on one leg ensures that I will practice balance with some regularity.
Strategy #2
Another example is a colleague who regularly has a ‘Marketing Monday’. We know the adage, spend one day a week working on your business rather than in your business, but this makes it more specific and therefore easier to incorporate. Marketing Monday has a nice alliteration to it and there’s no doubt that Mondays will come around with consistent regularity! So my colleague, a professional entrepreneur, ensures that she regularly focuses her attention on the important business of marketing by linking it with a specific day of the week.
I’ve decided to extend that idea by giving alliterative titles to all the days of the week, Monday to Saturday: Sunday will be a day of rest. The benefit will be that I am encouraged to take regular action on a range of things I want to attend to but often don’t get around to - that round tuit again!
Strategy #3
The other practice that I’ve decided to adopt that I think will help keep me sane is very simple and has been around for a long time: Do three things each day that matter to you. Preferably make a list for next day on the night before.
Three doesn’t seem very much. But that is the beauty of this. I am tired of looking at long ‘To Do’ lists that never get completed. Keeping the list short gives me a greater chance of success and the more success I have, the more I am encouraged to continue.
Change is unstoppable - but we have choices!
We could probably all enjoy life a bit more if we were prepared to make some changes. Only you can decide what changes you might want to make: but there are proven ways to implement these changes that can make them easier to stick with.
If you like to work with energy and the human energy field then I strongly suggest that you explore the EMF Balancing Technique® and NES Health. They each provide systematic but different ways of working with our own energy fields to enhance our life in new, sometimes surprising and joyful ways. You can find out more on this site and at emfmelb.com. Or phone me on 0400 156 069 over the next two weeks to book a complimentary 30 minute coaching consultation, in person or online.
There are 12 phases in the EMF Balancing Technique®. Each addresses the activation and alignment of a different part of our energy anatomy. So if you were to start this month, and have one energy balance a month, you would have given yourself a complete energetic ‘makeover’ by the end of 2017. That's an idea that could make a difference!