The brilliant thing about us humans is our ability to connect with people and it’s this innate ability in us all that allows us to learn and communicate with the world around us.
But this ability can be our downfall because in our quest to learn and communicate, we often find ourselves connected to the wrong type of people or focus our energy in the wrong direction, leaving us fatigued, frustrated and anxious.
But by taking action using these three tips, you can quickly discover a calmness and positive energy and leave frustrations behind.
But before I share those tips with you, allow me to share this personal insight.
My plate is full. In fact, it’s overflowing! I sat down the other day with a pen and paper and wrote down a list and it’s this list that brings us to the first tip.
The list had three headings, people, places and passion.
Underneath each heading I wrote down the people in my life, the places I visit and the things that take up my passion. It was important I wrote these items without judging. I allowed the words to flow and this created by reality.
Tip #1 Create your real list
I then created two labels, Adapt and reject.
I went through my list and labelled them adapt or reject. Anything that didn’t have a label was something I enjoyed in my life and was allowed to continue to be.
When you first do this exercise, the temptation is to be lenient with your labels and use ‘adapt’ a lot more than reject. And for now that’s fine. Just be conscious of how your life changes when you adapt.
Tip #2 create labels.
Then I circled the items without a label thus creating a list of things in my life that bring enjoyment and positive energy. You may surprise yourself when you see your list. I know I was but the great thing about completing this exercise without judging is the surprise you feel now when you see what you’ve circled!
Now it’s time to address how I’m going to adapt or reject the items on the list. One of the items on my places list was ‘home’ and I felt I had to adapt that because I realised I’m going to bed late. I’m a basketball fan so when my wife and son have gone to bed, I spend time watching Youtube catching up on the NBA. Now I’ve raised awareness of this issue, I can adapt how long I spend catching up with the NBA and therefore get more sleep.
Tip #3 adapt what is useful
BONUS TIP
To quickly find energy and calmness, now you spend time rejecting what is useless. It could be a person who drains your energy. It could be removing a thought you have, it could be stopping a bad habit like eating chocolate just before you go to bed!
Once you make that conscious decision to reject what is useless, a calming feeling washes over you. In addition reject any negative feelings you have about rejecting those useless things.
Sometimes in life we procrastinate as we weigh things up. We try to figure out the what if’s and the buts, yet this can only distract from our goal and in this instance our goal is to create calm and positive energy quickly.
It took me 8 minutes to complete this exercise because I didn’t procrastinate. I took positive action.
So what are you waiting for?
Do you want to see my list?
OK now, go 🙂
Take it easy
Mike