habit:
Posted by Amy Hale on October 10, 2011 at 5:30 am
Do you have a habit of making list after list and not getting anywhere with it? Does it grow and grow until you feel overwhelmed? This was me a few years back. I couldn’t quite get a handle on what I thought I needed to do. I put my to do lists aside and for about a week it was uncomfortable. Even though I rarely checked anything off of my list, I seemed to need to have a list.
What I did was, I created a system of making a “done list.” Now I write down what I have done instead of what I think I need to do. What a difference! I’m surprised at how many things I have finished that remained on my to do lists for days, weeks, even months.
For example, my to do list would look something like this:
TO DO:
Write script for reducing insomnia
Re-caulk the tub
Wash windows
Take cat to groomer
My whole list was actually much larger than this, but I just kept putting them off. I was disorganized with my doing-ness.
When I decided to write things down after I completed them, I was surprised to find out how much more I felt I accomplished.
DONE:
Picked up dry cleaning
Wrote newsletter
Went for morning walk
Finished doing dishes
Met with three clients
Wrote 12 pages for workshop.
Made dinner for family
Paid bill
When I looked back at it, it felt really good. Now, I’m compelled to make sure I keep a done list, so that I can appreciate everything that I do. It’s very rewarding.
This weeks exercise:
Put aside your to do list. Start keeping a “Done” list. Watch how easily your fill your day and get things done. Everything seems to be accomplished quicker, too. What a difference it will make. Instead of looking at a challenging list, now you’ve got all of your accomplishments listed before you.
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Posted by Amy Hale on October 3, 2011 at 8:30 pm
If you’re looking to change your life or change even a part of it, give yourself some space. Change doesn’t happen overnight, nor should it. Many people that I know think making even small changes should be easy. But what really happens when you make a change? Usually we become uncomfortable in some way. If you’re changing a habit then the discomfort discourages a person and that person goes back to the habit he or she is wanting to replace. So what is the best way to create a better life, habit or reality?
Slow down. Clear a space for yourself. It’s imperative that you have a place to do the work that needs to be done. If you don’t, you’ll just be throwing chaos on an old wound or sabotaging your efforts right from the start.
Be aware of your surroundings. Are you living in clutter? Can you see the surface of your desk? Are the kid’s toys everywhere? Tremendous energy can surface from de-cluttering your surroundings. Inspiration can be found when you can see your desk and it’s organized. Take a moment and look around. Where are you residing? In a clean, organized environment or are you looking around at piles of magazines, toys, clothing, and dirty dishes, or whatever else might be cluttering your area?
Right now, get up and do something. Take 10 minutes to just dig in and put something in its place or make a place for it. That’s all it takes to start. Take 10 minutes per day to de-clutter your space.
Here are some tips to help you keep going…
If you haven’t used it in the past 90 days, can you get rid of it? Are you keeping things in case you need them in the future? The universe reads this as you don’t trust your future if you hang on to things you don’t currently use. This adds to an unconscious awareness that the future holds lack. No one wants to lack money, health or anything else.
If you would like to read more about Space Clearing, a great book to start with is Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. She has so many valuable tips including why to make sure certain spaces are clean and also stories of how people transformed their lives by just living in an organized home.
If your task looks overwhelming, just start with a corner. Get bags or boxes together to place items in. Make separate bags/boxes for things to move to another area of the home, throw away, and think about because you’re not quite sure whether or not to keep it. This will help you keep from cluttering another area.
Once you have a nice space cleared, set up a peaceful relaxing atmosphere. Make a place for yourself, even if it’s just the corner of a room, to really become tranquil and peaceful. A place where you can meditate, journal, or read a novel.
If after you have cleared your space, you still don’t have a place to call your own, think about where you could go. Be creative. I used to have to use my car to find a peaceful place. I would come home after a long day at work and notice the silence as I turned off the engine of my car in the driveway. It was amazing. I treasured every second that it lasted.
It really is important. An organized home means an organized mind. The benefits can be truly life altering. One of my clients told me that she her husband was having a hard time finding a new job so cleaned the closets, drawers, junk room (where all those things are that you never use), and within two weeks he found a new job. There can definitely be a connection to clutter and negative energy.
If you really want to transform your life, let’s get going. Pick a room or a corner and start organizing your space. Next time I’ll be helping you de-clutter your mind. I’ll be coaching you to become aware of how you really speak to yourself and hypnotize yourself into believing things that just aren’t true.
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Posted by Amy Hale on March 19, 2010 at 2:01 pm
If you’re on the right path, you’ll get to where you want to go. Consistent commitment keeps you on the path.
The hardest thing for people to unlearn is the short attention span that’s been shaped by television, entertainment, letting the kids rule the roost, and by letting pernicious, untrue self-victimizing thoughts snuggle up into our belief systems. And this inability to be flowingly calm and ‘real’ is really just the inability to return the mind to the most important thing it can be thinking about in the present moment. It leads to a lot of much unfinished business. The unfinished business then leads to drama. The drama leads to self-dramatization including wild stories about how other people make us unhappy or destroy our dreams. This self-dramatization replaces the committed life.
As Steven Pressfield writes in, “The War of Art,” “Sometimes entire families participate unconsciously in a culture of self-dramatization. The kids fuel the tanks, the grown-ups arm the phasers, the whole starship lurches from one spine-tingling episode to another. And the crew knows how to keep it going. If the level of drama drops below a certain threshold, someone jumps in to amp it up. Dad gets drunk, Mom gets sick, Jenny shows up for church with a tattoo. It’s more fun than a movie. And it works: nobody gets a darn thing done.”
Please share your thoughts & converse with me.
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Posted by Amy Hale on February 11, 2010 at 5:48 pm
I talk out loud when I drive. I don’t worry about what I look like or who might notice. I don’t care if they think I’m on the phone or not. When I talk in the car, I talk to my inner team or to a customer who I want to make sure gets what I am wanting to convey. I might even sing a tune.
I learned to do this when I recognized how much I beat myself up while driving. Have you ever looked around and noticed that most people who are driving, if they’re not on their cell phones, their faces appear worried or angry. Or maybe their listening to all of the bad things in the new on the radio.
How do you want to feel when you’re driving to your destination? Do you want to bully yourself, hear more about a crummy economy or would you rather engage in a conversation with your team to make it the best day you’ve ever had?
Personally, I find that using my driving time to build myself up instead of using ways that break down my mindset is far more useful to me. When you hold worries and anger inside your head, it brings on headaches, ulcers and more worry and anger. Your whole nervous system goes wild.
Plus, if you’re not use to hearing your own voice or you want to practice moving toward fearless public speaking, the car is the perfect place to speak out.
Just think, your competitors don’t do this. They’re listening to their negative self-talk, terrible news or swearing at traffic. So speak to your inner team and step out from the crowd and make success happen – one drive at a time.
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Posted by Amy Hale on January 21, 2010 at 10:35 am
I was thinking this morning how beneficial setting goals and visions for our lives can be. It’s great, we know where we’re going, we can make better plans and the Universe knows where to meet us. But what about those people with procrastination challenges? People who procrastinate have a tendency to not make it to their goals and they sit around frustrated or doing something to escape the reality of self-imposed failure.
Earlier last year, I wrote about using a “have done” list, rather than using a “to do” list. There are many benefits to using this method to achieve short and long term goals. (You’ll need to subscribe to my ezine for the archived newsletter if you want to know the other great benefits of a “have don” list can bring.)
I’ve been thinking about subconscious goals vs. conscious goals lately. Subconscious goals usually override conscious goals. They are at the backbone of sabotaging the conscious agenda. If you have a subconscious goal or belief that doesn’t coincide with something that you consciously want to accomplish, you find it extremely hard or impossible to achieve what you want to achieve.
How many of us have ever made a list of goals or even just a “to do” list of the day. We get going and then stall out, never reaching the goal or it takes years longer to get to. If you’ve been a procrastinator and/or have had this experience over and over, you’ve trained your subconscious mind to react to goal setting as a goal failure. The subconscious habit/belief system sets in that when you write down the goal, you won’t achieve it.
So, for procrastination clients, I’m beginning to ask them what they want to accomplish but don’t write it down. Pick one or two goals, get a good picture or movie going in your head about how life will look when the goal is accomplished. It’s easy to remember what one or two goals are without writing them down. Then before going to bed, play the movie again and again until you fall asleep.
When you tell your subconscious mind what you want, during sleep it will figure out how to get it. Often you’ll wake up with what you can do first. But don’t write it down if you’re a procrastinator or if you often fail at achieving steps toward your goals.
Make the mental decision that you are going to take at step toward your goal that day. Then as you go about your day, write down what you’ve accomplished. You’ll also be including things that don’t appear to be related to the goal set in mind.
My clients have been finding this powerfully motivating. When they see everything that they accomplished, their confidence builds and their procrastination dissolves. Plus the subconscious begins to work with your conscious desires.
It’s been pretty cool. Coming from the standpoint of previously being a procrastinator, I get so much more done and it feels empowering.
I’d love to know if you experiment with this and the results or just leave a comment. Maybe you’ve used this or other methods. Please share. I look forward to commenting with you.
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