Sometimes my heart feels like a solid rock.
Time to step back and ask if I am going in the wrong direction? Life shouldn’t be this hard.
“The world is made to be free in.” David Whyte
Tag: relaxation
Exercise in extreme living ~ impersonate who you are not?
Extreme living ~ become a banker?
A few days ago, I suggested an experiment in extreme living: deliberately take a job you hate. Why not? Take a job you despise. Become a banker or a politician.
Why would we want to live extremely?
A young member of the coaching world commented irritably – why would we want to do that?
Yes, indeed, all the the advice of the world of personal leadership is the same. Be the person you want to be.
We can do what we don’t like because we trust ourselves not to be seduced by it
But the hallmark of someone who is utterly self-confident about their ability to find their purpose and meaning in life is that they can acknowledge what they are not. And they experiment with what they are not without fear that it will take over who they are.
Try this as a weekend exercise in extreme living
First do the simple personality test based on Paulo Coelho’s Virgin, Martyr, Saint or Witch?
Before you click to the other post, here are the three steps.
- Which are you: Virgin, Martyr, Saint or Witch?
- Which are you definitely not?
- Be what you are not for 1 hour this weekend – just one hour.
And if you can’t do one hour, try what you can. 5 minutes?
Grow your ability to live extremely weekend to weekend
Over time, the time that you can be what you are not, should grow longer. And your assurance about who you are (with all the ridiculousness and humor of who you are will grow).
Once a week ~ impersonate who you are not?
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Are you doing less by doing too much?
My schedule does not tell me when to begin but when to stop
I woke up this morning from a half-nightmare. I was part of a confused discussion, or meeting, evidently out of doors. Someone thrust a “may pole” into the lawn and asserted: ” It is simple. We all focus.”
I awoke in a fluster thinking, “No, I don’t want to be facing inward looking only at a pole.”
Then, still groggy, I had another thought. The reason why we have schedules and appointments is not to focus our attention.
We have schedules to tell us when to stop. Schedules tell us when when it is time to stop work and pay attention to the world.
Some complementary evidence from academia
A man by the name of Boice, has extensively researched the productivity of academics. Do you know that there is a differential of 7:1 between the best and ordinary academics?
Highly productive academics
- work early in the morning (before the household gets up) for 1 to 1.5 hours (maximum)
- work on one project at a time and work at it a little every day
- work in snatches of about 15 minutes and take mini breaks
- start before they ready
- stop.
Of course, then they go into the office and attend to the busy-work of universities and the complementary work of teaching.
In working regularly every day and STOPPING, they achieve 7 times more than people who “binge” work.
Complementary ideas from the theory of happiness
Marcial Losada analysed recordings of business teams making decisions. The best third regularly
- had positive to negative ratios in excess of 3:1 (around 5:1)
- asked questions as much as they advocated solutions
- and importantly, talked about the outside world as much as they talked about matters inside the company.
Two questions to make sure I am not doing less by doing too much
Time for me review my working day and say how much of my attention each task can have! When am I going to STOP?
When will I step back from a task and go about other business, attentive to the concerns of the world as they unfold around me?
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