I’ve been chatting a lot about time and commitments with clients this week. How are they making decisions around their time, where is their subconscious mind talking them into stopping what they need to do to move forward or convincing them to make a less then empowering choice that will come back to bite them later? In terms of commitments, are they honouring what they say they are going to do, and where are they fibbing to themselves?
All important questions, and unfortunately for the most part this title is true. How we do anything typically overflows into how we do life and business in general. Disempowered thinking carries over; just like empowered thinking does too. So how do we shift it? Read on in today’s article for more about this thought, how to recognize if it’s a pattern and how to shift it when it is causing dysfunction.
Have a great weekend!
I remember when I first heard the saying; “how you do anything is how you do everything.”
It rang true right away. How we honour our time and our commitments (or don’t), reflects all areas of life and how we show-up. If we are never giving ourselves enough time, we therefore run late and therefore don’t’ show-up as our best selves and it impacts how other view us, and therefore lack of results we’re wanting. It’s a bit of a downward spiral of less than stellar results.
One of my other mentors added in; “how we do anything is how we do everything, until it’s not.”
This also rang true.
Sometimes there are exceptions, and situations out of our control that we must attend to. It’s not always so cut and dry.
So how do we know when this is a pattern or a one off?
Well, a good rule of thumb is if it’s happening 3 times or more. That’s a good indication that it’s now actually a habit and not just “a one off” situation”.
If we’re making disempowered decision habitually, we first need to draw awareness to the issue. Where are your decisions causing overwhelm and stress. What are the effects of these decisions? How are they leading to negative results?
This really involved taking an honest look though.
We have to be honest with ourselves, and this is usually what people (myself included) tend to hold back. It hurts deep down to admit we’re less than perfect and making a mistake, well for recovering perfectionists like me 😉 We deep down feel like we’re flawed in some way, which leads to feeling like a bad person. We subconsciously try to avoid this like the plague.
Instead we need to see it for what it is – it’s okay to make mistakes. There is no such thing as failure, only feedback. We learn from every single thing we do, and we must keep putting ourselves out there in rode rot learn and grow. It’s okay if it doesn’t go as planned.
So with time and commitments, look at where you’re really falling short. And if you immediately get defensive, or want to say “ya but…” and think you have a good reason, you are lying to yourself. And it’s how your suspicion is keeping you stuck. As soon as you can see where you are falling short without feeling like a bad person, you are 1000 times ahead of the game! This is huge!
Get curious, look at what’s not working and why, how you talk yourself out of honouring your 5 days a week going to the gym, or meditating in the morning, whatever it is for you, and look at it objectively. Tweak what isn’t working and for only make commitments you know you can keep. Set yourself up for success. Maybe it’s a bit of a stretch, but you know you can make it happen. Start there and build. If time is an issue, start scheduling in more time then you think you need. And really take a look at how you are making your decisions in the first place – are they from fear or some type of lack, like not enough time?
When making decisions, it’s also important to look at what the pros and cons (consequences) are for making the decision at hand, and will ti take you closer or farther away from your goal?
You will definitely shift things if you do the above. Over and over. It’s a contact work in progress and wake-up call for all of us.
