Doing the Important Things First

The Important Vs Urgent debate has been given quite an airing recently. Things that are urgent and need to be done right now, may not always be the things that are important for you to do. Pretty much everyone has a busy and hectic schedule these days. From officer executive to housewife, or school kid to college student. No one has time to spare. This means it is important for us to make sure that we utilize the time we have at our disposal wisely.

Identify the Uppers and Downers

There are some things you do in the day that raise your energy levels and make you better prepared to handle your time. These are called “Uppers”. They could include a walk in the morning, a break for a nap after lunch and even some mirror work when you are feeling low. Then there are things that literally seem to suck all the energy and time out of your life. These are the “Downers” which can include having to deal with constant interruptions at work from colleagues, or speaking to a relative who is very demanding or even trying to meet a deadline without taking a break to rejuvenate yourself.

Recognize the Urgent but Unimportant for the Triviality it is

There are some things that need to be done right away and can be termed as urgent. However the more important ones are not always urgent. Don’t waste your time chasing trivial tasks that seem extremely urgent but get you nowhere in the larger scheme of things. Get clear on what you would like to accomplish each day. Have small goals that you need to meet so that you know that you are not wasting your time chasing shadows. Know what is the important stuff you need to handle and break up large projects into smaller tasks that can be done each day.

Take Action on Important Stuff Without Procrastination 

Once you are clear about where you are headed in the long run, you will be able to compartmentalize the Important vs the Urgent tasks that get thrown at you throughout the day. Current challenges that seem unrealistic can become a whole lot more manageable if you start doing the important things first. Don’t do the easy stuff first and wait to do the more difficult things when you have more time to concentrate on it. Start with the difficult things that you know need to be done.  Eliminate the self doubt that makes you push it to the back and feed your belief in your own abilities.

Affirmation : I live in a loving, abundant and harmonious universe and I am grateful. Everything I need for my success is brought to me now.

Keeping Your Inner Child Happy

A whole lot of time and effort is spent in pursuit of happiness by adults, however ever so often they have no actual idea of what happiness means for them. The way to find out if you are on the path to happiness is to check in with your Inner Child to check if what you are currently doing, makes your Inner Child happy.

Who is your Inner Child?

As a child you were innocent and happy. All your defenses were yet to be built up and you were pretty much vulnerable to anyone who chose to hurt you. You were sensitive enough to be wounded by mere words and resilient enough to suppress those hurts so that you could go ahead and live. Day by day as you grew older you created a protective shield around you. One that made sure you would never feel vulnerable and hurt again, but you also managed to trap your Inner Child behind that wall you constructed. Now as an adult when you want to feel the same innocence, the same joy, you are unable to connect with it, because you are unable to connect with your Inner Child.

What makes your Inner Child happy?

If you really want to be happy you need to find out what makes your Inner Child happy. You need to find the bricks that make up that wall, that shield around your Inner Child and take it down one piece at a time. The bricks are all emotions you have felt strongly in the past, and still feel.  The frustration, the anger, the fear, the injustice, the stress, the embarrassment and just about any feeling that contributed to that wall need to be addressed. When you push though all that, you get to the happy part. The memories of how much fun you could have simply jumping in a muddy puddle in the rain.

Ways to keep your Inner Child happy

Asking yourself what you need is a great place to start communicating with your Inner Child. It can be a question as simple as – What would you like to do today? Then just relax and focus on your Inner Child, imagine yourself at about ten years of age and ask that question again. Now pay attention to what that little child, that little you, is really in the mood to do. Silence that critical adult who has been telling you to run your life in regulations. Instead think of the creative things that you would like to do.

You want to sing? Start right away. Feeling like dancing? Go put on some music. Want to draw or paint? Break out the art supplies. The idea is to find an activity that makes you smile. The creative adult is usually one with a happy Inner Child. Every child is an artist and is not afraid to share the creations she makes with the world. It is time for the adult in your to connect with the child within so that you can remain that joyful creator who happily shares her work with the world. Allow your Inner Child to come out and play.

Dealing with You Sensitive Side

You believe in caring for others. You feel the pain of random strangers when you come to know about their loss. You are more emotional when faced with a tragic situation. You are extremely empathic with others about what difficulties they are going through in life. You are a sensitive and beautiful soul, but you seem to be up against a world made of stone. You seem to be getting hit by emotions, situations and people all the time and are unable to process it all in a wholesome manner. Here’s some help to let you make it.

Surround yourself with people who let you be your authentic self

One of the biggest problems with being super sensitive is the fact that you are always so worried about being misunderstood that you are super careful about sharing how you actually feel about people and situations. While you may think you are being polite and well mannered, the truth is that you are losing touch with the only person who truly matters in your life – you! If you need to wear an acceptable persona each time you are dealing with someone else, you will have a number of personas available to use, and none of them will be the real you. You will not be able to express your own thoughts and feelings freely, ever. So stick with people who actually like to listen to your true opinion about everything from a book you read, to the latest political discussion.

Turn down the noise in your life, stop the mindless distractions

To heal your life and love yourself, you need to be able to be the true you. If you keep reacting in the sensitive manner to everything around you, you will eventually become exhausted. This means that you need to cut to the chase, stay with the important stuff. Weed out the time consuming, energy zapping situations and people who float around your life like white noise. You need to pull the plug on them or else they will continue draining your power and energy. Don’t give in to mindless distractions and dramas being enacted in the lives of other people. It is their business, not yours.

Stop the violence that insults your sensitive side

Have you ever sat down to watch the news and felt absolutely gutted because of some violent story you just saw on the television. For most people fires, murders and terror attacks are a gruesome tale, but for the more sensitive ones, it’s almost like a prison sentence to having an awful day just thinking and rethinking about this story. Try and limit the violence in your life, be it in daily situations or even what you catch on the news or internet stories. Don’t become a bleeding heart and start posting about lost children, people who need surgery and all kinds of myriad depressing stories that can really take a toll on your positive attitude towards life.

Affirmation: “I live in the present moment. I am calm, serene and peaceful. I am surrounded by love.”

Speaking Your Truth Is Not Detrimental to Your Relationships

When you have to tip toe around someone’s feelings, you begin to silence your own voice. You don’t want to say the wrong thing and upset someone, so you don’t say anything at all. If avoiding the disagreements allows you to be more peaceful, you think you can deal with it. Unfortunately over a period of time not being able to say what you really want to can leave you feeling frustrated and angry. Not communicating is an unhealthy pattern which breeds discontent and eventually rage. Don’t store up your anger inside your body. It is not healthy for your physical or emotional health to store anger within you.

How does your body react to inappropriate behaviour by a person?

There is a tightening in the gut which makes you tense. You are always wound up like a coil ready to spring. The hormones in your body are playing rampage not sure whether they have to fight or take flight. After spending more than a usual amount of time with such a person who angers you or causes you resentment, there is also a good chance that you will end up with a headache. All said and done, when you hold your words in and don’t communicate how you feel, your body is being punished for this.

Vent your anger in an appropriate manner

This does not mean that you should begin shouting back at a person who yells at you. It doesn’t mean that you need to behave in a less than gracious manner if you are not predisposed to it. Throwing temper tantrums may be a great stress buster for some people, but may not be an option for you. So you need to find a way to vent your anger in a way that it no longer causes you harm. There are a few simple things that you can do such as hitting a pillow, holding on to a tree trunk and yelling at the top of your voice, or even just going for a long walk or jog to burn off the edge of that anger. The idea is to allow yourself an outlet where you do not harm anyone else but don’t hold on to the feelings within.

Speaking you truth assertively and maturely in a neutral manner

These anger management techniques may help you deal with the symptoms of anger, but you need to truly eliminate the cause. This means that you need to be able to speak up and let the person know what you like or dislike in their words and actions. Ask for what you want even if you fear that they will not do it. Don’t treat them with kid gloves, all adults are well capable of taking care of themselves. If you are contributing more to the relationship and feel that is unfair, stand up for yourself. If you don’t you are only going to feel more let down, disappointed and rejected. As you begin to speak from your heart in an assertive but loving manner, you will begin to notice the changes in the relationship straight away.

Affirmation –“I speak my truth in public. I behave with love and compassion.”

Steps for Enhancing Your Life

Living life can be fun and happy if you allow it to be. Making a beautiful lifestyle for your family and you does not have to be a constant struggle. No matter what our current circumstance is, it is human nature to want something more. Think about the time you heard about someone who did something new and exciting.  Now think about how you reacted to the news. It is just as easy to say, “This is something I could do”, as it is to say, “How come cool things like this never happen in my life?”

Increasing Your Awareness of Feelings

You need to gain a deeper understanding of how you feel in different situations. A good way to do this is by constantly monitoring your ‘self chatter’.  This is the set of words or sentences that seem to constantly chatter through your brain with apparently no control. The truth is, these statements come from people who you have interacted with, especially in childhood. It can be a sobering thought when you realize that what you believed to be your own words and opinions is indeed something you probably inherited from your parents. You will question if you have ever had an original thought at all! Now trace what you are truly feeling. Become aware of the emotions that roll through you from dawn to dusk.

Identifying Recurring Patterns of Thought, Emotions and Action

As you begin to pay attention to your feelings you will begin to notice repeated patterns. These would show up in your mind as thoughts and emotions and in your actual deeds as actions. Each pattern is feeding a part of your personality. If you have a pattern of being worried about handling big projects you may have the ability to paralyze yourself into inaction when you truly need to take important decisions which may affect the fate of the project. Think about it, how often have you heard that nasty voice in your head tell you, “I told you so” when you failed at a project you really wanted to succeed with? Now identify what you need to do to change this pattern. Plan how you will turn self defeating patterns on their head by becoming aware of your triggers and taking positive action to ensure you don’t fall into the trap again.

Motivating Yourself to Stick with ‘The Change’

Identifying what’s going wrong is the easy part. The tough part is sticking with the change that you need to make. To enhance your life, you need to heal your life constantly with positive action. Initially you will have the zeal of the new convert and will be highly motivated to do all it takes to get your life back on track. Then gradually you will get complacent and the old patterns are still so engraved in your being that they jump right back into your behaviour. You will have to fight with constant vigilance to ensure that you don’t fall into the old ways again.

Affirm to yourself –“I am now willing to change. I am willing to release all old patterns that are no longer beneficial to me and my life purpose.”