Sunday, May 6, 2018

Balance


The theme for this month is 'balance'.  Balance is hard for me.  I do a lot of things, wear a lot of hats, work as efficiently as I can to be as productive as I can be, which means I often neglect things that are good for me and which feel good when I do them, but do not meet my very strict definition of  'productive'.  I love how I feel when I'm productive.  I don't love how I feel when I'm neglecting something and get out of balance.

Lately I feel very out of balance.  To get back in balance, I answered these questions:

A.  What are the things/goals I'm trying to accomplish and work toward these days?
  • Am I making progress?
  • Do I feel good about that progress
B.  What am I neglecting?
  • Has that neglect caused problems?   What are they?
C.  Do I want to continue feeling out of balance?
  • What specific things do I need to do to address the things I'm neglecting?
  • How much time will I set aside to address these?  (Doesn't have to be a lot)
D.  What strategy will I use to free up the time I need to do these things?
  • What things will I no longer spend time on?  
  • What boundaries will I instate to protect my time & focus?
  • What physical space do I need to have available?
  • What reminders do I need?
E.  Who do I have to support me? [This one is not easy for me, either.]
  • My accountability partner is _______________.
  • My cheerleader is _______________.
F.  How am I going to reward myself for doing this stuff (based on difficulty/effort)?
  • My little reward is _______________.
  • My medium sized reward is _______________.
  • My OMG-I-really-did-this reward is _______________.
  • My accountability partner who will make sure I reward myself is _______________.

My current issues have to do with a creative practice and a meditation practice.  I need to schedule these into my day.   I have very reasonable and measurable goals.  My meditation practice is five and a half minutes.  [Seriously.  Go to that link and read about it.]   I set a timer.   My creative practice should be at least 10 minutes.  I'll set a timer for that one, too. 

The challenge for me with these is that I do them better when I'm in the right head space and I haven't been, so it's hard to sit down and sketch or meditate.   I think my strategy for this is to do them first thing in the day, then give myself a really awesome reward when I've done them for so long.  10 days?  30 days?  [Note:  I'm not interested in doing them everysingleday-all-or-nothing.  30 days with the occasional skip is still 30 days and that would be awesome.  They don't have to be 30 consecutive days.]   I'm still thinking about the reward thing.  It brings up other issues I have about being deserving of rewards.   I have more work to do on that.   Maybe I should give myself a reward for accepting a reward?  I'll keep you posted. 




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