Ways to live in the moment: Have Patience with All Things, Especially with You

 

Here is a great quote: “Have Patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them – every day begin the task anew”. Saint Fracis de Sales

Honestly something I try to remind myself about every time I can is that the most important lessons in life are learning to really be patient and kind with your own self. We all make mistakes, learning from those is important, and learning that we can always find ways to overcome those is the most valuable tool to be successful, but it is the most complex.  In fact, as a coach at work I always encourage my clients to their very best. But when it comes to me sometimes I forget that I should do the same with highest conviction, and that patient is important to change what I need to change or modify anything that I need to. I should try it more often! In fact as I tell people… I will be surprised what the power of being positive thinking can do and how that can shape my feelings and what I can do about myself.

Here is a great story where I can apply what I just said: “I just had a wonderful baby girl and I’m having the most wonderful time of my life with my little bundle of joy as a new mom. She completes me as a person, she makes me very proud of who I am, and she is my girl, just 8 weeks old, so loved... And when I look at the pregnancy weight I have to lose to get back into my shape, it is very hard. That is causing me a lot of stress and sometimes frustration with myself.  However, I’m doing my best, but not my very best to just change my attitude, be patient and just enjoy this new part of my life as a new mom, and every step I’m taking to get to my weight goal.  Be patient with all the changes I'm facing, they are a lot... Of course, when I think of my little girl, magic happens and I forget… But I can do better!

What is your story…?

Enjoy!

Ways to live in the moment: The Time Mistery

"Do not say you do not have enough time. You have the exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to people like Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein". – H Jackson Brow.

 

 

I just read this quote and got me thinking… How many times we said in a day "I wish I can have more hours to do all the things I need to do", "I do not have time?" etc… If we are like the majority of people, this is something we just thought about it at least once a day. It seems like our lives continue to be busier but time does not stretch with that fact. However, when I read this quote it reminded me that great things can be done and have been done without stretching or increasing time. So let’s stop complaining about it, and do something.

Action Item:

What would you do with your time today, tomorrow?

What can you do to stop complaning and do something?

 

Enjoy!

 

Ways to Live in Moment: Priorities and Perspectives

Don't be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to ultimate goal become a mini goal in itself.” -  Denis Waitley

During many of my coaching sessions and conversations with peers, friends and family; a subject that always comes up is the matter of not having time to do things, not having enough energy to focus on priorities, or having too much to do with too little time… It is ashamed, I have felt the same many times, and at a point in my life it became an overwhelming feeling. However, I decided to take action, and learn how to manage that feeling by learning better ways of looking at competing priorities: work, home, and life to balance myself and my inner peace.  So inspired by many of my coworkers, friends and people I coach, here are my lessons learned:

1.       Time Skills: To get the best out of life, apply some basic time management skills. These boils down to two key principles: finding balance of personal priorities and responsibilities; and preserving our “own time” from unwanted distractions. Time is squander but also too precious to squeeze. It is a discipline but like any other skill, taking on step at a time will help to master the final outcome to have that balance.  I like to approach: Urgent Vs. Important by Steven Covey in his book the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits)

2.       Know what matters: No one should devote their life entirely to a single priority: that could result in extreme asceticism or unbroken concentration upon, say, parenting, work or art. Any time we devote to ourselves is time we’re not giving to another; any time we spend on beauty is time not spent on compassion. Such exclusions are inevitable. If we know what matters, we’ll be able to adjudicate between conflicting demands when they occur.

3.       Re-Think: Do a major time management audit at least every 4 months. Consider which routine activities are intruding into our quality of life, and whether we could shed any of them. How is our life-work balance treating us? Where are the stresses in our week, and how could they be eased? This is the time, too, to think about whether major changes might be desirable – for example: moving into a new house, or planning a different kind of vacation. Make sure that we come out of our audit with at least three concrete decisions for change, however modest.

4.       Checking the Boxes:  Write a list of prioritized tasks in a notebook each day to focus our mind, with a little square box alongside each one. Check the box once we’ve completed the task – a simple but effective way to keep on top of crowed and evolving to-do list. It takes practice to get that habit into our system; it is one step at time with the purpose in mind to become more organized, that will be helpful.  “I really learned to do this, and it gave me a safe place to know where to start and finish my day”.

5.       Today’s Work: The word procrastination derives from the Latin word “crastinus”, meaning “belonging to tomorrow.” Do not fall into the trap of believing that we’ll have more time to tackle a tricky task or project tomorrow than today – the reality is, we’ll probably find ourselves as pressed for time then as now.

Adpated from 1,001 Ways to Live in the Moment – by Barbara Anna Kipfer

Action Item:

·         What can we do NOW to empower ourselves to manage our priorities in a savvy way?

·         What can we do differently to be more driven and proactive for our time management?

Enjoy!

Ways to Live in Moment: Lessons Learned 2011!- Entry Number 2…

Continuing with the lessons learned during 2011, here is the Entry Number 2…
Lessons 2: Personal Growth

As I continue to reflect on what I have learned this year 2011, I will focus now in my personal growth lessons. I will say that personal growth has been a big part of who I am as a person and professional. But what is personal growth?  There are many definitions, and doing some web searches, here is the one that I like the most: “Personal Growth - is the pursuit of developing, honing and mastering the skills that help us become the best that we can, with all that we have. It is the reaching for, and realizing of, our full potential as human beings”. - Essential Life Skills.net

Here are the top 5 things I captured over the year to increase personal growth and development:

1.       Potential: Reflected on my potential as an individual and professional. Once in a while I reflected about my potential, my talents and the gaps I’m facing to fulfill that potential. Tips that I have used:

·         know and understand myself better

·         live life more consciously and deliberately

·         attain personal satisfaction and fulfillment.

2.       Change: I kept working in making a commitment to change. In fact to make something out of ourselves, we need to be willing to change, for without change, there can be no growth. If we truly want to grow, then commit ourselves to not only accepting change, but seeking it.  Best tips that worked for me to accept change and move on: 

·         Maintaining balance and flexibility in your life

·          Taking care of your physical and mental health; nurturing yourself

·          Learning to deal with problems and stressful situations

·          Maintaining good relationships with loved ones for support and encouragement

3.       Journey: I have learned to enjoy the journey.  Basically if we are going to spend time learning something, then we better learn to like it. Let’s put it this way… If the destination appeals to us, but we cannot enjoy the journey it takes to be there, we would be wise to reexamine our priorities to make sure we have them right.

4.       Perspective: I have increased my awareness of having perspective. Let’s define it first; It is how we perceive things in the context of the whole and how we judge importance of one thing in relation to others. I think that everything that happens in our lives is driven with how we perceive things too. Of course there have been parts of my personal journey that I really do not like at all, however the perspective I have placed into them, make a big difference to me. Even though we cannot help but react emotionally to some difficult situations, if we cannot control or change them, we can decide how we allow them affect us. Going back to my first lesson, here is an additional reflection – “Attitude, which is an aspect of perspective, is a way of thinking or looking at things. We have the ability to choose how we think or our attitudes”. Ultimately life is a subjective experience and it is up to each of us to decide how we choose to view and experience it.

5.       Resilience: if someone asked me to define myself, I will clearly articulate that I have tried to be a resilient individual.  By definition resilience is our ability to regain original form and to thrive and fulfill potential in spite of adversity or difficult circumstances.  Here is a great explanation of how to understand what resilience is, and how to make it a strong quality to grow and develop.

By Essential Life Skills.net:  “When life situations get out of kilter, it is the one quality and skill we need most to get us through the difficult times. To be resilient means we are able to remain stable and function in the face of disruption and chaos. It means we can continue with everyday tasks, remain balanced, and bounce back quickly from hard times. Resilience can be described as an emotional muscle which we all possess to some degree. With determination and practice we can develop and strengthen it even further. Being aware of why we need it and how important it is can encourage us to work on increasing it”.

 Taking action for our new year 2012: The miracle questions…

Where do we stand when it comes to our personal growth for every day? Let’s reflect:

1.       Have I already made the decision to seek and experience improvement daily?

2.       Based on your decision, what is the one action you are going to practice every day in order to be successful?

Adpated from Make Today Count – John C. Maxwell. & By Essential Life Skills.net

Enjoy!

Ways to Live in Moment: Lessons Learned 2011!

 

We are close to the final days of this 2011, and many of us are preparing for our holiday celebrations, family time, Christmas time and New Year resolutions. With that in mind, I would like to share with all of you a final blog entry for 2011.  Here we go…
This year has been a learning journey in many ways, therefore this entry is a reflection of the top 3 lessons learned that helped me navigate the journey adjusting my sails when facing winds of change and ambiguity.  Let me share it with you… in three entries.
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Entry Number 1

Lesson 1: Attitude - I made every effort to keep a positive attitude and use it to influence others…
Reflection: The way we receive and accept everything that comes from the environment, our surroundings and specially the people we have around us; depends on the attitude we place into things, situations and moments. Many people in this world mistakenly believe that their attitude is set, and it cannot change. Our attitude is a choice! If our desire is to make every day a positive one and a place for learning something new and different… then we have a great attitude! However it could be difficult to implement that thought if we are trapped into negative contemplations. Although it is hard to implement, start setting internal desires to monitor that bad attitude and push ourselves to change it.

Here is how I have been doing it:

1.       Reminded myself: “The things I know I can control are what I feel, what I see, and what I think! That pushed me to have a positive attitude, and to help others see it too.

2.       Recognized that my attitude needs daily adjustments – like any other disciple our attitude will not take care of itself. That’s why it needs to be attended to daily. The stronger our natural inclination to be pessimistic or critical, the more attention our attitude will need.

3.       Incorporated an attitude check, and watched for red flags signaling that my attitude might be in trouble.

4.       Looked for something positive in every situation, and said something positive in very conversation.

Taking action for our new year 2012: The miracle questions…

Where do we stand when it comes to our attitude for every day? Let’s reflect:

1.       What are you going to do to choose and display the right attitude daily?

2.       Based on the decision you made concerning attitude, what is the one discipline you must practice today and every day in order to be successful?

Enjoy!

Adpated from Make Today Count – John C. Maxwell.

Ways to Live in Moment: Attitude

"It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect It's successful outcome." -William James

Recently I received a great email from work that talks about “Attitude”. This message provided a great reflection and suggestion for me; and I will say that it can help adjust and receive things in a more positive way.  Therefor, I would like to share this message with all of you.

Here We Go…

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our Attitudes.”              ~Pastor Charles Swindoll

"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy; meditate on these things."

 To Practice This Thought:

Explore different perspectives – the city is more beautiful when seen from above and so is the country. Exploring different perspectives does not always change things, but it always changes us. We begin to feel, think and see with different eyes, and with this spirit we become stronger and more positive.   

Enjoy!

Ways to Live in Moment: Mindful Days

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” ~ Dalai Lama

Fall is here and with this new season change is coming to help us celebrate new things in our live. Let’s be more mindful to enjoy every challenge and opportunity while embracing this new season!

In this entry I would like to share with you some great tips to become mindful and open every day.  

1.       One Change: Routine can bring comforting stability and structure to your day, yet it’s new experiences that make us feel we’re truly alive. Make a promise to yourselves to vary one small part of our routine each day: walk a difference route to work… Feel the invigorating power of change.

2.       Reasoning: “The less routing, the more life.” – Amos Bronson Alcott

3.       Breezy Start: Begin each day in the expectation that some time, before day’s end, you’ll receive some good news.

4.       Lucky You: Think of chores you face in the day ahead as a privilege, not a burden. Resolve to enjoy the satisfaction of doing them to best of your ability. Take pleasure in your skills.

5.       Sante! We tend to really appreciate normal health only when we’re sick. Resolve, next time you wake up, to notice and celebrate the inestimable value of your health, and the benefits it will bring to the day ahead.

6.       Reassess: Take a moment of quiet each morning to check that the plan you made the day before still make sense in the clear morning light. Adjust them as necessary. Embrace fluidity.

7.       Early Riser: At least once a month, watch the sunrise, a refreshing experience for mind and spirit.

8.       Work ahead: “Awake, my soul, and with the sun Thy daily stage of duty run “Thomas Ken

9.       Special Theme: Set and intention for your day, such as “Today I will be a good listener” or “Today I will not get distracted.” Repeat your intention to yourself whenever you tire or lack motivation. Alternatively, set a theme for the day: for example, you might decide you’re going to dedicate a day to adventure, or fluidity, friendship, or inner wealth.

10.   Be yourself!

 Adpated from 1,001 Ways to Live in the Moment – by Barbara Anna Kipfer

Action Item:
From these recommendations, what’s your goal for this Fall Season…

Enjoy!