You can’t change what you don’t notice, so the first step to making any change is awareness – of your physical health, of your emotions and your mood, of the way you are focusing your attention, and of how you’re living your purpose and values. Take a step back and think about your day – how different would it be if you were making intentional choices about where to invest your energy and time, instead of reacting to external circumstances and demands? By becoming more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, you are able to take more control of them, and spend more of your time in your peak performance zone, where you’re most effective, most engaged, and do your best work. Below are 10 tips to start increasing your awareness this week:
Accentuate the positives. Make a list of activities that you enjoy the most and which make you feel best. Intentionally schedule at least one of these activities into your life each week.
Give others your undivided attention.
Benefits of time management. Set specific times during the day to perform certain tasks. This will help ensure that you address the most important tasks rather than simply reacting to external demands.
Control your anger. Pay close attention to how long you stay angry because that feeling is poisonous to the body. The physiological feeling of anger moves through you in under a minute. After that it is your choice whether you stay upset.
Surround yourself with creativity. Begin any creative project by immersing yourself in the known. The bext ideas tend to emerge by extending, deepening, rethinking and reframing existing knowledge.
Take your lunch break. By getting away from your desk and preferably out of our office altogether, you will come back to your desk more focused and fueled to face the rest of the day.
Reflect on how you make people feel. After a conversation, ask yourself whether the person you were talking to walked away feeling better or worse. If it’s the latter, what could you have done differently?
Create a transition ritual. Find an activity that allows you to make a transition from work to home. Take a few minutes to listen to music or make a call on your way home to someone you care about. The key is hat by the time you get home you’re not still at work.
Change channels on Friday. By the end of the week, your energy levels are usually ebbing. This can be a good day for more open ended work such as brainstorming, working ‘on’ the business and relationship building.
Practice realistic optimism. We can’t change what happens to us, but we can make a choice about how to respond. Challenge the story you’re telling yourself when something happens that makes you feel bad. Is there a more hopeful and empowering story you can tell without denying the facts?