Today exercising feels good the traffic to work and home is minimal, I do all my activities efficiently, proactively and the results of my efforts are immediately visible to me.
For the longest of time I believed that these perfect days are what I should be aspiring for and successful people experience these "perfect days" everyday.
But I was wrong.
Optimizing Life: Lessons from Nature's Seasons
What I have discovered in everything important to me in life i.e. my work, finances, health, relationships and inner growth, is that as in nature too much of anything is detrimental.
To many blue skies leads to drought.
To much rain leads to floods.
To much pressure leads to infertile ground, and
Prolonged stagnation leads to diseases.
Be it we manage our own business (large or small), or be us an employee. Our level of success and future harvest bounty depends on how we manage our experiences throughout these ebbing and flowing weather patterns of life.
When too much work is flooding in how do we respond to our feelings of being overwhelmed?
When no work is coming in how do we deal with our feelings of lack?
When under too much pressure how do we manage empathy for ourselves and others?
And when things become too easy how do we stay motivated and grow or worse, prevent stagnation and decline?
We're all familiar with the cycle of seasons. Spring follows winter, summer follows spring, autumn follows summer and winter follows autumn. So it is with our lives and businesses too.
Perfecting Your Winter Days
Best described as the days that we want to throw in the towel, actively resist doing the work we know we need to do and don't.
Personally I don’t quite understand why I do this? At the same time another part of me finds this self sabotaging defiance enjoyable and empowering. “Pity parties” maybe the polite name for these moments but I like to call them my “Stuff it days”.
Solution: We all know "academically" what and why we need to do, however more often we lack the motivation to actually do it.
Why? Because as humans our DNA is designed for us to exert the least effort in receipt of the maximum outcome. This also explains why and how we have evolved to become the dominant species on the planet i.e. through the greatest efficiencies.
Life Hack. Know what you need to do, then count backwards from five down to one in preparation for your "launch". This engagement process has been scientifically proven to shift our thinking out of the emotional area of our brain to our survival area and doing so moves us beyond our "in our head" and into a state of action.
The Perfect Spring Day
These are the days we're fuelled by our optimism, hope and trust in the process. We're pumped and eager to get going and to do the work. The challenge is sustaining our pent up motivation, along with limited resources (following from our winter), while acknowledging our results are ahead of us but not here as of yet.
In our rush of energy and passion we need to choose carefully where we focus our efforts. As they say "Insanity is doing the same thing a thousand times and expecting a different result".
Personally I find these days are really frustrating because I begin with holding such high expectations of myself then other urgent matters come up requiring my attention when all I want to do is get my inspired list of activities done.
Solution: Put First Things First (Big Rocks). The challenge we face is juggling the “daily grind” of activities and urgent matters with the activities aligned to our core values.
Life Hack. The key to success is our priority of choices. By focusing on doing the activities we receive a direct benefit from i.e. activities focused on our health, learning, relationships, new experiences, inner growth, personal finances and careers we prioritize our needs and place ourselves in the best position to be of help to others. and doing so heighten our own probability of success.
Endless Perfect Summer Days
Exercising is easy. We complete our activities proactively. Any urgent matters are address quickly and effectively and the results of our efforts are visible to us.
Great times, easy living and the ideal life is here however the hidden the challenge in these days of abundance is being both present in the moment and at the same time future looking and prepared.
Call it maturity, experience or the lessons of life personally I cherish these perfect summer days.
To me they are a bounty from the hard work and choices of earlier and a time to be humble, grateful and share the blessing of all we have received while also help prepare for the future challenges ahead.
Solution: Appreciate and acknowledgment that Gratitude is the fertilizer for us experiencing continued and greater success.
Life Hack. Maybe now is the time to thank our inner child for all they have done for us and tell them we are now ready to take the burden they have carried for us (for so long) off their shoulders because you are now mature enough, experienced enough, wise enough have accomplished and responsible enough to make the right decisions moving forward. The present is a present!
Awe Inspiring Perfect Autumn days
The days we feel like coasting through with minimal input while also in full knowledge we have a list of activities to do, however we choose to procrastinate a little longer or only do enough work to convince and justify ourselves to others that “We've done something with our time”. Either way we know our actions are unsustainable and will ultimately hurt us but at this current time the evidence is not apparent.
Personally on these autumn days if you ask me to do something, I will most likely accept, but not act immediately as I’m having more fun doing other things that interest me. Maybe writing my blog :-)
Solution: Fail fast, let go and realign. Letting go is not a sign of weakness. Information overload, competing priorities, the good opinion of others and self imposed expectations. All these burden and distract us from what we really need to be doing in order to be in alignment and at peace with ourselves.
Life Hack. We can't fix ourselves by breaking someone else. We can't drink poison, expecting the other person to die. Caring for ourself and our future requires us to let go of our fears and start to trust more in our internal selves. Doing so gives space for us to heal and make better choices aligned to our values along with being be better placed to address our external challenges.
The lesson from the seasons and changing weather for a Perfect day and life
While we can’t control the weather or the seasons, without the weather and seasons there would be no life, no opportunities and no growth.
It is from how we handle theses challenges and difficulties within each season and environment that determines our future bounty, security, opportunities and fulfillment in life.
In short perfection!
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