Category: Habits

Ahhh… Sensory Perceptions

Good morning.

The sky is blue, and the temperature is cool shirt sleeve weather.  This will be a great spring day.

Did you ever stop to think how things get done? The dread of taking out of the trash? The fear and loathing of the laundry? The dank despair of the dishes? There’s a very easy explanation to help all these things become accomplishments.

The truth is, they get done because the only thing worse than having to do these unpleasant deeds, is to not do them and have to live with the results. Therefore, we do the tasks we often hate. And as we do those tasks, we find a reward.

Our hard work culminates in several sensory delights. The area we were working in Looks better. The same area probably smells better. And, there is a comfortable realization that for the moment it is one less thing to do.

All of these sensory perceptions are actually highlighted by the release of endorphins in the brain that make you feel better. The endorphins and the positive sensory perceptions upon the completion of the task actually work together to provide you a very positive experience.

You still may not like to do the dishes or clean the bathroom. Yet, with positive completion experiences, you might be willing to do it again and sometime in the future. As these things come about, they form habits. Habits persist because of the outcomes they produce.

If the endorphins and positive sensory perceptions do not work out well for you, McDonald’s always worked for my kids.

Have a wonderful day and a fantastic week.

Understand the Inner You

It is amazing how well we can do a task when we set our minds to something.

Sometimes what we do is so far beyond what we think we are capable of that we can’t see what we truly did and what it really meant until later. The time lag in our recognition doesn’t take away what our actions meant to others or how it helped them. The turmoil and actions of the moment mean more at a distance. You have to step back and take a look at the actions and what they led to as a whole.

It is important to have a set of values, beliefs, or goals you normally work towards. What you normally would work towards is what helps to ground you in the moments where you’re not so sure what the correct course of action is. This internal compass is going to help you to reach out and do the best you can.

When I was younger, there was a paper with many different feelings on it. And I was often asked to state how I felt any given time. I did not understand it then, I was used to people telling me what to think and feel. And yet now I have learned that knowing my feelings are very important. You need to know your feelings because they are you. And, we all need to be responsible for our own feelings.

To take ownership of your feelings, you need to know two things:

  • How do I feel?
  • Why do I feel that way?

This is the start of understanding your inner self and reading your inner compass correctly. When you can control your inner self, you can go far and do many wondrous things.

This is something to think about and to consider.

Have a great day, and I hope to talk to you again tomorrow.

 

From the Inside Out

Have you ever considered why sometimes no matter how much you try you just cannot get the results you are looking for? You feel that no matter what you do there is so much else in the way that you end up not doing anything? To accomplish something, you have to do the right thing. Maybe it’s a good idea to start by looking at what you need to do and stack it up against what you want to do.

We are not just one thing or another. We are human beings, and we are a conglomeration of everything that affects us. To do good work, we need to work from the inside out.

If I don’t sleep well, my work suffers. If I am worrying about everything all the time, my work suffers. If my house and yard are a mess, my work suffers. I need to remove those things that cause my work to suffer, and I need to enhance whatever makes my work thrive.

Does this mean I can’t work at all until everything else in my life is perfect? If we waited for perfection, none of us would ever get any work done. Nothing or at least very little in life is perfect. You have to strike a balance.

I may not be able to do full work while healing from an operation, complete the spring cleaning, or rearrange my schedule to get a full night’s sleep. I could, though, break my work up into bite-sized bits that I could handle.

Maybe I start out by just taking one hour in figuring out a plan of what I need to work on. Maybe I’m planning a new book. Maybe I’m writing a blog. Maybe I am painting a new painting. Whatever it is I just take time and draw a map or timeline, remembering to provide enough time and research to complete the project. If I’m painting a painting, maybe the next day I just put an outline on the canvas. If I am writing a book, maybe I sit down at the computer and just list some of the major events.

If I am writing a book, maybe a start off within the week by writing a sentence. And the next day I write two sentences. The idea is to build slowly until I can write between 500 to a thousand words for the book in a day. My time is still on working from the inside out to take care of me, to take care of around my surroundings, and to take care of my work.

Everything will not become perfection. Yet, what I will find this a sense of equilibrium. This is an equilibrium where the inner me is in balance with my surroundings and my surroundings give me the ability to better perform my work.

I wish I could tell you exactly how to do certain steps in a certain order to accomplish this. I will work on that for you if you wish. Although, I must tell you that every person and every situation is different. And each of us needs to be responsible for ourselves and seek our own way.

Look forward to talking again tomorrow.

 

Do You Wish For More Time?

Many of you wish for more time. If you ever find a way to get more time, please write me and let me know. I believe that we only have so much time. Each of us has 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day. We have seven days in a week, 52 weeks in a year, 10 years to a decade and, if we are lucky, we should have between seven and 10 decades to our life.

What we really want is a better quality of the time we have. And that, with a little work, we can do.

How many of you are like me? I sit in my TV room downstairs and look around at the mess. I wish I could find more time to do something about it, yet I only sit there. I get up and go into my office where I sit in my office chair and look at the piles of messes everywhere. I wish I had time to clean everything up, yet I just sit there. I can name any other room in the house and yet the view and the outcomes on the same.

I’m amazed that I always have time to read, watch TV, play games, and yet room to room nothing ever gets better. And nothing can get better until I decide to stop looking for more time and instead seek better time.

Better time is easy to do. It only takes a little forethought. You can start your road to a better time by first making a few notes which will help you to figure out what is more important to you. Sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper or some post-its and write down everything you do.  Include the games, the TV, the computer, the books, etc. If you’re using Post-it notes, list one item per post-it.

The next thing to do is to take the list and prioritize it. You can start anywhere and be prepared to put things above and below because as you add more items some will be a higher priority, and some will be a lower priority. If you are using Post-it’s, please be careful not to put them in an area where they could mar the paint. As you come across items that need to be repeated daily or weekly please list that next to the item with an RD for daily, RW for weekly, and RM for monthly, etc.

Typically, you will get your calendar. To start, add what you want to do based on your priorities. You’re going to place your highest priorities on the calendar first, and then add more priorities until the calendar is full. For many people, this ends up looking like an extensive to-do list. The problem with to-do lists is that they never allocate time and therefore little really gets done because you have more items to do than you have time to deal with.

What I’m proposing you do which is different is the setting up of the time to do each item. Start with those things which are reoccurring. Find time for what you need to do daily, and then what you need to do weekly and then what you need to do monthly, etc.

The initial cleaning of a messy office may take 8 to 10 hours spread out over a week. And you will not have to do that every week unless you really like to make messes as fast as you clean them. Tidying up an office daily could take five minutes. The same with cleaning the kitchen or any other room in the house.

Once you have all your reoccurring items of priority placed into the calendar, then start with your highest priority item and put that on the calendar, and then set the next item into the calendar. Please, allow enough time to complete each item you place on the calendar. If possible to do so, it is understandable that you may want to have two or three different sessions to complete a significant task.

Some people end up with a lot of time left over when loading the calendar. That is good, and you can think of things that you’ve always wanted to do, which you can plug into those times. Some people will end up with too many items and not enough time. And, this is where some decisions have to be made. The choices are whether to place this task on the back burner until time becomes available or, to bump another task and put this one in its place.

Quite often it takes a little time to get used to the idea of using a calendar and sticking to what needs to be done when. This is especially true if you are not used to the practice of using a calendar. If you put in the energy and give the new ideas a little time, it will work for you. If you need a little incentive, go to the mirror, raise your right hand and promise the person in the mirror, that you are willing to work at making this happen. When you do use this method, you will be able to see your priorities actually come to fruition.

 

 

 

Initial Momentum

Good morning.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I was able to get out in my yard and trimmed back all the invasive bushes some of which had gained a good 6 feet and thought they were going to be trees.

It is incredible how we can be stymied by so many things to do. So many things that we can’t get anything done. And yet the piles still grow and grow. And then all of a sudden, one small piece of serendipity, a break in the calendar of things to do, or something else happens, and we can suddenly be swamped doing everything that had us crying uncle just a few days before.  Truth is the initial momentum to start moving something takes more energy than that needed to keep it in motion.

Because of that three extra hours that kicked everything off, this week I have a meeting with the tax lady to complete her taxes, and a procedure on Thursday. One of those procedures for people over 50 that we have to prep for. Well for a little bit I guess we have to be careful of what we wish for. In this case, though everything is indeed a blessing to be able to get it done.

I recommend that everybody look for that small break, that one thing that can get you started. Once you are started, you can go as far as you want to. My idea: never stop.  After all, it takes less energy to keep something moving than to start it moving in the first place.

 

Pass the Good Along

Good morning.

It is very hard sometimes for us to understand how lucky we are. When half the population of the earth has never made a phone call or watch television or has been able to turn the faucet and have clean drinking water, we are truly blessed.

You can say that these blessings are arduous work and planning. And, you are right, yet they are still blessings.

If we are able to call up any fact in a matter of minutes, call someone and talk about anything we wish, or see anything of interest within the world or outside of it any time we want to, then we are significantly endowed. We cannot pay back those who came before us and set all these marvels into play. Just as real founders put new ideas into motion realizing they will never reap the full benefits of their actions, it is up to us to put into action right for our futures sake.

It is said that with great abilities comes great responsibilities. Just as our forefathers and foremothers worked hard that we may benefit, so too, we need to strive so that our prodigy can see and say the same about us. Everyone can take part in this endeavor. For how many of us can freely give a smile or a kind word, and how many of us could easily do some small good deed?

Rules That Actually Help

Good morning.

Last week after writing to you about the need to take care of ourselves in about my Meniere’s, believe it or not, I got sick that very same afternoon. In it did it presented is Meniere’s severe vertigo and all.

After getting back home, I spent the rest the weekend rest and recuperation. Along with the Meniere’s, I was also fighting high blood pressure.  I started reading articles about what successful people do and what leaders do with their morning routine.

I even started doing those things myself. By Friday I felt better. My blood pressure was lower, and the dizziness was gone. What did I do? I made some rules.

Rule one: bedtime is bedtime, not a time to read, and not the time to watch all the shows I cannot view during the day. Not the time to write or plan. I will do all that in the morning.

Rule two: I get up an hour later than I used to in the morning. Instead of five, I get up at six. I always get up at the same time every day.

Rule three: I immediately make my bed. I remember my mom always makes her bed when she gets up in the morning, and she is a person who gets things done. It gives each of us the first accomplishment of the day. And it sets the boundary between sleep and a new day.

Rule four: I take time to be grateful. I am thankful for all that I have been given, and all I have been allowed to accomplish.

Rule five: I take time to plan. I review what I have to do today and what I want to do today. I plan out both ongoing and significant accomplishments to be done, and the todos, which when done makes life better.

Rule Six:  Showering and grooming help to make everyone feel better and can both soothe the and energize for the day ahead.

Rule seven: I enjoy a good breakfast with both carb and protein, and not overdoing it, fuels the body. And, proper hydration keeps everything afloat.

I am not saying that my rules are right for everyone. I just know that since I started following them, I have felt better and grown stronger.

 

Have a great day

ENFP-T

Good morning, it is a beautiful bright blue sky out there this morning I was able to see the half moon in the sky as I walked into work today.

Have you ever taken on more than you can do? More than you can handle? And, sometimes more than you would like? I do that all the time. In testing assessments recently, I tested one that mimicked the Myers-Briggs. It told me I was in ENFP and that is correct. I have taken the Myers-Briggs and similar assessments several times. I know this to be true. I am an educator and trainer of adults.

What I had not known until now, and makes perfect sense, is that have -T or turbulent tendencies. This is caused when an ENFP personality wants to do everything they encounter. It is not enough just to teach, they become truly interested and want to know and do more.

The problem I find is the fact that although I love to learn and explore and do many things; resources such as funding, time, and abilities are often limiting factors. As I realized this, I started to do some research.

I found many articles which talked about the need for planning. Scheduling what can be done in the next 90 days, and doing it is very important. New items, coming in all the time, tend to disrupt attention and divert resources. This is not to say you should not explore items of interest. What it suggests though is to properly schedule the item for an upcoming quarter. And verify at the beginning of that quarter the actions you want to take.

I have begun scheduling my interests, with new books that I plan to write, new avenues I wish to explore, and the work that I owe to you, my audience.

The question is, “Will this make things better?” Only time will really tell. I believe we will both see the results together.

Thank you for putting up with me, and have a great day.

E – Extrovert

N – Intuitive

F – Feeling 

P – Prospecting

-T – Turbulent

Make a list

Good morning and welcome to another wonderful day. Why is it wonderful? Because you are here!

Today I have a task for you. It is an important task.  This task will help you to see both the forest and the trees.

I would like you to please make a list. The list is not for me, it is for you. Each of us should have a list like this. It helps us to understand how lucky we are.

The first part of making a list is just to rest. Take a few minutes to find a spot that’s comfortable and rest. Then it’s time to make your list. Write down something about yourself that makes you feel good, makes you happy, makes you confident.

 

Have you seen a sunrise or sunset lately? Did you enjoy it? Did it make you feel something? If the feeling was good, write it down. Did you laugh today? Write it down.

What you are doing is taking a measure of the positive things in your life. There are plenty of negative things, and you don’t need a list of those. What you need is a list of what’s good in your life. We all have positives and negatives. When the negatives weigh on my mind, it is always nice to pull out the list and remember the positives.

Have a great day. Hopefully, we’ll talk again soon.

What We Do For Others

It is a beautiful new day and a beautiful new week. I had planned for a wonderful new me and still hope for that even though I seem to be running an hour late for everything.

It is amazing the things we do that we don’t even realize. Those little things, the ones which means so much to someone else. Saying hi to a passer-by on the street is a small thing, and yet it might be the only kind word heard all day. Sometimes just to point out something that someone did well may be the only thanks they ever get for that action. And sometimes, when somebody is at their lowest point, the action of the stranger can pull them back from the darkness of the abyss.

Many times, we do not understand the full extent to which a nod of the head to someone or smile may mean to them. In our days of high technology, and paranoid fear of others it is often good to take that chance. Just a smile on a nod of the head, or a hello as you pass on the street. You can hardly know some of the good it does for others.

This gives someone who feels unseen, the good feeling of being noticed. Somebody who feels he or she is a nobody, realizes they are somebody. Someone who has often lost all hope finds that spark of humanity.

The thing that those who never do this, never learn is the most important fact. The fact is that when you do this to someone else the good feeling isn’t just theirs. You also share that feeling of momentary connection to others.

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