I think many people are excited for the new year and to have 2020 behind us. It's amazing how our perception of a 'fresh start' hinges around a new event or time even though we have the same ability to create a fresh start any given day of our lives! However, with a new year, many people view that as the perfect opportunity to form new habits and new mentalities. So today I wanted to share some good nuggets I have heard recently that I think are excellent mantras for our daily lives:
The quality of your life is where you live emotionally
I was listening to a fireside chat podcast with Tony and Sage Robbins. He mentioned this statement, and I thought it was incredibly profound. Our emotions are one of the few things we can control, and all of the feelings we have come from meaning. Our emotions are different at the beginning of relationship vs the ending. The start of a new career or the end of one. We hold within us the power to view any seemingly negative emotion as either a challenge from God or a gift from God. The more we can embrace the positive emotions and quickly recognize and flip the negative emotions, the more we can enhance the quality of our life. That leads us to the next mentality:
Create a compelling future
He references the great generation as they rose from the occasion of living in a time of Hitler to overcoming that time period and persevering to a better way of life. We are not a manager of our life but a creator of it.
Find the blessing and be the blessing
Much of the quality of our life depends on our ability to have an attitude of gratitude. There is a blessing in every situation, and it's up to us to be diligent in finding the blessings in every situation. Once we have formed that habit, then we can be the person that provides the blessing for others.
I listened to another podcast from Jim Loehr, a mental performance coach to many professional athletes and a well-known author. He most famously coached Dan Jansen through his legendary Olympic gold medal in ice skating. My favorite mentality he shared is:
Don't focus as much on time management. Focus on energy management.
This one nugget can completely change your perception of your daily life. So many thousands of books have been written on managing your time efficiently and how proper time management can help you achieve more. Jim says focus instead on energy management. For example, some things might not take much time, but they greatly affect your energy level and thus your effectiveness. An example is scrolling through social media may not take much time, but it can suck away your energy. A more positive example is carving out 10 minutes a day to take a walk, sit in silence, or reconnect with a friend. It is restoring our energy vs. sucking it away. He challenges us to start to look at how we spend our time not in terms of quantity of minutes or hours but instead the amount of life giving energy it is either providing us or taking from us.
Jim Loehr presses the importance of journaling and how the thoughts we think and write down (he recommends in cursive) help us to live them out. Journaling about:
Who are you at your best?
How do you want to be remembered?
He found the top athletes that he coached had a hidden scorecard not as much about achievements as they were about their connection to others. As a result, it helped the athletes build the muscles of moral and ethical qualities.
I hope you have had a chance to figure out 1 or 2 slight edge philosophies you will implement this year and especially adopting the mentality required to help you see your goals through.
