I spent a really lovely 2 hours with great friend and fellow business owner Lou on Wednesday in our "Content planning" meeting.
We made short work of top quality coffees and cinnamon bun (me) and fruity flapjack (her) while brainstorming and bouncing ideas around. Lou's business is PR in the marine industry so we don't cross over work wise, but we both work for ourselves and have hugley busy work diaries so in addition to the company, it is a welcomed back up and support plus energy and inspiration.
I was working on structuring my day, week, month and beyond. Very grown up and quite scary ( I have already left her a voicenote today, dropping out of one of my agreed actions and am now fighting a bit of guilt/drop out failiure) which links me neatly to what I and all of us need to do.
CHECKING IN.
Have you set goals or resolutions for the year and as we hit "Quitters day" (cue Clare but more of that in due course) are you already chastising yourself? Or maybe you are that person in the class who is always thinking 'I can never do that thing... I am rubbish at this thing"....
How about you just stop and check in for a moment? Rather than what you haven't done, why not just tick off all the things that you HAVE done?
I was practically in tears one Friday before Christmas about allllll the things I hadn't done... and then I dipped into my metaphorical bag of tools and said to myself "what would you say if this was a dear friend, talking like this? You would give them a hug and direct their focus to all the things that they HAD done and ask them to give themsevles permission to let go of some of the things they had not done"....well! I had this little chat with myself as I was heading towards the stairs, and as I set off upwards, I said out loud to myself all the things I had done that day. By the time I reached the landing, I was terribly chuffed with myself. Crisis averted!
It is only a standard staircase - if I lived in something akin to Downton Abbey, who KNOWS what I might have felt ready to conquer?
How about, before the end of January, you make a note of how many classes you are doing, how many times you use the library, what weight you are lifting, how many steps you are doing daily... are you doing "that" exercise with single or double leg? How many reps did you do?
Make a little note, just for your own personal reference. Give it a couple of months or so and then check in... before you feel frustrated at what you CAN'T do, reflect on what you CAN do and perhaps, what you are doing more of or better than before.
It can be a very powerful and empowering tool.
You may choose to just use this as a check in to feel more postive but perhaps, if strength, fitness or mobility are your goals, then a monthly check in is a great way to stay on track, be accountable to yourself and see progresss or see where you need to make changes to enable progress.
"Make your mind your best friend" Jay Shetty.
Now to reconsider asking Lou to ignore that voicenote, and do what I said I was going to do.... or let myself off and focus on all the recording I have done!
