Lessons

Lesson Info

Balancing Your Energy: Delete

We're going to get to the meat of what is going to come off of your plate how do you decide what really belongs in your plate now some people decided for you but you want to clean this up this is the clean plate club that doesn't mean you're going to empty it at all but you want to clean it up so that when you look at where you're spending your really precious time and energy and focus when you look at it you don't look at it go god really you look at and go ok this is me and this is what I'm doing and there are a few uggs on here but it's not all a pile of uggs it's me living the life I chose on dh we're also going in the end be looking at howto howto make it a really tough plate a plate that can hold a lot, eh so how do you get stuff off of the beginning? How do you let go of some of the things that are on your plate? We're going to reduce that load we're going to reduce how many things were dealing with because we are just famous for dealing with too much humans really don't like to...

let go we're we're all in a the way quarters now some of us may call ourselves a minimalist and I mentioned the book essential in which I think is fabulous but in general, the human doesn't like to let go we are brought up genetically for a scarcity situation we like to hold on to stuff and we especially like to hold on to stuff that's in our lives and the things that we're doing um I just bring two up a slide of this garage that was just spilling out with stuff how many of you have had a place in your life where you stick stuff and it's stuff that well, you know you might need it one day I might need this one day um but it's really not relevant to your current life? Will we do that with what's on our to do list too? We have so much on our to do lists and the things that we're doing that really aren't relevant to who we want to be the last session we did some of the really heavy stuff, if you know who am I? Who am I? What values dough I want my life to represent on dh what does my what's my purpose? Why am I here? That's that's having how can you make this plate line up with that? How can you make decisions knowing that about yourself with what you shouldn't be doing? Oh, I used the should word oh well, what you want to be doing, do you hear the difference in that not what you should be doing, but what you really want to be doing to create the life that lines up with your gps. You're why your values, your strengths, but we're gonna have a little fun with this part. Last part we got serious enough, so we're gonna have a little bit of fun there three ways that you can get stuff off of your plate, you could just scrub it off. I'm not going to do that for things that are no longer relevant, and we all have some of that. I had a client who was in the middle of this enormous, stressful situation, just horrible, stressful situation, and we were talking about how he was managing his data day life and time because some of stress management is time management, a lot of it's energy management, but some of it is time management, and he was leaving the office late at night with his huge commute, commute and going home and mowing the lawn. And this is a person who had a possibly seven figure salary is so you're going home and mow the lawn in the middle of this let's talk about that? Well, it was an old story. He was raised to believe that mowing the lawn was an important part of being a father. The story came from his youth and that the pride that goes with taking care of your house and doing it and he can value all those things in there they're good, but when he came up to sixty thousand feet and looked at his life, he realized that that was something he could take off his plate right now he could delegate that right now doesn't mean he's not going to do in the future doesn't mean it's not important to him it's just not the right time, it's time to delegate it so we let go of that one, so most of us have something on her plate that is based in an old story or it's just no longer relevant like when you look at your to do list in there with all this things he never got done and like even three weeks later, you look at him and say, oh yeah, I didn't do it and guess what? It doesn't matter now, how about weaving some of those out proactively kind of looking at your list when you do that weekly meeting with yourself what's relevant, what should be guided by your gps and what can you let go off or even more importantly, not even put on there to begin with can you all think of something you could take off your plate or your to do list right now? Yeah well yes um I'm from australia and so a lot of my friends and family back that um and that means a lot of responding to e mails and skype and stuff like that so I think and that kind of weighs me down because I want to do it well, I don't want to just, you know, right click whatever so I think the best idea it would be just to do a group friend email in a group family email and that would just ever want to be updated, you know what I mean? And then because I feel I feel really slack because yeah, I just end up procrastinating that I just pile up and I'm just like a I never really got to it or you know, so that that would be really excellent that's a perfect example of a tweak you'll hear me use that word a lot um us a small shift that buys you energy so that by the end of the day you have more energy, I would suggest that you make that known your intention of what you're doing and so that people understand the process and email we could do five day course on email write email alone is it's weighing us down, so coming up with policies ford and creative ideas for how to deal with it really is helpful so I love that but simon or erica anything that you could you could just acts let it go well, I was just going to say can multi purpose a couple of things ok? So with cleaning and then like I do a lot of um I want I'm doing I've been sort of the investigation learning stage of a lot of things so they're a couple of like light podcast they don't have to really take notes that I couldn't be listening to the podcasts and cleaning but that's not axing anything you know that was an accident no that's not I'm gonna keep after you I feel like with my blooming renewing here I actually have done a lot of the paring things down in terms of stress and it's what I need to take off is this like the procrastination and the fear and the worry no, they're ok more notional than um concrete okay well and that's wonderful because we talked about in the very beginning that you don't just put down a concrete to do list on here I have you know I fear in mine I am actively working to let go of the fear about something because that's hugely stressful to me so letting go of an emotion is also a deletion or even if you just minimize it I think I was thinking like some of the notional things would take a while to take off but I think that some of it like the worry is more of a trained worry then um than like an actual worry it's more of just I'm in the habit of worrying er so true so there's things that I'm worrying about that are more habit worries than actual ruse that I could be more aware off it's like a dance you've learned in your brain yeah and you've learned well replacing that and that's what we'll be doing in that that the third session part three is creating some new new habits to replace that some other little small things that come up that people have worked with me on it just getting things that come from old stories or expectations like I should have a perfect house or I should have this done because that's what was always done sometimes we just need to update that we've well it's not that important anymore it's just not as important as it was and that those things are very different for different people so simon anything come up for you on that of more emotional stuff so I have an orange here regret I think that's one of the nights that plague even in anything in my life like even that this workshop I'm thinking I should have done a workshop like this seven years ago and then my life would be better you had to wait for me to day of it. Oh yeah isn't it funny hot? Isn't it powerful to write the word down realize how much energy is spent on it? Yeah it's something I'm aware that actually if if I could figure out how to not you know how that yeah it's just this record that play will be anything in my life it'll just constantly if I could learn how to delete that that song I would be quite happy on I would offer that that's when you're not going to delete but we could tie another habit to it where okay, this isn't go to space for your brain you have wired together neurons that go down this pathway as well as somebody else can roller skate you know, just you do it well so your brain does it so efficiently that it's not going to undo it really quickly you can't just say, you know, if I told you all to stop thinking about chocolate right now, how well does that work? You're salivating or so it doesn't with emotional ones the deletion has to occur in a little bit different way you you have to choose to spend that energy to recognize it and spend it a little bit differently and so you give yourself the space if you know of it's simon regretting wow, what emotion would I'd like to put in here um how would I like to package that regret there's some things you can play with around that with um you know, giving yourself first of all the compassion you know wow it's something I do that's ok, I'm still a good person even though I regret I'm still a good person but I really would like to choose to play with this emotion around this concept that I have I want to play choose to play with opportunity and possibility as opposed to regret so you're tagging it together and making the other choice and that takes practice it takes like the learning something on the piano it takes practice so to practice specifically like how would I do that like? So tell me something that's well, let's, just take this is a fun like so like, you know, getting that came up, I was like, I had had an opportunity yeah, I get five, six years to go to do some kind of, um, career kind of assessment, you know e didn't something, you know, that it came up today? I'm like. So how do I instead of regretting that I think you know what? I did what's the thought process to do instead, why didn't you do it then? I I didn't I didn't at that time care for the person who is training it didn't feel like there was this energy that moment but a reason then it probably wouldn't have been very effective what it might not have them say that again so you didn't have synergy with the person who was doing it were you ready to do it then yeah I might not have been ready two actually yeah do that process I might not have been in the right you know in the place that could have gotten the value out of it potentially you know what's funny about regret is a lot of times we are transposing who we are now back on the decision we made then and the reality is you're ready now you weren't ready then or you would have done it we need to trust ourselves more so so when you feel the regret you just honor it and say wow there's my regret what dough I really know to be true about it the data is I you know I didn't do it I'm doing that type of thing now and I'm going to thrive and you have to keep switching your focus it's an interesting point you say that how we transpose ourselves because there's a lot of this kinds of circumstances where like there's something I thought about doing tonight whatever reason I wasn't obvious wasn't ready to do it are obviously I would have done it but yeah I I wasn't in a place like can't like say working on, uh, a novel like there was I'd wanted to start but whatever reason, and it was until last year that it really I could even start it like my mind wasn't in that place and this kind of thing's, so yeah, but then I will regret the five years I didn't do it or something, you know, I think we know it's a good point that that we transit's cooperating with hindsight, right? And, boy, would our lives be different if we could apply high incitement in, you know, entered grade let's go forward with everything we would have learned five years from now, right? Yeah, but it's a good point, it's like, but you're my I wasn't really in the place that I could do that thing. Yeah, yeah. So the other thing that comes up for this as we tend to assign a lot of urgency to what's on our plate. A whole lot of urgency. We make mountains out of mole hills. We maketh, um, mountains right in front of us, and we make them the mountain we have to climb today. Um, and sometimes we've made things so pseudo important and pseudo urgent, and they don't even belong on the plate. You ever find yourself doing some activity and you stop in the middle of it kind of wait a minute. What am I doing? This has nothing to do with my purpose. This has nothing to do with what I set out to do even if it's a dumb thing even for me it's like surfing for something that on online I can waste an enormous amount of time surfing for something online and it's then stop in the middle of it. You know, I don't even need to be doing this. This has nothing to do with what happens with my purpose. I need to take it off, but I also need to take other things off. Uh, I'm packing to move and I had this unrealistic expectation that I was going to do this in the most organized way I was gonna have this down sort of like I was also going to be like the best divorce say that ever happened and I was gonna handle it all real well, tad unrealistic expectations and I was going to do this move and be very organized of course. Now it's down to that path you want anybody who's moved now you get down to the days there's like, just get it in the box, you know, and you're begging the movers to take it if it's not in the box but but I need to take off of there my expectation I need to take off the pressure that it needs to be done perfectly and I just need to get moved I can deal with the rest later so I have on here purge organized sort all these different things I need to let him go now they don't suit my purpose of actually just getting there and getting into my life that I'm creating I'll do it but I it took me a while to realize I was doing that to myself and I needed to take it off. Does that make sense any deletions coming in from the online world? It's interesting some of the things that they've been sharing skate is saying they've wasted so much time with their aps that's something they need to believe on others are actually naming individual once a swell that they need to get rid of absolutely and some and others are saying email it's actually what you were saying their occurrence well, we're sorry uh julie was saying that they need to just get rid of it. Yeah, I spent an entire afternoon session in an organization on the email policy um but we can create personal email policies and you know what? We train people how to behave around us, we don't really realize that, but we do and that's part of expectations and there's a long there's so much interplay between stress and expectations were expecting that they won't think we value them if we don't answer the email right away they're expecting that we don't value them if we you know it's this crazy game that we're playing without calling out what it iss and when we actually call it out and say you know what? I totally value your input on this project or I totally value your position in my life and I'm overwhelmed and I need to limit my email time has nothing to do with my feelings or my value I need to limit my email time and streamline it get more efficient and I welcome your I really welcome your comments on how to do it and what works for us tohave flow of conversation which is the point which much like coming backto what's our point what's the point of this thing that you're doing and get out of the weeds does that make sense? Yeah um any yeah all right, I can use your moving analogy as something to sort of take off of my plate so I'm starting a blogged that just is talking about my journey and my insights into my conquering my auto immune disease and I have a lot of expectations over perfectionism of the content needs to be just right it needs to be just, you know, perfectly um easy for everyone to just kevin epiphany and it's supposed to be this perfectly crafted thing um and I just need to get stuff out there so I know howto iterated and improve uh, so that's definitely l a big weight that could be perfectionism can load a plate faster than anything. I know that I know it intimately, I want to do it perfectly, and as I've been in business for myself and I, I watch people who do similar businesses and you go to networking events and compare who's doing what and stuff and you see the people, perfectionism is a place you can really get stuck, and it could definitely load a plate and suck the energy out of you, and it makes you procrastinate because you don't want to take that first step because what if you don't take the right first step and that doesn't lead to the right second step in the end product? Why step to begin with if you're going to those land mines? It's, it's, that's, treacherous territory? Yeah, and in that regard because I deal with that perfectionism lot and content. So I, um one thing to this workshop by thinking about it, get reframing that kind of stuff is just plain, you know, like it's like, uh, if you're just going to go, you know, play basketball or, you know, the you won't carry you going to do a perfect first or whatever you just have fun you know with writing content create if you're just do you know say with my own creative writing I'm just having fun then it's a different kind of thing that I need to make this perfect so then it will get someday rave reviews in the new york times and you know everyone salar e better not start because it's just like I just feel playing around you know, doing art or whatever then it's a different thank you, thank you, thank you for saying that because that is a huge stress relieving mindset did you humans were actually born to play we're wired toe learn through play wih heir not wired tto learn it in desk doing this we're born to interact with our environment and make connection neural connections and see novel thing that's how we're engaged it's how we learn and it's how we make things less stressful if you think about an infant uh maybe like a two year old um actually going back up let's think about it like a close to one year old about tow walk does anybody criticize them for falling down? No, we expect them and we laugh and we get going we giggle with them we expect to be exploring and playful well guess what that's our wiring at that age a child is building like two billion connections per second in their brain, just tea it's alive, and they're exploring the world and think about how they do that, you know, they want to touch everything and feel and look and see and look behind that's our wiring that that just open, curious, exploring, playful mode and when we can come back to that mood, that approach and look at this and say, you know, I want to play around with this, I want to play with what would work best for me and not getting it perfect, but what if I were going toe that's like my favorite phrase? What if what if I made this bubble smaller and played with making this bubble bigger? What would that look like? And it's research you? You don't know. So what if what if somebody comes to you and asked you to do something that doesn't fit your gps? What can you say? No good one, simon, you're so good at this, you know? And if this person is a person of authority or person who really matters to you, how can you expand on that? No. Well, when it's, in the context of ah business than it's usually there's, it could be them there's, the mission of the business what I have dealt with us you know the ceo might come to me and say let's do x great idea fantastic idea of the day and we have to look at that and say okay, well, that sounds excellent and you know let's do some research to see if that's really gonna yeah um but that seems like that will help the company in the mission of the cos that's how you know in terms of the company itself that's because what you just did was bring it back to the big picture right? Because that person stuck in just getting this thing done usually we're thinking that ideas the most fantastic which it may be or may be right but but that's not the same is my own particular mission or purpose so I'm not sure how I quite literally what if I come to you and you've got a really full plate and you're financially pretty overloaded right now as well and I have this a good friend of yours and I have this fabulous volunteer organization that I'd like you to help me with and you know your band with is how can you say no and I still feel nice so I guess it's about saying no but keeping the connection so that they understand that you know it's really important to you teo well, it was really important for me to help you and your organization but like it comes down to the fact that I don't have the time or money so I'd be like, you know, but maybe I can help you in a month's time when my place is you know, clear or you know, when I'm I I'm able to financially you know and so it's like it's no, but I guess okay, so I that's great because what you did was honor me you honored that my need it is a valuable need on dh that's lovely I would upgrade that with one this is a coaching technique but yes and instead of yes but because but the word but just makes our brains go so yes and and I would probably not leave the door open the way you just did to say, you know, if there's another way I can support you um or you want a brain storm to whom you could turn for support happy to do that with you? I think it's great you're doing this I wish I could play with you right now in that field, but I can't you hear that? Yeah, so it's a matter of I think we get very black and white about no, you know I can't do it when, um we have especially a business culture that has made no mean that you're out of here, you know? Well, we're always going to find somebody more eager and cheaper to do it so we're we're afraid to say no, we're afraid to say no, because we don't wanna let somebody down we're afraid to say no, because we actually might lose her job over it or we're afraid to say no, because we're missing out on something that maybe we should say yes to back to the simon's, you know? Well, maybe I should have gone down that path. Um, we're afraid to say no and owning what that fear is about first can help you do what you just did, julia and say, I want to connect if I'm afraid that if I say no to this person, I'm gonna lose that connection that I need to connect if I'm afraid that I'm gonna lose my job over this, then I need to make sure that that other person understands I understand the mission of the company and that I'm not the right person to do it right now that which has been another one that's been kind of funds come up, I've done this in groups the no exercise could get quite comical, so play with it. I mean, do do play with saying no um, yesterday I had a sort of a no situation where neighbor had texted, um two of it myself in another neighbour and said, anyone going out for a walk soon and I said, you know no I'm doing this and this and then she said um oh boo I have cabin fever and um you know, at first it was it was relatively easy for me to say no I can't do it apart in part because it was the end of the day here and I was literally you know, I couldn't be home right away but I did you know, had I really needed to get him to go to the walker could have forgone cem errands but so it was relatively easy but then when she said the boo I have cabin fever um I had a ah lot of different thoughts around that you know, first it was like uh and then it was sort of like, well, I'm not in charge of your cabin fever not that boundaries right um but then I just let it go with that but I had I didn't know if I should just let it go or um I didn't feel complete uh, closure or something around that what do you think she needed because she had cabin fever ah break from shy she's working on a sort of ah ah hard problem for were and so I think she was reaching out to you and you like to help people so that really hooked you pretty darn fast didn't it all right so the I applaud you for saying no because managing your energy is huge and setting boundaries is huge and their ways to do it without feeling that icky feeling to say that you know, I I wish I could spend time with you right now that would be a lot of fun and I really have to do blah, blah, blah but you're you're letting that other person feel honored and heard anything coming in from online world it's interesting lots of people are saying that they find but is a horrible word because it negates everything that preceded it etcetera listen that's one thing they definitely want to delete and take but after their vocabulary but other people just saying, you know that really I like this work perfection itis is a problem for red school crematory disease I just means inflammation that's a good one from red scorpios in san diego on the same but you know, it's been a problem they've struggled with that they are getting much better meeting that from their life on deleting self doubt that's another one that's come up doubting seems to be things that people yeah really struggle with we all do and I think the first step there's a bit of fraud syndrome that comes into self doubt that I'm doubting myself and so if I'm doubting myself, you might be able to actually see that I'm not who I think I and pretending to be right now and there's there all tied together and yet I have not worked with a single individual who doesn't have some version of inner critic or self doubt high achievers tend to have huge inner critics because it helped drive them to get that far so showing some compassion for it the family systems therapy approach where you just you know thank you doubt thank you critic um yeah helped me push myself this far in right now I'm okay I'm just okay andi you know, if the number of people were frauds who think they're frauds we've just you have a big old fraud party it's on dh that's again tying back to connecting it to what we've been doing the more you get in touch with your values and strengths that will help with the doubt as well because some of that doubt is that I should be somebody other than who I am um I think that for a long time I was very stressed out and I, um really coveted just my alone time and I coveted so I think I was so stressed out that I really protected what was on my plate and I think, um sometimes I've protected my plate too much now that I'm not a stress I'm not allowing mawr to come on my plate and maybe even things that would be energy fulfilling friends and that kind of thing so do you have any tips on allowing maybe not more stressful things on your plate but allowing more good on your plate I've just been so protected that I don't want more on my plate because I have a story in my head that I have so much going on and now I don't have much going on and I can do more so the question is does this feed me and I think that the the answer could be yes but I still resist it because I'm I'm stuck in a story that it's just too much on I love that you're saying that because we do get stuck in our stories are we carried them over from something and you know it so you're good you're fine you know it and you're going to know the pieces that feel right just recognize the story just recognize it for what it is and then step away and say what's my data what story of my adding where do I need who do I want to be the same four questions when you feel stuck so that that's great you know you're doing hard work you're doing really hard work and nobody said that stress management was very easy I um you know, I came from medicine and I really am not going to address the medication of stress and anxiety in this siri's but are our cultural expectation is that we can take something and continue to do the same thing we're doing and it really takes hard work and skill management to turn around this stress formula it takes deciding to be who you want to be on during the hard work to do it but do it in a playful way do it with fun the more fun and play in your life the better you're actually be stronger if I may just when you're saying that it reminded me of you know, our discussion about you're dealing with the auto immune and everything I mean the whole thing of like oh, I need to protect myself from this food in that food and all those things they're gonna hurt me you know? And you know, it sounds like maybe that's kind of a philosophy a lot of things sounds like potentially and you know but does it feet doesn't feed you it's an interesting question and the nurse, nurse, nurse, nurse, nurse and what it is you know you're doing what you need to do your protecting your safety at the same time don't let it cut off your nourishment example was yesterday for me I'm an introvert, so going through you know these workshops and having three days at a time it can be very depleting I'm loving it, but it could be depleting it's a lot of times I'll just want to race home, but simon and I decided that oh, are you gonna hang out today, after the workshop and I saw a sort of waver like, wow, I really, you know, shouldn't there? My bias was to say, no, I mean, just leave, but we ended up hanging out, having a great time, and so that was that nourishment and the good. So I want every time the word should comes out of your mouth, I want you to take a breath if we all took a breath every time we said should either out loud or between our ears, we would be happier people just take the breath, have that pause and let you really being come through. We need to say no more. We have the most unrealistic expectation is that we can do eighteen billion things and do him well, and we don't want to let go of that, and we don't want to let go of the possibility that we might have excelled at that one, and we don't want to let go of the possibility that a group of friends is going off to have fun and do this, and we had to choose between two events just know that, but realize that it's about balancing your energy, where do you want to spend it and use who you are to choose that and choose some fun, fun feeds you?