In the last newsletter I spoke about our own personal battery of energy and an exercise that helps determine where your energy is going…. are you draining or filling your tank?
If you did this exercise, I can almost guarantee you noticed your tank draining activities far outweighed your tank filling activities. If you did not get a chance to read it click here to read the full article.
In living our best life we recognize that we will always have activities aka responsibilities in this adulting life that drain us. There are some activities we cannot pass on to our children or spouse or hire someone to do….activities we simply must do ourselves depending on our stage and place in life.
But what if we can make these activities less draining and maybe even tank filling?
I believe we can by doing one of three things… changing our perspective, changing our approach and finally having a little fun!
A Change Of View
We take responsibility for our chores/activities on our to do list, whether we hate them or not, in many cases to honor ourselves. Thus, by changing our view of the activity we may then find the task less draining. To change our view of the activity first evaluate the “must do” task and the why behind it.
For example, you hate cleaning the toilet as your young boys cannot “hit the bowl”.
You do it because you want a clean surface for hygienic purposes, it looks nicer but also, it’s visibly clean when you put your butt down on it!
You realize you are grateful the boys are at this stage of life. You are no longer changing their diapers and you are cleaning an indoor facility and not an outhouse!
It does not necessarily make cleaning the toilet the most fun you are going to have in your day, but changing your perspective may help it become less draining of a chore as it is now a privilege to do the activity.
PS… soon the boys will be old enough to clean the toilets themselves!
What activities on your list are activities that you do for self-respect or self-honoring?
Change Your Approach
Look at the must do tasks and identify which one of these help you achieve your goals? We all have dreams and reaching them comes with some must do tasks that are not all sugar and spice and everything nice… There is much hard work and perseverance required make our dreams a reality.
For example, balancing the cheque book.
Money is an issue in so many households because of the belief’s we have around money primarily based on how we grew up. Whether good, bad, or indifferent, we all have belief’s surrounding money that may be preventing us from reaching our goals.
In my household growing up it was more a lack belief around money. We even had a sign on our dining room wall saying, “Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?”
Understanding how much is coming in and where the money is going is important for your financial health and reaching for your dreams. Stressful at times, hell yes, but if you have no idea where you are you cannot figure out how you are going to get where you want to go.
Understanding where you are allows you to make plans on where you want to be and how to take the steps necessary to get there. It allows you to get out of the fear and worry into courage and step into your power to control your own destiny.
Changing your approach around balancing the cheque book from fear to courage will help you regain control, putting the power back into your own hands and soon enough, perhaps balancing the check book would then have more uplifting tank filling potentials versus draining.
What activities in your list are helping you achieve your goals in life?
Have some Fun!
Yes, some activities, no matter how hard we try we begrudgingly do – we hate every minute of our time doing them…. But what if you could make the more enjoyable?
For example, weeding the garden.
You realize you will enjoy the fruits of your labour (view point is great) and the nourishment it will provide will help you reach your health goals but it still, you still procrastinate making the work load larger…. so what do you do?
Bring out the old boom box!
LOL….I just aged myself there….
Get out the Bluetooth speaker and play some of your favorite tunes. It certainly makes the activity a bit more enjoyable as you focus on singing to your favourite songs versus how dirty your hands are getting. Heck you might even bust a bit of a move!
Look at the must do list and see what activities you can sing/dance to, listen to your favorite pod cast etc. while you are doing them just to make the time that much more enjoyable. Maybe you will start to love these activities!
As always, I would love to hear from you. If you gained any insights or just want to share one thing you do to help make your draining activities more enjoyable don’t keep that a secret and share!
