There are two days. They look relatively similar:
The first one I wake up, stress in my blood, anxious, making coffee, urgently filling up my water bottle, spilling a little on the counter. I go through the motions, minute to minute, chasing the work. I record a few podcast episodes, I ship all the essays that need to go out the door, I answer all the emails (okay, that never happens), but you get the picture.
The second one, I wake up, I breathe. I exhale. I make the coffee (or tea). I take a few extra seconds, maybe sixty seconds total, to move from the bedroom to the kitchen. I still do the same amount of work, the podcast recordings, and the essays—but my demeanor, posture, and relaxation are completely different.
How you do it is just as important as what you do
There are many ways to go about a day. It’s not always as important what gets done as it is how I am and who I’m being in the process of all the doing and non-doing that I’m engaged in.
In my mastermind circles, we call this “ways of being.”
We work through three major phases and processes:
- Reflections—harvesting lessons from past experiences.
- Planning—setting goals, intentions, and measurements for the future.
- Being—sharing who we want to be and how we want to show up in our life.
In my experience, we all can adopt goal setting processes and tools. But it’s one thing to set a plan and accomplish it, and make yourself miserable throughout the entire experience.
What’s missing, for me, is the question: who do you want to be while you’re journeying there?
How do you want to feel? What kind of person do you want to be in the moments that lead up to the experience? The cliche about the journey being as important as the destination is apt, here.
For example: I want to write, and I want to feel satisfied, spent, and accomplished while doing it. I want to exercise, and I want to feel powerful, at my limit, and strong while doing it.
How do you want to show up in the process of making your work (and your mark) on the world?
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