Enjoy
more of what 'living well' means
for you
an
education, coaching and publishing organization
Creating exciting
strategies
for 'living well'
WellnessU helps you
enjoy
more of
what
'living well'
means
for you
R&D Team Assignment:
Name Your Monsters
Saturday evening
Friend:
We all have areas of clutter, overwhelm, unfinished business and overly busy-ness in our lives.
And we tend to unconsciously devote serious amounts of energy just to ignoring these areas... Sweeping them under the rug. Pushing them just beyond the periphery of our ready awareness.
Still, you know they're there.
Maybe they're even in your way.
And in the background these things nag at you and nip at you and bother you and stress you and muddy your thinking and vision and sap at your self-esteem and drag you down.
I call them "monsters." We make them out to be huge, terrible, depressing, distasteful, disgusting, maybe even frightening, tasks/issues. And we attempt to hide from them. Do anything but deal with them head-on.
And in so doing, of course...
We let monsters rule
For me, a big one is housekeeping. (Or office-keeping.)
I too frequently will put off clearing and sorting and filing and cleaning until it is a seemingly utterly overwhelming and extremely complex job. Until I run the risk that the governor could declare a disaster area.
And then when I finally am so crippled by this monster that I declare an "emergency" cleanup day (or week!) and actually clear, sort, file, clean, toss....I rediscover, time and again, amazingly, that suddenly, almost like magic, my work has made a quantum leap forward.
My mind clears, my productivity improves, my mood lightens and I feel happier. And so much more social. Suddenly I WANT people to visit and see my cool, neat, efficient work environment and living space. (For the two or three days it lasts.)
I know--thank goodness--that clearing, filing, sorting, cleaning is probably not the problem for you that it is for me. Not your monster. And that's why I'm writing.
Where are your monsters?
I want to build a 70-point or 100-point assessment keyed to the many areas/aspects in our lives that we allow to nag at us because it seems easier to put up with the nagging than to solve the problems.
What are the things in your life that just seem too hard, too complex, too out of control, too time-consuming, too unimportant, too low priority, too ____ (fill in the blank), to actually clean up, complete, confront, make sense of, resolve, etc.?
Assignment:
Two harmonious parts.
1. Email me a list of 5, 10, 20, 30 or more "monsters" in your life. Name them; identify them. Then go back once you've got a good list going and add some notes. Where are they, what are they, why are they?
After compiling the list, consider and note if they tend to fall into any particular categories of your life. What categories and why might that be?
2. In the same email, make a separate list of 5 or 10 monster areas/situations that used to be difficult to tame, keep current with, manage, confront...until you discovered X, or changed X, or decided X, experienced X, or married Y (who now handles it for you, bless her or his heart).
Do as much or as little of this exercise as you wish. More is better. It IS a coaching exercise as well as an R&D Team assignment for the Simple Elegance program.
If you really get into it, it will help you identify some helpful shifts. As well as help me put together a great, useful assessment.
Feel free to comment on what you may have learned or gained from doing this assignment. I'd like to hear.
Reward!
Reward for extremely exceptional participation:
Send me a helpful, meaningful response with in-depth lists that include 15 or more considerations from category 1 (recurrent monsters) and 20 or more from category 2 (tamed monsters) and you may request your choice of a complimentary copy (my gift to you*) of:
The Prospering Power of Love by Catherine Ponder, softcover, 118 pages, DeVorss;
or
The Positive Bible by moi, softcover, 300 pages, Avon.
(*Offer limited to quantities on hand. For shipping outside the U.S., recipient must pay actual shipping costs.)
Deadline:
Please return your lists and comments/observations by March 23, 2002.
Best,
ken winston caine
© ken winston caine; all rights reserved