I commonly hear the phrase “I have way too much to do.”
What was interesting, was that instead of hearing this, it was me that was saying it.
In the days leading up to my trip to Europe that has both work and vacation parts, the list of things to do was getting overwhelming. I din’t realized how I was coming across until I had a session with my personal trainer and two days before my trip and during it he asked me what’s wrong. I started telling him how much I had to do and how a last minute audition the day before was just added was stressing me out.
The Power Of External Perspectives
This is where he asked: What happened to your gratitude? As soon he said that, it hit me, I was living out of alignment, ignoring the aspect that I feel is central to successful living: gratitude. This is where Sean had me do a rephrase on my to-do list, to acknowledge the gratitude that this many people were seeking me services, that these opportunities had arisen, that I was about to have an amazing experience in Europe for the next 3 weeks.
As soon as the reframing of tasks occurred, I felt a shift in power, one of purpose, knowing that accomplishing these tasks would make the trip even better as it would be a reward for the accomplishments.
Why This Happens
We’re often too close. We’re too focused in the details of our lives that we lose the bigger picture. 2 years ago, being overwhelmed with business opportunities would have been a dream, it would have validated my decision to chose the path of creating a business based on my desire to inspire people to break free from from fear and anxiety to live with power and yet, here we were. It’s common that we become conditioned to our lives, where we lose perspective of how far we’ve progressed and this is when having someone make these types of observations can be invaluable. They only see the big picture, the details are your own journey, one that is followed in the background.
How You Can Reconnect
1. Don’t beat yourself up:
You may feel guilty and think that you’re ungrateful, but that isn’t true. You’ve only adapted to your new conditioning and have focused too much on the details. The first step is in acknowledging that this is a common experience and what matters is that you’re aware of it.
2. List out what you’re grateful for:
By writing out what you’re grateful for, you reconnect with the abundance of great things you have in your life. We all do, it’s just that life often clouds these aspects with the overwhelm of our society. You will bring up items that you forgot about and it will make you feel great.
3. Reinforce what this means to you:
It’s one thing to write out a list and you deepen the meaning of it significantly by linking it to what it means to you. Grateful for your family? What does that do for you? It likely gives you support through encouragement, motivation, and a sounding board when needed.
4. Show appreciation:
The way that you seal in the gratitude and set yourself up to receive more is to express appreciation to those people in your life that contribute to your gratitude list. Appreciation when received is an amazing feeling, it allows you to feel loved and when when this occurs, people will WANT to help you more because they know you appreciate it.
5. Get Moving!
Now that you’re grateful and have showed appreciation, now it’s time for business. Take your list of items and start with the most important and do not look at anything else until it is completed…absolutely nothing else! If there’s one way to increase your productivity, it’s to prioritize and focus only on one item. This gives you momentum, you get into a state of action and when on the roll, keep moving and build on your successes.
You can never have too much gratitude and appreciation, it will power you and allow you to focus on living your life to the highest level 🙂