How to Prioritize from your Spirit, Not Your Mind

Happy new year!

If you are like many (myself included), you are happy to see 2020 be gone, and you have a lot of ideas, hopes, and dreams for this new year. Part of my ritual that starts around the winter solstice and bleeds just into the new year is to take a while to do an inventory of my life of the previous year, all I have accomplished, what I’m grateful for as well as what I hope the new year holds. While I have specific goals in each area, I also come up with a word of the year for each. (You can read more on my word of the year and my specific reflections in my newsletter here - be sure to sign up to receive my occasional newsletter right in your inbox.)

One of the things that has to happen in order for us to achieve these goals in the new year is prioritization. I have a lot of things I want to accomplish this year, and also a lot of things I enjoy. So how do I decide what to focus on first?

There’s a myriad of different ways to prioritize, but my favorite way is to get underneath my prefrontal cortex and all of the things my brain things I “should” do, and listen instead to what my spirit really wants to do.

For example, I love to workout. I love yoga, I love to run, I love to lift weights, and I love to dance. If I use the executive function of my brain, and also what society tells me is good, I will do this a lot. Because health is a priority, and I enjoy exercise, and society tells me these are good things, it can be super easy to let this particular category dominate. (If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that for the past two years it has, running my first 50k in November 2019 to running 50 miles this past October.)

But if I give myself the opportunity to sit down and quiet, my spirit tells me that, while exercise is something important and crucial and necessary for my life, what I really want now is to write.

That means that, despite the fact that I would happily spend 3+ hours today moving my body, I know that 30-60 minutes is enough. In that extra time, I will write (or work on one of my other big goals for this year).

Prioritization is discipline. It’s taking a good inventory of everything that is important, both in your brain and in your spirit, and deciding how to spend your time accordingly.

For all of my perfectionists, this comes with some news: you cannot do everything. You cannot do everything and you certainly cannot do everything perfectly. If you were to take optimal care of your health, finances, relationships, spirit, home, etc., you would legitimately do nothing else but self care.

So, what are you holding on to that you can let go of? Or, where can you do something a little less perfectly?

For me, it’s swapping out hours on the trails and a daily yoga practice for just enough movement each day, so I can also write (and, fingers crossed, finally remodel the kitchen this year).

Let me know in the comments what your SPIRIT wants, and what you’re willing to let go of to follow that.

(Side note: you can borrow my word of the year of FAITH if that makes you a little bit terrified.)

Lots of love and happy new year!

A priority for everyone.

Free Up Your Mental Real Estate

Mental real estate.

That’s what’s on my mind this morning.

When making a change, there’s phases to that change. Phases that are natural, normal - things that everyone experiences. The transtheoretical model of change tell us change goes like this:

• Precontemplation (not even considering change) to

• Contemplation (considering change) to

• Preparation (plans to make change in the next few months) to

• Action (making the change) to

• Maintenance (sustaining new behavior for six months or more)

It seems all nice and linear and neat, but it’s not. We cycle through these phases of change over and over again - contemplation to action to preparation and back. And this is normal. It’s what we call ambivalence. When change (or “action”) starts to happen and you haven’t competely resolved that ambivalence, it’s easy to fall of the action train really quickly.

Not that you have to completely resolve your ambivalence before getting started. There’s that motto “Start before you’re ready” and - there’s truth in that. Sometimes, seeing positive change in the desired direction is enough to solve that ambivalence, solidify your commitment, and keep momentum moving that direction.

But, not always. Especially if ambivalence is so high, that our actions are only half hearted. For example, a person starting a new diet may think it’s a good idea; this person has read the book, feels confident in the evidence, and tries it out for a few days. When change doesn’t happen within a few short days, and the discomfort of the reality of changing eating patterns has set in, that person may decide weight loss efforts are futile and quit - or, the search for the “right” or “better” diet might set in.

So, back to mental real estate.

If you find yourself cycling like this, ask yourself: how much time to you spend debating in your head? How much mental real estate does this desired behavior change occupy?

Indecision is still a decision, but you’re mentally trapped in it. With a decision - even a decision you’re not fully sure of, you free up your mind space to enjoy other things. Whether you decide change is important enough to pursue and to suffer the discomfort of starting a new behavior, or decide to accept yourself as you are and suffer the discomfort of remaining the same, at least you have chosen and you can move on. You reclaim your power in decision.

It reminds me of my favorite quote from a Starbucks cup from over a decade ago:

The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. -Anne Morris

Making a decision, and a commitment, will give you freedom.

As someone who personally struggles with decision in a few key areas, this idea is captivating for me.

Are there areas of your life that are occupying too much of your mental real estate? What needs to happen for you to - finally - make a decision and free yourself from the “tyranny of your internal critic”?

(Coaching helps with these things. We are trained in techniques like motivational interviewing and appreciative inquiry, which have been proven to help in behavior change. If you want to know if coaching is right for you, let’s chat. Email me here.)

Self Care Is Not a Pedicure

Over the past month, I have been working with several individual wellness coaching clients. The issues we are working through cover a wide variety of topics, but the issue that seems to be recurring over and over again is on Self Care.

At least three separate clients this week have said some phrase to me this week similar to this: “I would love to work more on __________, but honestly it seems so selfish. My family/work/spouse comes first, and I feel guilty taking a moment for myself when I could be doing something for others.”

In recent years, self care is praised all over the internet. Unfortunately, the type of self care I see touted most frequently is not true self care, but is sold as such under some guise of consumerism or avoidance. How often do you hear the phrases below, think them, or believe them to be true?

• “I deserve this glass of wine.”

• “A pedicure is my gift to myself.”

• “My self care is watching Netflix at the end of a hard day.”

These activities, while not harmful in and of themselves, are a direct result of the consumerism of our society. True Self Care is a world apart from these activities. To be clear: there is nothing wrong with having a glass of wine, getting a pedicure, or engaging in some good old Netflix - the problem becomes the confusion between these activities and true self care.

So what is real Self Care? It’s the basic, mundane activities we so often forget in our attempt to please the world around us. Self Care is attention. It says “I am worth the time it takes to pay attention to my thoughts, desires, and needs. I know that sometimes, I will need to placate my inner four year old and eat ice cream for dinner, but most of the time I will remember the health benefits of broccoli and eat that instead.” It is parenting yourself, out of love for your future self.

It looks like discipline, but when we can tap into it as a choice we are making for a greater good, it feels like a powerful stance of freedom.

Sometimes, it can look like disappointing others in the immediate future. But, consider what is more kind: disappointing someone in the moment to take time for yourself to run, make dinner, journal, etc - or placating what they want, putting your own needs off, and building a slow and steady resentment that may eventually eat at the relationship.

Self Care is parenting yourself, so that you can show up more authentically for others.

Just for a nice visual, I like to remember the quadrants of prioritization that Stephen Covey outlines in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (image below). Self Care often falls under the important but not urgent category, and thus it can easily get steamrolled by things that are urgent and important (like a deadline at work) or urgent but not important (like a ringing telephone or answering emails). Sometimes, we let the things that are not urgent and not important (social media, phone games) step over this category, too, because Self Care is not always fun and glamorous in the moment, and things like social media can be a welcome distraction. However, real Self Care leads to lasting and meaningful change that trickles into all other aspects of your life.

What do your quadrants look like, and what is Self Care for you on its deepest level? How will you begin to take steps to implement that in your life?

(P.S. If you need some extra help - behavior change is hard - coaching can help with just this. We get to the root of what it is you want, and figure out how to take small steps in that direction utilizing your strengths to get you from here to there over a period of time. Contact me if you’re interested.)

Image Source: Wikipedia.