Monday Morning Prep

If you have the luxury, I suggest time and time again, that Monday be your prep day. Perhaps you can only take an hour, or maybe even a morning, but one of the most productive things you can do is to start off the day, and the week, by looking, cleaning and preparing yourself and work space for what is to come.

It is easy sometimes to get bogged down in the to-dos right away. It is too common to jump right in and be in reaction to all that is being asked of you. Yet, I can tell the difference in my productivity, mood and effectiveness, when I pause, I direct my attention to my mission and purpose of work, and then look to the details. Everything that comes up, every “to-do” that rushes into your mind, can have their space on a piece of paper – just not your mental or emotional self. You owe it to yourself and to whatever and whomever you are working for, to start, even if metaphorically, from this place of purpose.

Set your weekly goals. Visualize your week and the best it could possibly be. Breathe deeply as you enter into the ocean of needs and abundance that lays before you.

You will never be given a task, where you also aren’t given the tools to accomplish it.

But first, you must go to your toolkit, take each one out and make sure they are ready and prepped for the job. You must look at your self and your life and design your week and your days to fit your strengths and needs. While it sounds indulgent to us who are “pleasers”, consistently focused on the needs around us, it may be the only way to truly do our job to the best of our ability.

Following your own blueprint at work

It is interesting moving into February and March. This weekend marks the beginning of a downhill slope for me of event after event. All I can think of when August finally does come is that I will have gotten at least 100 times better at all my jobs with all this practice!

But the question- the balance- lays in the approach. Will I derive a judgment of my work by the approval of others? Will success lay in the hands of my colleagues, bosses and general opinion? Or will I so dare to acknowledge the one true judgment, the one true standard, the one that lays within me?

It is an act of vulnerability to fearlessly pursue the tasks before you with your own personal blueprint for joy and unique expression. You are taking off the cloak of business, of stress, or being overburdened, which in some work environments can be measurements of your effort or even success at completing the job.

It is radical to find joy where others find stress. It is radical to trust when typically we try to control. It is radical to move from your heart not your head at your desk.

Like most radical things this new movement of yours will either die of its own accord- or change the world- your world- in deeply moving and profound ways to produce a life you were destined to live.

So yes, there is risk at working according to your own blueprint. But there in also lies the risk of never trying, the pain of conforming to a shape that isn’t yours, and a life spent worrying and stressing over the fickle opinions of others.

I hope as I begin this busy season of work that I remember my own orientation. That I make decisions aligned with the Divine that lives within me and that I remember this guidance is always available so I too can relax and enjoy this marvelous ride.

Your greatest weapon against stress

Next time you feel stress, realize the choices you have.

The only thing that is forever in our control is how we react to things, and therefore the subsequent meanings we give things.

When things start to feel overwhelming. Stop. Breath. Recognize that you have the choice to proactively do something, instead of re-actively fret.

One of the best cures for stress is action. It doesn’t matter if you initially think the action you are taking is too small. Everyone can only eat, do, think, be so much at one time. Get the momentum going. This is not only the movement of accomplishment and completion, but the movement of proactively.

Being proactive is your greatest weapon. This will make all the difference.

Don’t dare use stress as an excuse to not do something. Never let it be your disability. Instead, make it the fire that burns away all that in unnecessary – including, perhaps most importantly, the stress itself.

May the overwhelming situation be a Divinely Ordained lesson designed for you to claim your own power and to put that into action.