Centered & Productive

Two weeks ago I addressed WINK, group of women entrepreneurs on how to use Feng Shui to help you achieve your goals, emphasizing balance and how you should pay attention to all aspects in your life and not just the areas you want great achievements in. 

For example if you have the goal of making $250,000 what happens all too often is that we pay attention to one or two of the exciting parts of our life that will produce the results for that particular goal and then neglect everything else that won't help us get to that goal.  Our health or our personal life in turn suffers.  When we neglect something it has a way of capturing our attention again, in a whiny can't ignore me little kid way. Which in turn takes our attention from what we are trying to achieve.

I made this same mistake not once, but twice in the last few months. Embarrassingly I was even making the mistake after  I had stressed to everyone else about the importance of balance. I was so focused on a particular goal (getting 5 houses in escrow) for the month that I started to let a few of my other goals (like going to bed at 10 or 11 at the latest) slip away assuring myself that is was temporary and worth it. It didn't hit me that I was out of balance until I woke up congested and suffering from a soar throat. My tunnel vision was costing me yet again.

PANIC- can't get sick, because then I can't reach my goal, and worse yet I can't be sick for our trip to Disney World which was why I needed to reach my goal in the first place. Load up on vitamin C, ginger, tea and everything else I could do to keep this from developing into a full blown sickness. How much easier would it have been for me to follow my own advise to stay balanced in the first place so I wouldn't have to always be reacting to the next emergency?

I was still a little confused on how to achieve my large goal without neglecting everything else in the meantime, when I went to another WINK meeting and listened to Ellie Pope of Productivity Poolside. Hearing what I had known with additional information and from a different perspective brought everything together. It is the emptiness in our schedule that allows for the great ideas and perspectives to incubate. The unplanned is where the especially the great moments come from. I get my best ideas when I am in the shower or when I'm driving to work. The best times with my family are on our no car day when we are hanging out at the house. How much more can you get done when you are in that impassioned time which she called "Flow" because there is nothing else calling for your attention to distract you.

The key especially for goal driven people is to make goals in all aspects of life so that no one aspect dominates our entire life. Even when we want to "buckle down" in one particular area just for a short time, the areas we neglect will derail our progress. Instead spend more time in the unplanned and nourish your soul to create a stronger, more achieving you. The area that we most have a problem giving attention to is the "Center", our grounding force. Mostly because it has to do with us and is not a place that you can see tangible results. The results however show up in everything we do, since obviously we are in everything we do.

Balance & Reflection

In order to be the most productive person you can be, pay attention to all aspects of your life. As much as we try we are not segmented creatures. Everything we do affects who we are and in turn everything else we do. The key is to nourish all aspects, and therefore keeping us in orbit, is to spend time everyday in "Center". It will give you perspective so that you can easily see when you are neglecting something in your life before the whining child has to pop up and call your attention to it.

Spending time in the "Center" is not about becoming a couch potato, where your senses are being assaulted by content, it is about being somewhere where you soul can soar.

Watching a sunset, taking a walk in nature, gardening, reading a good book, pampering yourself with a bubble bath and a glass of wine, talking out a problem, or watching a candle flicker. Everyone has their own ways to unplug, just make sure you do it daily and on those days where you seem to have no time at all, give it 10 minutes and it will change everything.

The Ideal of All Aspects in Balance