Stress is really beginning to kill our buzz and zest for life. Most of us ask “what we are doing wrong” so we can stop doing it. So much of what we think about is negative and causes us to either be limited, ashamed or stuck.
What if we just spent a few moments detailing what we are doing right.
Starting with “what is working for me” is the best place to begin. Starting there keeps us from having to commit to huge changes and take hours and hours making lists of things we have to do differently.
We just have to notice what we are doing right and do more of it. Great idea huh?
HOWEVER, if your thinking is always negative and you are feeling stressed to the max today and pretty much every day, do you even know what you are doing right?
In the tense haze of just moving through our lives to get things done as fast as we can, very little time is spent on the good stuff.
When I begin coaching with my incredibly terrific clients, the first question I ask them is:
“What is working?”
What? What do you mean? Like in business, my personal life, right now, what?
Stress does not let us think easily and clearly about what might be really working well in our lives.
Let me give you some examples of what might be working for you that you don’t even give yourself credit for:
- Getting up today and going to work
- Not drinking the expresso after 6:00pm
- Powering up your device so it does not run out of juice, again
- Washing your clothes
- Remembering to floss
- Really looking at your calendar so you can go visit that person that you need to visit, but don’t particularly want to
- Changing the business meeting so you can go see the recital at school which will be too long, too hot and vitally important to your kid
- Getting off FB and taking a shower before 3:00am
- Filling out the church envelope and contributing cause it is the right thing for you to do – and it feels good
You see all the great things you are doing? And you did not know you were doing them…helping your life work.
Yes, I got it that there are 100 others things you could or should be doing, but right now we are listing what is working.
When you acknowledge what is working for you, your stress levels plummet. The stress levels race to normal. Your breathing changes. Your attitude becomes more positive. You stop beating the hell out of yourself just cause that is your habit.
By the way, I make all my clients have a conversation with me about “what is working” for them. They are delighted that something is working because they have felt so stressed and not very effective until this conversation.
Then we decide what they could increase in what is working. We add it to their device as a reminder. Most people have little to no trouble doing this because it is something they enjoy or feel good about and it IMMEDIATELY reduces their stress level.
Marshall Goldsmith, international coach and one of my mentors, says it is so much easier to do more of what is working than to try and change all the stuff we are doing wrong. Once you fill up your time with stuff you already do well, the “not working” frequency goes way down…and so does your automatic stress habits.
My monthly Stress Reducing Q&A is Wednesday 3/18/15 at 12:00 CST. Join me here. We will go into deeper detail of what the stressors (your stressors) and how you can immediately make this energy work to your advantage, faster than you ever thought possible. If you can’t be live with the call with me, we will send you the recording, but you have to sign up to get it.
Take a minute and compile a list of all the things that are working for you. I guarantee you will be surprised and pleased with how really well you are doing.
Blessings and love,
Natalie
P.S. See you Wednesday 3/18/15 at noon CST. It is my pleasure to share with you the stress reduction and life enhancing tips, techniques and strategies that I have learned that have supported my wealthy, healthy and joyful lifestyle.