Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Always Letting Yourself Down?

How do you feel at the end of the day in terms of your production and accomplishments? Some days you probably feel fulfilled. Others, maybe not? We can be hard on ourselves. We all tend to have the never-ending ToDo list and that can bread guilt. There is always more we CAN do.

Try something tomorrow morning. Instead of focusing on your etire To Do list, choose at least one and at most two item you feel are most important.

For those one or two items, what specifically do you want to have finished? What does the end of your day look like? Paint the picture of what you want to have accomplished. Give youself a buffer in time. Things will come up, distractions will tug at you, and many things take longer than we project. Remember we can only work in the present but we can sure can worry about the future. Let go of everything else!

Personal integrity is an ongoing battle within all of us. Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly making implicit promises to our self about what we intend to get done. Stress can come from a lack of clarity in this area. We are pushing ourselves to get lots done, but we really do not have a handle on the promises we are making to OURSELVES. So, be clearer with yourself tomorrow morning. Promise to do those one or two things, and under promise!

Now at the end of the day, instead of focusing on what YOU DID NOT GET DONE, on how others held you back, etc. you are focusing on what you (1) set out to get done....the promise you made to yourself, and (2) the deposit you made in your own personal integrity bank, because you did get it done!

We are taught not to overpromise and under deliver to our clients, but how can we do that if we practice doing that with ourselves?! Basically DO WHAT YOU (under)PROMISE YOURSELF. Sounds simple, huh?

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