No doubt your day is full, and the moment you wake up you’re pressing the accelerator and going, going, going. There’s a lot of inbound activity, a lot of moving and grooving. Doing this and doing that.
Imagine filling that morning coffee cup to the brim. It’s full. If the cup is full; no more coffee can be added. For an individual who’s full, there’s no more capacity and limited ability to expand and move forward. In the case of the coffee cup, you can simply drink some or pour some out to add capacity.
For people, it happens with the power of the pause, and that pause is simply a matter of taking a conscious breath. Breathe in; breathe out. Notice how your body changes a bit on the exhale – shoulders drop and your back relaxes a little. We know we should be emptying our cups, but we often fail to do so. The reason for that is as simple as the pause itself: we don’t remember.
To fix that, it’s a matter of creating a reminder. To change a behavior, we need a trigger that will serve as the reminder. The simplest one I can share is a ringing phone. Before answering it, simply breathe in and breathe out. With attention to this and practice, it can become a conditioned response, not unlike Pavlov and his dogs. Do the same when you touch a doorknob. Breathe in; breathe out. Each time you do, you are emptying your cup a bit.
Consciously emptying your cup reduces the probability that it spills over. Equate spilling over with losing your cool. No one ever loses their cool on a schedule. No one becomes frustrated nor thwarted on a schedule. Those things happen by inadvertence or when the cup is full. Give attention to bringing back the pause.
Watch baseball or basketball. When at bat or at the foul line, the athlete has some sort of centering ritual – becoming present. They ensure body, mind, and spirit are exactly where they need to be in that moment. Notice when a batter tightens his gloves or taps his cleats with the bat. They are all conscious activities to pause and become present.
Your pause enables you to extend your capacity. One of our clients is a million-dollar producer and is fully involved in his community and with his family. Despite obvious success, he comment was, “Ken, I just feel full.” While that’s great and full leads to success, there must also be some emptiness as a contrast. You can’t conceive full without empty; you can’t compare tall if there’s no short. The key is your awareness about when you are running full and your cup is ready to overflow. You must consciously carve out time to do nothing.
It’s easy to see when other people are full – they speak quickly or jump from topic to topic. You can encourage them to pause. A deep breath in and out is sometimes not enough. That’s when self-care like a massage or long walk in the woods is needed. Allow the mind to settle. Most of us are over-stimulated or agitated most of the time, and the result is that your mind cannot be in its optimal state.
You must allow the mud in your mind to settle in order to think clearly and make good decisions.
Some people hate stillness or have not figured out how to practice it. They may think it’s a matter of sitting up straight and doing nothing for ten minutes. If that works for you, great; however, it can also be as simple as going for a walk. For some, it’s horseback riding, mountain climbing, swimming. This brings us back to our A activities – what do you do that restores a sense of balance and refills your cup. When you figure it out, it gives you a slight edge.
To control thyself, know thyself, and to thine own self be true. Embrace the power of the pause.
If you would like to explore making more money and having more fun visit our website www.gettingresultsinc.com to complete an assessment. Which will give us a structure to have a meaningful conversation with you.
