Experience.
Enjoy. Be
What does this mean?
More specifically what does it mean for you?
Today we look at “Experience”
People have many
experiences throughout life, but are they the experiences they choose. We will spend a great deal of time planning
an annual vacation, researching locations, booking hotels that fit our ideal of
a relaxing week or two away. You want
that time off from work to be perfect, but how much time do you devote to
planning the other 50 weeks of the year?
How can you make workweeks and weekends perfect or a better word may be
“ideal”? This doesn’t mean every week
will be ideal, just as not every vacation will turn out perfect as
planned. Life gets in the way sometimes
and we get sick or bad weather changes plans, or work projects take over our
life, but the default should be your “ideal.”
I hate Monday
mornings! Of course a lot of people hate
Monday mornings. But I also hated the
idea of starting every week on such a low note, so I endeavoured to change the
experience. I asked my husband to take
the kids to day care Monday mornings, so that I wouldn’t be rushed. I also changed my work schedule so that I
start a little later Monday mornings.
Two little changes have made Monday mornings wonderful. Now, if I want to sleep in an extra 20 or 30
minutes, I can because I don’t have to rush to get the kids ready. My husband takes care of it. And he likes it too, because Mondays he gets
to work early so he can be better prepared for a weekly meeting he has to
attend. There’s the added benefit of my
better mood. As they say, happy wife,
happy life.
Let’s think
about your lunch time. Do you work in an
office? Do you sit at your desk eating
while you work, or do you rush to a cafeteria and wait in line for food you
don’t really enjoy or that doesn’t support your health goals? Do you work on
the road and go to the drive through to pick up a burger and eat in your
car? How would you like to experience
lunchtime? If you work on the road,
maybe you could plan to bring a wonderful home made lunch and find a park to
stop at and eat in. Or for the office
worker, maybe you go to the lunch room and spend the hour laughing with friends
over a myriad of silly topics. In colder
climates, maybe you spend part of your lunch hour going for a brisk walk to get
the heart rate up and wake you up before heading back to your computer. It doesn’t matter what you do, but think
about the experience you want and
plan that into your life. You may have
to occasionally work through lunch, but be sure that it’s only when absolutely
necessary and that your ideal experience is the default plan.
Are your
mornings rushed and a flurry of activity to get out the door on time? What does your ideal morning look like? Sit back, close your eyes and imagine how you
really want to start each day. Now write
down what you can do to create that vision.
Maybe making lunches the night before or getting up earlier will
help. Maybe you can take 3-5 minutes to
meditate, or take 20 minutes for physical activity. Buy a new coffee maker that has a timer so
your favourite brew can be ready when you roll out of bed. Maybe you could even have a second coffee
maker on your bedside table so you slowly wake up to the smell of brewing
coffee. Why not? In hotels, the coffee maker
is right there in your room. Try
different things and see what works for you.
What makes you feel better? What
feels a little more special and luxurious?
Make that part of your day.
If evenings are
a just about making dinner, chauffeuring kids to activities, or maybe catching
up on work emails you didn’t get to at the office before sitting down in front
of the television for a couple hours then going to sleep, ask yourself if this
is how you want to spend your evening.
My perfect evening involves having a good home made meal with all the
family, helping the kids with homework, maybe reading with them, sitting with
my husband and having great conversations about our day, the world or maybe
something new I’ve learned. I love to
sit and write for awhile and I want to minimize television watching. As I write this, I realize that my evenings
are not ideal right now. I need to work
on this a bit more, but by having the awareness that comes from visualizing the
ideal evening, I know what’s missing and my brain is already working out how I
can re-jig our schedule. I think I may dig out the slow cooker so I have a few
more evenings where dinner is ready when I walk in the door and I might line up
a pile of books to read to the kids each week so that I think about stopping to
read with them. We used to read a story
every night but have gotten away from that and I miss it.
My one piece of
advice to parents who spend many evenings a week taking kids to various extra
curricular activities is: STOP. Let your
children pick one or two things, but no more.
See if one can be on the weekend so that most evenings you can eat
together at home. Talk with your kids. We have “High, Low” where each person talks
about the highlight of their day, one thing that was great about their day and
then talks about a low they had, something that wasn’t so great that
happened. You get to see what each
family member perceives as important and good through their highs and you
encourage the sharing of the lows so that you really know how your kids are
dong. With so many kids having problems
at school, being bullied or any of the other problems that arise as they are
growing up, you get a window into their lives.
Start as young as possible so that it is normal for them to share and
they feel comfortable sharing, and listen so that you can help them experience
their days in a more positive planned way, an ideal way.
In conclusion,
look at each day and each part of the day and visualize your ideal day. With a family, you may have to have some
compromises in order to make everyone’s ideals blend with yours, but it’s
achievable. The days that you do take
the kids to some activity, you will enjoy more because you will be more
present, knowing you are helping fulfill their ideal and knowing that your
ideal evening will occur tomorrow evening.
Your spouse’s ideal may be dinner out while yours is dinner in. Split it up and love that you are giving them
their ideal some days and you have yours some days. Make this a fun exercise to explore each
family member’s ideals, not a negotiation to get what you want and make the
least possible concessions. A wise man,
Jack Canfield (co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul books), told me last year
that “you don’t have to do everything right now.” I keep reminding myself of this sage advice
as I try to fit more into a day and realize that my ideal is disappearing. The kids don’t need an activity every
night. You don’t need to be
perfect. Work will still be there
tomorrow. None of us knows how many days
we have left on this earth. We often
hear that it’s about the journey not the destination. Do you want your last days to be a flurry of
stuff you do, or a nearly perfect day? Do
you want to wake up 20 years from now and realize you’ve spent years doing a
bunch of stuff, but had very few ideal days?
I vote for ideal or as close as I can get, as often as I can.
Now, I’m off now to find my favourite kids
books to read with my children this week.
I love when they snuggle on my lap and we create ideal moments together.
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