PERFORMANCE
MASTERY
Understanding your needs. Delivering results.
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As professionals in
performance improvement and training, our focus quite often is on others –
helping others improve their performance, helping our organizations succeed, and
helping our clients achieve their goals. With
all this focus on others, we often forget to take care of ourselves in the
process. Practicing extreme
self-care helps us move toward more balance in our lives.
So what are some simple, yet effective ways to practice
extreme self-care and move toward balance? Step 1: Be still.
Balance is much easier to achieve when you have some stillness in your
life. Think about standing up right
now and balancing on one foot. For
most of us, this is achievable with little effort.
Now imagine you standing up, spinning around in a circle 5 or 6 times,
and then trying to balance on one foot. When
we are in constant motion or when our lives are in chaos, balancing is much more
difficult. It is easier to move
toward balance when you have some down time or alone time to be still.
Simple ideas for being still include meditating, taking a walk, avoiding
TV, or simply leaving the car stereo off on your way to work. Step 2: Be clear on your values and honor them.
What do you value? Is it
time with your family? Fun?
Personal growth? Exercise?
Take a look over the past week’s activities and where you spent your
time. Does your activity log
reflect the things (and people) you value?
If not, what changes do you want to make for the coming week?
The more we act out-of-sync with our values, the more we experience an
energy drain in our lives. Step 3:
Realize balance is something you consciously and continuously work toward
rather than achieve.
I’ll let you in on a secret: We
never really “arrive” at balance. Balance
is a moving target because our life is always in motion.
We are moving toward balance, away from balance, or through balance.
Balance requires consistent, conscious, and controlled motion.
So give up the notion that you will be happy or OK once your life is in
balance. Your life will never be in
balance because your life is in constant change! Rather, you can take action and make choices in your life so
you are continually moving toward balance rather than away from it. Step 4: Take care of
yourself first. This
simple statement reflects the spiritual principle that when you take good care
of yourself, it’s always in the best interest of the other person (your client
or client organization) as well. When
you are fully charged and at ease, you can then fully contribute to the success
of others. An easy way to remember this step is to think of the
emergency procedure on an airplane – place the oxygen mask over your face
first before assisting others! Step 5: Shift
your perspective. Take notice whenever you have fear around making a choice.
Fear restricts your options and makes you feel paralyzed.
Fear makes you feel you are driven by circumstances – as if you don’t
have the power of choice. Some
examples of fear are when you hear yourself saying, “I can’t,” “I have
to,” “I need to,” “It doesn’t work that way,” or “I can’t cancel
again because he/she will kill me.” Here’s what to do to
shift your perspective: q
Imagine eight different alternatives to solve the problem
without becoming attached to any one of them.
Make sure at least one or two of the alternatives are fanciful and
playful. The alternatives don’t
have to be reasonable. You don’t
have to even choose any of the choices. q
Look at the world through each alternative.
Try each alternative on for just a moment. *
What would the world be like if I made this choice? *
What would it be like to operate from this perspective? q
Choose an alternative to try out for now.
Give yourself permission to try out another alternative if this one
doesn’t work out. q
Create an action plan around your new alternative. q
Commit to the plan. q
Take action. What about being stuck?
Being stuck happens when you won’t permit a choice of any kind.
This can happen for a variety of reasons:
q
You are unwilling to act until you are sure you have chosen
the right course of action. q
You want to have it figured out first.
q
You want assurance that you’ll succeed with the action that
is planned. q
You want it to be perfect.
Step 6: Say yes
to life-giving choices and say no to energy-draining choices as much as
possible.
The key to moving toward more balance is CHOICE.
Realize you DO have a choice in everything you do, even though some
choices are very difficult. But
don’t confuse tough choices with no choices. One of the most empowering skills to learn is the
ability to say no. Saying no brings
up fear of disappointing or hurting others, missing opportunities, and making
mistakes. But saying no means
saying YES to you! It is also one
of the most valuable skills, because learning to say no honors your values.
Try this: q
Make a list of five things you’d
like to say no to. q
Make a commitment with a friend or colleague to say no to at
least one of these things in the next week. q
Let your friends and acquaintances know that from now on, you
will be making decisions a bit differently than you have in the past.
This gives your friends a heads-up in case you decide to say “no” to
something you have always said “yes”
to in the past. We often wonder what
opportunities we could say YES to. An
easy technique to use to answer that question is this:
Think of the decision you have to make.
Imagine or visualize yourself doing the activity under consideration.
How does your body respond as you visualize yourself doing the activity
under consideration? Is the
activity or event life-giving or is it taking away your energy?
Step 7: Make
more time. There are four
simple ways to make more time: q
Say no q
Schedule less q
Delegate responsibilities/chores q
Cancel appointments. Look at your current life circumstances.
What can you say no to? What
can you schedule less of? What
responsibilities and/or chores can you delegate?
What appointments can you cancel? As you may have gathered by
now, the key to extreme self-care is practicing the power of CHOICE and TRUSTING
yourself to make the choices that are right for you.
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