Planning
Through a mind, body, heart, + greater good lens, the New Year energy imbues an urge to organize, manage, and plan upon us. In our tending to this and that, we wonder: what matters and what doesn’t in our day-to-dayness?
How do we prioritize?
It’s as if we have the container of a day in front of us, filling it with all the things and hope it holds.
But I’m curious, where does planning come in? And can we plan our days so that our center does more than hold; our center flourishes?
I am really enjoying some of the ideas in Oliver Burkman’s book called Time Management for Mortals, which touches on the heart of this matter.
We can’t do it all— we WILL let others down, and knowing this is as much about limits as it is about possibility, and
“Perfection” has always been off the table; opportunities will be missed, no need to worry about not being somewhere or doing something, and
Human life has always had its exigencies, we don’t have to be doing what we love to do in every moment in order to be engaged and living with purpose. (On this last point, click for a talk I love from Liz Gilbert)
Many of the people I work with feel they have let one or more domains of their lives thrive to the detriment of others. I fall into this trap too thinking one of these days I will achieve work-life balance. (Unfortunately, that idea comes from a reductionist worldview, forgetting we are whole, interconnected beings.)
Instead, let’s apply a holistic and global worldview and listen for and look for the transformative agenda for the day. Let’s also throw away the idea that work and life are two different parts living under our skin, duking it out for real estate.
Knowing our strengths, our values in action, and how and who we most want to be begins to reveal our purpose. Once that is known, each interaction, each choice, including the ones that meet the demands of our exigencies, contribute to what Aristotle called eudaimonia, which essentially means the goodness of the whole self.
And finally, an exercise: If you haven’t done this in a while, take a few minutes this weekend to do the VIA character strengths inventory and reflect on how you have or will use your strengths today. Research shows great benefits to mind-body health when we know what our strengths are and intentionally build on them.
To recap…living and growing our well-being is moving toward a higher level of consciousness, toward more deliberate, intentional behaviors, intending to create something greater than the sum of our parts. Well-being is not a state at which we arrive; it is a process, a one-size-fits-one approach to life, a philosophy, a journey of becoming,
a way of living…
created anew every day.
