The Living Word: 'Routine'

I have recently been working with the word 'routine'. It is a word I've judged as boring, mundane, lifeless, robotic and underwhelming due having lived most of my life within routines that I did not enjoy, and having them imposed upon me. Breaking free from the routine was like finally living, getting to the fun part of Life.

Due to this past history and the baggage the word was carrying with it in my mind I have struggled with implementing any kind of routine into my life. But when I opened the word up and found the solution for myself, I realized that a routine is necessary for the cumulative effect: that process of accumulating small steps to reach or attain big goals - and this is actually necessary for any and all goals of any and all sizes!

A routine is a path, or a 'route' towards any goal, and the process one must walk is the moment-to-moment, the small stuff, the teeny tiny little movements and decisions that come together to produce actions as a step-by-step process of learning, growing, trial and error, and then eventually moving those proverbial 'mountains'.

When I started looking at redefining my own Living Definition the Word 'Routine', what I saw that worked best for me was to clarify my goal for myself, because a 'routine' is a cumulative process, so it's important to be clear with oneself in terms of what one is accumulating towards ,and what will the end result be! And then I will 'let it go', so to speak, where 'the END GOAL' no longer becomes the focus of my daily participation.

What I focus on daily is breaking the goal down to the smallest possible steps, the teeny steps (routTINE/teeny), so the the route I am taking is seen not as that loooong and arduous struggle, but more like simple daily steps that I can celebrate!

ROUTINE: The Route of Teeny Steps.

How and where I am applying this in my life currently, is towards the goal of physical health and fitness, something I have been struggling with keeping consistent with. I started a routine of drinking water in the morning for three consecutive days. Once accomplished, I added a healthy breakfast for three days, and then 8 minutes of light exercise (with the help of an app for reminders and structure!). I kept the steps 'teeny'. Tiny goals that I can integrate over time until they become routine, and then I can add, grow, expand upon them. But for now, I focus on the task at hand, the daily route, the tiny steps it takes to walk a process, no rush, no pressure, no time, just Here in the moments of my Life, taking steps to honour me!

Birthing Ideas from A Starting Point of Energy

I sometimes have moments in my life where I am flooded with new ideas, what seem to be very good ideas, and when I play them out in my mind I can see so much potential. In my fantasies and imagination, I can even play out best-case scenario successes and I end up getting quite excited about it, especially if the first idea I put into action turns out well.

What I find is that in this excitement energy, I just want to fully indulge myself in creating the ideas and ‘getting them out there’, which all seems fine and good, so what is the problem? The problem is that anything that is created from a starting point of energy, rather than a grounded, clear and practical approach, is bound to be met with unforeseen and unnecessary consequences in the process along the way, in the final result, in how the time and effort required to realize the idea fits in to the rest of my life, or how the idea plays out over time in the long-term.

For me, my idea was making a certain style of video that would effectively market a product, as well as get a message out into the public realm in a way that is interesting and engaging. The first video I made went well and almost ‘fell into place’ easily, it was a lot of work, but things seemed to work out smoothly. This got me quite excited and I now wanted to make many similar videos all at once, and just pump them out and get them out there. 

So within this energy, I started to make a second video. Only now, I knew within myself that I had other tasks that I had originally planned for, that needed to get done first, tasks that I was now putting aside in order ride the energy wave of excitement and pump out another awesome video. This means that, in not looking at and directing myself within my practical, current, physical reality, and instead functioning from my mind-reality, I had now decided to prioritize this new idea over and above my other tasks and responsibilities that I had previously committed to myself to do. Yes, I could do it all, but only if I could do it quickly…

This is where I started to see the consequence of ‘a starting point of energy’ playing a role. Now with the knowing that I am putting off things I should be doing, that I had planned to do, that needed to get done in order to properly set up the current, present projects that were moving in my life in the HERE and NOW, I had created a time-crunch, pressure, rush, and lack. 

So, when it came to spending time on certain time-consuming elements in the second video, I  ended up making choices that were less-then my best just to get through the point and get to the end result faster. There were certain new learning curves I faced, and instead of taking the time to walk through and process the new skill, I found ways around it and used techniques that were ‘good enough’, even leaving some things as they were simply to avoid the time required to fix them. 

So in walking a creation process from a starting point of energy, I saw that I was willing to accept and allow myself to create something that is less-than my best, which is in turn accepting and allowing limitation and preventing me from self-expansion through avoiding learning and not investing the adequate time into birthing my idea properly, fully, to my utmost potential wherein I discover what my utmost potential actually is in this moment, and then see if I can expand it some more.

The second consequence of putting an idea into action from a starting point of energy, is in how I experienced making the first video compared to the second one. The first video felt like things were just falling into place, going so smoothly and well, because the time-factor was not even an issue and so the learning process was fun and felt easy and the end results that one that I was pleased with. The excitement I experienced was real because I knew I had done my best, invested myself fully and responsibly, and the end result was one I could stand by

The second video, however, felt like things were getting stuck, not working out, more difficult. I didn’t have TIME to learn the necessary skills to achieve my vision or follow through on suggestions that I knew were good. So, the end result was something that I knew was less-than my best, I knew within myself that I had taken shortcuts and participated in avoidance, ignoring the advice of others and instead chasing the experience of excitement and satisfaction, instead of living and creating that REAL excitement and satisfaction that comes from having really applied myself fully and actually done the best I could without expectation or conditions placed upon myself.

In this, the PROCESS of making the second video was unsustainable, even if the end result was pretty good or acceptable. If I were to work in this way on all projects, not only would I not effectively learn and expand, but I would also never really feel satisfied, and in constantly chasing experiences of satisfaction and excitement and never actually creating them for real, I would inevitably end up burning out and giving up, letting it all go and not wanting to do it at all.

Lastly, when I finally did get to the other things I had to do, I now experienced myself as unfocused, bored, and a tediousness coming in, because I was lacking the energy I had been participating in from before, and now it was like a withdrawal. 

So, all in all, in having participated in an idea from a starting point of energy in the mind, and not a grounded, practical, fact-based physical reality starting point, my overall experience of myself was now polarized into positive/negative, my output was limited and less-than my best, not only in the one video project, but in other areas as well, and I missed out on opportunities to learn. All is not lost, however, as I can now let go of the energy, schedule my time properly, and continue with making my videos in a more grounded and sustainable way.

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Day 219- Setting Money to Purpose: Creating a Work/Life Balance

This blog is continued from: In Money but not OF Money - Howto Find Your Passion Without Chasing Money

Listen to this recording here

          This blog is focused on living the principle of honouring self, and creating the best life possible, while not allowing the pursuit of money flatten one's passion or ambition. In my last blog, I discussed about how I changed my experience at work and my starting point of working, in order to bring more of ME into my job, and re-ignite my passion and fire despite the fact that I was only originally there for money. The process was very difficult for me, and filled my life with challenge.

          During pushing myself to change the way I work and Who I Am within the work I do, from making it all about money, to making it more about me, my passion and my spark of life, I noticed an unfortunate problem: My life had become all about challenging myself, my habits and my comfort zone, and nothing else. It was ALL difficult and challenging, and there was nothing else. In this blog, I will talk about how I created my life outside of work, to support the balance that is ever so necessary in life. It must not only ever be about challenge and letting go, but also about creation, and building the new way of being and doing.

          What I did to address this problem, was to now look at what I could create and develop outside of work, in my home life. I asked myself: what do I want to create and develop for me that would create more of a balance in my life so that it wasn’t all about money and making money. So I made a list.

          The first thing I looked at was my living space. I was living with my parents in a spare bedroom to save money and pay off debt. This means that my living space had also come from a starting point of money only, I had not really considered myself. The room was small, so I had items and belongings scattered into several rooms. The room was also right next to my parents bedroom, so if I came home late, I risked waking them up. Due to this, I found myself feeling like I had no personal space to call my own.

          I asked if it would be alright if I created a space for myself in the basement so that I would rather create my living space from a starting point of what would best support me, my living, my life.

          I accumulated furniture through friends and acquaintances, estate sales and second-hand stores. I bought some plants and some lights, and created quite a nice space, with a fireplace, a workout zone, office and bedroom area. After several months, I had my space set up to reflect me, my life, and what I wanted to do.

           The next thing I noticed was that I had very little activity outside of work. I had deemed it too expensive to go out into the city while I was trying to save money and pay off debt. I decided here that it was more important to create balance in my life, than to stay at home only in order to save money. I freed up some of my funds and looked into discount classes or courses I might be interested in. What I found was that many yoga classes offer a trial month at a very reduced price, so I signed up!

          Hot yoga was very nice to attend during the cold winter months, and I really felt like I was doing something nice for my mind, being and body. It was an incredibly supportive activity for me to do after a day in the office and before going home for the night. It got me out of the house on weekends, because I had become somewhat of a hermit, and it motivated me to consider my body in terms of treating it well and giving it what it needs.

           What followed from here was relationships. Now that I had several important areas of my life covered and directed, I began to notice myself become interested and motivated to have more people in my life. There were a few ladies I worked with that I really got along well with, and began to test out spending some time together outside of work. We managed to develop a deeper connection than simply ‘colleagues’, and supported each other through tough times at work, as well as had fun times outside of work. Again, here I had to make the decision to free up some funds for this, but often times we were able to keep it cheap by making our own food and watching free documentaries at home, staying up late into the night to discuss what we had learned, or having a cookout in the yard and chatting over a meal.

          All of these things required me to challenge who I was and what my priorities were, among many other things, without compromising my goals. Due to what I had been experiencing at work, i would fall into more depressed states, and have difficulty getting myself up and out, I don’t know if I would have had the ability to contemplate my life and needs, or the tools to use my creativity and actually practically make and implement such decisions for myself if I didn’t have the skills and understandings that I learned through walking a dedicated process of self-change. This is but one example of how I walked my process for ME. I supported myself and my unique life and situation in ways that created balance within and as creating a life that is beneficial for me. Why? Because I matter. And until I make this a living realization in every moment, I will only be waiting forever for myself to change and become a better human being.

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Thanks for reading my story!

Day 218 - In Money but not OF Money - How to Find Your Passion Without Chasing Money

I was able to sit in on this interview recording which discusses the problems money can create in our lives, and how it can flatten our passions and work when it becomes the starting point of whatever it is we become involved with.
 

I will first share the questions addressed in the interview, questions which I am sure almost every working person has asked themselves at some point in their career. Next, I will share my own case study example of how I lived this issue in my own life.

The Questions:

Is the quality of your work and your expression within it diminishing over time?

Do the things that you once loved doing feel more like work and less like something in which you are expanding and exploring yourself?

What happened to that spark that was once there?

These are often symptoms of when money begins to take over our lives and our expressions to such a degree that we suffocate our passion, our drive, and our sense of self-value.

Discover how we can begin to change our relationship to money so that we can bring back the spark and the inner passion of who we are within what we do, and not allow money to override our work, our living, and our expression.

The recording can be found here:

In Money But Not of Money - The Soul of Money

My living example, and how I lived it for ME:

For me, personally, I found myself in a corporate job in the back offices of a bank. I got this job because I had just moved back to Canada after a divorce, and I had bills to pay. I was working because of a need for money, I was working for money. The job itself was robotic and repetitive, reading and correcting SWIFT and other payment messages all day long… basically reading money codes and finding where they are broken, why they stopped for repair instead of going straight through into the recipient's account. I also did high volume settlement transfers for large US corporations, monitoring for insufficient funds and verifying that audit requirements are met for approval limits on transactions. It sounds about as fun as it was, meaning, not at all! I felt like a real robot, a cog in the machine, working inside the mysterious black box where your money passes through when you send it anywhere.

This was NOT my idea of living my passion or changing the world to any degree, and the potential was there for me to become depressed, unmotivated, discouraged and complain… in fact, before and even during my process of change, I did all of these things! But the difference between living according to the automated patterns and programs of the mind, and living in self-awareness with the tools of self-correction, is that by using the tools of support I have been practicing for some years now, I managed to change myself within the work I do, find my fire, my passion and my spark of life, even within these conditions. I will explain how I did this, which is also looked at from various angles in the interview recording I sat in on.

The first thing I did was to change my perception of my job and why I was there. Instead of processing transactions and verifying payment messages, I made it about self-development and acquiring new skills. At work, I pushed myself to practice discipline, focus, and the ability to learn new things – all are qualities which needed some attention and development within myself anyways. I viewed my job to be more like a game, where there are moving pieces and every day, throughout the day, I needed to put the puzzle together and solve the problems.
 

This is how I changed my perception and starting point of my job, and here are some of the results:

In pushing myself, I ended up leading campaigns, doing training and making presentations to develop leadership skills and the ability to work within and direct groups. I ended up finding and implementing process improvements to improve the running of my department, and even changed the way our cross-departmental quarterly townhalls were presented. I pushed for and achieved a change in terminology within how the corporate announcements referred to employees, to a way that is more aligned with my principle of respecting and honouring my peers as my equals, and to not support the corporate hierarchy where employees low on the ladder are seen as replaceable resources. In pushing myself to develop myself, I also managed to leave changes in my workplace that will remain there after I have left.

I also developed qualities within myself the serve me to this day, leadership skills, the ability to work with all types of personalities in a group, the ability to be more direct and expressive, bringing myself as Who I Am into what I do. Also, the ability to focus on tasks that may be perceived as mundane and repetitive, discipline to push myself to do things that I might have otherwise judged as overwhelmingly boring or unpleasant. All of these things are present in daily life no matter what we do. The reality is that it is not always fun and stimulating, there’s always paperwork, administrative tasks, bills, budgeting, and things that repeat every day, so these skills I viewed as essential to my future, no matter what my future brings.

It is easy to list things here, years later, but the truth and reality is that at many points, this process was difficult, challenging and I had many hard times. 

Realistically, some skills can take years to develop. I spent the first year or so feeling a bit shell-shocked and getting back on my feet after my move and divorce. What I was able to accomplish there was planting the seeds within myself, and nurturing them into seedlings that will require continued maintenance, nurturing and support in my life. “If you don’t use it, you lose it”, as they say.

The process is far from over or complete. This is a living process of self-creation that can and must be lived in all moments throughout life. Does this sound like a burden or a lot of work? Maybe. But I don’t think so, because before I made the push to change, as I mentioned, I was living as depressed, unmotivated, discouraged and complaining. To me, THAT sounds more like a burden and a lot of hard work! Both ways are using mental and physical energy, but one way leads to growth and development, while the other leads to self-diminishment and misery.

If you got this far, thanks for reading! I will continue in my next blog.

For now, check out these links to learn how to change yourself to live your utmost potential:

 

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Destonian Social Network

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 To read about how I got here, check out my journey:

Leaving the Rat Race - Going to Africa
Turning a Self-Defeating Moment Into A Moment of Self-Empowerment
The Greatest Gift
The Cure to Self-Sabotage: Unprejudiced Objectivity
Conquering the Rat Race
Defining My Own Life
Re-Defining my Moment
Change Who You Are Within the Work You Do
A Small Change in Environment, A big Change in Perspective