Tag: well-being

Would You Be Willing?

Some key thoughts on well-being and the choices that connect:

Would you be willing to let work play a smaller role in your actions and thinking, if it meant you could devote more of you to your family?

Would you be willing to make less money, if it meant you would be better able to manage the stresses of life?

Would you be willing to spend less time on watching and following sports, if it meant you could use that time to volunteer in your community?

Would you be willing to change your diet, if it meant you could add 5 years to your life expectancy?

Would you be willing to take a class on communication, if it meant you would have a better relationship with your spouse or partner?

It comes down to your choices.  Your life will, and does, reflect that.

Life Currency

In my post last week on the new net-worth, I challenged you to look at net-worth in a different way.  I even went as far as to say your life depends on it (in so many ways).

An important thing to keep in-mind is the currency each of us is given in the following 8 areas.  Call it life currency:

Wheel of Life 
The currency is with you all of the time, if you haven't declared bankruptcy in any of the areas yet.  The irony is you can invest this currency in any way you like.  You can be foolish or wise, greedy or giving the choice is yours.

So what if you you awoke tomorrow and no one was interested in your career currency or your money currency?  How would your fair?  Could you find any currency in your family account or your physical account?

My words could fly in the face of what you hold dear (like your career or social).  And in many facets, you won't get any encouragement from your investment house (as in the money variety) or family.  You might get objections like "what about your retirement" or "how are you going to support your wife and kids?"  Hopefully, you noticed that I've never advocated you ignore those.  I am asking you to do just the opposite.  

Pay close attention to each of the 8 areas. 

The idea here is to adopt integration-every day.  Starting small and moving to the big and great.

 

 

Thankful for Today

July 2011 021 
Today's post is dedicated and in honor of those who are just hanging on or battling demons to fierce for me to know.

Today, only because that's all I've been given, I am thankful for:

  1. Jesus Christ
  2. My wife, my kids and my dog
  3. My friends near and far
  4. My Health
  5. My mission
  6. Running in cool temps
  7. Music
  8. The ability to have empathy
  9. Prayer
  10. Humor
  11. Nature
  12. Wine

Getting Your Life Back

When I was twelve I knew I wanted to be this:

 

As time has moved on, I still am, and do desire to continue to be, an artist.  The level and notice that comes my way always changes.  Absolutely fine with me.  I am an artist creating daily with words, with ideas with love, and with my life. 

Many years ago I allowed the Matrix (corporations, people, religion, and more) to convince me that I was not an artist or someone wired with a lot of imagination and creativity.  It whispered ever so softly that I needed put the "art" away and remember the importance of security. It almost worked, but I wanted and got my life back.  I write the following with great emphasis:

    Get your life back!  Whatever you must do, get your life back.

Now, here are the lessons I've learned in this motion picture:

  1. Go slow and start small.  One more time, go slow and start small.
  2. Most people are not going to like you beyond the surface.  Your life is not about the surface, so get on with it.
  3. Ask for help.
  4. Know what's most important to you, not to anyone else, as be commited to those things.
  5. You can't make people happy or ok, even those you love deeply.

How Management Could Improve Organizational Well-Being

Da Vinci Whole 
As we at Epic Living do more work in the well-being arena, it's important to set the table around the importance of management's role in making well-being a reality.  I won't spend a ton of time explaining the need for managers to understand when to put the leadership hat on.  You can look at this post I wrote a few years ago to get my thoughts on that.  The reality is most managers have abdicated well-being to HR and the company's benefit offerings.  As well-intentioned as that may be, it leaves much to be desired in practical application.

Management is looked to for direction and pace (how fast or slow should we be moving).  That implies a great deal of influence over a number of people.  As I'm sure you're getting by now, management is more than checking off tasks on a list.  One area of huge importance is the well-being of the employees.  For example, how well do your people handle stress?  And how is that stress impacting the customer?

Let me be clear, it's not the responsibility of a manager to make sure their employees are managing stress well or that employees manage their lives well for that matter.  But they can play a part in influencing a balanced approach to well-being.  You may wonder why the manager should care?  It's pretty simple, those that manage their lives well will always outperform those that don't.  So, the manager should be a champion/cheerleader of well-being in their organization.  A true win-win proposition for the organization and the employees.

The following are some recommendations for management around encouraging an environment of well-being:

  1. Do engage with employees in a way that allows them to manage their well-being in their own way.  Management should not dictate and take a "take it or leave it" approach.
  2. Do consider the "whole" life and not just those that allow management to stay in an imaginary comfort zone.
  3. Do learn how to manage people from a perspective of diversity.
  4. Do focus on making your engagement about the employee and not about what you'll get by offering the resource(s).
  5. Do be committed to well-being as a long-term process and not a one-time event.

The End of Busy

Busy Street 

I made a decision over the weekend to eliminate the word, thought and feeling of busy from my life.  As with any habit, i will stumble.  But the point was driven home when I spent some time considering my father and what it means to be a father.  My examination of that led me to the conslusion of how time goes at the pace it chooses to go and I can either be reactive or proactive.  I choose proactive.

In most situations, busy means you're involved in things that won't be brilliant in eternity, or tomorrow for that matter.  Busy can also be a signal that you're living under the dogma of someone/something else.  You know what I mean; your managing a life that is not your own.  Is that really what you want?  Do you want to be handed a script every morning telling what your lines are for that day? 

Don't be tricked into believing that you can abdicate the responsibility for your life.

So what's so intoxicating about busy?  I think, at least in America, it gives a false sense of meaning and purpose.  The idea that the more I'm involved in, the more those things will equal to something good and right.  But it's even more insidious when we use busyness as a tool to medicate and cope.  Sort of like being able to forget (temporarily) about the real pressing issues that are asking for our attention.  It can also disarm those who truly want to help.  You make the "I'm really busy" statement and they back away.  Ironic how we often reject the cure for what plagues us.

My advice to you is to choose life and find the thing(s) that are exclusive to your DNA and pursue them with a good pace.  You'll never be busy again.