Be Your Best

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

It’s that time of year where things are almost moving in a blur-like pace.  Get up in the morning, exercise a bit, get ready for work, grab something to eat — whatever you can, work-work-work, head to the store, shop-shop-shop for gifts, make dinner, clean up after dinner, wrap presents, clean up again, make a pie or dish for a party or gathering coming up, clean up again, get ready for bed, go to bed.  Whooo!  Hardly enough time to take a breath, let alone just relax and think.

It is times like these where you have to force yourself to carve a moment out periodically to ‘stop and smell the roses’.  In the heat of the holiday battle and hustle and bustle, you can literally miss the fun, beauty, and happiness of the season.  As part of  that stopping to smell the roses, it is  a great time to spend some time just ‘thinking’.  Sound like a foreign concept?  No one just sits and thinks anymore, right?!  That was something they did in the old days, before Radios, TV’s, iPods, Smart Phones, Web surfing, Wii and Xbox.

All of this non-stop ‘doing’ and activity can really wear you down and just plain wears you out.

Today, it is very easy to conclude that there is simply no time to just THINK.  In fact, silence is so uncommon it can almost be unnerving for some of us when or if it happens.  If we have silence and nothing to ‘do’, it can seem like a huge void where we have to find something to fill or kill the silence.

Let me tell you something — you have got to take some time out to just relax, recoup, rest, and silently just do some thinking for yourself.  And we should all do this with some degree of frequency, hopefully at least on a weekly basis.  Time set aside to just wind down in comfortable silence (or at least with nothing playing that you have to actively concentrate on) is important.  Why?  This down time allows you to rest and recoup mentally, much like your muscles need to rest and recoup from workouts.  This down time also allows you to think creatively, develop ideas, find solutions to nagging problems, think of new things to do, as well as discover brand new opportunities.  Even just 30-45 consecutive minutes of good quality quiet time every week or two makes a huge difference.

If you are like me, I get a lot of ideas and key thoughts to write down while I am getting ready for work in the morning…likely because it is quiet time to myself.

There is something very powerful about scheduling in some quiet relaxation time for yourself.  It can feel almost like you are slowing the whole world down for a little while you take time to think.  Give it a try.  It’s a super simple concept, but very powerful.  A lot of times, I like to take a topic or problem that I know I need to figure out and the next time I can carve out some quiet time I just try to think only about that one topic.  When you don’t have phones ringing, email chiming, text messages flying, videos playing — it is amazing how you can figure things out.  Eventually my mind starts wandering off the focus topic, but I always seem to come up with some great ideas and thoughts.  I don’t force myself to go back to the focus topic, but having that initial core problem or topic allows me to get into a good focused state.  I keep a pad of paper and pencil nearby to make a note as things pop in to my head.  If you don’t write them down at that moment, many times they are gone as quickly as they came.

Here are some great questions to ask yourself when you carve out some quiet time to just ‘think’, especially at this time of year at the cusp of a brand New Year:

• What am I most proud of achieving this year?
• Who am I most grateful to this year?
• What is blocking me right now from being my best?
• Am I healthier, happier, and wiser vs. a year ago?
• What am I committed to accomplishing next year?
• What are the most important things I can do to grow myself?
• What unfinished business or open projects do I need to complete and finish asap?
• What am I willing to do differently that will change my life for the better?
• If I knew that everything in my life was going to work out and I had no worries, what would I do differently?

I can just about guarantee that you cannot develop high quality answers to these questions without some focused and quiet quality thinking time.

This holiday season, give yourself the gift of relaxed silence and thought.  It’s free, but uniquely and infinitely valuable.  Happy Holidays!

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford