Are you serious ?? I mean really?

Do you find that sometimes life is just all a bit too much?!  I know I do at times and so do some of my clients when they first come to me.

It’s like you go from: I need to save a deposit for a house, for retirement, where does all my money go each week I never have enough, to I have no emergency account or am I paying too much in insurances, power? How much is too much at the supermarket? I should be saving more…to: How can I track my money so I'm less stressed?

Then there are the constant needs and requests from your children, your spouse… it seems everyone wants your time or a piece of you or your money, in some fashion or form. You feel like you have become a taxi driver and ask is this what I signed up for? Rushing from one place to the next, having to remember all that is needed for the next drop off or destination that you are rushing to.

Not to mention your work, trying to market yourself, find clients, feeling ‘Am I good enough? Why am I bothering?’ The boss who constantly wants more from you, or giving you more to do, and always asking where things are at. Or it could be your staff that are making requests and disrupting your workflow and distracting you in some form, you never have time to get your own list of work done, it just piles up.

Then there is the social side of life. The friends, coffee dates, outings, school meeting, networking meetings, dinner parties.. all great stuff, right? And often needed but it can also be another thing pulling for your time.

How do you find time for you?

To make matters worse (or better) we constantly hear that we need to be making time for ourselves. Are you eating well? Exercising regularly?  Do you realise the importance of all this for your health and wellbeing? You need to eliminate stress and be sleeping better to be sharper and more alert, to avoid illnesses, especially if you are in that danger age range of 48yrs to 65yrs when unexpected illnesses just seem to pop up. You hear it often… so and so has cancer or diabetes or some other thing.  Are you having time out for you? You should be meditating … you read the article that said that meditation is important. But how in the world can you meditate, be still, when you have a thousand things buzzing around in your head?

And then, of course, there’s the new question “What’s your passion?!” How in the world do you know? You’re too busy just trying to live and keep everything and everyone else afloat!

So where and how does one find the energy, the time and the headspace to sort things out,  get on top of it all? To be able to say to the world “Halt! I need a minute! Honestly more than a minute - how about a week or a few months, to just think and have time out to sort my life out ”  What do I really want? What should I be doing? How can I do things better, smarter, easier and still be content and happy? What’s the action plan, the ‘how to’, the strategy? What should I tackle first?? The list goes on.

Or do I just jump on a plane and fly away and leave it all behind? At least for awhile or for however long it takes! Maybe. Or do I just bury all my frustrations and keep soldiering on, like so many others do? That seems easiest. This is so true, even science tells us that we humans are creatures of habit and we often get into something that’s not working but stay at it because we’re in a comfort zone. We become complacent, we fear change, fear the unknown. Or we get caught up in people pleasing like we don’t want to let someone down, so we stay in jobs we don’t like, relationships that are not working, we have eating habits that are unhealthy. But it’s too hard to change. Easier to stay with what’s familiar.

Four tips on creating change away from stress, fatigue and overwhelm

Now of course not every day is like this but so many people are feeling stressed out, frustrated, overwhelmed and tired and I say ‘no wonder’! I can’t blame them it’s a fast paced often chaotic life, one that is forever changing, who can keep up? Life now is so different from the times when one income was enough to live on. And then to top it all off there are the challenges of social media with ourselves and our kids. What to do?  

So if we want things to change for the better, then here are 4 points worth noting

1. Stop believing that we can be living one way but still get a result that requires a different way of living.
2. You need to recognise what is and is what is not working. Be honest, be real, and own up to stuff. Stop blaming others. Just look at you.
3. To see a change in some way, then we have to change. We need to learn to stop and think. Improved thinking will give us improved results. (Many people today find it hard to think things through, to think of tomorrow’s consequences of today’s actions)

And finally consider this great question from Brian Tracy  

4. PRACTICING ZERO BASE THINKING IN ALL YOU DO; relationships, work, investments. Ask yourself, “Is there anything I am doing today, knowing what I know now, that I would not start up again If I had to do it over??" This is one of the fastest ways to get your life back into balance.  

Needing help to gain clarity, action, order and peace of mind? Contact me today.