Blog – Page 100 – One Insight Closer

Complaining Lowers Your Energy

April 8, 2011August 16, 2012 by EvieBurke, posted in Complaining

I’ve written before about not complaining. Today I thought I’d share a specific example about how not complaining kept my energy higher throughout the day.

In September of last year I want to a day long event in St Louis on a Sunday. I didn’t want to take any time off to attend and I hadn’t told anyone at work that I was training to be a coach and the event was about making money as an entrepreneur. So, I didn’t want to come into work too late either. That meant I would either be driving home really late Sunday night or flying home early Monday. I decided to fly (the airfare from O’Hare to St. Louis vs the gas and time cost made it cheaper).

Flying meant I had to be up, ready for work, and out of the hotel by 5am. My husband picked me up at O’Hare and I was at work around 8:30, which was actually a little early for me because I usually got to work around 9am.

I was very tired that morning because I went to bed late on Sunday and was up very early on Monday. However, I couldn’t complain about it to anyone because they didn’t know what I was up to! The result was I didn’t wallow in the fact that I didn’t get very much sleep and actually kept my energy at a decent level throughout the day. If I would have complained about it all day I would have felt tired and been unproductive all day.

Complaining takes energy and it lowers your energy. When you make the effort to stop complaining, your energy shifts and you have more physical and mental energy available to you!

Tell me about a time you noticed this in your life in the comments!

Do You Wish They Would Do More?

April 5, 2011April 6, 2011 by EvieBurke, posted in show up, you get what you give

Have you ever wished that someone would do more of something for you, even just once? Perhaps you wish that your boss would compliment you every once in a while when you do a good job on a project. Or your husband would take care of that one project you’ve been asking him to do for the last few months. Or maybe you wish that someone took more of an interest in what you do. Do you have a wish like that?

Let me ask another question: When was the last time you did that thing you wanted more of for that person? When was the last time you complimented your boss or quickly took care of something that was important to your husband or took an interest in what someone else does (and really listened)?

You get what you give right? So what are you giving and what do you want to get? Think about it and this week try to give more of what you would like to receive. You might be surprised at your results!

Let me know how it goes!

Worry About That Tomorrow

March 31, 2011April 1, 2011 by EvieBurke, posted in Worry

I’m a worrier. I worry about a lot of things. Things like am I prepared for this, what if something goes wrong, will they like me (interestingly, I don’t worry if I’ll like them), am I dressed appropriately, etc. I realized the other day that in response to my worrying, I tend to make plans.

For example, I worry about money, so I plan out a budget and do my best to stick to it. I worry about being bored on trips (especially on planes), so I pack plenty of things to do. I remember going on vacation as a kid and having a whole bag full of things to do (and being small enough that it fit on the floor in front of me because my feet didn’t quite hit the floor).

In those examples, I’d argue that my worrying had a good result, I planned in order to avoid the situation I worried about. However, what about those things that you can’t plan for? The worries of: will they like me or what if something goes wrong? What do you do then?

Honestly, I still battle this and I heard a quote last week that I’m sure I have heard before, but it never really registered.

“Fiddle-dee-dee! I won’t worry about that today. I’ll worry about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day!” ~ Scarlett O’Hara

It really struck me. Procrastination we can use! Imagine that. So, next time you find yourself worrying about something ask yourself two questions: 1) Can I plan for it? 2) If not, can I worry about it tomorrow? If so, repeat the questions tomorrow!

It sounds kind of silly, right? Let’s take a look at two examples.

Will they like me?

Can I plan for it? Well, no not really.
If not, can I worry about it tomorrow? Absolutely.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 tomorrow!

What if something goes wrong?

Can I plan for it? I’ve done all the planning I can do!
If not, can I worry about it tomorrow? Yep.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 tomorrow.

The beauty of this is it gives you permission to stop worrying about it! And a way to legitimately worry about it tomorrow (and in this case tomorrow never coming is a good thing!).

What do you do to stop worrying?

Changing a Default Setting

January 13, 2011 by EvieBurke, posted in Default Setting

Yesterday I planned today almost completely out. I had a schedule that would take me from when I got up at 6:30 to 6:30pm. I have a lot of things I want to accomplish today and I wanted to make sure I got everything done. Sounds good right?

I went to bed last night with a headache and figured that by the time morning came around it would be gone. Well, I was very wrong. I woke up this morning with a horrible headache. I thought about getting up and starting my morning as planned, but the though literally left me feeling a little sick to my stomach.

I took something for my headache and figured I had two choices: 1) Get up and go about my morning while I waited for the medicine to kick in or 2) go back to bed and let the medicine and sleep do their things. I opted for number 2.

I actually had more than two choices, because the internal dialog we have with ourselves is also a choice. After I picked option 2 my internal dialog started in with “oohh, now I’m not going to get everything I wanted to done! I really have to get those things done today!” I quickly realized that beating myself up over this was not productive. So, I changed my dialog to “It’s more important to take care of myself and recognize when my body needs rest. I’ll get a lot accomplished when I feel better.”

I call the original dialog my “default setting”. A “default setting” is the way you automatically react to something, kind of like settings on your computer or phone. Default settings can be changed, but some are harder to change than others.

I’m working on changing my default settings in situations like this morning. I tend to beat myself up when I can’t meet the high expectations I have for myself. Instead I want to be more loving and caring with myself (I wouldn’t treat a friend that way, why should I treat myself that way!).

The first step to changing your default settings is to recognize when you have one you want to change and then replace it with a new message.

What default settings do you have that you want to change? Tell me about them in the comments!