Posts Tagged ‘Attention’
What Is Your Emotional Map Revealing to You?
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010
While working with a coaching client, she expressed how she was feeling much more freedom in her life. I asked her what had changed that allowed her to feel this freedom. She had the insight, “Living and coloring outside the lines has allowed me to live the way I want rather than what others want. I started to notice how I was feeling and paying attention to my heart.”
Emotions are often the map to our thoughts. In the Frame of Mind Self-Guided Course, there was an assignment about paying attention to feelings. “Paying attention to how you feel is most important because your feelings are a barometer for the types of thoughts that are dominating your mind. Your thoughts produce your feelings. Do you want to feel differently? If yes, then you need to change your thoughts.” How are you paying attention to your feelings?
As my friend Judy Kinney says, “Are you open to the idea that the condition of your life reflects the quality of your attention?” What are you paying attention to these days?
What is your emotional map revealing to you? What’s dominating your heart lately?
May love be your guide and light show you the way.
Mary Anne
Are You Taking Up a Seat?
Monday, May 17th, 2010
I have noticed more and more people sitting and taking up two seats on the subway. Most seem oblivious to the fact that they are stretched out while others are crammed into a subway car. I, like many others, have approached these folks to politely ask to sit down. There are folks who take up only one seat and are just as oblivious. While sitting at baseball games I have seen a lot of folks in very expensive seats who are busy texting, emailing, and some even leaving for two innings or more.
These experiences led me to start thinking about all the times we take up a seat in life. What we do while in our seat, how we offer others our seat, and what we contribute while in that seat is what really matters. What will you do with your chance to sit in that seat? What value do you want to offer others – even when it is difficult – even when your voice is the opposite one of what is being said? How many meetings, conventions, or events do you want to attend and not offer anything to the conversation?
How many times have I taken up a seat and have not been present to the conversation or what is happening around me? Next time I take up a seat, what will my contribution be?
Is that seat taken?
Mary Anne
Time to Eat the Frog
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
When I first heard the phrase, Eat the Frog during a workshop with Janice Hoffmann, I was both hesitant and interested. Curious to hear more, I leaned forward to find out what Janice was talking about. Essentially, Eat the Frog means starting your day by tackling the most challenging thing on your list. Develop the habit of doing the hardest thing first – the thing you put off to the end of the day – the one that never gets done. It’s about creating space in our day to do what we love. If we put off eating the frog, it’s always there, waiting for us.
We spend so much time on smaller tasks, we run out of time to do what might need the most inspiration or energy. We multi-task in the hopes more can get done and then wonder why we feel so exhausted. There was a time being able to do ten things at once made us feel successful. But all we need to do is one task a time with full attention. Eating the frog is about performing a task that is crucial for our growth, our business, or our life, even if it is not fun. In the end, eating the frog gets us farther.
How do you prepare for your day? What do you really want to pay attention to and complete? Successful people know how to eat the frog. Entrepreneurs eat the frog every day – they take risks. Listen for the most important task, write it down, and do it. Think about the last time you wanted five more minutes of sleep or will go for that walk tomorrow – how did you end up feeling?
We tell ourselves we don’t have enough time. We may not have time for everything we want to do, but we always have enough time to do everything we choose to do.
Go ahead – Eat the Frog!
Mary Anne