Thoughts become things

I am just re-reading Napolean Hill’s inspirational work “Think and Grow Rich”. Although written in the 1960s this still has huge relevance and covers many of the same issues as the modern influential work known as “The Secret”.

If you are not familiar with the idea, it states that thinking emotionally and clearly about what you want aligns life/the universe toward delivering that to you. Hill has a slightly more complex idea of how this works that the Secret authors but the overall idea is the same.

How does this apply to work-life balance? Well I hear a lot of people say, and I see a lot written that articulates the view that such balance would be nice, but is essentially unachievable in the modern world. Variations on this include caveats such as “I will get balance when the kids have left home, or I retire etc.”

Well, as I have mentioned before if that is your mindset, that has a tendency to become your reality. Therefore work-life balance never does materialize and so your thoughts are proven., further reinforcing them. So how do you get by this?

Try this simple exercise: Find a time and a place where you can relax and spend 5 minutes in contemplation of your ideal working week. If that is tough think of your ideal day. By this I mean what are you doing for work and leisure, where are you, who are you with when you feel perfectly in balance with you life. Think as clearly as you can – feel the warmth of the sun if that is important to you, define clearly and in detail what work you are doing. Ensure you are not contained in your thinking by what you have and where you are today – this is your “ideal” day or week.

Once you have done that write it down so you can refer to it. This is the first step to freeing your thinking. Do not allow yourself to question your vision, keep referring to it and aiming for it. You will be amazed as you look at it over and over how it’s meaning develops for you and your thoughts start to align toward it.

You need to take some action toward achieving this vision of course. However you will find that your leisure and work pursuits start to fall in line with what you want. Again, you need to take action and you will find it lines up increasingly with what you imagine and you will get closer to your goal faster than you think you will.

Most people listen to this and never do it! So, what will you do?

Saying no – again

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I wrote and I hope that everyone had a great holiday season. It was a good time to reflect on the past year and, of course plan for 2008. It’s probably a bit late to wish everyone a happy new year but Happy New Year anyway!

I thought it was time to look at something that I have blogged about before – identifying what is most important and ruthlessly focusing on that and eliminating extraneous stuff. In other words saying “no” to distracting stuff.

The week before Christmas was very illustrative for me. Basically I wanted to get everything squared away before the holidays so I committed to far too much. I had around three things to do each day and I ended up doing something I hate to do – I let down one of my networking partners. In fact I did so twice in a week. That really isn’t acceptable and can be damaging to relationships.

So what did I learn? I was reminded of the question: “by saying yes, what are you saying no to?” In other words there are always consequences for agreeing to do something and they are usually related to time available to do other things that may be equally, or more important.

So I have reverted to a tactic really works. For a defined period of time, say “no” to every request. This can only work for a short time (a couple of days, a week at most) but it is very freeing. I don’t mean flatly turn down requests but tactfully decline. You may decline totally, or you may indicate you are not able to do that for a while.

Try it. For today try turning down every request that demands your time now or in the near future. It will give you confidence to say no int he future when you are strapped for time and not feel guilty. You will actually become much more focused.