Since I’m visiting with my parents this week, I’m going to make this article short and sweet. I know, it’s a little selfish of me, and, I think you’ll get why this topic is staring me in the face.
The same strategy helped me take off for a ten-day retreat with no email contact with my support staff or clients. It also helped launch our website in six weeks, and it’s the reason why I get this article out every week, when so many people struggle to get anything at all written in a month.
I was forced to.
There’s a lot to be said for freedom of choice. For inspirational movement forward, and having lots of creative space. I love it. I revel in it, when I have it.
However, there’s nothing quite like a deadline, with expectations and obligations hanging over you, to get things done.
This is a dangerous path to take, and it requires some conscious awareness in using it. Fall asleep, and you’ll end up twenty years down the road in a career you don’t like, having wasted your life on unimportant priorities.
Here’s the trick. Use your heart to choose. At the beginning of the year I used my deepest heart-Remembrance to become aware of what was really important to me, both personally and professionally. I chose strategic intentions that illuminated the pathway I’m on.
Then, I chose projects that landed on that pathway, and ignored projects that weren’t. Those projects had deadlines.
And those projects ran me. I showed up for those obligations, and got (most of it) done, with some forgiveness, as usual, for the inevitable imperfections.
Let me recap for you:
- Use your heart to illuminate your path, your values, what’s truly important to you.Your heart is calling you forward, look up to see where it’s leading you. This can take time. I had a ten-day retreat as part of a Masters of Divinity program. You may not have that much time, but just 24 hours of quiet retreat, like we do every two months in our Alumni Community, can create tremendous, tremendous clarity.
- Choose the projects that are on that path. Say not to the projects not on that path.Both the yes and the no are important. And, to get even more subtle, you need to have a sense of your own capacity even for the things you say “Yes” to. Space ’em out. Think it will take 6 months? Better give yourself 14 months. Breathe. Slow down. Be present.
- Lean into those projects. Having chosen them, honor the deadlines, let them run you. And if you get resentful during a big push, remember you yourself chose this path. And, if necessary, change the timeline. Stretch it out.
The Alumni Community was, in my brain, originally supposed to launch January 1. That was rank insanity, so it launched March 1 instead. And so much more smoothly. 🙂 It still kicked my rear and impacted my family life for a few days before the deadline. But I was clear about my choice, had my wife’s agreement, and was committed to seeing it through.
This week with my parents was scheduled. Family is a high priority for me, I knew I needed/wanted to be present. I could’ve planned better to take the time off, but after the kids were sick last week, my additional planning time was used up. So the week is suddenly here and… I’m still taking a lot of time off this week. Because I’m forced to. 🙂
What path are you on? Tell us about the projects that are running you.
p.s. Needing some hands-on help?
Sometimes a course or group program just isn’t quite the right thing. Sometimes you want something very custom, with the focus totally on you and your business, on your timeline, your agenda, you.
Yollana Shore and Jason Stein have years of experience as healers and coaches, and have chalked up tremendous successes with their clients. And they are official Heart of Business practitioners, steeped in our approach. To learn more about working with one of them, visit:
http://heartofbusiness.com/training-programs/obd-program-basic/
15 Responses
I am adding to the process I created called The Four Gateways To Re~enchantment(tm). It helps women answer their wake up call that their lives aren’t their own anymore and that this is depleating them in mind, body, & spirit. I’m wanting to integrate the process into my JourneyDance(tm) holistic dance for mind, body, spirit I’m doing.
It has the potential to be powerful and really help women go through a rebirth and renewal at any age. http://www.Awakenedpotentials.com
Great post, Mark, thanks. The project that is currently running me is called “learning to live a post-perfectionist life.” Eventually I look forward to creating something for my clients from this learning process — but I’m very much in the beginning still. And feeling really grateful for it. 🙂
I so appreciate this perspective, Mark, and it’s landing at just the right time. I’ve been humming and hawing over a project, one that is beautiful and helpful and…. not on my path. I’m sighing with relief as I decide to tenderly, lovingly, let it go.
Have a wonderful visit!
So perfectly simple and full of the wisdom of experience! Thank you for this little reminder, and the push that comes along with it!
Two projects that keep getting pushed aside…a social media marketing plan that was barely started and needs to be finished. As well as packaging service offerings. I’m working on deadlines and accountability for both!
Enjoy your visit with your parents. What a special time for all of you!
Thanks for this. It is exactly what I needed to hear at this moment. This plus our work in HOM 2012 re divine connection and debt. My new project is Predictably Well- it is a community and a health tech start up. We help people with autoimmune diseases forecast their well days. This is based on my own health journey and what I learned about myself, my body, my connection to all. So what is running me now is writing my executive summary which is so important to potential government grants, private funding and getting the message of empowered health into the world.
love the bit where you said “Use your heart to choose”.i think we make far too many choices with our heads and not enough with our hearts
Enjoy the visits with the rents. Love the follow your heart advice. We need to do that more often.
Sounds like the suspension needs to be replaced. That is if your tires don’t need to be filled. I’m guessing it is leaning on the driver’s side. If so, then it is probably the suspension’s gone out.
I will surely keep this in mind..You are an eye opening for us.. That we should choose what we really want.. I totally agree with this.. 🙂
I like retreats, it helps you reflect on things and see the most essential things in all aspects of your life. I get to go once in awhile just to keep me guided and have this feeling of calmness and appreciation on the simplest things in life. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how to identify what matters most and what you want most, and if you commit to them, we should honor our obligations. Thanks Mark!
I love that you wrote about using the heart to choose. I know there have been several times when I have had to choose between what felt right and what felt rational. It’s difficult, especially when your gut/intuition tells you that a choice that seems irrational is the right one.
Mark ->” I chose strategic intentions that illuminated the pathway I
@Frank – I probably could. 🙂 I simply meant that after my heart illuminates the direction, it becomes more clear what projects my business needs to keep it on that path. What projects I say yes to that support the direction, and what projects I say “no” to that lead me away from where I’m going.
A genius of my generation once said: “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. However I think making plans is a necessary and unavoidable part of our life! We just don’t have to expect that they will always be respected!
Enjoy your visit 🙂
By “use your heart to choose” did you mean to choose wisely and accordingly to your current situation ? So often i see people recommending to do “what you love” while doing so wont make much money. Sometimes (especially today) we need to do…what we need to do – and that not may be necessarily what we love.