Today is World Food Day

Just like we reorganize our desks, or schedules and even our homes – sometimes we also need to reorganize our soul.

What this means is simple yet it takes the time to go inside your mind and really think about what you want and your priorities.   When we feel out of balance its because something is not getting enough attention. Today for me that was taking some time for myself.

When your body tells you something, you should listen because it is the physical reaction you are getting to something not being taken care of.

I was completely drained of sleep, running on empty and my throat was starting to hurt after a long week of work and a weekend of travel. Especially for me, my right brain totally needs to be recharged and refreshed when it comes to getting great work done.

When you are trying to make big things happen you need to see the big picture and not just the small tasks. I had been focused on the small details of getting things done, the logistics. This is great and incredibly necessary, however when it starts to wear on your body – that is the message you need in order to step back and revitalize yourself.

In order to feed your soul you must first prep yourself to get in the right mindset.

1) First try Taking a longer lunch break, having an energy charging and slightly guilty snack (bananas, nutella and peanut butter – yum), taking some time to close the computer down early and put your feet up, or even my favorite – taking a bath are simple ways to recharge your mind and your body.  This will get your thinking back on track instead of in over-whelm or task mode.

For a night owl like me, I am generally up working on my computer till 3am, sometimes even 4 or 5am getting things done.  When you have a ton of work, and even when you have an absurd amount of work to do – if you fee stuck, that is exactly when you need to stop and recharge.

When you come back refreshed you will be able to do all of your work so much faster and way more efficiently.

2) Spend some extra time doing small things to make yourself happy and that have been clogging up your mind space. Maybe organizing your desk will make you feel better, maybe it’s making the inside of your dresser or jewelry area look more beautiful and inspiring. Whatever it is, I highly suggest cleaning up your physical environment a bit to feed your soul. Trust me, it works!

When you check a few small things off your list you will feel way more accomplished then if you aren’t even half way through your one big project.  Then, once those few small things are done you can get back to the middle of your big project and feel tremendously more satisfied.

Now you can focus better and have activated your right brain.  Your right brain is the part of your body that makes creative and big picture decisions.

3) The Pie Method Grab a sacred journal or a piece of paper and figure things out.  I learned this from my friend who had attended a Tony Robins weekend lecture and it was extremely helpful to put things in perspective for me.

Start by drawing a big circle in the middle of a fresh sheet of paper. Draw slices like a pie to show 8 equal sections of your life and label them on the outside of the pie:  Career, Money, Family, Friends, Health, Living Environment, Personal development and Spiritual / Emotional wellbeing.  You can even get more specific. If you just want to focus on your health make your sections be eating habits, workouts, alcohol consumption, weight, time spent sitting still, active time, etc.

It’s about you so if you want to change the topics or add more or less slices to the pie, be my guest. The main goal here is to keep the slices equal, measure the most important categories in your life and see how you can improve them to feel balanced.

Next, rate each section from 1 to 10 on how satisfied you are with the particular category and fill in the slice of the pie respectively. If you are a 2 in say your career, color in about 20% of the pie from the center moving outwards.  If you are a 6, color in about 60% of the slice from the center moving outwards. If you are 10 you are at 100% and your whole slice should be filled in from the center to the outside edge of the circle. Get it?

4) Notice the parts that are lacking and make a plan.  Now comes the hard part.  Look at how you rated each category and mark this exercise with today’s date. I like to come back to it whenever I feel the need and redraw my results to compare progress.   Look at the slices that are low.  Take a few minutes to figure out why you rated these categories so low and what you can do about it to change this part of your life.

Let’s say you rated your friendships at 40%.  Set some goals for next month or year to schedule one phone call a week or a coffee date with a different friend a few times a month.

This is how you feed your soul. When we feel balanced, all areas of our life should be pretty even. If you rated some areas less than a 4 and others at 8’s or 9’s you know you may need to put some extra time into raising those lower rated areas.  If the topic weren’t important to you, it wouldn’t even be on your graph. I know it’s impossible to rate all of your life areas at a 10 and if you did, you are not being honest with yourself – but it is ok to evaluate and readjust where you spend your time and energy.

Feeling balanced in life will enable you to do more with your time and energy. You will actually have more energy from the feeling of fulfillment you get when your life is balanced.

We all have tons to work on and it’s a learning process that we call life.  Don’t be so hard on yourself and know that where you put your energy, you see results.

Hope that inspires you and may you live a more balanced Holiday and New Year!
xoxo

Emily