Do you have an empty bucket? Don’t you want to keep the energy you put in your bucket? Don’t you want to be in charge of how you choose to use your energy? Sure you do! Read on and learn which of the 3 Energy Leaks are creating the biggest holes in your bucket.
You can’t water a garden with an empty bucket – right?! Last month we worked on filling your bucket and keeping it that way, but a full bucket doesn’t do much good if you’ve got lots of leaks. A leaky bucket requires you to put much more effort into filling it than if you have no leaks at all. Don’t you want to keep the energy you put in your bucket? Don’t you want to be in charge of how you choose to use your energy? Sure you do! Read on and learn which of the 3 Energy Leaks are creating the biggest holes in your bucket.
ENERGY VAMPIRES – the things we just put up with and tolerate.
Just think of a vampire – it sucks the life out of you! And that’s just what all those little things in life that you’re simply putting up with do to you. Look around your home or office right now. Is there a pile of paper or clutter that you’ve been walking by thinking that you’ll get to it later? Do you hate the color of the wall? Is your computer slower than molasses and it drives you crazy? These are great examples of tolerations. Every time you walk past that pile and think you should do something about it, a bit of your energy is drained away – the toleration has occupied space and taken some of your resource. Here’s the challenge – make a list of everything in your world that you are tolerating. It can be stuff, or people, or attitudes – things you can do something about or things you can’t. Keep that list handy, you'll be using it later.
ENERGY WASTERS – our bad habits.
Picture this. You are running a race, an important race. You are effortlessly bounding towards the finish line, exuberant and full of energy. You gloriously leap across the finish line to celebrate your great accomplishment. Nice picture, huh? OK, how ‘bout this one? You’re running the same important race, but tied to your ankle is a small footstool. You have to run in a really awkward way to avoid stepping on the footstool and it keeps banging into your other leg. Now imagine, that the footstool becomes a sofa tied around your waist. You’re running as hard as you can, but making such little progress and using so much energy that you often have to sit down on the sofa to rest. You can’t even see the finish line. Our bad habits are just like the footstool or the sofa (or perhaps even a refrigerator!), wasting our energy and preventing us from finishing our race with energy and joy. What are your bad habits? Make a list.
ENERGY QUICKSAND – worry.
When you think of worry, think about your garden hose in the backyard with the tap turned on. If you worry a little, the water just trickles out endlessly, if you worry a lot, it gushes out flooding your whole yard and making it impossible for things to grow. Here’s an exercise for you. Draw a line on a piece of paper, with 1 at one end, 10 at the other, and 5 in the middle. Then rate your self on this ‘worry scale’. Put yourself closer to 1 if worry doesn’t impact you much – if you find yourself worrying, you take action to solve your problem. Mark closer to 5 if worry affects you somewhat, impacting your sleeping or eating and other things in your life. You're closer to a 10 if worry affects your life daily and your sleep, eating, moods and relationships are regularly affected. If you mark yourself above a 3, you likely have a worry leak that needs some attention.
So, now that you’ve identified some of the leaks that you’d like to take care of the question is what do you do to plug them up?! April is Plug Your Leaks month at the http//:www.balancedlivingjournal.blogspot.com (my blog - remember). Throughout the month I will be posting some very specific ways for you to tackle your leaks and hoping that you will also post what works for you. So go there frequently during the month to get and share information about your energy leaks.
Getting Unstuck
Do you wonder if you're making the right choices in your life? Are you stuck in a familiar quagmire? Here are some simple steps that may help you get "unstuck" the next time you find yourself questioning yourself and the choices you are making.
No is a Complete Sentence
Almost all the women I’ve worked with have trouble saying no. It’s a common issue for us females as we’ve been generally raised and socialized to please and fit in. Often times we associate saying no with horrible consequences – the ending of relationships, anger, someone not liking us – and so there’s a little bit (or even a huge amount) of fear associated with saying no. Do you have trouble saying no?
Powerful Intentinos
Intention. I know you know what it means, but when pressed to define it in words your tongue may get a bit tied. Most people somehow relate intention to goals or the process of goal achievement. And that is true, as we must ‘intend’ in order to accomplish. But intention is so much more than simply the road to completing a goal. Intention has a decidedly spiritual side. Even the dictionary has a definition that involves intention as prayer.
