BLOG 011 – THE 5 MINUTES OF CLARITY – YOUR INTERNAL PASSIONS (CREATING CLARITY FOR YOUR INTERNAL PASSIONS)
So much stuff to do!
Seems like I’m just keeping my head above water!
Would be nice to just have a moment to think? A moment to have for myself? A moment to see why I am not going towards the direction I want to be going in life!
But you never give yourself that moment.
Why?
What did you do to yourself that was so bad that you don’t want to take care of yourself … your Internal self?
Someone asks you to jump.. you do and by the end of the day you get most things done, or maybe some of it, but yet you don’t feel fulfilled.
You may be praised by others as to how appreciative “they” are of your contributions… at least you made “them” happy.. but you sure don’t feel fulfilled. You may not feel happy.
Ever ask yourself why you work so hard to make others feel good, only to go home and not feel fulfilled yourself?
What did you do to yourself that was so bad that you don’t want to take care of yourself … Your Internal self?
Now, you may look good, and the bare essentials are taken care of… food, clothing, some sleep, well kept appearance, etc… but isn’t it mind blowing you don’t include your Internal self as essentials? Your Internal Passions? How do you fix that?
What Do We Get When We Look After Our Internal Passions?
Not sure why we have not been taught to look after our Internal Passions. There are some people who have looked after theirs. When they look after their Internal Passions, and begin to get clarity on what they can do to fulfill their Internal Passions, they reap the rewards of their work to get there. In some cases, the work that is done is difficult while for others it’s just a quick lifestyle adjustment.
For an example of an Internal Passion that fulfills, let’s look at volunteers. There are volunteers that have been volunteering for long periods of time, and the fulfillment they receive volunteering invigorates them, energizes them. For some volunteers, it wasn’t difficult to make the time to volunteer, for others they may have found that they were forced into it (possibly through their children’s group activities) and had to do a lot of work to find the time. For those volunteers that find volunteering fulfills their Internal Passions, they continue to make time for it. Why? Because volunteering invigorates them, energizes them …. its an Internal Passion.
For other examples, let’s look at someone who has found a job/career that aligns with an Internal Passion of theirs. It could be someone who loves working with numbers and has entered into the workforce as an accountant or book keeper. It could be someone who loves helping people feel better and now works in the medical field or as a life or career coach. It could be someone who loves building and fixing things and has found a job/career as a mechanic, a builder, a trades person in electrical or plumbing.
You know people have found an activity/job/career that aligns with their Internal Passions because they love talking about it, the get excited talking about it, they don’t need to be motivated to go out and do it. That is what you get when you look after your Internal Passions.
How do you begin to find/look after your Internal Passions?
Here at www.ManagingMadeSimple.com, our goal is to simplify things for you. We could bring up numerous studies and/or methods to do this, the “why” to do this, and statistics to show you the percentages of how happier you would be… but like most of us, we already have a lot of things to do and not very much time to even consider adding something new (like reading a bunch of studies or statistics).
So, what is a simple thing to do to find/look after your Internal Passions? Here is a process that is simple…. you still have to hold yourself accountable to do it… to create a habit… and many times that is the hardest part of implementing a new process… us not wanting to create the habit. So, picture this, by doing these steps, in 30 days you will have an invigorated and excited feeling inside because you are beginning to see you move forward to your Internal Passions.
Here are the steps
1 – Establish 5 minutes with no interruptions (from others or from things that catch your attention like the cell phone or email/social media pop ups) to address your Inner Passions.
Look at your last 5 – 10 days to see if there is any time that seems to occur daily that you can spend on you (looking at your inner passions).
- It could be finding 5 minutes every morning before leaving your house to go somewhere that is uninterrupted,
- It could be in your office with the door closed and the computer screens shut off and phone on “do not disturb”
- It could be in your car just before you leave for work, or just after you get to work.
- It could be anywhere and to block everything out, you put ear plugs or in ear head phones without any audio coming out of it, and close your eyes.
- It can actually be in a bathroom (as odd/funny as that sounds) in one of the stalls.
2 – Use that 5 minutes to do one or all of these 3 things….
- Write down the things that pop into your mind that has to do with what your inner passions are.
- Write down some potential options you could do to fulfill any of those inner passions.
- Write down actions that could be done today to move you towards getting closer to fulfill an Internal Passion.
NOTE: You could use paper and pen to write them down.. but in all honesty, with so many of us having cell phones, everyone has a notes application to put all this information in. So, however you choose to capture it, please remember to just write this information down as it pops into your head.
3 – Schedule the action to do today to get you closer to fulfill an inner passion.
This is where many can get overwhelmed, because the step they have stated appears overwhelming. Many times, what we think is a step, is actually a project that consists of many steps. Some steps are small and some steps are large. You will know if the action you are scheduling is really for an Internal Passion. How will you know? If you don’t feel excited and energized to move forward with a step, it many not be an Internal Passion. It may be something you would like to achieve, but it’s not something you feel energized to move forward on. This is why these three steps are so powerful. By the time you get to step three, you will be able to tell yourself if something on your list is something you really have a passion for or not.
So, what if you do have a passion to do something, and your step appears to be quite large. Remember you only have given yourself 5 minutes. Your first step might be to plan some time to focus on breaking that step down into smaller steps. Your first step might be to find 30 minutes later in the day to spend more time breaking that large step into smaller steps. That is still moving forward. Each step forward is just as significant as every other step.
This is 3 simple steps. Doing them is not easy. Building a habit to do it needs effort. That appears easy, but we all know it’s not.
So Where Does That Get You?
Spending 5 minutes a day on this will result in putting away 35 minutes a week for you to invest in you. There absolutely are 5 minute segments we can find daily to do this. When you write whatever is in your head in those 5 minutes you have them available to build on for the next day’s 5 minutes. You have those important notes that have captured;
- Statements that have to do with your Internal Passions,
- Options to fulfill those Internal Passions, and
- Simple actions that could be done today to move you forward to fulfill those Internal Passions.
What To Expect When You Start Your First 5 Minutes?
You may start out with nothing to write down (you may not even know what your Internal Passions are). So the first number of days you may just have to ask yourself what gives you an incredible internal feeling that you would probably do for free just to get that feeling. If in a 5 minute segment all you did was reflect on Internal Passions, that is equally as important a step as writing them down.
There will be times that all you do is write down things that define your Internal Passions. Other times it may be a whole pile of potential options. Other times it may be a lot of action steps.
Therefore, I would say, don’t expect a specific thing to be captured. Expect that you will hold yourself accountable to do the simple 5 Minutes of Clarity – Your Internal Passions process.
Expect that for 5 minutes a day YOU will spend time taking care of your Internal Passions. YOU are your biggest supporter for YOU. YOU are your biggest champion of YOU. There is no reason that, for at least 5 minutes per day, you can’t invest in YOU.
Where will you be in 30 days?
You will have invested 2.5 hours into moving towards your Inner Passions. You will have an amazing list of notes on what your Inner Passions are (or could be), options to fulfilling those Internal Passions, and simple action steps to move you forward to fulfilling those Internal Passions.. and you will also have a list of steps that you actually have completed to move yourself forward….. All by spending only 5 minutes a day.
A simple process, with a simple set of steps…. all for the goal of moving you forward to getting to achieve your Internal Passions. Now, please explain why you can’t find 5 minutes a day to Invest In You. We believe in You…. Do You?
Till We Meet Again…
Managing Made Simple
(This exercise is part of the “Identifying” step in the Managing Made Simple process)