The Constant Work of Being a Human!

I have been doing a lot of planning lately. Planning is my answer to overwhelm. Every Monday, I have a meeting with myself. You can join me on my podcast - every Monday morning, I have a live meeting with the world juggling all the things that I want to do, have to do and need to do.

Everything for me begins with what you want. Knowing what you want leads you to what you need.

Not knowing what you want is a huge barrier for people in life. If that's you, I suggest you get a piece of paper and think about what you want. Really want. What would you wish for if you could have anything in the world?

Now write that down and start to consider how you could make that happen. You have to be open, you have to think very wide. This is not an exercise that requires you to be sensible.

Knowing what you want brings you to everything you need.

Breaking things down into small steps is the best way.

This is where planning helps. I constantly feel like there is so much to do!

Administrating things
Maintaining things
Organising things
Planning things
Purchasing things

One of our biggest challenges is that we need energy to do all these things - ironically, all these things can give us energy!

Administrating and organising give us mental energy. We feel lighter and clearer when we have our shit together.

We get emotional energy from planning and purchasing things. Planning fun. Purchasing is one of my favourite pastimes! Making sure we have all the things we need in our lives is an important part of honouring yourself. Not giving yourself the tools that you require in work or general life is a form of self-sabotage. It could be a new phone that makes your life easier or a new bed that improves your sleep!

We get physical energy from maintaining things. Maintaining your body by moving and stretching and making time to plan and prepare good meals.

Takes 30 hours a week to be a human. Cook, shop, clean, move, charge your phone and find your keys.

Most of us are awake for 100 hours every week - that leaves us with 70 hours. If you take off the number of hours you spend working, you have your spare hours. Those are the hours for leisure, family, hobbies, play and rest.

It's an interesting calculation to do. I suggest you spend at least one hour each week planning. Write down the things you need to administrate, maintain, organise and purchase. Getting things out of your head and onto paper frees up some RAM in the hard drive of your head!

If you need a hand, join me next Monday for my podcast and I will show you how!

Lisa O'Neill