Tag: control

Living Now, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Productivity, Time Management, Working Mums

Benefits of Having a Balanced Schedule

Lyn Bailey

Benefits of Having a Balanced Schedule

If you want to get more done in life without feeling too busy and burning out, it’s imperative that you create a balanced schedule. A balanced schedule has enormous benefits for your life when you make sure to account for what you need and want to do in every area of your life.

When you have a balanced schedule, you:

  • Feel less stressed because you’re not overwhelmed by a packed schedule
  • More free time to enjoy life apart from work and responsibilities
  • Are able to focus better on the task at hand when you have regular breaks
  • Avoid burnout from working too much or taking on too much at once
  • Get more done because you’re efficient with your time

A balanced schedule is the key to a happy, productive life. If you currently feel overwhelmed, stressed, and like you can’t keep up, it’s time to take a step back and assess your schedule. See what can be cut out or spread out more evenly. You’ll be surprised at how much better you feel when you have a handle on your time.

Creating a balanced schedule means looking at all the areas of your life and ensuring there’s enough time for everything important to you. This includes work, family, friends, hobbies, and taking care of yourself. If one area takes up too much of your time, something else is likely suffering.

For example, if you’re working long hours, you may not have enough time for your family or friends. Or, if you’re spending all your free time on hobbies, you may neglect your work or other obligations. Therefore, finding a good balance between all the areas of your life is essential.

One way to do this is to create a weekly schedule where you block out time for each area of your life. This can help you see where you may need to make some adjustments. For instance, if you realize you’re working too much, you can cut back on your hours or take on less work. Or, if you’re not spending enough time with your family or friends, you can make an effort to schedule more social activities.

Like your boss, friend, and neighbor, you only have 24 hours a day, so be realistic regarding how much time you can devote to each area of your life. Also, keep in mind that your schedule may need to change from week to week, depending on what’s going on in your life. So schedule the most critical aspects of your life, like work and family, and then fill in the rest of your time with other activities.

A balanced schedule is essential for a happy, productive life. When you are mindful about what you really need to live a satisfying life, pay close attention to needs in all areas of your life and ensure there’s enough time for everything important to you, you can avoid stress, burnout, and feeling overwhelmed. So, take a look at your schedule and make the necessary adjustments to create a more balanced life.

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Your Personal Development Plan
Abundance, Living Now, Mindfulness, Personal Development, Productivity, Time Management, Working Mums

Five Reasons You Need a Personal Development Plan

Lyn Bailey

A personal development plan is like a roadmap. It assists you in finding your purpose and developing your strengths. It also gives you the confidence needed to get out of your comfort zone. A good personal development plan will also help you improve your self-awareness. This combination will ensure that you know your potential and live up to it with intention.

Discover Your Purpose

On the road to self-discovery, most people want to know why they are here. If you want to know your purpose in life, focus on your personal development and create a written personal development plan to help you find it.

As you discover what makes you think the way you do, challenge your thoughts, and decide what facts you’ll use to make sound decisions. When you do this, you may come across additional information that will lead you to closer to your purpose. You are more likely to feel good about the ideas you have and actions you take each day because you know they will have a particular impact.

Develop Your Strengths

Once you discover your strengths as you study yourself and pay close attention to how you feel about your actions, you’ll know what to develop. Focusing on what you are already good at is always preferable to focus on where you are lacking.

Getting additional training, practicing, and learning from others regarding the things you’re already good at doing is a much more pleasurable and successful way to approach your life. You’re naturally good at something that gives you joy and makes you better. So, you may as well use your natural gifts.

Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

While you do want to focus on what you are already good at doing, sometimes it takes time to see what that is. Getting out of your comfort zone has nothing to do with forcing yourself to focus on things you aren’t good at doing. Instead, it may mean simply showing someone else what you’re good at.

Boost Your Confidence

As you develop yourself, you’ll start experiencing success, and that experience will boost your confidence exponentially. Part of personal development is focusing on learning to have a positive mindset, taking the best care of yourself, and reveling in your skills and experience. When your confidence is strong, you’ll free yourself from paralyzing self-doubt and negative thoughts and emotions. You can’t help but become strong when you craft and follow a plan based on self-discovery and your goals.

Improve Your Self-Awareness

Since personal development is all about you, getting to know who you are is especially important. Knowing who you are will allow you to know and lead with your strengths so that you can cope with your weaknesses, realistically and kindly, without lying to yourself or others about who you are. Self-awareness is the ultimate precursor to authenticity.

You also need a personal development plan because you’re much more likely to succeed at anything when you have a plan. A personal development plan is a documented set of facts and information to help guide and direct you through the actions and habits that make up your life. For example, if you want to succeed at any dream, it starts with a goal. Then, through smart goal setting, your goals become a plan that you can follow, track, and even change throughout your life while remaining focused on your ultimate dreams and goals.

As the are now in our second quarter of the year, if you want to find out how a personal development plan can help you live a happier life, then click HERE to book a strategy session for just $49.00!

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Abundance, Health, Living Now, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Multitasking, Productivity, Relationships, Time Management, Working Moms, Working Mums

Calm Racing Thoughts & Enjoy the Peace of the Present

Lyn Bailey

Calm Racing Thoughts & Enjoy the Peace of the Present

 

Living in the now is something that takes practice. You may struggle with being present because of racing thoughts.

People have this issue because of overthinking. There are common areas where people tend to overthink. One of these areas is money. A simple thought that you’d like to make more money can quickly turn into worrying that you may not have enough in the future. It could turn into worrying about what you’ll do if you lose your job or ability to work.

Relationships are another area where overthinking often happens. This is usually due to projecting. You don’t know what someone is thinking or feeling and it can make you second guess. You might think someone is feeling negatively toward you when they’re not even thinking about their relationship with you at all.

If you take a situation or a problem and you overthink it, you can spin it into a huge problem that seems overwhelming. Then you feel paralyzed and unable to take action. Now, racing thoughts keep you spinning your wheels and wasting time.

When you learn how to control your thoughts, you live fully present and acquire a feeling of power, as you realize what you can do. To calm racing thoughts and experience the peace of the present, you can take several steps in order to reach your goal.

First, remember to breathe. When you pause to breathe, it effectively lowers your heightened response as well as your stress. Focus on inhaling and exhaling and slowly count to three as you do so. You’ll instantly feel calmer.

Second, don’t look at situations that aren’t reality. Many people create worst-case scenarios in their mind. For example, if someone is late coming home, you might assume the worst—that your loved one was injured or in an accident. However, this thought doesn’t serve you. It only adds unnecessary stress and fear to your life.

If you realize that a thought is based only on anxiety, let it go. You might say, “I know Dave is running late. But I release my fear over it and choose to believe that everything will be fine.”

Next, don’t allow yourself to get caught up in the past either. Focus on the moment, rather than what used to be, or what could be. The only time that you have is right now. If you focus on the past, your thoughts will race about things that happened to you or how you could have done things differently.

You may also find it helpful to adopt a mantra. Having a word or phrase that you can turn to in order to refocus your attention can calm a racing mind. This could be something as simple as “Everything is fine” or “I walk in peace.”

Sometimes racing thoughts happen because you’re trying to hold on to important information. You fear what might happen if you forget to take care of something. To calm your racing thoughts, create a thought list.

Write down all the thoughts that are bothering you. Once they’re written down, you’ll discover that your thoughts are no longer racing. That’s because once you write something down, your brain believes it has dealt with the racing thoughts and will begin winding down.

You can also choose to do a calming activity when you’re struggling to be present. This might be something like playing a game, reading, writing, gardening, coloring, drawing, or listening to music. Calming activities stop racing thoughts because they change your focus from being immersed in anxiety or regret to actively doing something.

Exercise is another activity you can do that will calm racing thoughts. As you exercise, endorphins flood the body. This boosts your mood and can help you get fear or worry back under control. For the best results, choose a low-impact exercise that will calm you. For example, you might choose a slow walk around your neighborhood or a series of gentle yoga poses.

Change your sounds can also have a profound impact on bringing you into the present moment. Listen to the birds outside your window or put on some nature music. You could turn on a white noise machine or listen to instrumental music as well.

 

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Abundance, Health, Living Now, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Multitasking, Productivity, Time Management, Working Moms, Working Mums

How to Become Aware of the Current Moment

Lyn Bailey

How to Become Aware of the Current Moment

Learning how to become aware of the current moment is one of the best ways that you can live in the present.

Begin by tuning in to your body. You can do this by understanding how to connect with your body. Breathe in and pay attention to how the air fills your lungs. Then slowly release the air. Notice how the oxygen makes your lungs feel as you inhale, then again as you exhale. Then focus on the top of your head and move down or begin at your toes and move up as you focus on your body. During these body moments, you want to be aware of your breathing and posture.

Listen in to how your body feels in each area. Pay attention to assess whether there is something that you need to address. Sometimes, you can get so busy in life that you miss important things your body is trying to tell you. Perform a mental body scan to help you become aware of the present.

You can also check in with yourself as soon as you’re awake. Do this by taking a few minutes to write down whatever it is that flows into your consciousness. There’s no page count to reach or no limit to be had. You just write down your thoughts and your feelings. These short writing bursts can put your day into focus, as well as how you’re feeling at the moment.  Writing down what’s going on in your mind helps to clear away the cobwebs, determine your focus, and helps you prepare for the day. It doesn’t matter if you skip from thought to thought. There’s no grade to be had here. You can write one word, one sentence or several pages. This is simply tuning in to your mind at the beginning of your day just like you tuned in to your body.

Another way to stay present is to meditate as you’re going through your day. When you meditate on your day—on each task or action—it helps you to stay in the now regardless of whatever it is that you’re doing. To do this, just stop and take three deep breaths as you concentrate on the task or action you are doing at the moment.

This practice helps you to keep your attention trained on the current moment rather than thinking about what happened yesterday or turning your focus to what you need to do tomorrow.

Take a second to see yourself as you’re going through your day. Visualize your steps. This works to keep your focus on what you need to do rather than allowing yourself to become distracted by other things.

When your day is over, pause to reflect about the moments that you were fully present. Think about how you felt physically and how you felt emotionally. The purpose for this brief exercise is it helps you to become more aware of the attention you gave the present. It allows you to finish the day on a moment of reflection and gratitude.

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Abundance, Health, Living Now, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Working Moms, Working Mums

Why It’s So Hard to Be Present

Lyn Bailey

Why It’s So Hard to Be Present

 

Being present can be difficult to achieve because doing so can trigger feelings of discomfort. The discomfort comes from thinking you must be completely within the present without slipping up.

When something does happen to shake your focus, it can make you feel like you’ve failed to achieve living in the now. However, being present isn’t something that has a success or failure scorecard. It’s simply learning how to pick up on the situations when you’re not practicing living in the moment and gently course correcting.

It can be hard to be in the present because you might get caught up in the mundane. There’s nothing peaceful about the stresses of life. When the dishwasher floods or the car breaks down, it can be easy to start daydreaming, rather than focusing on what’s currently going on in your life.

Living in the present is something that can take practice. It’s easy to fall back into bad habits. You can find yourself handling life the way you’ve always done. Your habits are your “go-to” response and your brain can automatically fall back into those thought processes.

When this happens and you realize that your mind and your reactions are opposite of living in the now, you can always hit reset. Just because you think you blew it doesn’t mean that you did.

Everyone will have times when they forget to focus, especially when life gets hectic. However, as soon as you’re aware that’s happening, you can pause and start fresh.

It can be hard to be present when you’re in the middle of something that’s stressing you out or making you angry or sad. This is totally normal. It’s common to have difficulty concentrating or focusing when you’re in the middle of a crisis.

That’s why you want to focus on learning to “live in the now” even if your life seems peaceful and calm at this moment. Then when difficult things happen, you’ll be able to maintain your peacefulness because you’ve spent time practicing.

Some people struggle to be present because they fear living in the moment means they’re going to be handing over control. Sometimes, it’s easier to think that if you worry about something or fret over it; you can prevent bad things from happening simply because you pre-worried.

However, living fully in the moment isn’t about giving up control. It’s about focusing your awareness so that you don’t waste valuable energy worrying about what has happened or what might happen. Instead, you’re experiencing fullness of life exactly where you are.

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Abundance, Health, Living Now, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Working Moms, Working Mums

How Living in the Now Leads to Inner Peace

Lyn Bailey

Peace is something that many people are missing in their lives. You don’t have to live that way. When you live in the now, it can lead to inner peace. You can find the calm that you’re looking for.

Start by dialing it back. You don’t have to be everything to everyone. You don’t have to be available all the time and you don’t have to let social media rule your day. Give yourself limits to how much time you’ll give things or people that drain you.

Next, make a date with relaxation. This might mean listening to music, using visualization, or meditation. It might mean taking off for an afternoon to do nothing but just relax.

While you’re at it, don’t use a wide-angle view of your life. When you look at everything at once, it can create inner panic. This can happen with both bad things or good things.

Ask yourself how important the situation is on a scale of one to ten. Then ask yourself if what’s happening will still be important to you a year down the road. This will help you keep your perspective, no matter what happens.

Another way to find inner peace is to stop rushing. When you’re in a hurry, it affects your outlook and creates stress. Take your time as you go through your day. Be present when you eat, laugh, and love. When you stop the rush, you’ll find that inner peace blooms.

Next, beware of the things that own you. When you have too much stuff, you waste your peace trying to take care of it and you end up letting your things encroach your space. When your home or office is filled with things that nag at your mind, it creates mental chaos and steals peace. Let go of things you don’t need or want.

If you struggle to release an object, consider taking a photo of it. Then you can keep the photo but let go of the object. Remind yourself as you do this that you’re giving a second life to the object by passing it on to someone else to be loved and cared for.

The final way to keep your inner peace is to focus on a “this moment” mantra in your mind. When thoughts about what you should do in the future crop up and you get that tight feeling in your stomach, say to yourself, “I only have to deal with this moment.”

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Abundance, Health, Mental Health, Productivity, Working Moms, Working Mums

5 Steps to Throw Fear to the Curb and Take Control of Your Life!

Lyn Bailey

Life is challenging, and painful, and exciting, and unpredictable. We are surviving in a crazy world at the moment, with life being all of these things. There are two basic forces that drive our reactions to what Life throws at us – love and fear. Love opens us to the passion and excitement that Life has to offer, while fear causes us to withdraw and hide. As we join forces to overcome the COVID 19 pandemic, we are faced with both love and fear. Our fear comes from the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring, and how long this situation will last. Our love comes from our gratitude as we have the time and space to question what is truly important in our lives right now.

Fear stops you from taking action, fear of what you might lose or gain, fear of not having enough money, fear of not being loved or belonging, fear of being alone, fear of the unknown, fear of the outcome.

There is a time for fear. It protects us from danger and destruction. The problem is that if you’re not living your life to the fullest, chances are good it’s because you’ve let fear dictate to you that pretty much everything new you want to try is dangerous and destructive.

Well, guess what? It’s not true.

You can throw fear to the curb, you can take control of your life, you can start living your life to the fullest.

Click here for your FREE Checklist on 10 Ways to Overcome Anxiety

Here are 5 steps to get you started on Throw Fear to the Curb and Taking Control of Your Life!:

1. Be Clear About Your Goals
What do you want your life to look like and be like? You must have a destination, a goal, a vision to work toward or you’re not going to know that you reached it. What goals do you want to achieve? Get clear on this and your first fear will be taken care of – the fear of not knowing what to expect. Now you can shift your focus to the tasks that will help you achieve your goal.

2. Prepare Yourself
How many opportunities have you had to say No to because you weren’t ready? No doubt there are many. And there will be many more if you don’t begin to prepare yourself now. Based on the goals you’ve set, what skills and knowledge do you need to achieve them? Begin obtaining those skills and knowledge now.

3. Network With Others
If you don’t have the skills or knowledge, you should know someone who does. A strong social and professional network is vital to your ability to live the life you want. This doesn’t mean you must befriend everyone who crosses your path, or that you must nurture professional relationships with people you don’t like or understand. It means meeting people online and offline and deciding how they fit in your life. You make that decision. Just be sure to nurture those relationships that can help you personally and professionally by being helpful to them first.

4. Ask More Questions
Opportunities don’t appear as if by magic. And sometimes they’re not obvious. Use your imagination and curiosity to help you ask more questions about what is happening around you. When you can see situations from different perspectives amazing lessons can be learned, answers can be found, and recognition of an opportunity can happen.

5. Take Risks
Not just any risk, though, calculated risks. Calculated means understanding what the risks are, whether it’s financial or emotional or mental or physical, and weighing the pros and cons of each risk to determine if you’re willing to live with the consequences of moving forward. When you do this, you are in control of the decision-making process and can accept responsibility for the achievement or failure of what you do in your life.

Click here for your FREE Checklist on 10 Ways to Overcome Anxiety

These five steps apply to your personal and business life because the truth is that you take yourself wherever you go, don’t you? When you are in control of how you make your decisions, why you make your decisions, you throw fear to the curb and are able to live a life that is free of fear and full of joy and happiness and purpose.

While I hope you all stay safe and well during this crazy time we are living in, if you are struggling with this situation, please book a FREE 15 minute coaching session with me to help you come up with a survival plan. CLICK HERE to book your FREE session

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