How many of you find yourself attached to this “stinking” computer like an umbilical cord? Reading e-mails from co-workers, clients, supervisors, friends, families, spammers, bloggers, and who ever else invades our lives like one of the 7 plagues.
We are like a nation on speed.
– Turn on computer
– Read email
– Respond immediately
– Read another email
– Respond immediately
– Bamm, what else you got?
– Bring it on
-Keep sending them, I’ll get through them all!
Really? Is this what work is supposed to be like?
Whatever happened to the times when you could walk across campus to actually TALK to someone? Who turned the treadmill onto 8 m.p.h.? Where is that downtime when you could read an article or simply just sit and think? Shouldn’t we as professionals in the career advising world be modeling something better than this?
Yes, think. Just stop and think for awhile.
My brother Mark spends an hour each morning in thoughtful meditation and prayer. He’s a priest so he’s supposed to pray, but what he has actually done is found time to think. Yes, he gets to prayer time, but the majority of his hour is to slow down and think. Why is this so important? Some of his best ideas come from this hour of slowing down, letting the “to do” list go, not worrying about his upcoming meetings for the day, just clearing his mind to slow down. Finding a bit of peace in his day.
Reflection time. I wrote my goals for 2013 and sent them to my good friend and mentor, Rees for feedback. His response was, “…there is value and renewal when you build in time on a regular basis just to do some thinking, reading, etc. without knowing specifically where it will lead you”.
Hmm…… time with no purpose. Very powerful.
I visited another friend in Wisconsin while attending a Career Conference recently and he introduced me to the meditation he does daily. OK God, I hear you. Three of my closest friends ALL spoke to me about slowing down, taking time, finding peace with myself.
So where to start? Keep it simple. When our kids were young we asked them every night before they went to bed, “did you have anything sad happen today?” And then we asked for their final thought of the day, “What was your happy thought today/’ They ended each day thinking about something happy. Why don’t you start with just slowing down and thinking about what makes you happy?
ACTION REQUESTED:
Make a pledge to yourself to slow down for a bit every day. Find a time each day that works for you. Maybe it is the morning like Mark, or midday like me, or at the end of the day, and simply reflect, think, unwind, leave the world of technology and calm yourself. Take time to reflect. Find a quiet time for even 10 minutes to think and reflect with no purpose other than to . . . . . S L O W D O W N. . . . . . . find some peace…. think positive thoughts… remove the clutter. Ten minutes.
Who knows, some of your best sermons may come out of this.
Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a monthly newsletter for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.
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