17.08.2022

It’s Not A Race | Habit | Simplicity

Hello there! Welcome to my weekly LEAPS. 

You’re receiving this email because you subscribed to my weekly Wednesday feature or our mailing list. Every Wednesday, I share 5 things using our LEAPS approach: 

Learn: something new or an idea
Energy: something that’s creating an energy and positive impact
Action: something to do
Processing: a question to consider
Shout out: something or someone that I want to celebrate or acknowledge

Have you taken the GLAS Understanding Assessment
and received your free report?

LEARN
Something Worth Sharing

It’s Not A Race

I’m not a patient person, I am definitely more about getting sh*t done. I turn up VERY early to things and when given a task, I want it completed as quickly as possible and done better than anyone else. I have spent a great deal of my earlier life - career included - racing against expectations, deadlines and tick boxes, trying to outrun them all. However, with age comes the realisation that many things in life don’t work that way. I was thinking about this while enjoying a short break away with my husband and daughter last week. There are three recent examples that came to mind that highlight this:

1. my total left hip replacement

2. weight training for strength

3. our building project at home (kitchen / lounge / garage)

Each of these things has taught me the value of patience and knowing that you can’t fast-forward or wave a magic wand to get to the ‘finish line’. Each of these three things has been painful at times (physically and emotionally), has required investment (of time, money and effort), has been a learning opportunity mainly due to the mistakes made along the way - and each of them has been significantly more valuable that we anticipated at the start.

When we plan projects of any type, we can rarely envisage the reality of the challenges and issues that will come our way. Equally, we rarely imagine the lessons and benefits that will also come - even from the darker times.

All we can do is create a vision and travel towards it with hope, an ability to make our best choices at the time, a level of passion to fuel the journey, use our experiences to arm us along the way and remember to be kind - to ourselves as much as anything. After all, it’s not a race - there is no 1st place prize - so enjoy the ride!

ENERGY
Focusing on an emotion or positive energy; a stand-out word / s

HABIT

One of the most downloaded visuals I have created was for the best-selling book Atomic Habits by James Clear. This came to mind as I thinking about my ‘LEARN’ above.

The word HABIT is from a Latin word: habitare meaning "to live, dwell; stay, remain". To establish positive habits requires us to question and be deliberate about how we wish to live and be. Forming bad habits is generally built on drifting along and accepting how things are whether they serve us well or not.

ACTION
Something small that you can do that might make a big difference

Be Patient

Think about one thing that you’ve been trying to outrun and speed through - and challenge yourself to be more patient. It might be a conversation, reading something, a meal, a project or task.

PROCESSING
A question to think about and consider (you can discuss this with someone or write your thoughts down)

“How much time and space do you give to thinking about your future?”

I’m not talking about your 5-year business plan or your ‘to-do’ list for next week, month or year. Most people are able to plan things for their immediate / short-term future. When asked to consider the bigger future, dreams and ambitions on a personal level, we find that people claim that they don’t have time or space due to their attention being pulled into the immediate issues of life.

Are you able to take time to plan, dream and consider things further ahead? What do you really want?

SHOUT OUT
Who / what I think deserves recognition, my gratitude or to be celebrated.

Simplicity

If you’re anything life me, you’ll be very good at over-complicating things. We all seem to be fantastic at ADDING to things - more words, more stuff etc. My shout out this week is the opposite of this, it’s being concise and stripping back - to simplify. This is why I love creating visual synopsis pieces - reading and condensing content to it’s most basic and powerful form.

BONUS GIFT FOR YOU
This week’s little extra for you - from me

This week, my Energy word of HABIT has inspired my recommended book - Atomic Habits by James Clear. The discount code to download my visual free of charge is LEVELOFSYSTEMS

We have added a small fee for many of the downloads, but I will be providing you with a week-long discount code for the recommended book as readers / supporters of LEAPS (use the code before next Wednesday 24th August).

If you’d like to discuss having your ideas, business or culture captured visually - you can also let me know via email.

*** ORDER YOURS NOW ***

Order Your Deliberate Year Calendar & Logbook Set

LEAPS is a process used by our team and clients all the time - and even my own family on a daily basis. 

I’ll be sharing a set of LEAPS each week with you and encourage you to do your own version:

• L: what have you learned?

• E: what’s your energy / feeling word

• A: what’s one thing you need to do?

• P: what are you thinking / processing?

• S: who or what can you shout out?