When I sent Jo a WhatsApp on Saturday morning to hear how things are going, he sent me video of where he was walking and panned out to show me the bigger view of the ocean.
He referred to the relatively calm state of the water further away from the land, and that it reminded him that we should be calm like that within ourselves.
What struck me in his video was the barriers between where he was and the calmness of the ocean in the distance. Big rocks to climb over. Slippery surfaces down to and in the water. Waves. And the possible obstacles of crosscurrents and maybe even sharks. Insurmountable? No.
I reflected on my reality; where I am and how I want it to be. There are many things going on for me now. Creating the Online School of Productivity (where the teachers never sleep) where individuals and groups from organisations can enrol for our online courses. Pivoting from face-to-face onsite workshops to blended online learning. Understanding and communicating the benefits of blended online learning. And to ‘gently accept’ that Mr. Covid is a permanent guest in my life.
These things are like my life’s rocks, slippery slopes and water puddles, crosscurrents, and sharks. Insurmountable? No. Once I understand the nature of the beast, I can deal with it.
After watching Jo’s video I defaulted to my trusted tool of calming the waves in my head: the mind dump. In my book it remains the best remedy for being more relaxed about life. One of the nicest emails I have received after a productivity workshop was from a lady who said that she continued the mind dump we did in the class at home that evening. She sat for about 2 hours, just writing down (yes, with pen and paper) everything that came up in her mind – and for the first time in many months she enjoyed a night of uninterrupted sleep. Something to try if you have sleeping difficulties?
Another tool I use to create order from chaos is the mind mapping software Xmind 8 – get your free copy here. I now keep Xmind open with a mind map for each of my active major projects open all the time. With two clicks I am in the right place and whenever something shows up during the day it’s the easiest thing in the world to go the right context and dump it there.
The barriers between where we are and where we want to be are there to test and teach us. It tests our seriousness about the project – is it worth the effort to get over and through the barriers? It teaches us the wonder of creating and maintaining a calm, decluttered mind using the tools we already have. It teaches us that order is just on the other side of chaos.
And that ‘if it is to be, it is up to me’.
“The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.” – Marcus Aurelius
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