Synchronicity

I left my job in corporate America with three goals in mind: to work for a small, preferably non-profit, organization where I could see the impact of my daily work; to focus on and build a coaching practice; and to make time in my life for the artistic endeavors that can so slowly and easily get buried under the silt of “real life” that comes along with a career, paying the bills, and the day-to-day responsibilities we all face.

I realized that in the process of getting my first two goals well underway I had managed to bury the art (again!) and decided I needed to do something—anything—to introduce just a little bit of art and beauty into my daily routine. Is it possible to accomplish the practical work and still attend to spiritual and artistic needs? Do I have time for that? Will my “real” work suffer? Well, I would start out slowly, play it safe, and see what happened.

Accordingly, I took a book of photographs by my favorite photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, into my office and decided that at a set time every afternoon I would stop what I was doing and look at just one photograph. I thought this would remind me that even a little bit of art can inspire, take us out of our daily routine and reinvigorate us in our daily tasks. Eventually maybe it would even inspire me to get working on my own art again.

It seemed like a good idea, but somehow at 3:00 on many afternoons, I found I just wasn’t interested in stopping what I was doing to look at a picture. Sometimes it was a welcome break but often it was an annoying interruption.

While I was experimenting with this new habit I was also working with a group of coaches on the “Personal Foundation” program. This program is designed to strengthen your skills and abilities so that you can accomplish more and do it more easily. I discovered an interesting synchronicity between two of the challenges posed by the program and my experiment with daily “art snacks”.

The first was a challenge to develop new, positive daily habits. In keeping with my desire to add some kind of artfulness to my daily life, one of the habits I decided upon was that every day I would notice something beautiful. I wanted to make this easy and joyful so this beauty could be a sunrise, a happy child, the perfect rose I saw on the way to work. In order to keep tabs on myself, every night right before bedtime I got into the habit of writing down whether I had “performed” these new habits. Sometimes this meant the beauty I found was the sight of my sleeping dog at the foot of my bed because I forgot to notice anything earlier in the day! But over time what I discovered was, that was all right. The point became that there is always beauty, all around; all we need to do is open our eyes and notice it. It became a sort of game with me; whenever this new habit popped into my head I would peer around and always, no matter where I was or what I was doing, there was something beautiful waiting to be discovered.

The second challenge we coaches worked on—being present in the moment, not worrying about the past or future but fully experiencing the present—really took hold of my imagination. At first it was difficult, I was feeling stressed and being present was really hard. I found a lot of my time was spent worrying about what I needed to do, what I didn’t do, what I should/would/could do. But I decided that these thoughts would be my cue; whenever I started to have them I would call myself back to the present moment and use them as a reminder to be present and conscious of what was happening right now. It took awhile but eventually it worked. When I found myself feeling stressed, my shoulders hunching up, my face crinkling I would take note and remind myself to be present.

And here is where the synchronicity came in. I found that if I remembered to be present, I noticed what was happening around me and all the beautiful things and moments surrounding me. And it was almost impossible to notice anything beautiful andnot be present.

What I discovered was that not only do living in the moment and noticing the good that surrounds you go hand-in-hand and inspire each other, but they also add time to your life. I became more focused, I stopped multi-tasking, did more things right the first time, gave more to each task I undertook, and had more energy all day. If I was feeling tired I stopped and looked around. I noticed. And then I moved on, invigorated by what I saw and how lucky I was to see it.

And that art I tried to force into my life every afternoon at 3:00? Well now it’s there much more often, and it’s not contained by any clock or appointment.

********************************************************************

Invitations:

1. Create your own positive daily habit. What works for you? Listening to music before bed? Having your morning coffee in your garden? Feed yourself what you need, take a chance, see what happens!

Hint: make it supremely easy, the smaller the better, this isn't meant to be painful.

2. Share it with us: Email me your story and I’ll share your suggestions.

3. Contact me to schedule a complimentary 30-minute coaching call: together we’ll clarify your goals and concrete steps you can take to move you toward them.

Go to <http://www.truetoyou.biz> for more information about my coaching services or contact me at:

Kelly Hevel, CEG

Career Management

TrueToYou Coaching

khevel@mac.com

www.TrueToYou.biz