Karoshi is a Japanese term relating to the most common medical causes of deaths from overwork which are heart attacks or strokes due to stress. Studies show that people who do not know how to detach from work during their off-time experience increased exhaustion over the course of one year and are less resilient in the face of stressful work conditions.
“Take care of yourself: When you don’t sleep, eat crap, don’t exercise, and are living off adrenaline for too long, your performance suffers. Your decisions suffer. Your company suffers.” Ev Williams.
My family says that I’m a workaholic but I’m also a relaxationholic. YES, I love my work and I don’t feel that I work hard because it truly is a labour of love for me. So it feels easy and comfortable to work as I do. BUT!!! I also ‘truly’ love making time for RELAXATION to just be LAZY and do nothing or things that refresh and boost me mentally and physically.
I also know that I’m the most balanced BEING on the planet because my schedule, my rituals are choc-a-bloc with things that make me feel good about all the areas of my life.
YOUR DAILY ROUTINE
My credo is: “RITUALISE TO ACTUALISE.” Our rituals reflect, remind and reinforce the belief system to reignite our purpose in this life experience. Even the biggest slob on the planet has rituals. They live in organised chaos. In other words, their daily chaotic life has a PATTERN. They waste time in the same way at the same time every day.
THEY THINK THEY ARE SPONTANEOUS BUT THEY ARE PREDICTABLE!
In 1977 I had over 100 salespeople and seven sales managers and that is what I noticed so no one can tell me otherwise.
I’ve been doing this work for over four decades and have worked with every kind of person. Many, many, many self-made millionaires to the people who struggle and they all have habits that either disempower them or empower them.
I’m by no means perfect but knowing what my RITUALS are, and they keep me honest and authentic. I know what I should be doing and therein lies my challenge of being CONSISTENT.
MOMENTUM – BUILDING THE SNOWBALL EFFECT
Building MOMENTUM, building my SNOWBALL. If I do drop the ball it is with inconsistency and lack of regularity. My challenge is to stay focused on the prize and not allow DISTRACTIONS! On my good days, I’m on track 80% of the time which is good. I know I won’t be 100% on track 100% of the time and that is okay. I can be a very happy camper in this lifetime on that 80%.
So here’s an overview of the 8 AREAS OF LIFE. I’m sharing my experience with you but you can change it to your personal and unique expression and perspective.
The following is a lot to absorb for most of us because we’ve practiced quick in and quick out. If you’re in a hurry choose one, two, or even three areas to read based on your priorities right now. But if you can spend some time studying the following because it could save your life, or empower you big time.
FINDING THE BALANCE
- Spiritual: Realise that you are more than just this body and recognise your divinity, you have a unique tone, a soul and you are an eternal spirit (in this modern age I’m amazed at people who don’t know this). Other people enjoy their religious experience and that is good. Each to his or her own.
- Mental: Maximise your mindset by changing your perceptions and changing your neural pathways or in other words rewiring your brain. When you focus throughout your day on things that make you feel good and you start to own those thoughts and feelings that rewire your brain.
- Health: Many people’s definition of health is you eat well, exercise daily, get enough sleep and you should be healthy. Well, I did all that ‘fanatically’ being an obsessive personality, and yet I was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. However, when I looked at studies done by Dr. Kelly Turner of people who had “spontaneous remissions” (stage 4 cancer patient who got better without medical treatment). That insight saved my life. So health is more than just diet and exercise.
- Work: One of the most valuable concepts you can ever absorb is that you never work for someone else. The truth is someone else pays you to work for yourself. Once you have discovered that you are essentially working for yourself, the next discovery you can make is to learn that work when it is goal-directed, is never a burden, but a blessing. When you enjoy your work, you will surpass your goals.
- Leisure: It’s long been known to medical science that stress from overwork causes major health problems, but the business world has tended to treat that as an acceptable trade-off. A health risk is tolerable if long hours are necessary to achieve success. But there is no trade-off. Long work hours don’t make you more successful. Instead, they make you sick, and worse, they make you “dull” – in other words, mediocre and uncreative. So self-care now is very important and remind yourself to make time to RELAX!
- Wealth: Having a harmonious relationship with one’s money is part of the mind, body, spirit connection to living a balanced and healthy life. A consciousness of abundance can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as can consciousness of scarcity. So, spend some time clarifying your personal ideas about being financially comfortable. You can also set earnings, savings, and investment goals.
- Family: Earning the love and respect of my family has ALWAYS been a priority for me, but that doesn’t just happen. Your children in most cases will show you love (father’s day cards or gifts), but I know of cases where a client will say to me: “I love my mom, but spending time with her is exhausting, she is so negative, and I feel drained when I leave.” So the love is there but no respect.
- Friends: Well as most of you who have worked with me know I’m not a big fan of ‘friends’. I think they’re overrated, but then I’m weird as they say. But I know that having friends is important for some. Preliminary surveys suggest that within the first month of COVID-19, loneliness increased by 20 to 30 percent, and emotional distress tripled. So it seems friends and staying in touch are important especially now.
GET BUSY LIVING OR GET BUSY DYING
Life is a process of growing. If you are not growing, you are already in the process of deterioration; there is no standing still in life.
There is no in-between – you’re either on an escalator going up or going down – don’t kid yourself.
In one of the scenes of the movie the Shawshank Redemption – Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) who is in the prison serving a life sentence for a double homicide says: “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.”
What Andy meant is that you can look back on your life and waste time regretting the mistakes and poor choices you made, or you can look at the opportunities you have now, and use it with energy, hope, and optimism.
Many people get out-of-balance with goals in one area only but we’re here in full force to help promote balanced achievement.
WISE GUYS
- “If standard of living is your major objective, quality of life almost never improves – but if quality of life is you number one objective, your stand of living almost always improves” Zig Ziglar.
- “There is nothing difficult, there is nothing complicated, only one has to have a desire to have a better quality life.” – Maharishi.
- “You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.” – Charles Buxton.
- “The choices that you make with your family today will determine the quality of life in your family tree for generations to come.” – Steve Farrar.
