Take small steps forwards
Redecorate the flat, find a new job, remortgage… some jobs weigh us down so much we don’t know how to begin to tackle them. ‘Looking at things as a single block demands too much from us and makes us feel discouraged,’ explains behavioural therapist Bruno Koeltz. ‘To accomplish your goal, it’s better to advance in stages, set yourself small tasks, stick to them and move forward gradually.’
The important thing is to do only what is achievable here, in the present. ‘If it’s a matter of doing something you hate, or a task you find tough or anxiety-inducing, start by doing it in five-minute spells. The aim is to instil some confidence, which will then allow you to accomplish the rest.’ It’s the same thing for painting the flat: why not start with the corridor? It’s small and usually free of clutter.
Have regular clear-outs
Clothes, dishes, old medicines, they all gather in our wardrobes and cupboards. The loft doesn’t bear thinking about… The question is, how can we unburden ourselves? ‘When we spring-clean,’ says psychotherapist Rosette Poletti, ‘we naturally begin to ask ourselves what is essential, important, superfluous or useless. Dealing with material things is simple and productive. It kindles an awareness that lets us change our consumer behaviour.’
On the one hand, we make space, order, spend less time looking for things, cleaning, etc; on the other, we realise how much that old outfit, as expensive as it is out of fashion, cost us in financial terms, and in terms of work, time and energy. ‘And it’s possible that, for a while anyway, you’ll buy with more common sense.’ Clearing up allows us to make space and create time to invest in what is important for ourselves, but, says Poletti, ‘that can also be useful for the other people in our lives’. The principle is to have less but enrich life in other ways.
Concentrate on your strengths
Prioritising what is important may seem obvious but ‘the question of priorities takes us back to the problem of choice,’ says life coach Dominique Sciacca. ‘Saying yes to one thing means we must say no to something else. Grabbing a moment for ourselves, for example, means spending less time with loved ones. But being available on all fronts means we lose out. Ask yourself this question: what is important to me? My family, my relationship, my job, my health? But, most of all, answer the next question: how do I show this in my everyday life? The choice we make should show we are engaged and confident of our self-worth.’
Focus on the present
Why does focusing on the present simplify things? ‘Because it’s the only thing we can do anything about,’ says life coach Catherine Barry. ‘The past, like the future, is out of our control, while the present is something we can consciously affect.’ Think about arguments you may have had with your partner: frequently, we fight about things dredged up from the past, or put too much pressure on each other by projecting an ideal future. If you want to feel calm, tell yourself, ‘I’ve considered the past – how I experienced it – and thought about the future – how I’d like it to be – but what can I do, say or think here and now?’
Try building a pause into your busy daily life
Just for a few minutes, take time to savour your experience and gather what you’ve learned before moving on to the next thing.
Articulate what’s wrong
We are obsessed with interpreting events. A colleague doesn’t say hello… she must hate me. Your boyfriend turns up an hour late… he’s taking you for granted. ‘We’ve learned to project our fears on to real life rather than try to look at them objectively,’ says Saleem Ebrahim, who teaches non-aggressive communication in business. Make communication easier by being aware of the facts, then clarifying your intention. Think, what is the message I want to send about my needs, my emotions? And then? ‘Talk in the first person – “I am offended by the way you look at me” is better than “you have upset me”. Suggest a solution where you both win: ask your partner to warn you the next time he or she thinks they’ll be late. Don’t stew on it by yourself, this will be much simpler.
Disconnect
Our attention is under siege. We are constantly interrupted by emails or tweets that we seem unable to ignore, even if we’re on the phone when they arrive. Start searching the internet for one thing and the chances are you’ll be sidetracked into 20 vaguely related sites (including YouTube) and sending links to friends or colleagues. We end up with 15 windows open on our desktop, having failed to find what we were looking for.
‘There may well be an inverse relationship between the volume of information available to us and our ability to make sense of it,’ writes Tony Schwartz in The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working. ‘Our lives have been divided into smaller and smaller increments of focus. We’ve lost control of our attention.’
Practise doing one thing at a time
Turn off your email for an hour a day. If you’re using the internet at regular intervals, prioritise what you need to get done. Write it down to recall your attention when you get distracted. ‘Control your attention,’ says Schwartz, ‘and you control your life.’
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