Has Monday ever caught you by surprise? You’ve had a weekend and when you get back to
work, you forgot what you had waiting for you on Monday - OR - you just didn’t get your head
back in the game to realize how much you left for yourself to do on Monday.
When this happens, how do you react? What do you feel? I’ve typically seen people react by sagging their shoulders, shaking their heads, inwardly admonishing themselves, and then rearranging their day so they can mentally check back in and get what needs to be completed.
What if, this same situation excited you? You recognized the same triggers in how you wanted to respond but chose, instead, to jump with excitement as if someone had just given you a gift. Sounds crazy right?
It’s all about perspective.
What caused you to react with self-admonishment was only because you had a different
perspective of what your Monday was going to be. When that changed, you held onto the
disappointment. Holding onto that disappointment is a choice and you have permission to
choose how you react all the time. Perspective matters and it is yours to alter.
Here’s what I mean. Take our perspective of pressure. We all experience pressure. Most of us think negatively about pressure - even the pressure we place on ourselves. The pressure we place on ourselves to perform, meet a revenue goal, or reach a new milestone that is meaningful. We forget that we created this pressure. And when we don’t meet our goals, don’t perform the way we wanted, or fail to reach that milestone in the measure of time
we gave ourselves; we feel disappointed, beat ourselves up, and basically make our own selves feel bad about it. Based on what? Our perspective.
What if we look at pressure differently? What if we see the pressure we place on ourselves as a test, or an experiment - not a defined measure of good or bad? Or better yet, what if we recognize pressure for what it really is - a privilege. There is also pressure that is created by being privileged but, even that can be altered with perspective.
Billie Jean King offered, “Pressure is a privilege…because pressure is the only way a diamond is created.”
When you create pressure for yourself, you are creating the type of pressure that is creating
you as the diamond you are meant to be. So look at it as a privilege and get excited about it.
Just the same way I’m excited to offer a retreat in the middle of the Aspens turning in Colorado each year. Planning anything in September creates pressure on the calendar that holds all the fall activities that will be starting up - which is exactly why I offered a retreat at the beginning of the week. To relieve some of the pressure of the weekend family activities and Friday night games (I am from Texas after all and Friday night lights are a THING!).
And yet, when we get excited about anything, the pressure that gets created lessens, and it
feels easier to fit in what we want to do because of what we get to gain. Don’t let the fear of
calendar pressure talk you out of something that you now know will bring you time to breathe
and allow you to step back into your daily grind with renewed energy and new tools.
Look at pressure differently. Join me in Colorado this year and let’s look at a lot of other things differently too.
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