WINNING WAYS

A timely consideration
A survey sent out to a sample of Speech & Language Therapy in Practice readers included an open question about which concerns they would most like life coach Jo Middlemiss to address. Winning Ways 2009 is based on their responses, beginning with four Ms to help us stand the test of time.
esponses to the survey of readers show you are concerned about your work / life balance, coping with stress and pressure and most of all - managing your time. Many readers mentioned the stresses of juggling all of lifes concerns like an expert - or not so expert circus act. We so often choose this metaphor or the metaphor of spinning plates, an equally stressful, panicky and anxiety-laden way to look at things. I imagine that many of you have attended time management workshops or read books or magazine tips to bring time under command. My grandmother, who lived with us until her death at 99, always referred to time as The Enemy. She certainly had enough of it to consider, and I wonder how much of her view I subconsciously imbibed. Then there was my fathers constant cry, Procrastination is the thief of time!

READ THIS IF YOU WANT CALMER THOUGHTS ELASTICITY OF TIME TO BE IN CHARGE OF YOUR DAY

not in charge of me. While you will never be in charge of time because it doesnt really exist, a shift of perception causes a shift in thinking. You are the puppeteer and not the puppet. 4. Minimisation People with panic in their heart are often exaggerating or catastrophising a situation, but that process can be reversed. On your computer you can minimise a document that you are not working on. Itll wait until you bring it back into play. So minimise the things you cant get to. They wont get lost or forgotten. When you can get back to them, put them back up on a full screen and take action.

A different angle

I wonder what you happen if you considered time from a different angle? Despite our clocks, calendars and deadlines, time is actually an illusion. It is simply a way that man devised in an attempt to regulate life. We are all familiar with a two week holiday seeming like a day, or looking for a lost child when five minutes seems like a lifetime. Or a pregnancy feels like an age and a childhood goes by in a flash. My point is that the way we see the problem very often is the problem. If our life is visualised like spinning plates, it will seem frantic. If, on the other hand, we see it as a game of billiards, it instantly feels calmer, still and rescue-able. The balls will wait until we choose to make the move. If we make a mistake they will only fall into a pocket. They wont roll away into oblivion. It might help to consider one or more of these four Ms: 1. Meditation Meditation may seem to many people like a waste of time if they see it as sitting doing nothing with an empty mind. But it is very far from that. When you start your day with even a tiny bit of meditation, time takes on an elastic quality. Because you have started your day with this small attempt at mind resting, I guarantee you will start to think about time differently. That time will be even more effective if you spend part of your stillness visualising the day going well, according to plan, and with some time left over for you.

This poem (author unknown) is said to be an adaptation of an old Irish prayer. It puts time into a different perspective. Nothing is so important that your mental and physical health should suffer. A broken you is no help to any situation. Balance and perspective, and peace of mind and body, are all essential for you to be an effective and professional member of society. 2. Mediation The first person to mediate with is yourself: your need to take on too much, your ability to use time in a wasteful way and your ability to beat yourself up for not keeping up with the job. After the conversation with yourself, you need to have conversations with the people who attempt to solve their time problems with your life. You can learn to say no with firmness, sweetness and genuineness. And you can be effective without being a people pleaser. 3. Manipulation This is a thought I havent picked up from books or other people, so I am running it by you as an experiment. Clients have said to me that their days would be great if things they werent expecting didnt suddenly come in and take over. What if we play a secret game of manipulation of our 24 hours? Three goes into twenty four eight times. Think of the day in eighths. Every day only plan to use seven eighths and keep back one eighth as a spare bit. A bit just for you, or for those unexpected things that suddenly need attention. Speak to yourself in a way that gives you a feeling of authority: The hours of this day are mine to allocate. I am in charge of my day. The day is Take time to work, It is the price of success. Take time to meditate, It is the source of power. Take time to play, It is the secret of eternal youth. Take time to read, It is the way to knowledge. Take time to be friendly, It is the road to happiness. Take time to laugh, It is the music of the soul. And take time to love and to be loved.

Perspective

Jo Middlemiss is a qualified Life Coach who offers readers a confidential complimentary half hour coaching session (for the cost only of your call), tel. 01356 648329. Her book with CD What should I tell you? A Mothers final words to her infant son is now available.

SPEECH & LANGUAGE THERAPY IN PRACTICE spring 2009

19