Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

relaxing

Time To Play Hooky

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relax footI know how stressed you are. I really do.

I know how completely you throw yourself into everything you do and how chaotic things can get.

Let’s face it, friend. You’re exhausted.

Putting one heavy foot in front of the other,  day after frazzled day in a frenzied, numbing march toward something you’re not even sure about any more – that’s you.

So. There’s really only one thing I can recommend.

It’s a little thing and, at the same time, it’s a really big thing.

Take a day off.

Really.

One day off. You don’t do it enough, do you?

(Do you do it ever?)

Yes, what I’m talking about is playing hooky.

As odd as it may seem to all of us Type-A, hard chargers, when you play hooky, you don’t do any work.

Don’t do laundry.

Don’t shop for groceries.

Don’t drive anyone anywhere.

Don’t do anything that needs to be done.

Instead, you take a whole day. Off.

(The very idea of it feels so free and “can I really get away it it?”-ish, doesn’t it?)

OK, maybe it’s been so long since you’ve played hooky that you can’t remember what to do with a whole day to yourself. So let me give you some suggestions:

Turn off your phone and leave your computer un-booted.

Take a walk and don’t pay any attention to how many steps you’re getting in.

Read a book cover-to-cover.

Wade barefoot in a creek.

Hit golf balls at the driving range – not to work on your game, but just to watch the way the balls arc through the air.

Give a dog’s belly a thorough rub.

Take a nap.

Take two naps, even.

Eat a ripe peach over the sink and let the juice dribble down your chin.

Call a friend you haven’t talked with in a while and catch up.

Meander.

Loaf.

Take deep breaths.

And, really and truly relax.

I promise you that everything on your to-do list will be there tomorrow. The world won’t end if you take a day for yourself.

I’ll bet you, in fact, that you come back to your to-do list with a renewed sense of energy and purpose, simply because you’re not so flipping exhausted.

One day. Just one.

Twenty-four hours for you to do… nothing.

If that doesn’t sound like bliss, I don’t know what does.

So, what do you say? How about tomorrow?

 

 

The Wolf Of Wall Street’s Opposite

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Sometimes it seems the advice we’re given for successful living is to wake every day on fire, with the intention of grabbing life by the throat and shaking it until its head rattles.

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We’re to be hard-charging, forward-leaning and suck the marrow from the bones of our day. We finally get to declare victory when the sun sets over the crumpled, inferior bodies of our vanquished opponents. We stand then – like mighty Hercules – with a stiff drink in our hands, the world at our feet and big money to burn.

We are all to be Wolves of Wall Street, I gather.

But, you know something? I’m not a wolf, I’m a human. And I work on a road, not a street. And usually all I vanquish in any given day is trouble of my own making.

Yes, as unfashionable as it may be, I will admit that there are some days when I wake with no fire in my belly to conquer any damn thing out there in the world.

OK, many days.

The truth is that at the end of any given day, I’m happy to have simply conquered myself.

Don’t let me mislead you – I like winning. I am actually quite experienced with winning. Winning is a very good thing, I like it very much and it happens for me quite frequently.

Yet, surprisingly, I have found that I win more when I try less. Which is probably the opposite of everything I ever was told about How To Do It.

What I’ve learned is that when I bear down and push, success stays stuck. When I let up and release, success is born.

Sure, sometimes success surprises with an instant, unexpected appearance. Isn’t it fun when that happens? But, day in and day out, I’ve found that success is mostly a waiting game.

Waiting, as you know, is not the sexiest thing ever. Nor does it provoke wolf-like envy.

“Whatcha up to, Michele?”

“Oh, I’m just sitting here doing my thing and figuring it will work someday or I’ll change it and most likely that’ll work. I’m cool with it either way.”

[Honey, even Jennifer Lawrence couldn’t make those lines compelling.]

Here’s the thing: Success sneaks up when I simply show up every day, and do what needs doing. And find some fun in the process.

It’s the practice of planting seeds daily with the hopeful optimism that someday, some of them will thrive and grow. And the intention that the someday-harvest will be sweet.

It’s knowing I don’t have to eat what I kill to be the kind of person I want to be.

It’s the awareness that I can just wake up, bring my best self to the day and let the rest take care of itself. More than likely, quite successfully.

When you think about it, you probably know this is true for you, too. When you look at times in your life when great things have happened, I’ll bet you were loose, engaged and happy.

Which may not be the way you are right now. You might be stressed, and rather wolfish. But that’s not who you are when you do your best work, is it?

This week, why not change it up a little? Why not wake up, show up, plant some seeds and then…see what happens?

 

 [photo: Paramount Pictures]

 

Dog Days

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They call them the Dog Days of Summer. As if all we can do is let our tongues loll out of our drooling mouths, and pant in the heat.

Which is exactly what I feel like doing.

Sure, there’s plenty going on. The Olympics. The Presidential campaign. Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and, now, Russia vs. Georgia. The rising and falling price of energy. Credit card reform. Mortgage bailouts. Vice Presidential candidates and political conventions. A lot of hoopla, come to think of it.

And I don’t want to think about it. All I want to do is lay around, tongue lolling, and let August roll over me like a sauna bath. I want to emerge, sweaty and a few pounds lighter, just in time for September.

I want to eat popsicles, and let them drip from my fingers, leaving sticky, colorful trails down my arms.

I want to do a cannonball off the high dive.

I want to go to the movies and make it a double feature, just so I can sit in the air-conditioning.

I want to clothespin cards to my bike spokes and click-clack down the street.

I want Coppertone as my signature scent.

I want to shuck off all the trappings of this adult life and spend the next couple of weeks utterly retro.

So, even if — like me — you’ll be working rather than loafing, you can take a little time to get some summer in your life.

All it takes is one popsicle.