Gradual Changes
Making changes in your life will become easier as you connect your spirit, mind, and body—the alignment of these areas will allow you to identify how you should be allocating your time, energy, and resources.
Managing my calendar has always been a struggle for me, mainly because I did not have my spirit, mind, and body aligned so I allowed my calendar to be inconsistent as I tried to find my authentic life…at the time, I did not know that’s what I was doing, but as I look back it is clear to me why I lacked disciplined with my time.
I remember early in my career going through a program called “Strategic Planning”. I was taught how to view each day as a series of time blocks–there were blocks for meetings, administrative work, prospecting, and personal needs. I spent hours trying to create the “perfect” calendar. I even color-coded my calendar to make it easier to follow; the only problem was I never followed my beautifully designed calendar because I did not have enough professional activities to fill the time blocks.
The concept of blocking off my calendar always resonated with me and I’ve tried to take the concept to my calendar multiple times throughout my career, but it never took. As soon as a client needed to meet during a non-client meeting block, I rearranged my calendar to accommodate their request. It only took me one exception to fall back into my old ways of allowing others to dictate my calendar. I told myself I was providing good customer service by allowing my clients’ calendars to dictate mine, but I eventually realized the inconsistency of my days was contributing to my missed workouts, lack of eating, and a feeling of chaos from day to day.
It wasn’t until the last year that I finally found the discipline to stick with the schedule I’d created. As I reflect on why I’ve been able to stick to my daily schedule, I don’t think it was as much a lack of discipline that kept my calendar messy as it was a lack of purpose—by aligning my spirit, mind, and body and moving towards my authentic life, I found a purpose for the hours and schedule in my day. In addition to lacking a strong purpose for my time, trying to make a drastic change in my calendar all at once was only setting me up for “failure” (reminder, there is no failure–just lessons to be learned).
Going cold turkey is a difficult approach to making a meaningful change…depending on the change sometimes it is necessary, but most of the time a gradual approach to change is more effective, leading to a change in habits and the “new way” sticking. Instead of going from zero to a hundred, make small changes on your way to the new.
When I started to take back control of my calendar, the first thing I did was establish when I would meet with my clients at RLS Wealth. I created some restrictions to prevent me from overbooking my day, which I was notorious for doing. I ultimately arrived at meeting clients on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 11:00, 1:00, or 3:00 and I would not have more than two meetings per day. Thanks to my amazing Director of Operations, I was able to create a schedule for clients that would maintain a high level of service, our regular review schedule, and still leave plenty of time for my creative pursuits and time for myself.
As I found greater alignment between spirit, mind, and body I recognized yoga had become too important to my well-being to miss and that it was non-negotiable. I would be at the hot yoga studio Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9:30 AM and it went on my calendar–not as “personal time” but as yoga. This caused me to adjust the time of my first client meeting to 11:30 so I would have time to shower after class and not be in a rush to get to the office but ensured I’d never have to miss yoga and my clients could remain my priority.
There are more details and tools I’ve used in creating a calendar of structure with enough freedom to not feel constrained (and accommodate client emergencies or special circumstances). If you’re interested in hearing more about it, hit me up and we can hop on a Zoom and I can share how I’ve finally gained control of my calendar, time, and energy. My calendar was meant to be an example of how living my authentic life combined with gradually making changes to it in alignment with my priorities allowed me to finally take control of my time and energy and not be a note about calendar management.
As you continue on your Pursuit, there will be changes you will need (or want) to make. Your initial reaction may be to go all-in and change everything all at once–for some of you that is the right approach for you and by all means jump! It’s been my experience, most of us need to ease our way into major life changes, and by taking it slowly you give yourself a greater chance of sticking with the new way and you allow your authentic life to help you prioritize the changes.
See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,
JC
