Sharing some of the transcript from the latest episode of Around the Fire, where this time I talked about the difference tiny steps can make. To listen to the full episode click here.
Changes do not have to be massive!
What could be a small change that you could start into a routine with?
Something simple with me, that I’ve been working on recently is – I love getting up in the morning and making my cup of tea and toast and taking them back to bed and having that sort of quiet time. When the weather gets warmer I’ll get up and take my tea and toast and go outside, but during winter it is definitely taking it back to bed. But what I’ve been trying to do recently is to actually go and drink some water before I get my tea and toast. And it is a small habit and I certainly do not get it right every day and get it done every day, but I’m getting there. And I do not beat myself up I when I munch in my toast and have forgotten to have the water, I simply take that step and have the water as soon as I remember it.
And it is just as a way of looking after my physical body because it feels that it would work better for me and my body. And again it’s just a message to ourselves that actually, it is a step of looking after ourselves, putting ourselves first, honouring our mind, our body, our spirit. Whatever it is we want to focus on in that change.
What could be for you just a small habit change that actually might have a bigger ripple effect? From a business point of view – like a return on investment, how much return are we going to get by actually doing something for ourselves?
And it can be tiny. But make it a tiny change on regular basis. Let’s see if you can find something that you could do daily, or three times, or four times a week. I’m not talking about big things – half an hour exercise and all of the rest of it. I’m talking about some tiny habit that actually you can start getting into a routine with to change things up.
The thing that I did in the past was getting in the habit to actually plug my phone in a car irrespective of how long the journey or how short the journey, or how much my phone was charged just because previous to that I would get somewhere and not have plugged my phone in and think: “Aaaargh, I don’t have enough phone battery”.
And again, seems small, but how can we actually make life easier for ourselves, how can we do something that our future self will thank us for.
Have a think, what would be something that you could start changing that may make life easier, maybe more gentle on yourself or maybe will help towards something bigger that you are working on?
Talking of bigger things – I was looking at a journal from a similar time last year around this time and I had put in the journal that I want to be based between Auckland and New Plymouth.
Auckland was where I landed and it was the place that I spent the first five years of my time here in New Zealand. I did travel some parts of New Zealand, but was mainly based north of Auckland; it is where I got to meet people I did a lot of networking and connecting with during that time. It is where I feel that a lot of people know me, and I have shared the journey with, they know me for who I am and they have been super supportive along the way.
It was 2017 when I felt that I have been in a little bit of a rut and I did tiki tour, explored New Zealand and through a short volunteering stint at Taranaki Retreat it ended in long term coaching option with them and it led me moving to New Plymouth.
What was coming up in the journal last year was that I have this beautiful yearning to be between the two. Both very different, and both bring such different things to my life. And the sort of inkling that was coming up last year was that – how can I make it work between New Plymouth and Auckland? And I didn’t have a clue!
Interestingly the first part of the plan came up just before Christmas 2019. I had had a holiday late November, December time, and so with the Christmas period, I was actually topped up, I’ve just had a break. I was up for working through some of this time. I got in touch with the agency I worked with back in 2017 to say – look, if you have any work around and if you need me, and they said they have some shortages in the roster with the client I was looking after previously and would I be up for that? And I was. Absolutely.
So I thought, maybe this is it. This is the way I can do get between Auckland and New Plymouth? For that time over Christmas, I was based up in Auckland, I was catching up with people while doing this work. And then the work was offered to me as ongoing casual basis, when they still have gaps in the roster. They were going to fly me up to Auckland to do these shifts. Sweet. This is what I asked for.
But what I found was that when you do night shifts and you have to stay awake all night that actually there is not a lot left in the tanks for anything else.
But there was something that kept me rolling with this thought, kept me exploring how this could work.
Then lockdown happened and there were no flights and I had to drive. And I think that was quite pivotal for me because it really showed me that actually that it is not that far. We are talking 4 – 5 hours depending which part of Auckland I’m heading to. I think it stems back from younger days when we were going to family holidays when we would get up at a crack of dawn, Dad would get his porridge, and all we had to do in our pyjamas was to pick up our pillow and get in the back of the car and we would go back to sleep. We would leave home in the dark and it was so exciting. It stays with me now. Except now I can’t take my pillow and I can’t sit at the back of the car otherwise i would not get anywhere!
But just that getting up early, that something is happening, we are on the road – I love my road trips. I could be leaving New Plymouth at 6 am and then be in Auckland for mid-morning. Those trips during lockdown really cemented in me that it is not that far. I’ll get in my car, enjoy my music or silence and let my head pondering, listen to a podcast.
I was beginning to get more and more evidence that actually this plan could work and it no longer needed to be a pie in the sky idea.
I wanted to talk about the fact that in three months time we will have just entered 2021. And when I was looking at my calendar and the end of the year and how it all was shaping up, I was reflecting on the fact that whatever our experiences have been this year, 2020 will be remembered for the year that suddenly everyone was talking about Covid, and our experiences of lockdown and some of the positives that came out of it and of course lot of the struggles people have been through and absolutely still going through, and the ripple effect of that.
And so I was reflecting on a fact that actually we still have time and what could we do as individuals or a group together to actually turn this year around a bit. We will sure remember 2020 for a year of Covid, but what else can we turn around to go “Actually, this was also the year when I …….”
