HELLO FOLKS,
Everything works in cycles. Think about it. I have just thought over it again, The rise and crash of the stock markets, the ups and downs in you career, the good phases and bad phases of your relationships, the expensive airfares during holiday season followed by the discount prices in low season, night and day.
There will be days that you will be on a roll. You will feel invincible. From the time that you wake up to the time that you shut your eyes, 15 hours of non-stop productivity and results would have followed. You touch base with clients, win a couple of deals, make the perfect pitch to your boss, fit in a workout and end the night connecting with loved ones. Perfect!
And within a week you find yourself struggling to get out of bed. You feel demotivated. Everything feels like a chore. You can’t stand the same healthy food. You don’t care about meeting anyone or doing anything. Your back is cranky because you’ve been lying in front of your TV for hours. What appeals in that downward extreme of your pendulum is being a couch potato, sulking about how life sucks. You are pessimistic about your job, your capabilities and life in general. It seems like you are living in a self-created hell till you’ve decided to tell yourself ” its enough”.
You wake up the next morning looking like a monkey who needs to shave. You jump out of bed, brush your teeth and wash your face. You put on a pair of sneakers (or Vibram Five Fingers) and go for a walk.( Personally I love Vibram Five Finger Shoes). After your walk, you decide its time to put in some exercise so you lift some weights. Post a shower you feel like a new man. You already have more energy than you did in the past seven days combined. You are ready to face the never ending challenges that will be coming your way. As you put on your gloves to get started you smile Ahh..how good life feels now! Its been 45 days since that day and on the 46th day you are struggling to get out of bed again.
If you think you can only enjoy the positive upswings without going through the downswings, you are probably fooling yourself.
Its best not to fight the phase where you feel down and out. Accept it, try to learn from it and do things that shorten the cycle of downtime; things such as being social with family and friends, watching movies, listening to music, and giving your impulsive-self access to whatever it wants (Let it have its fill of emotional junk). On the flip side, when you are enjoying the good times, elongate it. If you are in the zone and can’t stop working, let yourself make the most of it; don’t cut yourself off.
We are what we do repeatedly. Excellence is therefore a habit and not an act.
If you are able to recognise that your life is a pendulum that will have its ups and downs, you can extend the good times and accept the bad times as part and parcel of being human.
Those who recognize the power of habits will have their pendulum swing for longer on the good times and shorter in the bad times.
In fact the best will actually budget for the bad times (just like you budget for junk food days every week on the slow-carb diet). Be aware of your pendulum and how it swings. It might help you keep that high for longer and get out of a rut sooner than you can imagin
Let me know what you think? I’d love your feedback. If you haven’t already then sign up for a weekly dose just like this.
Get in touch… — JOE’s LIFE SKILLS LAB/Joe Sehrawat
Credits :- Photo on the Post by Denise Jones on Unsplash
