How many hours do we spend in order to maintain our physical health? Hours in the gym, hiking in the mountains and long walks? Yes, this is what we need in order to keep our body toned!
What about our emotional health? How many hours do we spend to keep our emotional state toned? Excuse me? You said hours? I think we could all agree that in average we spend on this from zero of our time to couple of minutes, maybe only when we have some issues to resolve.
Habits are important. The same as with your body, your muscles get toned and once you stop practicing sport – all efforts are gone, the same is our mind and emotions. This requires constant effort, it is important to convert emotional stretching to one of our daily habits.
Today I am happy to share with you one of the formulas that will help you to keep your mind and emotions stretched, practicing it every day – be ready for results.
This formula has been designed by professional life and executive coach, Emilie Jacquetton, which consist of 6 questions that she invites us to practice every day.
Are you ready?
Emilie invites us to ask the following questions:
IN THE MORNING
1. This morning, how does my body feel? How does my mind feel?
By raising these type of questions we allow ourselves to stay present, instead of focusing on our yesterday issues or problems, who said what, how could they, etc. etc…. – nope! This is the time which will allow you to identify what is happening NOW with your body and mind.
2. Today, what do I WANT, I CAN, I WILL?
Here I would completely agree with Emilie, let’s replace today “I need to” – to “I want to”! What is that you want today? Even if some of your tasks might still fall under “I need to”, it is important to find what is that you WANT to do today? The way we speak, tells a lot about the way we live. Being conscious every day about what our wills are, allows us to lead our lives.
3. What resources do I need to achieve this today?
Or maybe to become one step closer towards what I want? The point here is to know the resources that you need, time, help from others – allow some time to identify the resources needed, they are as equally important as the final action, explains Emilie. Maybe you need to have that important conversation? Maybe you need to break your common rules and do something different today? It can be very small step today, which finally will have big results.
DURING THE DAY
During the day there is only 1 question.
4. How do I feel?
Observe your emotion, name it, what are those feelings – do you feel bored? Excited? Inspired? Angry? Sad? Confused? What are those feelings? The fact of naming your emotion will permit you to find out the best possible solution for every situation and make the right decisions during the day.
BEFORE GOING TO SLEEP
5. What did I achieve today?
This is time for evaluating what did we do today, it is important to identify our small (or big!) victories during the day, as well as to observe our small failures – this forms part of personal growth path. Emilie points out, that celebrating our achievements and acknowledging our failures will allow us to see our lives as natural path of obstacles and prizes.
6. And finally, what did I learn today?
What is your take home message from today? What did you learn? Something new about yourself? About others? About your reactions in different situations? What is the important piece of a lesson that you had today? I think we will all agree with Emilie, who says that our failures – are our best teachers, and our wins – are our wonderful life engines.
I invite you to start practicing, stretching your mind, knowing and respecting your emotions, converting these 6 steps in a daily habit, that won’t take more than 10 minutes of your time.
I would like to thank my colleague, my friend and amazing person, Emilie Jacquetton, who shared with us practical 6 step stretching exercise (you can find out more about Emilie and workshops she does at her own blog:the coaching box).
As always, I would like to hear your thoughts, your experience with this exercise, what did work best for you, if there is something new that you discovered about yourself?
Wish you a wonderful week ahead!
With love,
Jelena
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