The Simplifier #39: Preparing for Life’s Lucky Tornadoes
Welcome to The Simplifier, brought to you by…
Contents:
1. A Note From Shawn
2. Our Featured Quote
3. Article: Getting Started with the 5 Core Concepts
4. Your Simplification Tip
5. In the News
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
7. Keep Smiling
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1. A Note From Shawn
Yesterday we had an uncharacteristic tornado warning for Northern California. On a neighbor’s TV I saw the different patterns radiating out from what could have turned into the epicenter of a rotating thunderstorm. Fascinating to ponder the power of nature given certain conditions. Also fascinating to ponder the power of people and imagination given certain conditions (naturally, not weather-related).
Have you heard the proposition that “luck is merely the intersection of opportunity and preparation”? I’ve seen this play out in my own life countless times. You could ask, “how do you know what to prepare for?” The answer is: you don’t always know.
Preparation in this sense, as far as I can tell, has to do with 1.) lack of procrastination, which makes it easy to shift gears, and 2.) following intuition or your gut, which curiously seems to have inherent prioritizing abilities. What’s this really all mean? Certain conditions converging in our life can yield powerful results.
May this newsletter help you prepare for the wonderful adventures brewing inside of you!
Enjoy!
Shawn Tuttle
Head Simplifier
Project Simplify
Co-editor, The Simplifier
2. Our Featured Quote
“Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible.”
-Cherie Carter-Scott
3. Article: Getting Started with the 5 Core Concepts
By Shawn Tuttle
My last article (”Creating Meaningful Goals“) was about identifying specific goals that will motivate you to take action. The next step is traversing the distance between setting and achieving your goal. For this I’ve created the 5 Core Concepts model.
Background
I had seen clients with great intentions for improving their situation get muddled before much progress was made. I saw others beating themselves up with their self-imposed (and I’ll add: unrealistic) expectations.
By the time one woman called me, her office had become unbearable to her. Her thought process had become stuck in avoidance and deficiency patterns. She was frustrated, feeling overwhelmed, and didn’t know how to go about setting up her ideal office.
The question boiled down to: how can we most easily align our actions and thoughts with our dreams while avoiding the pitfalls of self-sabotaging habits?
As much as we’d like to think of the mind as an almighty problem solver, once it gets stuck in a rut, solution creation becomes incredibly difficult. If the mind sees the situation as an unmovable mountain, the trick is to replace the mountain with an oasis. If this is challenging to do in practice, then the best thing to do is relieve the mind of its “problem solving” duties. Tell it to take a break—you’ll let it know when and how its services are needed.
5 Core Concepts model
The 5 core concepts radiate out from, continually refer back to, and support your goal. The five concepts are: Visualize, Clear, Plan, Do, & YES (acronym for “Your Essential Self”).
The power of the model comes from the combination of working on your internal experience, addressing the obstacles in the way of realizing your goal, and (dare I say it?) having fun along the way.
Summary of the 5 concepts:
Visualize - Live it before you experience it. Forming a mental picture of your accomplished goal aligns your head with your priorities.
Clear - Remove obstacles in the way of your goal. Like clutter, obstacles drain your time and energy and keep you from focusing on your goal.
Plan – Identify the components and break them down into specific actions. Taking the time to plan your journey gets you there in less time and with less work.
Do - Carry out your plan with ease. Manifest the mantra: Keep it simple!
YES - Keep your compass pointed in the right direction for Your Essential Self.
Whether your timeline is two months or two years, the information you capture using the model is stored in a way that will easily remind you of the important stuff, so you don’t get lost in the details and lose your sense of direction.
In the last article, you were invited to download the 5 Core Concept (5 CC) model worksheet and to enter your goal in the center oval.
Visualize
Let’s get straight to the first concept: Visualize. Think of this as going into “design your vision” mode.
By living your experience before it happens, you are re-training (or re-patterning) yourself to a life in which the goal already exists. We humans tend to accept the familiar and to avoid the unknown. Visualizing makes the reality of your accomplished goal familiar, and therefore acceptable, to your unconscious self. The importance of appealing to your unconsciousness draws back to addressing self-sabotaging habits. Even though your conscious mind may say “go this way”, without the support of your unconscious, you will have a difficult time going in that direction.
Key steps of visualization
- Relax. Allow yourself 10-15 minutes to step away from daily duties, away from phone ringers and incoming email dings. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.
- Visualize your completed goal as experientially as possible (more on this below).
- Jot down details and reminders of your visualization on the 5 CC worksheet in the section labeled “Visualize”.
- Recall and experience your completed goal visualization daily. As you explore your visualization, feel the sensations, replay conversations, hear and smell the surroundings of those moments.
If you have difficulty imagining what your accomplished goal will feel like, here are two ways to draw on other experiences:
Recall similar experiences
For example, say your goal is to start your own consulting business. Break it down into parts. Recall the good feelings from helping someone successfully. Recall the satisfaction felt when you’ve done a good job with a big project. Recall the feeling of flow when multiple people are communicating well and in a timely manner.
Emulate others
If you are still having trouble experiencing the vision, imagine someone you know and respect who does a fantastic job in their business—how would they feel? See the ease in which they would deal with all the logistics and communications. Transpose that experience to your vision.
Once you have a detailed visualization, the next step is to identify and clear obstacles in the way of making your vision a reality. We’ll get to this in the next article. Until then, remember this is your future life you are designing—have fun exploring your vision!
—
Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify
4. Your Simplification Tip
Taking quiet time for yourself
Whether for visualizing, idea development, or simply taking a quiet break, 10-15 minutes a day for YOU is absolutely invaluable. Figure out what works for you and make it a habit. Here are some ideas:
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turn your phone ringers off
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close your email program (better yet, get away from your computer)
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request that you not be disturbed, for example, close your door and post a sign requesting privacy (mine says, “please leave a note or come back later”)
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sit in a comfortable chair
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sit in view of nature
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breathe deeply, more deeply than you have all day
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mentally scan your body for tension and relax those muscles
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smile just for fun
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take a walk
This is like a mini-retreat that you can take every day. Let your active brain take a break during this time so your spirit can feel refreshed.
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5. In the News
In the News is compiled by The Simplifier co-editor Lance Brown.
Time Management for Dads (saWorship.com)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/3ag6ey
Dads tend to have “me time” covered - it’s time for others that tends to get lost in the shuffle. So says this article, which seeks to help dads find time for their kids and other parts of a balanced life. (Note: This article is on a Christian website, but the article itself is 99.84% non-religious.)
Wasting time…not such a terrible thing? (Taipei Times)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/2tm9e6
The more we work, the less we get done. So it’s important—nay, essential!—to fool around and be unproductive sometimes. (Which fits my workstyle just fine…)
Simple Living in the Southwest (Mother Earth News)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/yohkqa
A Kansas City woman and her family switch to an adventurously-simplified new life in New Mexico. Can less electricity, less water, and less space make for a more fulfilling life? Susan Lahey says “Yes.”
If you know of something in the news that should be featured here, let us know!
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
Our Tips, Tricks, and Tools categories
There are 4 categories on our blog dedicated to passing on useful tips, methods, ideas, tools, tricks, and…other configurations of knowledge or stuff which can be put to use by the journeyman Simplifier. There are so many such configurations that we broke them down into categories—and there are so many categories that we made a category just to keep them all in.
“Tips, Tricks, and Tools” is the container which holds our 4 main “utility” categories. You can see it listed in our site’s sidebar; it’s the first category under Blog Sections. There’s a little “[+/-]” symbol next to it, which indicates that you can expand it by clicking on it. When you do, you’ll see the 4 categories in question, where our most useful blog entries and tips hang out.
The categories are:
There’re enough Tips, Tricks, and Tools in there to keep a cat dancing a jig for three hours. (Based on the widely-accepted standard of 100 Tips, Tricks, and Tools per 1 hour of cat dancing.)
So dance, cats! Dance! (And if you are not a cat, hopefully you can find some other way to take advantage of these items.)
7. Keep Smiling
Some Humorous Quotes
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother
-Anonymous
Never judge a book by its movie.
-J. W. Eagan
Never moon a werewolf.
-Mike Binder
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
-Ambrose Bierce
Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia.
-Charles Schultz
Laughter is the closest distance between two people.
-Victor Borge
The closest I’ve ever come to saying “no” is “Not now, we’re landing.”
-Sam Malone, Ted Danson’s character on Cheers
Thanks to The Anti-Aging & Longevity Project for these funny quotes!
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Thanks for reading!
Publication Information
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The Simplifier is published by:
Project Simplify
P.O. Box 597
Nevada City, CA 95959
phone: 530.205.5775
web: www.projectsimplify.com
e-mail: (newsletter@projectsimplify.com) newsletter (at) projectsimplify (dot) com
