by Lori Milner
Consider how you feel when you perceive that you have wasted your time versus used it efficiently; it's not really about the quantity of time available but the choices you make on how to invest it that create the illusion of harmony. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Even when you enjoy what you're doing, you may feel guilty because you feel like you should be working on something else.
The real way to harmony is to interrupt the inner conflict between how you would like to spend your time and how you think you should be spending it.
I am not here to provide a magic formula to create harmony with how you divide your time. However, I can gift you ten questions from Oliver Burkeman's book, Four Thousand Weeks, which provide some thought-provoking questions to help you determine what matters for you now.
I say now because these choices will ultimately change based on life stage, circumstances and values, which are constantly evolving.
Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort when what's called for is a little discomfort?
What prevents true productivity is not a lack of action; it's a lack of the right action.
It's easy to take action on the things that make you feel good, and you can tick it off a to-do list to give you a pseudo sense of autonomy over your day.
It's the important things that create discomfort for us, so we avoid them. It's not the task in isolation; it's avoiding the feelings associated with the task, like being judged, not feeling enough or even failing.
It becomes a vicious cycle because thinking of the task makes us anxious, but then avoiding the task escalates the anxiety. Oliver elaborates on this:
"And so we naturally tend to make decisions about our daily use of time that prioritise anxiety avoidance instead.
Procrastination, distraction, commitment phobia, clearing the decks, and taking on too many projects at once are all ways of trying to maintain the illusion that you're in charge of things. In a subtler way, so too is compulsive worrying, which offers its own gloomy but comforting sense that you're doing something constructive to try to stay in control."
Ironically, the very thing you are trying to avoid – being anxious – is what you trigger every time you choose the comfortable task over the uncomfortable one.
The more you can embrace discomfort, the more you make friends with your anxiety rather than avoid it.
When you can comfortably learn to tolerate anxiety, then you can create harmony.
Do you create leisure time?
When I ask a client what they do for fun or what they do to relax, I often get a deer-in-the-headlights look.
During COVID-19, my coach asked me this question, and I replied that I used reading to relax. Then she asked what I read, and I shared that it was nonfiction books or personal development topics.
She laughed and told me that it was not relaxing and that I needed to find something that did.
I couldn't comprehend why this wasn't relaxation until I realised I was only in harmony with my free time when I felt like I was being productive and growing.
Then I read Oliver's book, which confirmed my coach's thoughts:
"In order to most fully inhabit the only life you ever get, you have to refrain from using every spare hour for personal growth. "
I am all for personal growth, but sometimes, when you value growth above all else, it can easily direct your attention and focus away from connection and relationships and result in many missed social arrangements because you feel like you could be doing some more constructive with the time.
It can hold your other interests, hostage, because something that qualifies as fun often has no return on investment if you judge it against a learning outcome.
What if you brought in more harmony through leisure—doing something for pure joy, like reading a fiction book, painting, baking, dancing, martial arts, music, or photography?
When you let go of the attachment to an outcome other than pure enjoyment or relaxation, then you can experience harmony.
Are you holding yourself to and judging yourself by standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet?
If you are a proud perfectionist, consider that perfectionism is the highest form of self-abuse, as quoted by Gloria Steinem. It's a standard so unattainable, and it creates a cycle of anxiety-avoidance.
If you're not a perfectionist, do you have an unrealistic to-do list that you convince yourself you should be able to get through everything in a day and then cannot understand why your anxiety and sense of harmony are so unbalanced?
"The more humane approach is to drop such efforts as completely as you can. Let your impossible standards crash to the ground. Then pick a few meaningful tasks from the rubble and get started on them today" – Oliver Burkeman.
In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be?
Harmony is created when you can stop worrying about what other people think of you and whether they judge you.
I have worked with countless clients who pursue goals and career paths and make choices because it will make others proud of them. It's what their parents wanted, or they pursue things for fear of being judged by their peers.
This lens will only create disharmony because the greatest suffering anyone can cause themselves is living a life that is not true to who they are and trying to be something they're not.
Oliver says that once you no longer feel the stifling pressure to become a particular kind of person, you can confront the personality, the strengths and weaknesses, the talents and enthusiasms you find with yourself with, here and now, and follow where they lead.
What if you followed the breadcrumbs of what makes you happy and what makes you feel alive? What if the person you are is the person who makes you happy?
What if this someday person is the one who is stealing all your joy and creating disharmony in the present in the hope that one day you will become them?
In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you're doing?
Imposter syndrome is that awful feeling that you have no idea what you're doing, and everyone is about to find out, too. Guess what – everyone feels like an imposter.
The real question is, are you allowing that to keep you playing small?
The way through this is to accept there is a period you must embrace in transition where you feel discomfort and out of your depth. I call this the tourist phase, much like when you visit a country for the first time. It's exciting but overwhelming at the same time.
Then you visit a few more times, and you move into the role of the local where things are more comfortable; you know what to expect, and so you become braver and willing to try new things.
Lastly, you move into the guide, where people come to you for advice because they now consider you the expert.
Don't hold back because you feel like a tourist; instead, ask yourself – what phase am I in? If you've just started a new role, of course, you will feel like a tourist, but with effort, experience and consistency, you will move into the local and eventually the guide.
Don't wait to feel like a guide before you embark on something; you will never begin, and you will always wait for the feeling to kick in that you're ready. Even when you are a guide, you will question your readiness and abilities.
Start doing, no matter how small the steps, and trust that the discomfort will melt away with time and be replaced by harmony in following your bliss. Even if your bliss is paired with fear, harmony is the courage to do it anyway.
Final thoughts.
True harmony is the feeling that you are living in alignment with your values. It's coming to terms with what really makes you happy versus how you think you should be living your life.
When you feel yourself going off balance, tip the scales in the direction of harmony by reminding yourself of who you are with these trigger questions:
Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort when what's called for is a little discomfort?
Do you create leisure time?
Are you holding yourself to and judging yourself by standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet?
In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be?
In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you're doing?
Here's to creating your version of harmony,
Warm wishes,
Lori
Lori Milner is the engaging facilitator, thought leader and mentor known for her insightful approach to being a modern corporate woman. Her brainchild, the successful initiative Beyond the Dress, is the embodiment of her passion to empower women. Beyond the Dress has worked with South Africa’s leading corporates and empowered hundreds of women with valuable insight on how to bridge the gap between work and personal life. Clients include Siemens, Massmart, Alexander Forbes, Life Healthcare Group, RMB Private Bank and Unilever to name a few. Lori has co-authored Own Your Space: The Toolkit for the Working Woman in conjunction with Nadia Bilchik, CNN Editorial Producer. Own Your Space provides practical tools and insights gleaned from workshops held around the world and from interviews with some of South Africa’s most accomplished women to provide you with tried-and-tested techniques, tips and advice to help you boost your career, enhance your confidence and truly own your space on every level. Own Your Space is the ultimate ‘toolkit’ to unleash your true power. It’s for the woman who wants to take her career to new heights and who is ready to fulfil her true potential.
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