Mindful Monday - August 2nd
Hello, good morning and may I wish you a big welcome to August!
Woah. August.
“All progress starts by telling the truth.”
- Dan Sullivan
True that, Dan.
So the truth is that summer is upon us, we’re well into the second half of another decidedly strange year, the Olympics are into their second week, and we all became busy again after swearing (during lockdown) that slowing down was, in fact, much better.
Questions:
Are you “busy”?
Are you “too busy”?
Are you “happily busy?”
Are you calmly productive?
Are you bored?
True, busy can be good. It can, in fact, be productive without being overwhelming, and I think this may actually be the crux of it. ‘Busy’ often suggests being stretched too far, stressed out and unsustainable… desperate for a break. But a mindfully crafted ‘busy AND productive’ schedule with time allocated for health, wellbeing, family, friends, rest and work is achievable.
The challenge:
Give yourself five minutes to rate yourself out of 10 in the following areas for the year up until now:
Productivity at work
Healthy eating (and drinking) habits
Exercise and movement
Rest
Home/family connectedness
Life purpose
(Any others that may be more applicable to you?)
Where did you score the highest? Lowest? Are you surprised?
Right, where are the holes you’d like to fill and make some progress in? Truthfully.
Ask yourself why do you want to grow in these areas, and how do you think your life will change if you do?
(Ok, truthfully, this may take 10 minutes.)
Once you are armed with these insights, take a look at your upcoming week/month and see where and how you can take steps to move towards the version of yourself that might be a tad more awesome.
(That got long, sorry. Onto the fun stuff!)
Olympic science
The best of the best doing their thing while we watch on and wonder how they do it. Here’s a great look into the science of some the most popular sports on show in Tokyo. Science for the win.
Mind muscle
You may have a new appreciation for the phrase “mental toughness” after reading this from Outside Online. A new study demonstrates that mentally visualising physical training of muscles has a measurable positive effect in actual physical condition. This idea has been around for decades, but this new research seems to have come off the back of athletes getting imaginative in lockdown. Part of your new routine?
Quantum consciousness
Boffins are digging deep into quantum mechanics to try and explain what consciousness is. Sounds heavy but is actually pretty interesting and has pretty patterns to boot. Check it out here.
Hey, thanks for reading – I truly hope you got something useful out of this, or perhaps find an interesting tangent to explore.
Big love,
Luke X