TEN MINUTES FOR…YOURSELF
I get inspired by Tony Robbins, not so much a fan of his big showy events, but rather his personal one-to-one coaching intervention work. Watching an interview with him the other day, he talked about one of my favorite topics. How to make sure we are not becoming a tool of our digital friends (smartphones, tablets) and becoming addicts, but use our smart devices as a tool to serve us. We wake up and go to sleep with our smartphones, how crazy is that? Tony asked “if you don’t have at least 10 minutes a day truly for yourself…you don’t have a life”.
Here’s my personal steps how to create more you time in your life and move from a FOMO to a JOMO state of being:
BUY AN ALARM CLOCK
Remove your smartphone from your bedroom. Try this, it will improve the quality of your sleep and a positive state of mind. Each time I ask my audiences, how do you wake up? 99 percent of people use their smartphone as alarm and guess what? Next action is to read your emails…in bed and still horizontal. How crazy is that? Now, how often do you get truly inspired by reading those emails or social feeds starting your day. Be honest! Create at least a 10 minute buffer, come up with your daily ritual before touching that screen. “I need to read those emails first thing when waking up because I am working on this project or deadlines..”. Well then…wake up 10 minutes earlier, simple right?
BE BORED
Allow yourself every now and then to be bored, no distraction, no plans, just sit on your sofa, no TV no phone, just sit and stare. See what happens. Our society has developed an expectation of being constantly occupied and constantly stimulated. In a ‘bored’ quiet state we get creative, make new plans, new ideas and this involves being able to develop internal stimuli. Hard to do? Try running without music, going to the bathroom without your smartphone.
REMOVE NEWSFEEDS, ALERTS
These tools are designed to get us hooked into reading stuff, which we would otherwise not look up ourselves. Call me old fashioned, read an actual newspaper, paper or digital, to get inspired, be informed about a broader spectrum of topics than a narrow newsfeed ‘targeted for people like you’. Again, are we a tool or do we use our device as a tool to enrich our lives? On average we spend 3-5 hours a day on our phones. How often do you realise that time has slipped away without noticing it? Could you have used that time in a better way. Even if it were 10 minutes…?
DO THE 24 HOUR CHALLENGE
A test to see if you are simply addicted to social media is to switch off from opening your social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, WeChat, Whatsapp, etc., for just 24 hours. Fill that time with something else: you time, talk, walk, be bored, look into someone eyes and remember the color, read a book, call a friend, finish that project, call your Mum.
MOVE FROM FOMO TO JOMO
Finally with all this; move yourself away from that Fear Of Missing Out to…feeling a Joy Of Missing Out. You don’t have to post it to prove it.
Cheers!
Jos
