It´s the beginning of another week, and I imagine it like a blank sheet of paper to fill in day by day, if possible, in nice and neat handwriting.
Sometimes, we go through stages where there´s barely time for anything else but whatever is indispensable each day. And that´s OK, it´s what needs to be done.
But be careful, or you might get stuck there for much longer than you need to...
I found this quote in a book I keep at home; I haven´t been able to identify the author:
Don´t spend so long concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other that you forget to look where you are going.
(Photo taken approximately a year ago, walking down from the Alhambra towards Granada´s city centre.)
In other words: take your eyes off the path every now and then, look up, and check whether you´re really going in the direction that you want.
Setting a destination will help you to take firmer and better-aimed steps. And stopping to sharpen the saw every now and then will give you the clarity and tools that you need to keep making progress.
So, tell me, where are you going? And what steps are you taking this week to get closer to your destination?
Once again, the weekend has gone by really quickly,, and I´m left with the feeling that I haven´t done half of the things I would have liked. Which probably means I had planned roughly twice as many things as I can realistically fit into a weekend.
Does this happen to you as well? It´s quite normal; us humans are awful at estimating the time it takes us to complete a task or project (more on this topic here).
For me, a common consequence of not being realistic with my time is that I often end up resting and sleeping less, as there are things I don´t want to leave undone, even when the day is coming to an end. And so, without noticing, I get myself into a vicious cycle of lack of sleep that only brings about more problems...
This week I caught myself in that cycle again. And I´m the only one who can get me out of it.
Sometimes we feel that we have no other choice but to fill our days with tasks and keep going until we drop from exhaustion.. Or maybe we´re already exhausted, but we don´t listen to our body. For how much longer? Do we have to wait until life gives us a fright before we start taking care of ourselves?
The good news is that life (or, rather, our body) sends us signals, it shows us when the pace we´re going at is no longer sustainable. The key is learning to listen, so that, once those signals start to appear, we can notice them and take action.
But the thing is, in order to listen to ourselves, first we need to create a little bit of silence. And being continuously surrounded by noise and distractions, as it happens nowadays, doesn´t help with that at all. We need to make a conscious effort to "disconnect" from the outside for a little while, and get the chance to connect with our inner side to take stock of how we´re really feeling.
This reminds me of two things: first, the opening sentence in Desiderata: "Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence"... If this was already true approximately a century ago, there´s no doubt it´s truer now than ever.
And second, this quote I thought I had already shared, but apparently hadn´t:
Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.
Anne Lamot
And if instead of a few minutes it´s a few hours, or days, or even weeks, that´s even better.
(Poster seen in an Avoca shop: "offline is the new luxury". This phrase would deserve its own full article; maybe one day I´ll write it.)
Now, what about you? Do you need to press the reset button?
As you already know, every once in a while, I like to write on this blog about a word or expression I find particularly accurate in English (or Spanish) and which I think loses strength and meaning when translated into Spanish (or English, depending on the case).
Today, we´re adding one more word to our list of untranslatables ; an English word that´s very widely used, and I´d say not only among English-speaking folks: workout. The dictionary translates it as "ejercicio" (exercise) or "entrenamiento" (training), but those two words, in my opinion, are a bit vague and generic, while workout conveys something a lot more tangible: each specific training session, each period of time dedicated to exercising. And that involves a certain amount of work, which is implicit in the word itself, as it derives from the verb -to work.
(Photo of a sign in my office building, encouraging people to take the stairs instead of the elevator: "Burn calories, not electricity. Take the stairs.")
Indeed, exercising takes effort, and not only in the sense of being physically tiring (which, once you show up and get started, is probably not that big of a deal). The hardest part is staying consistent, and keeping up the progress without waiting to feel like doing it, because, let´s be realistic, you´re almost never going to feel like doing it... (By the way, in case you didn´t know, that´s completely normal; elite athletes don´t feel like going out for a run every day either, and they do it anyway. That´s why it´s so important to create routines to make things easier for ourselves and help us achieve our goals).
The good news is that all that work done over the weeks, months, and years finally has its rewards: when we work out regularly, we keep ourselves in better shape, we feel better, and are able do more things. In other words, our quality of life improves.
So, what if we could apply the same reasoning to other types of exercise, not only physical?
This all came up because I heard a phrase the other day that I believe is worth sharing. I´m not sure whether it´s original from the person I heard it from, a coach called Alexias Anderson; it was part of a talk on Adaptive Intelligence (a key topic given the times we´re living in, accelerated and ever changing, so I´m I´ll be posting more about this for sure):
Every unfamiliar experience is a workout.
I really like the parallel this lady draws here: in the same way exercise is uncomfortable and tiring for your body, but beneficial in the long term, having to figure things out in an unfamiliar environment is uncomfortable and tiring for our brain, but also beneficial in the longt term. It allows the brain to learn to adapt to different situations, become more flexible, and develop a wider repertoire of strategies, responses, and actions depending on the scenario.
And, as it is the case with physical exercise, the key is to do it often, even if it´s in small doses. There´s no need to do anything too radical, the idea is to progressively get exposed to experiencies and activities where our auto-pilot is of no use, so we need to figure things out in order to keep going. It may be something as simple as using a different route to get back home (with no Google Maps!), starting a new hobby or learning a new skill that has very little to do with what we´re naturally good at.
A silly example I can think of is related to the songs we sing in our workplace choir: I´m usually in the soprano group, but lately we´ve been having very low attendance, so for some of the songs, I´ve had to move to the Alto line... It´s astounding how much extra energy it takes me to learn these new versions of the songs; I find it super hard.
But as we said before, the good news is that all this extra energy expense has its rewards, and in my opinion, the reward is twofold. On the one hand, by intentionally putting ourselves in situations that are somewhat uncomfortable, we progressively increase our tolerance to discomfort, and this can give us a lot of freedom, and also open up options in our daily life. And on the other hand, when life inevitably brings us big moments of change with the capacity to shake our world and knock us out of place, we will be a lot better prepared, with resources to better weather the storm and even take advantage of the circumstances.
What do you think of this idea? In which ways do you give your body, and your mind, a workout?
(I´m afraid I´m not very original, every year I open with this very same sentence... If you feel like reading my thoughts on Easter from previous years, you will find them here, here and here.)
This week, I´ve had the luxury of being on holidays, enjoying family time and the opportunity to do things at my own pace (or at least, less hurriedly than usual).
(Photo of the interior of Galway Cathedral, which we visited a few days ago. The outside is quite simple, but the inside is really beautiful in my opinion, and it came in very handy on this trip as a temporary shelter from the rain.)
In these accelerated times we live in, having the power to slow down for a few days is indeed a true luxury... A luxury that´s absolutely necessary, I dare say, even though we´re not always able to see it. Creating space to recover our strength, to refocus on what´s truly important, to enjoy the little (and the big) things that life brings to us.
Today, I´m inviting you to do a bit of reflection; let´s see what you think of this quote:
Everyone tries to make life longer, when what we should really do is make it wider!
Luciano de Crescenzo
What are those things that make your life "wider"? How do you feel when you dedicate time and attention to them? And how much time and attention are they actually getting from you?
English (UK) 
Español