In The Blues
I’ve been experiencing some downtime lately and it’s confused me as to why. As I was pruning my RSS feeds again today, part of my mind started reflecting upon the events of the last few days and then it hit me: I had been making far too many commitments than I could possibly keep.
It was clear now: the last few days I had been so busy I’d started postphoning my appointments, not just once or twice, but daily. And the more I did that, the easier it became to procrastinate and justify it to myself to keep doing it; ‘Since I postphoned it yesterday, I might as well postphone to tomorrow, yadda yadda yadda’.
Of course, all this was just a big fat lie and a one-way ticket to moodswingville. You see, everytime you make a commitment you don’t keep, your self-esteem takes a hit. You have an internal ’self-esteem/trust bank’, which Stephen Covey rightly calls an Emotional Bank Account.
Your Emotional Bank Account
The more you show yourself that you can be trusted to keep personal commitments, the more emotional credits you earn, and the more it can be withdrawn whenever it’s needed. If you do sports regulary, you’ll know what I mean. You may skip practice one day, but you trust you’ll get back to it as soon as possible without fail, and you don’t worry about it. That’s the power of a rich and deep personal Emotional Bank Account.
But the more you skip practice, the more you might begin to feel uneasy, and rightly so, because your trust balance is getting low. Once you get started back up again though, you’re up and running.
What happens to those people who make a huuuge promise to run 5 miles the next morning at 6am when they haven’t ran in a decade and can’t wake up before sunrise to save their lives? Their Bank Account takes a tremendous hit when they don’t do it the next day, worse, it might even go in the red!
Uh oh! Bankrupt Accounts!
Those people with Emotional Bank Accounts in the red are the ones who’ll tell you they’ll do something, but they don’t really believe they’ll do it.
‘I’ll get up and run tomorrow, unless…’
‘Erm, I really did my best to save this month, but you know there was this great sale, and darn it, I don’t know why I just can’t stick to budget…’
‘I’d love to do that, but I know I just wouldn’t be able to make myself…’
Pffft. No one wants to end up in that place, and I was going there! But my problems contained the seed of the solution, and here is a key to add credits to your Emotional Bank Account:
Only take on the commitments you’re really, really willing to commit to.
I was taking on far too many commitments and seriously underestimating the amount of time I needed to complete each one. I knew I had to review and reschedule my time so that I would be able to keep my word to myself and get my peace of mind back on track. So I turned on my PDA and pruned my appointments.
Are you facing the same problem as I was? As much as we’d like to believe we can do everything; clean the house, get that raise, finish an extra project, learn the piano, be a national ice-skating champion, get another degree, raise that child, win a beauty contest and save the world, we can’t.
Life and time are finite, so we gotta focus. What if less was more? Are there any commitments you’ve made that you don’t really have time to act on right on? Could you either defer them to a later time, put them into a ’someday/maybe’ list, or drop them altogether?
Whichever you choose to do, remember to stick to that choice. Build up trust with yourself and allow yourself to build a rich Emotional Bank Account.
Related Books:
First Things First: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy
Getting Things Done : The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
March 28th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Hey, i haven’t been reading the blog for some time now coz i’ve been busy with work and all. And this post was the first i’ve read in like a month. And as usual, what a fantastic post. Thanks.
You’ve given me new insight as to why i used to be able to wake up at 5 in the morning to run, and now, after many years of putting it off, i can’t even wake up at 8 to be on time for work, let alone run. And every night, i just put it off and tell myself i’ll wake up early to run. And this theory sounds feasible. Maybe its time to earn more good points
March 28th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Hi Jes! Good to see you here again.
Yup, one way to rack up those points is to take baby steps. Make commitments with yourself that you know you’re going to keep.
I know it’s tough for me to make myself wake up 3 hours earlier to go for a morning swim, but 1 hour earlier I can do. When my account’s low, I take little steps like this to avoid taking more hits, and the more my account builds the bigger the challenges I take
P.S. Take care of yourself yea! Recover well.
March 28th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
When I was coaching Paiboon. I noticed a few interesting strategies that he has while livng his daily life. We all know the “Magic Moments” notepad that he carries around to record and archive the significant positive instances. Makes all of guys look bad with the way he romanticise even the simple things he does with and for his beau. All these he will, with the nice words he has for others, the appreciation of the people around him, deposit into his Emotional Bank Account (EBA).
He accrued points and if he doesn’t have enough points he abstains from any trading activities that he engaged in.
I don’t cut notches on my bedposts for such things like Paiboon does. What I had learnt from Paiboon is that whenever I do to conduct this thing call Life, I must foreground it as much positivity that I can muster. While my EBA’s passbook is always in the blue, I must ensure that I keep depositing to keep it that way.
So how would I know if I don’t cut notches? By consciously doing good, by always look on the bright side of life (tadum tadum-dadum-dadum), by purposefully allowing positive energy to flow within my circle of influence, by making people feel good for no good reason, etc etc etc.
Alvin is right: the bigger your EBA for positivity, the better you are in the position to take hard knocks.
Jes, things should be moving along in your new career, drop the petty gremlins that are chalking up negative points… make space for good stuff. Here’s to you for being a great person and may you be up and about sooner than you realise it!!
March 29th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Thanks for all the great pieces of advice. Plus all the uplifting and positive energy this blog is surrounded with.
March 29th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
It is? I hope so