In the last episode, I talked about a sound mind. Today, I want to discuss peace of mind. Sometimes people associate peace and tranquility with boredom. This is not true. If you are always chasing the latest and greatest or another shiny new toy, how does that relentless pursuit actually make you feel?
Key topics:
✔️ If you are living in a Jerry Springer circus of constant drama, ask yourself, "Why am I allowing this to happen? Why am I inviting this kind of turmoil into my life all the time?"
✔️ Stop believing, "I'll be happy as soon as_____ (I get that new car, that promotion, that huge McMansion...)"
✔️ Five minutes after you achieve your goals, your mind is already on to the next big thing. If you're not careful, you can turn into a bottomless pit.
✔️ There has to be a healthy balance between laziness and apathy versus working yourself to death or keeping up with the Joneses.
✔️ If you feel like you need a death grip on life, something is definitely amiss.
Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/
In the last episode, I talked about a sound mind. Today, I want to discuss peace of mind. Sometimes people associate peace and tranquility with boredom. This is not true. If you are always chasing the latest and greatest or another shiny new toy, how does that relentless pursuit actually make you feel?
Key topics:
✔️ If you are living in a Jerry Springer circus of constant drama, ask yourself, "Why am I allowing this to happen? Why am I inviting this kind of turmoil into my life all the time?"
✔️ Stop believing, "I'll be happy as soon as_____ (I get that new car, that promotion, that huge McMansion...)"
✔️ Five minutes after you achieve your goals, your mind is already on to the next big thing. If you're not careful, you can turn into a bottomless pit.
✔️ There has to be a healthy balance between laziness and apathy versus working yourself to death or keeping up with the Joneses.
✔️ If you feel like you need a death grip on life, something is definitely amiss.
Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/
Hello, hello and welcome to today's episode of the Causey Consulting podcast. I'm your host Sara Causey and I'm also the owner of Causey Consulting, which you can find online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. In the last episode I talked about having a sound mind. Today I want to talk about peace of mind. Let's face it, there are times in life when we trade feelings like peace and serenity for other emotions that turned out to be not even almost worth it. Sometimes I think we can unfairly conflate peace and serenity with boredom, or with stagnation and True enough, there are times when we want to shake it up a little bit. We want to go on vacation and see something new. We want to get on a roller coaster. We want to take some kind of adventure trip and do something while maybe bungee jump or go rafting on some crazy rapids somewhere, I get it. So I'm not saying like live a live a life of Groundhog Day in the name of peace. What I am saying is that when we chase a shiny new object, or we feel like we can't stop and express gratitude for what we already have, there's always that something else out there that's bigger and shiny and faster and better. And we've just got to have it. That's not a great way to live. If you're never taking that time to stop and smell the roses, and to be happy with what you already have. You're really, really missing out. Having to always be chasing the next opportunity is exhausting. I mean, think about it. You probably know somebody in your life who has a relentless job hopper, they're always going from one company to another to another to another, chasing whatever. It could be a five cent an hour pay raise, or it could be a title. It could be prestige of some kind. This is certainly a phenomenon that I have not been a stranger to in the staffing world. You know, there's sort of a funny analogy of musical chairs where people just go from one agency to another to another to another, always sort of hoping and praying for a better manager a better deal, a better commission plan. And I suppose sometimes that's true. I mean, even if you're making small steps forward, I guess that does still count, but it gets awfully tiring to I'm gonna go work over here for a year and then I'm going to go here for six months, and then I'll go work for them for two years, and then I'll go back over here for 90 days and it's like oh, You know, having to make that many changes is frustrating. And it's very, very tiring. And one of the reasons that it rains you out emotionally is because you're always chasing that bigger, better deal that bigger, better thing. You know, instead of trying to step back and create that bigger, better deal for yourself, and really getting clear on your values and what it would take to make you happy in life, you're just chasing the shiny new toy. Every time somebody calls you up on the phone, you're more than happy to talk to them because they might be willing to offer you 10 cents more an hour. I mean, even just putting myself in that energetic space to record this episode feels yucky to me, because it's like, man, at some point, doesn't the happiness count? Doesn't the job satisfaction matter? More than 10 cents an hour? By the time the tax man takes his cut, you're not even really going to see an appreciable raise. So is it really worth it? I mean, That's something that each person can only decide for themselves. But to me, it's really unpleasant to be on that kind of merry go round of job job hopping from place to place, and always hoping that's that this agency is somehow going to be better than all the rest. Spoiler alert, probably not going to happen. One of the major pitfalls, one of the major ways that we can go off track is we imagine that once we have this thing, a new house, a new car, or romantic relationship, a dream, vacation, whatever. Once this thing shows up in our life, then we'll be happy. Then we'll be satisfied. Then we'll feel contentment all I'll know that I've really arrived once I get that corner office. Well, the joke may be on you because I've had the fancy title. I've had the corner office and for me personally, it did not bring the kind of fulfillment I thought it was going to in most situations, when we get something that we've dreamed about, it finally shows up that sports car is finally in the driveway and we finally have that million dollar home under contract. We finally have the kind of client base that we want. Crickets, tumbleweeds. It's like the mind immediately begins to conjure, whatever it is that it wants next. And if you're not careful, it can turn into a bottomless pit that's just never full. Now, just to be clear, I'm not an advocate of stagnation. Now, there may have been times when I have jokingly said I wanted to go to bed like Brian Wilson, but I don't really mean it. You know, he had that stint for a while where he went to bed and he ate a lot and he took psychotropic drugs. I don't personally recommend that kind of lifestyle. So if you're listening to this podcast, I definitely don't want you to come away with a message that that's a good policy to live by. So you don't want to go to bed and just say, screw it. I'm not going to do anything I've done. I've accomplished everything in my life that I'm going to so I'm done. Neither do you want to work yourself to exhaustion and just have a very materialistic attitude. There always has to be more if I have a million dollar home, then how come it's not 2.5 million? If I have a sports car, then how come it's not a Ferrari? If I have a Ferrari, how come it's not a Bugatti? If I have a nice office, how come it's not the corner office? If I'm the executive VP, why am I not president yet? I mean, there's always more, no matter what situation you're in, the mind will constantly conjure up more things that you could be doing ways to sort of still feel that sense of contentment and peace away from you, if you let it. The first mindset tip that I'm going to give you in this episode is cultivate the emotion. Now, don't wait. Don't put it on hold and say, well, I'll feel really good. Once I have that sports car, I'll feel accomplished. Once I have that house. I'll feel satisfied once I get that corner office and that executive job title, kids, there are times in life when the things that you want do not show up for you in any way that you could have predicted. And there may be times when you don't immediately jump into the executive suite, you don't immediately get that corner office. There may be a sort of circular curvy path that you have to take. Occasionally in life, we get something that is a clear, linear straightforward path and everything as smooth as glass, and I'd love to sit here and tell you, that was normal, but it's usually not. I've been involved in staffing and HR for a long time and I have seen situations where someone got a foot in the door as a temp at a company. They got hired on permanently and then they work their way up through the management channels. So they may have started in a temp position, but it blossomed into what they really actually wanted down the road. You have to leave enough space in life so that things can happen life can't as Wayne Dyer like to say let life unfold. Don't feel like you have to keep a death grip on everything or it just man it has to happen my way and on my timeline or else. So start to cultivate those feelings of happiness of peace of satisfaction, self confidence, because for you achieve the goal or before the new car, the new house, whatever shows up in your life. And sometimes a side effect of doing that kind of exercise is your goals start to change, you may realize that you don't want that million dollar house after all are you don't really want that sports car. After all, you don't really want to go out and have some wild swashbuckling adventure that you thought you did. And again, I'm not condemning those types of situations. I'm not sitting here saying you shouldn't want a sports car, you shouldn't want a million dollar home. All I'm saying is that sometimes in life, the old Garth Brooks song about unanswered prayers is actually quite true. There have been many things where I've thought, Oh, I wonder if I could manifest that or I wonder if I should pray and ask God if he'll send me this, that and the other and I wound up being really, really glad that it didn't turn out the way that I had initially thought, because if I had been in a relationship with that person that I thought I liked, or I had been able to manifest the certain item that I thought was so shiny and wonderful, it would have been highly destructive. So leave some open mindedness in your life that you know the shiny new car or the gargantuan McMansion you think you want may not actually be what's best for you. Be happy, express some joy, have a praise, break, do some things to feel whatever that emotion is NOW. Don't wait for the thing to show up. It's kind of like, Ask and you shall receive. It's not receiving and then asking, well all believe at once I see it, you know, you want to go ahead and cultivate those elevated emotions first. The second mindset tip that I will give you is to get clear on your values. And have a good code of ethics around those values. Not something that's overly rigid and authoritarian, and not something that's based around condemnation. Where if you slip if you stumble, if you make a mistake, you have an error in judgment. You're just going to sell flagellate. I'm so stupid. I can't believe I did that. Is there any idiot in the world stupider than me? God? What was I thinking? That doesn't solve any problems. You know, I have different times called that pity party party of one hat sitting around crying in your coffee, telling yourself that you're an idiot. You can't believe how stupid you were. Why you thought you were smart. Well, only a complete moron would do something like that. You need to zip that crap up. It's not going to help you. It's not going to solve your problem. all it's going to do is take you into a very nasty downward spiral. When you're in that kind of an emotional state, you're not thinking clearly and you're not going to make a good rational decision anyway. When you're clear on your values, and you have a code of ethics that you abide by, it makes it much easier to walk away from a bad deal to extricate yourself from a bad situation, and to really allow things to pass a sort of mental and or spiritual sniff test. You know, if something seems too good to be true, or you just, you know, you get that nagging feeling in your gut that somebody might be a snake oil salesman, or somebody might be trying to obscure the truth from you and they have some kind of bad ulterior motive. You may not necessarily know what it is. Perhaps that doesn't really matter. If your gut instinct is telling you this person or this business or the situation is bad freakin news and I need to hot-foot it out. Move in another direction, you definitely want to listen to that. And it's easier to tune in to that still small voice when you have your values clear. And you have a code of ethics. If you are thinking about a situation and you're like, you know, I think this could disturb my peace, I might make a lot of money. Or I might, you know, get to rub elbows with some real movers and shakers. And you know, wouldn't that be nice? That would give me a big ego boost, but it might disturb my peace. It might put me into some situations that are not totally aboveboard. Don't walk in the opposite direction, just run. And again, it's clear and it's easier to do that if you know your values and you have a code of ethics around those values. The third and final mindset tip that I'll give you in this episode, is not to equate peace and serenity with boredom. It's like, if you've ever if you have kids or if you've ever been babysitting kids and like, I'm bored. Like, oh my god. And it always seems to strike at the worst possible time. You know, you're trying to finish your project for work, or you've got a million other things that you need to be doing. And they're like "I'm bored!" Maybe that doesn't happen as much now with with kids of this generation, because so many parents just hand them an iPad or cell phone like, okay, here you go knock yourself out, you know, do kids still get bored? I don't know. But that's what we can do, essentially to ourselves as adults, you know, things can be going very well, very smoothly indeed. And if we're not careful, we can allow a sense of boredom to pull us out of peace and serenity. It's like being tempted to do something that deep down you probably know that you shouldn't be doing. It might be fun, and might it might lead to a good story. It might feel really good in the moment. Well, unfortunately, there are plenty have things in life that carry a heavy price tag, you know, yeah, you you might close a big deal and make a lot of money and then lose your peace of mind over it. You might go out and have an affair and it's fun and sexy in the moment, but it leads to a lot of turmoil and heartache. So, please do not assume that having a quiet, peaceful serene situation in your life makes you bored or boring as a person. Honestly, the people who live a very high drama Jerry Springer type of existence, I do not know how they do it. You know, I was telling a friend of mine the other day about some drama that I had kind of inadvertently gotten sucked into and thank God had been sucked out of and I was like, you know, I live this very clean pastoral life on a farm. I'm not used to all this crazy drama. Oh my god. How do people do this? How do people have just like a rolling Circus Maximus of drama. Don't freaking understand it. But I tried to jealously guard, that sense of peace and serenity. And I really recommend that you do the same thing. There is something so refreshing about just being able to sleep peacefully through the night, or being able to go somewhere and have five minutes of quiet time and reflection and solitude. Don't trade those things for a situation that you might deeply regret down the road. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it. If you haven't already, just take a quick minute to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review for us on iTunes. Bye for now. Transcribed by https://otter.ai