A condensed masterclass in self-management for a complex age
➡️➡️ How to Reset Your Energy and Rewire Your Mindset for Sustainable Success - Free Workshop, Thursday 16 October, 3 pm (UK time)
If your energy feels scattered or you’re running on empty, this live 60-minute session will show you how to renew your focus, shift your mindset, and sustain your impact without burning out.
Reserve your free place here. ⬅️⬅️
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What a world we live in…
Where the world asks more and more and more and more of us each year, as if we were machines.
There the competing demands and concertina-like generations stretch us and stretch us and stretch us…
… and no one trains us for any of this.
No one knew it was going to be like this.
That the speed of change would be so great.
That the asks on us, on our children, on our parents, would be so great. And so different to at any other time in human history.
It is possible to thrive in this world. We have to believe that.
Even as we hear the stories and see the experiences of the people around us.
But if the world is asking more of you than you can currently cope with…
If you feel, as the developmental psychologist Robert Kegan might put it, in over your head…
Then it’s time to make some changes.
When I’m facing a truly complex situation (as defined, for example, here), I slow down and I think about enabling.
I might think about Gary Keller’s book, The One Thing, and ask: what’s the ONE THING that I could do here that would make everything else easier or unnecessary?
Here are two of the answers that always come for me:
1) I can look after my energy.
I can refuel myself as well as spend my resources. I can repair as well as rupture.
And when things get busy, I can remember the old zen saying: I meditate for an hour a day, except when I’m busy. Then I meditate for two hours a day.
If we look after ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, everything is easier.
Not easy.
But easier.
2) I can choose my experience.
That’s what my new book is about. (It’s due out next month - sign up here to be the first to hear.)
It’s about how we may think that we see ‘reality’, but we don’t. We see something, filtered through the abilities of our eyes and the framings of our minds.
But if we change the framings of our minds, we see a different reality.
As the old saying from Talmud goes: we see the world not as it is, but as we are.
When I started creating a workshop series about my Meaningful Productivity framework this autumn, I wondered what I would discover about it through the creation and delivery of the workshops.
What I learned today, when thinking about next week’s workshop, focused on two of the Six Pillars of Meaningful Productivity: Energy Management and Attention Management, I realised that somewhat accidentally, it is a condensed masterclass in self-management for a complex age.
If we can begin to see the power we have to choose our experience, to change our mindset, to shift our attitudes in ways that enable more possibility and less drain…
And if we can fuel ourselves up so we not only don’t run ourselves down into burnout and stress, but even fuel ourselves up to bring the best version of ourselves we can manage to our work and our children and our parents and our husbands and our wives…
Then maybe we can weather the storm.
Maybe we can catch sight of dry land, or see the sun emerging through the clouds.
Maybe it’s here already, and we just can’t see it… because we’re too worn down. Or because our mental models don’t let us see it.
In a workshop I ran this week, I suggested that The Wizard of Oz is an analogy to show us that we have what we need in us, all the time.
And then my colleague turned to me and said, ‘I always thought it was about God. God isn’t out there, God is always with us.’
And the level of presence among the 16 leaders and three facilitators in the room shifted.
What a world we live in.
Maybe it is the constantly burning world we see.
Or maybe not.
Maybe beauty is all around us, so present that we don’t need the news to show it to us.
We just need to notice…
The golden leaf.
The smiling child.
The love under the frustration.
The song of the birds.
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PS I’d love you to join me for the Meaningful Productivity Workshop Series - free, live sessions this month.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re running on fumes - achieving plenty, but paying the price in energy or mindset - this week’s session is for you.
Join us live for Workshop 3: How to Reset Your Energy and Rewire Your Mindset for Sustainable Success - part of the free Meaningful Productivity Workshop Series.
You’ll:
Map the sources that fuel you and the drains that quietly burn you out.
Learn simple reframes to shift from exhaustion to effectiveness.
Leave with a practical experiment to boost your energy this week.
Replay available for 48 hours… but live attendees get the fullest experience.
👉 Reserve your free place here: https://www.robbieswale.com/meaningful-productivity-workshop-series
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.