Are You Too Busy For Legacy?

I remember when I was a lawyer that I used to spend most of my life in the office.  

Often my mum would call me there.  I would tell her I was busy and that I would call her back.  The thing is I never did…

After I had done my re-conversion she owned up as to how much that had hurt.  

When I used to teach resilience to lawyers, I would tell that story to stony faced high achievers.  They wouldn’t flinch.  But at the end of the session when I would ask what action they would take … it always involved making a phone call.

The Busyness Trap

Busyness has become a badge of honour, a sign of achievement.  It seems that everybody is overly busy and... exhausted.

At the end of last year, I decided I wanted to be less busy in my work.  I realised that there was a big difference between being busy and adding real value in a meaningful way.  

With my clients the first and incredibly hard step seems to be to stop the busyness cycle.  We start with carving out just 15 mins a day and investing that towards something of true value.  It always seems like an impossible hill to climb.  Because as high achievers we have been so conditioned to reacting to our environment rather than shaping it.

Waking Up From The Trance

The problem is that we get anaesthetised to the cost.  Just like me forgetting to call my mother.  

It seems that what gives flavour to our lives starts to slip us by.  

We keep postponing what matters to some later date in the future.  Forgetting that we create our legacy in the now.  

The real question is do we really want on our tombstone ‘She was really busy’?  What do we actually want to be remembered for?  

I was reminded just this week about how finite life is.  

Wouldn’t it be sad if we went to our graves with still those un-lived (or as my auto-correct just suggested… those unloved) visions inside of us? What a waste…

 Turning The Tide

I taught time management for years.  I learnt that we seem to live under this illusion that we can expand a day to more than 24 hours. The hard truth is that it all comes down to choices.

So here are a few thoughts for your holiday lounger...

Where you start…

• Invest 15mins a day in something you care about.  One participant on one of my corporate programmes started to draw again.  From there emerged a completely different level of contribution in his work that felt so much better.  It didn’t involve drawing, but as he put it, it was like he woke up from a deep slumber.  He was not just busy but alive in his life again.
• Define what real value you want to bring.  Make the difference between busy and investing in what is important.  What are the tasks that actually move forward your calling? Start putting them on your list of things to do…  and do at least one a day.
• Surround yourself with people who are on the same journey.  Find a tribe of people who also want to go beyond just busy towards real alignment and true impact.  Get the accountability.  So that you can together lift yourselves up and make real progress.

And as a bonus…make sure you are building not just others’ dreams but also your own…. Sometimes the roles of caretaker and pleaser get in the way of the true contribution we could make…

Until Next Time,

Louise