To-Be Instead of To-Do
The other day during yoga, something my instructor said really stuck out to me and it inspired this post. She was talking about how most times we focus on a to-do list, but what about a to-be list. This sparked so many thoughts and I thought I would share.
We often think that life is about what we accomplish. How much we get done, how successful we are, etc. In reality, life is all about being a genuinely good person. It is about being the best you can be and sharing your good vibes with others. When I am deciding who I want to be around i’m not thinking about how much of their to-do list they have accomplished, i’m thinking about whether they have a good heart or not. So why don’t we think that way about ourselves? Many times, we judge ourselves based off of our productivity, but instead we need to judge ourselves based off of our souls.
Instead of focusing on what you have to do, focus on what you want to be. When I allowed this to soak in, I felt a sense of peace wash over my body. We don’t need to think about everything we have to do, we need to think about our attitude. Way too often I notice that I stop the flow of life. I try to control way to many things. For example, during work I am thinking about exactly what I am doing after work and in what order and all of the details. This doesn’t help me plan out my life because there are things I can’t control and that I can’t plan for. In the end, I waste my day planning for things that may or may not happen. Instead, I am working on focusing on how I want to act each day. Do I want to be relaxed? Enthusiastic? Prepared? There are so many choices and making one of these words a goal for your day pushes all of your activities in that direction.
This also brought me to think about how I’m always so focused on doing things for a long time. This tends to overwhelm me and then I don’t do the task. For example, I’ll be planning out a workout and thinking that it needs to be at least an hour long, but some days I don’t want to workout for an hour. So, I end up not doing anything when really what my body and mind wanted was to do a workout for half the time. Instead of focusing on doing something for a long time, just get started. Don’t have expectations of how long you are going to do something. Just do it, and give it all the effort you have.
A lot of times we can find who we want to be by thinking about our intention. It could be your intention for the day or the week or even your life. Think about the version of yourself that you want to show others as well as how you want other people to see you. My yoga teacher made us do an exercise where we thought about the five people we spend the most time with. Then, think about the qualities of those people and how they make you feel. Now, think about yourself and what you wish to portray. take this with you as you go into the week.