I talk with clients all the time about listening to inner directives, those little voices that tell us the right way to our best lives.

My inner directive is telling me to REST. And I’m going to listen.

My blogging for the remainder of the summer will be sporadic. Check back now and then to see if I’ve posted anything. You can also subscribe in a reader or by email, so you can have the blog posts delivered directly to you.

I’ll keep sending out newsletters (subscribe over there to the left), and I’m still coaching.

In the mean time, how are you doing listening to your inner directives?
 

Here’s what I’ve learned from focusing on breathing this month.

1. I hold my breath. A lot. Seemingly for no reason, though often it’s when I’m concentrating. This is ironic because depriving my brain of oxygen is unlikely to help my thinking.

2. If I consciously breathe for 5 minutes, I can triple the length of my inhale and exhale with not effort. All that’s required is my attention.

3. If I breathe for 10 minutes, my mind relaxes. If I breathe for 20 minutes, my body feels as if it’s aged backward. If I breathe for 30 minutes or more, I feel like I took some mid-altering substances. (Though this did happen with less than 5 minutes of breathing yesterday--it was fabulous!)

Curious about breathing? Check out Jess Ryan, yogini extraordinaire. She teaches anyone, local or long-distance (via Skype). And she rocks.

Jess says that 10 minutes of conscious breathing results in measurable physiological changes.

Spend 10 minutes today just watching yourself breathe. Relax into it. Send the air into your low belly. Enjoy!

photo courtesy of talulayu via flickr
 

Would you like to feel a little less stress during stressful activities? Do you want to take away a bit of the tension?

Last weekend, I cleaned the house. It’s not my favorite thing to do. Merely thinking about it causes my body to grow tense, and it worsens once I start cleaning. I love a clean house, but I don’t love cleaning it.

This time, I decided to take away the tension. I chose to clean the house without the usual frustration.

A dirty toilet is still a dirty toilet, but cleaning it isn’t so bad when I don’t carry mental and physical stress.

What do you find stressful?

A meeting with your boss.
Carpooling a van full of kids to and from basketball practice.
Cleaning up after teenagers.

Whatever it is, when you do that thing you don’t like, decide to leave the tension behind.

You have a choice.

Relax your muscles. Take slow, deep breaths. Move slowly.

If you’re going to do the thing you don’t like to do, you might as well do it without adding extra pain.

Where can you remove a little tension in your life and add in a deep breath and some relaxation?
 

I learned a great new trick a few weeks ago: If I want to relax, I just ask my body to do it for me.

Try this: Ask your breath to deepen for you. Don’t you do it--ask your breath to do it for you.

Stop reading for a minute and notice what happens.

Seriously, try it. Ask your breath to deepen for you.

What happens is almost magical, isn’t it?

I’m now starting to practice it on my tight muscles and with falling asleep, with some success. When I get into bed and feel situated, I ask my mind to turn off and my body to sleep. Most nights it works quickly.

If you encounter a stressful moment in your day, pause and ask your breath to deepen for you--you don’t have to do anything else. Your body is infinitely wise and knows exactly what to do. You and your mind are the only thing stopping it. Pause and let your breath deepen and your body relax.

Isn’t that fantastic?
 

When is the last time you played hooky? For me, it was yesterday.

Hooky is a great way to shift your attitude and feel good. Taking a day to play helps you feel happier and more relaxed. It decreases your stress levels, keeps your immune system in check, and helps you approach life in a more even-keeled manner.

Whether you work for The Man, work for yourself, or take care of your family each day, you can always find a day here and there to play hooky.

Here are four clues that it’s time for you to play hooky.

1. Your schedule unexpectedly opens up for part or all of one day.
2. Your boss is on vacation or out sick for a few days.
3. The house is clean (enough), and the neighbors said they’d love to have Johnny over for a few hours to play in the leaves.
4. You can’t remember the last time you took a “you” day.

Is it time for you to play hooky? Pick a day. Put it in the calendar. No buts about it.

Now, you’ve got the day picked out. What are you going to do with it?

Here’s the best part: You get to decide. Do anything you want, as long as it makes you happy. Stop thinking of everyone else just for one day, or even a few hours. Savor the selfishness--it’s good for you now and then.

Here’s what I did yesterday: I slept in. I read a book. I took a bath. I ate a yummy lunch. I watched the Michael Jackson movie. I went to the farmers’ market. I enjoyed a late afternoon cup of delicious coffee. I went mountain biking. I took a long, hot shower. I cooked a delicious dinner with my market produce. I watched television. I went to bed with a smile.

Every minute of it was for me. No guilt. (Guilt over stuff like this is a waste of time, anyway.)

Your turn. Start planning your “you” day off. You deserve it. Drop the guilt and go have fun.

What are you going to do for you?

This is the second in a series of three posts that explore the idea of loving your job.
- The first post suggested that you can love your job.
- This post will offer some ideas on how to be happy in your current job.
- The third post will provide tips on how to find a career that you truly love.
 
I believe that the purpose of life is to be as happy as possible.

For me, if happiness is the purpose of life, then I choose to not spend my energy doing something that drains me.

Here are three ideas on being happy in your current job.

1. Change your mindset.

What’s bothering you about your current job? Do you have a bad boss? By allowing your boss to make you miserable, you are giving your boss power over your happiness. Don’t give away your right to happiness.

Try these tips to change your mindset.

Ask Why? First, given the example above, ask yourself why your boss is making you unhappy. Keep asking why until you get some really clear answers. (Hint: It usually takes about five why’s to get to something juicy.)

Recognize your own reaction. Next, recognize that your unhappiness is caused by your reaction to what your boss is doing, because you think that your boss doing something wrong. You can’t change your boss. (I sure have tried!)

Change your point of view. Lastly, change how you look at the situation. One way I have changed my reaction to difficult boss situations was to think, “They don’t know any better.” And I leave it at that. Trying to change a boss is nearly impossible. Changing your mindset is quite possible.

2. Add some fun into your day.

What can you do to make work a bit more tolerable?

I recently met a woman who told me that she got away with adding hot pink to her work. It was marginally acceptable at work, but she was able to do it and it made her happier.

In my previous job, I liked to go out for lunch or coffee with friends or go for a walk in the middle of the afternoon on a rough day.

Try these tips to add some fun into your day:

Spice it up. What’s marginally acceptable (like hot pink) that would be a fun way to make your work more interesting?

Add in a little play. What little playful thing can you add into your day to make it a bit more fun? I talked about play in my August 16 newsletter. (Didn’t get it? Email me for a copy and subscribe in the box in the upper left of this page so you can get the next one, due out September 1.)

Take a break. Five minutes or 15 minutes or your whole lunch hour can be a great way to take a break and have fun. Hang out with people you enjoy--not your grouchy cube mate. Keep good company, even if it’s just you!

3. Hire a coach.

Coaches are great at helping clients find happiness in their current life, even if the clients dream of something bigger and better. Finding happiness today before creating a new life for tomorrow always makes transitions stronger and longer-lasting.

You can be happier in your current job. Actually, I highly recommend to clients to find peace in their current job before moving somewhere new. Until we find peace in the chaos, we’re likely to encounter the same problem in a future job.

What have you done to be happier in your job? What could you do to be happier?

I am working on my first downloadable coaching product, and I’m learning so many great lessons along the way. Last week I learned that it’s better for everyone when I put my well-being ahead of everything else. Maybe you think this sounds selfish, but I learned that everyone benefits when we take care of ourselves first.

The product I’m working on is a collaborative project with my coaching friend Alison Horner. We’re creating a companion guide to Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live. It’s an audio and workbook set which covers each chapter in the book. Ali and I have been putting a good effort into it and having fun along the way. We both found this book useful for setting our lives on our “right” path and are excited to share it with our clients.

We were making audio recordings one morning recently, and after forty-five minutes, I was toast. I felt flustered and was ready to take a break. We had planned to work for another hour that day, but I didn’t have it in me. I was honest with Ali and said that I needed a break. I knew that we scheduled more time to work that day, but I feared that the quality would suffer if I kept at it. So we quit, and I worked on easier tasks that afternoon.

The next week, after Ali and I put more time into a recording, she said she needed a break. So we quit, and we both worked on other things for the rest of the day. No hard feelings either time.

By being honest about how we were feeling, we honored ourselves, each other, and our product. If we had pushed through despite our feelings, we would have felt drained and the quality of our product would have suffered. No one would have benefited from this.

Often I find it easy to just push through one more thing, ignoring how I feel and focusing on achieving a sense of completion. In the end, everyone suffers with that method. I suffer for pushing myself hard, and others suffer by dealing with an outcome that is less than perfect and was created with some negative energy.

Do you have a tendency to push yourself too hard? Can you call it quits a little sooner, and put yourself first?

Sometimes “what would make me happy right now” is one of the hardest questions for me to answer.

I was having a bit of an “off" day not too long ago, and when I was done working for the day, I wanted to do something to correct my unease. Paul was gone for the night and I had not made any plans.

I wandered around the house just waiting for some inspiration. I’m not sure how I thought that would help, but it’s a habit I started in childhood--roam around (mope, maybe?) until something strikes me.

Then, it was as if I said to myself, “Enough is enough. We’re going for a walk.” We meaning me.

I pulled on my shoes and went outside.

When I set out on my walk, I assessed my uneasiness. I felt uninspired about several things I had on my plate. I set an intention for my walk: to release the uneasiness.

Within ten minutes of walking, the inspiration started flowing. I hadn't even been looking for inspiration. I just wanted to release the uneasiness. I had several writing ideas, a plan for the next step on a project, and a feeling of freedom about my wide-open weekend.

My original plan was to walk for a half-hour, but when I reached the point where I would turn to come home, I wanted to keep going. The inspiration was flowing, and the walk was apparently exactly what I needed.

The cool breeze that comes through my area in the summer was strong this night. It felt cleansing, like it was blowing off the uneasiness of my day and making room for the ideas to flow.

As I continued walking, ideas continued to come without much effort. After about 45 minutes, I wanted to slow down my brain. The ideas flowed nicely, and I know that if I over-think them, they lose their juice. The final mile of my walk was more meditative and relaxing. I felt much better.

I came home having shed my uneasiness and having found some inspiration. I learned my lesson:

Ask the question, “What would make me happy right now?” Then do it.

The key here is to seek something that will truly make you happy. Alcohol and chocolate don’t count. They may make it easier for you to pretend that you’re happy or they may numb the pain, but they will not truly make you happy. When I say happy, I mean genuinely happy. Or just shoot for content, if you’re having a really bad day and happy feels like a stretch.

Consider these ideas:
- go for a walk
- take a bath
- relax in a hammock
- curl up in a comfortable chair and read a book
- paint, draw, or express yourself creatively
- play some music
- turn up your favorite song and dance
- play with your pet or with your children

What was amazing about focusing on being happy was that the problems that were making me feel off were solved with little effort. I found more solutions on that one-hour walk than I would have sitting in front of my computer all day.

The key is to play, walk, or be creative without trying to solve your problems.

I walked to clear my head and my heart and the by-product was inspiration. This also happens when I take a bath. When I take a bath to relax, and the ideas come to me like a flood. It’s because I’m focusing on relaxing, or playing, or creating; I’m not focusing on fixing. If I take a bath to think through a problem, I only feel more frustrated.

Do you have a problem you're trying to solve that you can let rest while you have some fun instead?