💎 Friday Gems (A Guided Meditation, Big Goals, Your Best Workday, I Don't Care About AI and much more!)
💎 Friday Gems (A Guided Meditation, Big Goals, Your Best Workday, I Don't Care About AI and much more!)
You know that goal you've been putting off, go for it! What do you have to lose?
Welcome back to Friday Gems!
It has taken me a few months to get back into the flow, but I think I have turned the corner. Taking small steps forward instead of ruminating and overthinking has helped me get through the thick fog that surrounded me.
Recent events at work have made me think about finding the opportunity right where we are instead of yearning to escape for greener pastures.
The grass may be greener on the other side but if you haven't been taking care of the grass on your side by tending to it, fertilizing it, pulling out the weeds, fixing the dry patches, watering it, or even taking the time to enjoy it, and to help it grow into healthy grass, once you do get to the greener side, soon enough it too will be overlooked for greener pastures.
Yes, sometimes it is the external factors that make it difficult to stay at a job, in those cases, you should switch jobs when it comes to your safety, health, well-being, and career goals but when we overlook the areas of improvement within ourselves and place blame the externally we miss the opportunity for real growth within us.
On to this week’s gems!
In this edition of Friday Gems:
🧘🏽 Mindfulness: Remembrance, positivity, mindful questioning (Guided meditation)
🎯 Mental Toughness: Courtney Dauwalter on Going For Your Big Goals
✨ Work: Simple Secrets to Unlocking Your Best Workday
🤖 Technology: I DON’T CARE ABOUT AI
🌞 Wisdom: Don’t Over Complicate Things
🎵 Music: Her Fantasy by Matthew Dear
Mindfulness
💎 Remembrance, positivity, mindful questioning - 20 minute guided meditation
As I get back into my meditation practice I have been practicing this specific guided meditation by Toby Ouvry, a meditation teacher.
The whole point of meditation and mindfulness is to make real change in our state of mind and well-being to help us go from scattered and anxious thoughts that captivate us to being relaxed and present in the moment.
What I like about this meditation is a powerful tool you can use to practice engaged mindfulness so you can make a real and positive change in your well-being.
This meditation touches on three different aspects or practices of meditation, which are:
Mindful remembrance of the breathing which also helps you build up the muscles and stamina to stay with what you are doing in the moment and to gently come back, without judgement, after your mind has become distracted.
Meditation as a positive object to focus on the things or activities that help you feel, think, and act in ways that are more positive for you.
Mindful questioning as way to activate your wisdom and creativity to improve in a specific area or domain in your life that is important to you and to help you solve practical challenges you face so you can ultimately enjoy your life.
With these three practices you can start your day off right and have the right tools to tackle the challenges show up throughout the day, which for me is the real power of meditation and mindfulness.
Source: Tony Ouvry
Mental Toughness
💎 Courtney Dauwalter on Going For Your Big Goals
(At 28:07 in the podcast)
“When it feels scary or sounds too hard, that’s the thing we should probably try to do.” — Courtney Dauwalter
Courtney Dauwalter is a super human. She is an world’s greatest ultrarunner and was the first person ever to win the Western States 100, Hardrock 100, and the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) in the same year.1 Winning just one of those races would be great but all three, in the same year? Now that is an amazing feat.
In The Trailhead Podcast, Courtney is asked about the advice she has for other runners who are looking to push themselves further with their big goals.
Her response is something we can all take heed of, in sports as well as life, which is to “Go for it! You have nothing to lose!”
I love her advice because it removes the mental blocks we place in front of ourselves and frees us up to go for the goal we want to achieve but are holding back for one reason or another.
I’m adding this to my mantra list…
“Go for it! You have nothing to lose!”
Liste, to the whole interview for even more inspiration from Courtney.
Source: The Trailhead Podcast
Work
💎 Simple Secrets to Unlocking Your Best Workday 🚀
🎨 Imagine starting your day in a perfectly set-up art studio, ready to create. What if your workday could feel that inspired?
How can you bring more intention to the start of your day?
I’ve been starting my day off on auto-pilot for a long time where I first check my messages and my emails and then work on my most important task for the day. Even though mornings for me are prime creative time I hate losing those precious moments to tasks that are not immediately important which is why this gem caught my eye.
In her newsletter, leadership coach, Teresa Brazen shares a simple hack that will help you start your day off right by getting into a flow state quickly.
The Workflow Hack: Spend the last 15 minutes of each day setting up for the next morning’s task.
The example Teresa gives is:
For example, if tomorrow’s focus is creating a workshop plan, I:
Clear my desk.
Set out my notes and outline templates.
Queue up all relevant digital resources.
By morning, I’m ready to dive right in.
That’s easy enough to do.
Think of the most important task you need to work on the next day and spend just 15 minutes preparing for it.
The benefit of this hack is that you can get into a flow state quickly, make the best of your prime creative time (whenever that is for you), and feel great about accomplishing more in less time.
Do you have any tips to get into a flow state? Share them in the comments below.
Source: Teresa Brazen Newsletter
Technology
💎 I DON’T CARE ABOUT AI
AI is a catchall term that describes a thing in service of another thing. It’s neither the product nor the goal. It’s like selling people on the capabilities of plumbing and paper manufacturing when they just want to make a bathroom stop during a road trip after a poorly-planned Taco Bell menu decision. It overlooks the goals (functional restroom, stocked with toilet paper) and desired outcomes (gastrointestinal relief, resumption of travel) in favor of the infrastructure.
I wonder if any user of Figma or Miro, two of the applications I use the most currently and have incorporated AI features, have thought to themselves, “I just can’t do my work without AI!”. Gregg Bernstein, a UX research leader and author, makes a great point that AI is neither the product nor the solution, it’s a means to an end. If AI helps you be more efficient in your work, great, but let’s not lose focus on the people we are designing for.
The place of AI is in the middle ground between people and their goals.
Focus on the humans.
Source: Gregg Bernstein
Wisdom
💎 Don’t Over Complicate Things
You know when you get stuck with indecision and overthinking about what you should do so you go around and around in circles anxiously worrying if this is the right step to take or not, in that very moment pause, breathe, and tell yourself, as
says, “Screw it, let’s just do it. Let’s just try it!” to unblock yourself move forward.Music
💎 Her Fantasy by Matthew Dear
With an infectious beat and “Bowie-esque vocals” this song picks you up to get your moving. Enjoy the journey through your mind with the latest addition to the Low Fidelity playlist.
That’s it for this week’s gems!
If you are enjoying this newsletter, please feel free to let me know. It’s always nice to know that people are out there. 💜
Curiosity will save us,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtney_Dauwalter