To be not to be
that is the question

William Shakespeare

How to be in balance

As we come to the end of the second week of this new term the ‘to do’ list can return like an all too familiar weight in our lives. The Christmas and New Year break begins to feel like a memory replaced with the feeling of ‘there’s so much to do and not enough time to do it’. Our lives feel out of balance once again.

As Jon Kabat Zinn says, ‘if we were meant to be called ‘human doings’, we would be called ‘human doings’. We are not, we are called ‘human beings’.

How do we retain a sense of balance during our day so that we are equally attentive to the driven, doing, striving mode, as well as the sensing, experiencing, being mode? Both are equally important but all too often the balance is tipped in favour of ‘doing’, leading to higher levels of stress, anxiety and - in the worst case scenario - burn out.

One headteacher described this ‘driven - doing’ mode to me saying, ‘I feel like a stone skimming across a river. I catapult myself into the day, superficially racing across the surface of it, sometimes landing on the other side safely, sometimes not. When I get home and I am asked ‘how was today’, … you know what? I can barely remember it’.  

So how do we ensure the ‘being’ part of our humanness, and our leadership, shows up? How do we stay 'in balance'?

How Mindfulness can help.

When we practice mindfulness we become aware of the two modes of living and leading. We can feel when we are living on speed, going at the day ‘full throttle’, driving ourselves into the ground. We know when this ‘fight and flight’ response of our sympathetic nervous system is activated. We can feel our heart racing, our mind jumping and our ability to focus compromised.

Mindfulness gives us this awareness and the strategies to apply the brakes, activating the ‘rest and digest’ response of our parasympathetic nervous system.

We take a pause, stop, enjoy a few deep breaths. Just as we drive a car safely by tapping on the brake each time we have reached 80 miles an hour without noticing, so we can do so with our daily lives - by cultivating balance.

Here's how...

Create ‘to be’ intentions

As we are still in January why not make a commitment to create a weekly ‘to be’ set of intentions as well as a ‘to do’ list this year?  Our ‘to do’ list is very often blown to one side by the events of the day but our ‘to be’ intentions can be achieved whatever is happening in the day to day.

Maybe our intention is to be fully present for every conversation this week, or to listen well, resisting the urge to interrupt and offer solutions that have not been asked for, or to be kinder to ourselves when things don’t go to plan. Try it, share it and see what difference it makes to how you feel about what you have been able to achieve at the end of the day.

Be drawn to purpose, not driven by pressure

When feeling under pressure, turn to what really matters to you. Sit for a moment and ask yourself:

·     What really matters to me right now?

·     What do I choose to let go of right now?

·     Who do I choose to be in this moment?

The answers to these questions will shift your attention momentarily from the task, allowing you to draw on your purpose, your values and what’s important to you. You will feel more grounded, more balanced, more at ease and in control of your day.

Start the day in being mode

Help your team to find balance by starting the day asking not ‘what we are going ‘to do’ today’ but ‘how are we going to be today that will make a difference’. Beverley Riddle in her blog shares this practice saying ‘this is not a ‘to-do list’ question – it's a question about how we will be and how we will show up for each other and the children in our care, moment by moment.’

If you have time to go further take a look at this article by Liz Lord from the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, who shares her experience of being a teacher attending a training day where lengthy ‘to do’ lists were shared.

It made her wonder; ‘How do I want to be in the world and how can this shift in emphasis bring a greater sense of achievement to my work and life? In many contexts this may actually be the only thing that we have any choice about. ‘How can I be in this situation?’