Okay, so you probably read the title of this blog entry and thought “What the hell does posture have to do with time management?”
The answer is: More than you think.
More than half of my coaching clients, whether individual or group, come to me due to problems with time management. It’s a major problem that plagues a huge number of people at every level of the medical sector. Struggling to effectively manage your time each day leads to lost productivity, increased workload (and stress!), lack of focus, feelings of lowered self worth and in many cases an eventual blowout.
But while you’ll often see coaches recommend the use of calendars, planners, journals and strict regimes (which are all great – don’t get me wrong, there), you don’t often hear about the importance of the personal side of things…
And that’s a shame, because at its core time management is SELF management.
Manage yourself well, and you’ll manage your time well
Problems with time management are often noticed when procrastination and perfectionism begin to come into the foreground, taking up more of our daily time than being productive, profitable and creative does.
People like to blame these things for the problem – see them as the reason time slips away so easily. Recognise any of these?
“I need to stop procrastinating and get more done.”
“I wish I could just focus instead of letting my attention wander.”
“Honestly, I’ve so much to do today that there just isn’t time to work out.”
“I really need to get off Facebook when I should be planning for the week.”
“It’s taking far too long to get this book ready… but I don’t think it’s good enough right now.”
All of these are common, but none of them are the problem itself. They’re just symptoms of it.
Lack of confidence. Lack of willpower. Lack of self-belief and lack of self-compassion. These are among the things at the core of us, as human beings, that become actions such as procrastination, worry, and despondancy… and lead to problems managing our productive time.
And that’s where posture comes into it – because it’s an easy first step toward managing your physical self more confidently… something which, in turn, will transfer to other more outward forms of management.
Good form leads to good results
Think about your physical posture when you’re feeling down in the dumps and just don’t want to do anything. You’re hunched over, head down, your spine bent. You look beaten. Defeated.
And other people pick up on it. They ask you what’s wrong, if you’re feeling okay – wondering why you look so glum. It’s an externalised representation of how you are inside… but it also works the same in reverse. Maintaining a defeated posture unconsciously sends those signals inward – that you’re tired, that you’ve already lost.
How can you ever expect to be focused, successful and achieving everything you want to achieve if you’re constantly trapped in that state?
Imagine you’re at the gym, working out with weights, doing some interval training or yoga. Keeping up proper form is crucial when exercising – it leads to improvement rather than injury. If you had a personal trainer next to you, they’d be watching your every move and correcting your form before you hurt yourself.
Your everyday posture is the same. You can either train it to make you powerful (improvement) or to keep you locked in a depressive shell (injury).
When you aren’t feeling powerful, you aren’t managing yourself. And when you aren’t managing yourself, you can’t manage your time. Posture is one of the best “quick wins” you can reach for in this arena.
My personal favourite posture-fixer is the Egoscue Method, founded by Pete Egoscue (author of many books on the subject including Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain) back in the 70’s. Even if you aren’t experiencing direct pain (back pain is a common complaint arising from extended periods of poor posture), his books are well worth looking at as guides to proper posture.
Because standing tall, yet relaxed – aligning our bodies the way they are naturally designed to align – gives us that feeling of power, of wellbeing.
And that’s a major step forward when it comes to opening your third eye.
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