Speaker 1: 0:00

You are listening to Making Sense of Work with Jean Balfour. Hi everyone, and welcome to Making Sense of Work. In today's episode, I'm going to share a tool which I've mentioned before in the podcast how to create your ideal day. I've had a few conversations with people about how we create our ideal working life and how will we know when we get there. I've spent a lot of my own career journey getting really clear on my ideal working life and in an iterative loop, kind of working it out, it out, seeking what my ideal day looks like or my ideal week and then thinking about how I can go about creating it, and the tool that I've come back to time and again is this tool creating a picture of our ideal day and, as I've said, maybe ideal week. It's a tool I've used personally many, many times and found it hugely powerful. Often, seeking our purpose or looking for our life vision can feel a bit intangible, or sometimes people say I can't really get a sense of where I could be going. But we can all gain clarity, I believe, on how we want to be spending our days, which might, in turn, give us clues about our purpose. It's how we work out how we're going to spend our days then gives us ideas about our weeks, and that takes us on to see, maybe, how far away we are from our ideal and, as I've said, how far away we are from our ideal and, as I've said, how far away we are from our purpose and how we can move towards that. It gives us a clear goal to move towards and it often generates ideas on how to move towards it. My experience of having this image of an ideal day has been perfect is the word I would describe, because it brings me a calm, knowing that I have a destination, and I've learned that having a destination is very motivating for me and it helps me think about how I'm continually evolving in my life and in my working life in order to be at my best and to be enjoying myself the most. I've also learned that we won't have our ideal day with us all the time, so the clue is in the word ideal. What we're seeking is something that we get, hopefully, more often than not, but I'm going to share right at the end of the podcast about what do we do with that. How do we handle the idea that work is going to be what it's going to be and sometimes it won't be ideal.

Speaker 1: 2:53

One of the reasons this has become so relevant for me recently is that I found a version of my ideal day that I created about 10 years ago. When I looked at it, I realized that I was pretty much living what I'd planned at that point. Not every day, but there are certainly a good few days a month when I'm in that place, the place I dreamt about 10 years ago, and when I saw it, it felt so, so good to see it. I had that sense of calm and then, me being me, I thought, oh okay, it's time for me to create a new version. I need to do a stock take on how I'm spending my days now and how that fitted with what I thought was best for the future, and to create a sense of how I keep improving on it. Now, for me, this won't mean major changes, but I know there are a few things I would like to have more space to be doing, for example, creating podcasts, and so there's something about how I revisit my ideal day to see if I can imagine that being possible.

Speaker 1: 4:00

One of the tools we use and teach on our coaching program is to use a guided visualization to help us to gain clarity on this, to gain the clarity on what our ideal day looks like. And so, in a slightly different podcast approach today, I'm going to take you through that visualization. You can choose to do it as a visualization or just listen to it now, or you can listen to it now and do the visualization another time. It's really up to you, but I'm going to run through it here, as I would do if I was working with a one-on-one client or with a group. When we go into the visualization, it's actually important to notice the constraints that pop up, all those voices and thoughts in your head that are saying that's not realistic. You shouldn't be thinking about that. Don't dream about that, because they can hold us back. And the idea of visualization is to be dreaming and we can work out what to do with the practical constraints. We can work on those after we've been dreaming, after we've got really clear on how we would like to be spending our days either our whole day or our working life but the purpose of this is to dream. Part of the reason why I was aware of the constraints is because I had a specific example of this for myself that I'd like to share Part of my dream ideal day that I set about 10 years ago, which I had no idea how to bring about, was to spend much more time writing and creating, doing what I'm doing now, preparing for the podcast, and I think I believed that was possible.

Speaker 1: 5:51

But I always have this image of me sitting somewhere. I had an image of where I was when I was writing, and it was this image of me sitting in very beautiful places, usually warm places, beside a pool or looking out of a window at a view and at the time I lived in London not much view from my window. When that image came to mind, I remember my analytical mind pushing it away and saying that's not practical. Just imagine yourself here. But here's the thing as I write and prepare for this, I'm looking out my window at a very beautiful view, an uninterrupted view, one that in my wildest practical dreams I never thought was possible, but my creative mind imagined it, dreamt it up, and here I am, and in a very warm place, and I feel so good being here. It's a place I feel that is good for me at the moment, and so I share this to encourage you to dream, to allow your mind to wander, to allow your creative mind to come up with what it wants to come up with.

Speaker 1: 7:02

As you're imagining and dreaming, you will each have a very different personal idea of your ideal day. Of course, we're all unique. For you, it might be that you see yourself as a leader managing large and complex businesses, or you might be writing, or you might be teaching small children. You might be working in the humanitarian sector, or you might be working with data. You may be taking care of people. Maybe you will feel a strong ambition, or you'll feel a quiet, knowing that now's the time to slow down. This is your dream of your ideal day, and it's only yours.

Speaker 1: 7:44

If you choose to do the guided meditation rather than listening, then I encourage you to do it in that way. Think about it as a visualization. I suggest that before you start, you find a notebook and pen and make sure you're seated somewhere quiet, where you won't be interrupted and where you have time time afterwards to write some thoughts down. If you want to do that and you don't have time now, you can simply listen and then maybe come back to it at another time when you can listen and journal what comes up for you, or you can just listen, but I'm going to go through it, assuming that you are doing this as a guided visualization, and so I'm going to treat it in that way. Okay, let's start as you are sitting, ensure you're comfortable, maybe move your body a bit just to see that you're comfortable in that space and take a couple of slow breaths, slow in, and even longer breaths out, just helping your system to calm. You can close your eyes or you can soften your gaze, whatever feels most comfortable for you, whatever feels most comfortable for you. I'm inviting you to visualize your ideal day.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Imagine it's 18 months from now and you wake from a long, deep sleep. You awake feeling refreshed, knowing that you're ready for the day ahead. You say a word of thanks for your sleep and thanks for the day to come, and slowly get out of bed to start your day. You have a feeling of good anticipation about what will emerge as the day unfolds. As you are starting to move and think about this new day, you realise that everything about this coming day is as you wished it would be. Your life and your work have become everything you hoped for. You have your ideal working life.

Speaker 1: 10:03

See yourself heading to the bathroom and look around your surroundings. Where are you living, what type of home are you in, which location are you living and who is around you in your living space? What do you do in your mornings before work on your ideal day? What do you do in your mornings before work on your ideal day? Are you exercising or journaling, meditating, playing with the kids or drinking coffee? What are you doing to help you to prepare for the day ahead?

Speaker 1: 10:43

As you're getting ready for work, you head to the kitchen. What do you prepare for breakfast? How are you nourishing your body as you start the day? What sights, smells and tastes are you experiencing as you prepare for your day? When you dress, imagine the clothes you put on, clothes that say to you I'm enjoying my ideal working life. And as you're dressing, you begin thinking about your journey to work. Maybe you're working from home and your journey is to your desk. Maybe you're working in a business district or in a hospital, or you're working outside in nature. When you imagine your journey to work, what do you see? If you are traveling to a place of work, how do you travel there and how do you spend the time that you're traveling? Are you silently getting ready for the day? Are you people watching? Are you learning, listening to a podcast or listening to music? And what do you notice about how you feel as you head towards this day?

Speaker 1: 12:07

When you arrive at work, either at home or at work, who are the first people you interact with? What do you see outside your window as you settle down to start your day and as you settle into work? What is that work that you're doing? What are the activities that you're involved in? How are you behaving as you go about your day? What are the most enjoyable parts of your day? What are the most rewarding parts of your day? Who are the people you work with? If any? What type of work are they doing? How are they behaving? Do you have clients, either in your organisation or external, and if you do, who are they? Who are your clients and how do you work with them? As you take breaks during the day, how do you spend those breaks? When the inevitable challenges arrive during your day, how do you handle those and how do you build learning and growing into your working day?

Speaker 1: 13:23

As you are working, how is your work nourishing and feeding you? How are you using your strengths? How are you living and working by your values? How is the work you are doing nourishing and feeding others? How are you positively impacting your colleagues, your environment and your loved ones through your work?

Speaker 1: 13:49

As your working day draws to a close and you look back over the day, what do you see? How do you prepare for the ending of the day? As you look back at the day, how does your day contribute to your long-term goals and dreams? How do you spend your time after work? And as you do, what are your reflections? How do you feel at the end of this day? What time do you get ready for bed? How do you prepare for sleep and what time does your light go out on your ideal day?

Speaker 1: 14:29

Now slowly come back to yourself, gently move your body. If your eyes are closed, open them when you feel ready and, if you've done the visualization, or even if not, pick up a pen and paper and write as much as you can. If you're doing this live now, you can pause the podcast and come back to it when you've captured everything and don't censor yourself here. Just capture everything. You can go back and review it later. I'm wondering what came up for you. Often, when we do this exercise, people have a big surprise. It's mostly that they see they knew deep down what they were seeking and they didn't realize it was so clear for them. Maybe for you it's not quite clear, but there's some clues in those pieces of that day.

Speaker 1: 15:25

I really encourage you to take some time to work on this and to create an image or write it down somewhere. You might use pictures, you might do something like a vision board around it, or you could create a mind map or write it down on a Word document. I've done all three, but make sure you write it down and put it down somewhere and put it somewhere where you can see it to remind you. Put it down somewhere and put it somewhere where you can see it to remind you. And it may be that you want to go over it a few times in the next few weeks and see if it's right and maybe think about it, ponder it and edit it. Maybe you want to do that before you really create something concrete to symbolize it.

Speaker 1: 16:06

And without wanting to rain on this beautiful visualization, I do want to bring us back to a little bit of reality, and that's to acknowledge that, even when we get really close to our ideal day, it's unlikely we'll have it all the time and coming to an acceptance of this is really important to our fulfillment. Somebody recently asked me about this and I immediately said I'm aiming for 60-40. I'm aiming to spend 60% of my time doing my ideal work and I'm fully accepting that 40% of my time will be on things that I'm good at and I enjoy but are not in that main ideal space and I accept that out of that 40%, sometime we'll be doing things I don't really want to do at all. My accounts come to mind, but that's okay, that's part of life. I'm not aiming for perfection, it doesn't exist. I'm aiming to get closer and closer towards my ideal day.

Speaker 1: 17:04

You can decide your own percentage of what works for you. Some people say 50-50. Somebody recently said to me that hers is 70-30. So it's really what your percentage of where you want to be in your ideal space and you may decide. It's a go-to that you aim for one day a month where you're working your ideal day and then you try and increase it over time. So it's probably not going to magically appear. There will take some effort and thinking to bring it about.

Speaker 1: 17:35

The other thing I want to acknowledge is the idea of resistance, even about our ideal day. Having a clear idea about what we want to do doesn't mean it will magically appear. We're going to have to work towards it and sometimes that can create some resistance. I often think of writers as a good example of this. So most writers will tell you that even though writing is their ideal working life, they often have to make themselves sit down in the chair. Jerry Seinfeld famously has a routine which involves coffee, a timer and writing every day to make himself do it.

Speaker 1: 18:13

I know this is true for me. I absolutely love designing new courses and programs, but I still have to put myself in front of the computer or with a notebook. I still have to make sure I do the research. But once I've started I feel happy. It's that I have to notice the resistance to sit down and get to work. The other thing that might get in our way is our belief or our confidence. I've seen people who are drawn to leadership who I believe will be very good leaders who are holding back out of fear or not being sure they're going to be right for the role. I think identifying that this might be holding us back and working on this is really important to our happiness.

Speaker 1: 18:57

So this was a different type of episode today. I hope you've found it enjoyable. I encourage you to keep pondering on your ideal day and working towards it, because it certainly worked for me. Thanks for joining this episode of Making Sense of Work. If you enjoyed it, please go and subscribe, rate and review. If you have a topic you'd like me to explore in the podcast, please follow the show notes and send me a message.