Green Your LIFE - Just say NON!

What can't you live without? Beyond jokes about Ipods or subscriptions to Vanity Fair, let's take a rudimentary look at what truly puts more life in your life? What rejuvenates you? What restores your inner sense of "yes", your joie da vie? Can you think of what those activities might be? If you had to list them right now could you commit them to paper?Because the truth of the matter is, we forget to do them. Sure, mom always told us to take a nap or eat our vegetables, but whether you're one to go on week- long carry-out diets or push the three hour night's sleep habit, most of us have more intimate relationships with the habits that burn us out than the habits that inject life, or SUSTAIN us.

For this reason we created the Sustainability Schedule. We use a little chart when we teach this in workshops, but for the purposes of this newsletter, check out the bullet points below and make your own. The key here is to actually write down the things you can do at each type of interval no matter how crazy your day/week/year/life gets so that even if you can't go to the gym, get the massage, eat right, or spend time with friends 'cause you're on the road, you have a ready set of tools to turn to to keep you in the livin' zone rather that the o-mi-gosh-I-feel-like-I'm-dying zone.

• Daily - okay, so say you've got a packed day with meetings, presentations, lunches, coctails and dinner. All the activities you use to get you through the crunchare out of the question and you've got to shine. What can you integrate into such a day? Parking at the far end of the parking lot? Five conscious breaths between each obligation? More water than coctails? Turning off the crackberry during meetings? Make a list of every peace & well-being enhancing action you can take when nothing you would like to do under more ideal conditions will possibly happen.


• Weekly - The week went pretty well as planned, meaning nothing unfolded the way you wanted it to and next week doesn't look any better. What are you going to do to make sure you refresh/revive & renew? Is it planning on a single solid night at home reading? A walk through the park on the way to work at least once this week? A massage on Sunday night to make sure you can get a good night's sleep? What exactly can you do to make sure you put a little YOU back into your universe on a weekly basis?


• Monthly - for some people the massage is weekly, for some it is monthly. Some folks make sure they take weekend escapes once a month. Still others work in a trip to a museum or a phone date with a far-away old friend. What is a monthly activity that would feed some aspect of you that might otherwise go 'round hungry? Even though "America Runs on Duncan", your soul doesn't.


• Annually - Yoga retreat, 10 day vacation, a trip to a state park, a course to develop new skills or explore new topics. What can you identify that if done annually would help you feel more alive year upon year?

The point here is not to create to do's. By identifying things that can be done in any timeframe, you've got a go-to for the moments when you've mistakenly come to believe that life ails you - as if it ever could. This go- to list reminds you that the only thing that can ail or enliven you are your own choices and actions, and provides a remedy for whatever the situation or timeframe you are dealing with.

So go ahead, take responsibility for your quality of living and green yourself. Remember your own "that which withouts", and the next time you're feeling burnt out just say NON!