Letting Go Experiment: Month 5

I have now completed a little more than five months of my yearlong letting-go experiment. This month I have not been rigorous about letting go of one item or behavior each day, and there are empty spaces yet to be filled in my daily log.

However, I have noticed lately that some changes are taking place in my mental attitudes. For example: I sing in a choral group, and since August we have been preparing for a holiday concert that we finally presented last weekend. In the past, in rehearsals, I have been very concerned with getting the notes right, being on pitch, making all my entrances, not making any mistakes. As a result, I have been nervous and uptight, and rehearsals were, for me, exhausting and not much fun.

But this time, I let go of all that - the need to be right, the expectation of perfection. I just immersed myself in the music. I let myself go, diving into the singing with enthusiasm, holding nothing back. I was willing to go for it and make mistakes. The result? I sang better! I actually made fewer mistakes, and when I did make one, I just treated it as a learning experience and moved on quickly. I came home from rehearsals energized rather than drained. I experienced what it meant to make a "joyful noise".

I notice this internal or attitudinal "letting go" happening in other ways too. What I am learning from this experiment is that when you begin to let go of the clutter in your outer, material, life you also find yourself, almost without realizing it, letting go of your inner mental clutter as well.

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Although this Blog site is not set up to be interactive at this time, feel free to contact me with your comments.

Email: connie@conniekomack.com
Web: www.conniekomack.com

Exercising Your Mind

We all know that our bodies need exercise on a regular basis. But what about our minds? I never realized how much my mind needed exercising until recently, when I had the following experience.

For the past five weeks, I have been doing full-time temp work as an Administrative Assistant in the Purchasing Department of a local engineering and manufacturing company - a side trip I took to help me solve a cash flow issue in my business. Now that this job is completed, I realize how good it was for me - how much it stretched and exercised my brain. The job required some computer skills, which I had, and it required attention to detail, organization, and the use of memory, logic, focus, and self-discipline.

Could this job have been any further from my profession as a coach, speaker, and writer? For those of you who are familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) - an instrument that assesses personality type and cognitive style - you will understand when I say that this job is best suited to an ISTJ, which I think most people in the department probably are, though I did not test them. (ISTJ stands for Introverted/Sensate/Thinking/Judging). I am an INFP (which stands for Introverted/Intuitive/Feeling/Perceiving). Trust me when I say that, except for the introverted piece, these personality/cognitive styles are total opposites. An ISTJ is a person who, as an introvert, is content to work alone for long periods of time. I had this trait in common with most of the other people in the department. He or she is also logical, rational, analytical, focused, detail-oriented, well-organized, non-emotional and even-tempered. This is a "just-the-facts-Jack" kind of person.

Now, as an INFP (actually, with an E/I split and a P/J split), I tend to be quite different from this most of the time - a creative, imaginative, intuitive, and non-linear thinker, strongly influenced by my feelings, sometimes organized and sometimes not. Furthermore, I wouldn't list my memory as one of my strongest attributes.

Despite these contraindications for this job, I actually took to it like a duck to water. This job challenged me. It required that I focus, concentrate, pay attention to detail, and be highly organized and efficient. It tapped into a part of my mind that is underused - underexercised, if you will. It forced me to learn new things, to remember and master a lot of information, to do tasks in a linear and timely manner, to stay focused and limit distractions, to strive for both speed and accuracy. It exercised and stretched some underutilized aspects of my mind and toned up some underdeveloped behavioral patterns. And so I come out of this experience stronger for it, and in a better position to tackle the next projects before me in my business.

Now, I better understand it when people say that the secret to staying young is keeping your mind active, or the foundation principle we learned in our coach training, "We either grow or we die."

What can you do to exercise your mind? My mother-in-law, who recently passed away at the age of 97, kept her mind active and exercised by doing crossword puzzles daily. For those who prefer numbers, we now have Sudoku. What about taking a class in a subject you've never before studied, or learning a new language, or taking up a new hobby, such as painting, writing, dancing, singing, or learning to play a new instrument? Or, how about taking on a new job or project that you've never done before?

It's time for a tuneup of the mind. How will you tune up yours?

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Although this Blog site is not set up to be interactive at this time, feel free to contact me with your comments.

Email: connie@conniekomack.com
Web: www.conniekomack.com