wellness

I’m feeling the spirit of the season, and delighted to pass that good will – and savings – your way with the Take A Bow Seasonal Bundle.

To celebrate the booklet’s success and its third printing – and to help you celebrate this season of light – I have packaged up 12 bundles that each contain the following:

• 100 copies of Take A Bow
• One bonus copy of each of my other four publications: Take A Break, Press Pause…Press On, Press Pause…Think Again, and Sketches of Saskatoon
• Plus a bonus original PKatz watercolor painting surface mounted on a 6×8” mat ready for framing

Take A Bow is the perfect gift of encouragement for colleagues, employees, clients, friends and family. It offers simple, doable ways for people to feel better about who they are and what they do.

Take A Bow retails at 6.95 for a single copy. However, in the TAB Seasonal Bundle, it will be priced at 2.65/copy – its lowest price ever. Cheaper than a greeting card – with much more value and staying power. The bonus items (books and painting) are included at no extra cost for you to enjoy yourself or share with others. All told, it’s an $850 value.

The Take A Bow Seasonal Bundle is priced $294 (includes shipping and tax). The fine print?

• Only 12 bundles on offer.
• Only available in Canada.
• Order before December 24/2015.

Order your bundle today and delight others tomorrow!

This link takes you to the Seasonal Bundle order form. If you’d like to take a peek into all the publications, this link will take you to that info.

My Thoughts: I’m all for optimism and uplifting thoughts, but sometimes they don’t come easy, and sometimes simply choosing happy may not serve us well in the long run.

As we’ve seen with the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and so many other places in the world, frightening and unexpected events drop into people’s lives with no warning and dire consequences.

Those experiences fuel reactions and feelings that aren’t easily sidelined by substituting light and uplifting thoughts. Nor should we expect that to be the case.

A wise friend recently reminded me that sometimes we need to pause in the shadows to touch a fear that is all too real and oh so present. It matters that we take the time to be with those tougher emotions and not just speed through them or try to avoid them on our way to a lighter, brighter place.

A deeper understanding of what matters most to us springs from being present to both the dark and the light. (more…)

Reflection:  When I deliver sessions on overload and overwhelm at work and in life, these are questions that often arise. Maybe you’ve asked them yourself!

• Why can’t I focus in the midst of distractions?
• Why do I keep interrupting myself, even when I’m on a roll?
• Why do I feel exhausted at the end of my day?

The answers vary. But there is one modern habit that definitely contributes to these experiences – our 3D habit of Digital-Dipsy-Doodling. (I love that phrase – and wish I could take credit for it, but I can’t. See resources of the week for the origin and two articles that say more about this experience.)

You may well be familiar with 3D behavior, yourself. It’s the practice of jumping around between email, twitter, facebook, instagram, and the many other diversions of the web at large.

Why do we do it? It could be FOMO – fear of missing out. Or, it could be (as neuroscience suggests) that fresh doses of info send zingers of dopamine to the brain. Dopamine feels good. And, so, we Dipsy-Doodle – again and again – moving ever further away from what we had initially set out to accomplish.

While we are busy jumping around like grasshoppers on Red Bull, we may not even be aware that all this switching takes energy. The more we leapfrog, the less we accomplish, and the more exhausted we feel.

Doped up and depleted was probably not how any of us envisioned our days unfolding. Welcome to the downward spiral of digital distraction!

Action: So what’s a busy body to do? (more…)

My Thoughts:

Peer pressure can be a formidable force through childhood and the teen years. And, it continues to be a presence as we move into our careers and through our adult lives.

As colleagues deliver webinars, package on-line learning, crank out manifestos and e-books, and travel hundreds of thousands of miles a year … I find myself pressed to join in the frenzy.

Then I remember to listen to the voice of my own longings, and realize that I don’t really want to do all those things. I remind myself that I can pick and choose the ones that fit, and let the rest flow by. Not every task is mine to do.

Your Thoughts:

Are there things you find yourself grasping for that you know at your core you don’t really want?  Could you make a different choice? (more…)

Reflection: One of the most frequently referenced sources of advice about how to live your life is Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. ‘Start with the end in mind’ is one of those habits.

It’s a laser-beamed and focused approach that’s not without its challenges. Most notably you have to come up with the ‘end’ – the big idea or the grand life purpose – depending on the scale you’re working on. And, you risk overlooking opportunities of iinterest that lie closer at hand.

There’s another approach we could take as well – that of simply being more aware of our current state and the call or appeal of the opportunities that sit directly in front of us.

Those choices are echoed in author Stephen King’s observation that there are two ways to write a book. You either start with your outcome in mind and write in that direction, or you come up with a situation that has tension and see where your imagination takes you. You let the characters respond and the plot unfold. (more…)

My Thoughts:

In her Ted Talk on successful aging, 71 year old author and activist, Isabelle Allende, remarked, “It’s great to let go. I should have started sooner.”

That comment made me laugh. I, too, know the relief that comes from letting go – whether it’s an outdated goal, a long held grudge, or as you see in the poster image featured here, possessions that have outlived their usefulness.

A couple of months ago, I actually purged these books from my office. 125 books and seven cardboard boxes later, they were off the shelves, off my mind, and headed into the hands of others who were ready to welcome them aboard. What a relief to lighten up in this way! (more…)

Reflection: I’ve long been a fan of Daniel Pink’s work on motivation (and have occasionally featured his ideas in previous Pause messages). So, it was a great thrill for me to meet him and hear him speak when I served as MC for last week’s Saskatchewan Human Resource Association Conference.

It’s not often that you hear an author tell you to skip a chapter in his previous book, because his thinking has changed. But, tell us he did!

If you’re not familiar with Pink’s model of motivation, here’s a recap.

Pink believes that we are intrinsically motivated (from the inside out) by three things:

• Purpose (participating in something meaningful and larger than ourselves)
• Autonomy (being in charge of our choices)
• Mastery (desire to get better at something that matters)

What has he changed his mind about? (more…)

My Thoughts:

A recent weekend was chuck full of responsibilities, errands, duties, tasks, tidying, scrubbing, chores, jobs and more jobs. You name it, we did it! With a full life of your own, I’m sure you know what I mean.

It would have been easy to spend those hours in a state of irritation. I’ve done that in the past.

However, this time around, I decided to switch it up. I held this idea in mind instead: I’m grateful that I have a home to clean, a garden to maintain, and the strength to do both.

Same number of hours – totally different experience! (more…)

Reflection: What role are Teflon and Velcro playing in YOUR life?

Rick Hanson suggests that we add unnecessary stress to our lives by coating ourselves with Teflon for positive experiences and comments. We let the good stuff slide right off and disappear.

At the same time, we cover ourselves with Velcro for negative experiences and comments. We let the negatives sink their hooks into us. That makes it tough to shake them off.

According to Ruth Baczynski you can tell that Velcro is governing your life when you are quick to take offence, feel hurt and withdraw, or get angry and pick a battle.

In her view, we need to be less hyper-reactive – to jump less often to conclusions, to manufacture fewer crises from minor incidents, and stop letting ourselves be hooked by imagined slights.

Action: Pay close attention to your tendency to get hooked. Talk yourself down from those ledges of your own invention. (more…)

My Thoughts:

Nothing marks the passage of time more dramatically than the changing of the seasons. Here on the Canadian prairies, the days are growing shorter, the temperatures are dropping, and the colors are changing.

Why not let the shifting of the season be a catalyst for other changes in your world?

Your Thoughts:

Are there relationships or organizations that have faded in importance and no longer mean as much to you?

Are there tasks that were once a delight that now feel like heavy obligations?

Are there new pursuits calling for your attention – urging you to make time and space for them?

This could be the perfect season to let go of something you’ve outgrown while reaching out for something new. Where could you make changes for the better? How could you let fall lift you up? (more…)