Fed up with your To Do list? Try a To Be list instead

Have you ever met anyone who’s reached the end of their To Do list?

I try to celebrate the To Do list, because it means that I’m still alive! That I still have things I want to do, achieve, make progress on, work on.

I decided to stop being ruled by my To Do list a few years ago. And while I want to get through things and achieve things, I started using another list to help me through my days with more peace and a sense of groundedness.

Let me introduce you to the “To Be” list. I think I first heard this as something Richard Branson did, as a way of setting an intention about how he wanted to show up in his days.

How does it work?

Think about what you have ahead in your day.

How do you want to show up?

What are the qualities you want to bring to your interactions?

How do you want to be, with yourself and others?

Not what you want to do, but how you want to be.

If you’ve got a busy day, do you want to be calm amidst it all? Maybe setting an intention to be punctual will help you with that.

Do you fear you’re a bit snappy with your family at the end of a tiring day? Set an intention to be patient and loving.

Have a big presentation? Aim to be clear and connected with the audience.

Try it out and see how it goes. It can make a nice change of pace to get off the treadmill of doing, doing, doing.

And as poet Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I bet the quality of your To Be list will be a bigger predictor of your peace, ease, and sense of control than your To Do list. But let me know!

#ship30for30 #mindfulness #values #intentions