18.Oct.2009 September event write up
The September AWF event was a workshop entitled: “Conscious Growth: Increasing Effectiveness & Life Quality by Balancing and Energizing Self” led by Chad Stewart. Chad’s goal was to provide some tips on how to achieve better work-life balance and he outlined his method for balancing his own life by ensuring conscious growth and balance within these 3 areas:
- Personal (through self development activities and by actively pursuing hobbies)
- Private (by spending quality time with his family and friends)
- Professional (through Executive Development)
He outlined the five elements that are involved in achieving this balance: Character, Capacity, Competencies, Consciousness, and Content.
According to Chad, in order to achieve something, we don’t need to do anything extreme. First, we should start with a simple and small activity that we can continue for at least 3 months (long term and short term); second, we should share with our friends through verbal commitment or written commitment; and third, you should reward yourself when you have achieved your target.
Since most of seminar participants said they had difficulty finding time for regular exercise, Chad provided a good example. Chad does repeated sprint and walking combination for 5 minutes instead of a 30 minute run as he found out that both have the same impact. Another suggestion was to do 10-15 seconds of pushing against a wall. This has the same impact as bench pressing in the gym. Chad said “It’s not the time that we put into it, but the energy that matters”.
We then moved on to a Personal Mapping Sheet, which allows you to see yourself more clearly.
In every area (Personal, Private and Professional), there are 4 factors that support each other, which Chad compared to the construction of a house:
1. Roof (Connection): Mission/vision, values, trust, resonance, communication and conflict
2. Pillar I (Emotions): moods, states and triggers
3. Pillar II (Mind): cognition, commitment and consequences
4. Floor (Body): breathe, posture, temperature, eat/drink, sleep and exercise
A house cannot be deemed complete if one factor is missing. In every area of life, it’s important to reflect on where we devote too much energy and time, and where we don’t. Through self-reflection, we can learn to allocate more of our time to areas where we haven’t spent enough time previously.
Most seminar participants agreed that a lack of sleep and exercise, and emotional well-being, were the areas they spent less time on. Chad gave the following advice on how to nurture the emotional aspect:
1. Have a picture of your loved ones on your desk at work or somewhere where you can easily see it. This will make you smile and help you to remember what your mission in life is and why you are working hard, etc
2. Take 5 – 10 minutes of meditation time before going to sleep and upon waking
3. 1-2 minutes of breathing exercise (this is actually being practiced by one of Chad’s corporate customers every morning!):
Inhale for 6 seconds
Hold on to it for 2 seconds
Exhale for 4 seconds
Repeat this cycle for around 1-2 minutes daily.
All of us then practiced the breathing exercise and everyone felt relaxed and great after that! To close, we came back to the personal map and plan what we need to make in order to balance our life.
It was a great night for everyone to take the opportunity analyze what we need to do in order to introduce more balance in our life. Everyone left feeling very positive and energized and we received a lot of great feedback.
If you are interested in finding out more about Chad and what he does, you can visit his company’s website.
