How to be a warrior not a worrier

It’s 6am but Anjana is already worried about being late. She’s made her two children’s lunchboxes, unloaded and refilled the dishwasher, showered and has laid out breakfast and school uniforms on her young son and daughter’s beds. With an eye on the clock, she wakes them, shooing them into their clothes and to the breakfast table.

As she supervises the pair brushing their teeth, her mind is racing ahead to queues of traffic on the school run and on the way to the office.

“Time to leave,” she tells the children Rajesh, 12, and Neena, eight, picking up their breakfast bowls and scanning the kitchen for their lunch boxes.

Because she’s rushing she doesn’t see her son’s bag on the floor in front of her and trips over it, dropping both bowls, spilling milk and uneaten cereal everywhere. As she frantically tries to clean it up, she knocks over a carton of juice.

What started as a two-second job develops into a stressful ten-minute clean-up operation for Anjana. She’s angry when she hits the rush-hour traffic and she arrives at the school gates, and work, late and tense.

Anjana’s day didn’t have to be like that. If she had focused on doing one task at a time, her minor disasters would probably never have happened. But she isn’t the only one with a schedule so crammed she can’t give anything 100 per cent. Most of us are guilty of that.

According to Sam Skull, a work-life balance leadership coach, we’re so sold on multitasking we don’t know when to slow down. She says the key is understanding why we’re involved with so many things and working out what’s important so we can cut back on the things that matter the least.

“I see people taking on too much in the workplace because they want recognition or they want to please others,” says UK-based Sam, who is also a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) practitioner, which means she can program her clients’ minds to think in a positive way. “People are working so hard and such long hours trying to make their boss and colleagues happy that they’ve lost sight of themselves and their own well-being as well as their family.

“That’s when they need to take a step back and have a good long look at their lives to see how they can simplify it so they can live in the moment. When you live in the now, you savour the sights, sounds and feelings at that very minute – you concentrate and focus, and you are calm.”

Connect with how you feel

Living in the now sounds perfect, but how do we go from our hectic lives juggling homes, children and work, to shedding many of our commitments and being calm, floating through life with serenity? And do we actually have the time to do just one thing at a time?

“Connect with how you feel, even if it’s overload,” says Sam. “We often deny our negative feelings or run away from them. Just sit and reflect quietly. Connect with yourself and your breathing. Don’t judge, just accept yourself. This technique will anchor you when you feel overwhelmed.”

Matthew Davies, a London-based confidence coach of Power the Change, urges us to become warriors rather than worriers. When we worry, we often live in fear of the future and of what might happen.

“The old army generals understood the enemy, the terrain and their limitations and they didn’t fight every battle,” explains Matthew. He offers sessions to help people boost their self confidence and improve their presentation skills.

“Worry casts a long shadow yet it’s very rarely right. Choose courage and look fear right in the eye. For instance, call your bank manager if you’re worried about your finances.

“Living in the now sharpens our consciousness about what is, rather than what might be. There is no fear in the present moment. The only fear we have is about what has happened and what is about to happen.”

The four Ds

The next step is to make a long list of all the things you have to do in your personal and professional life, and then apply the four Ds – Do, Dump, Delegate or Defer to every one of your tasks.

If you have a report to prepare for work, a job application to write or a costume to make for your child’s school play, plan a time to do it, then get on with it.

“The important thing is to schedule the time and estimate realistically how long this will take you,” says Sam. “A lot of people don’t allow enough time and they put themselves under pressure.”

If, however, you have things on your list that you feel you should do, such as holding a coffee morning for a group of friends you’re not that close to, or going to a play that everyone is talking about but you’re not that bothered about, then just ditch the idea. By making the decision to drop a plan, you can free up hours of time and a lot of energy.

Look through your list and see if there are any jobs you could share out. Could your teenagers help empty the dishwasher every morning? Could they walk your dog when they get home from school? Could your mother make the children’s school play costumes?

There will be some items on the list that you need more information for. Maybe you need to speak to your bank manager before you can make a decision about selling your apartment. You will need to check with child minders before you plan a weekend away with your husband. These are things that can be deferred – but you can at least start making enquiries about babysitting and an appointment with the bank to start the ball rolling.

“Once you have applied the four Ds, your to ‘Do’ list will be significantly shorter. You will see light at the end of the tunnel,” says Sam.

When we’re in a calmer frame of mind, we’re ready to enjoy the present. When we’re relaxed, we savour food, we appreciate our loved ones more and we see life in a more positive light. But we miss those things when we rush through life.

“We’re always telling children to concentrate and focus, yet they’re actually our gurus and they live in the now,” says Sam. “A small child will focus on something, like a spider’s web in the sunlight, and be mesmerised by it, yet we adults are often too busy to even notice it.

“Start by pretending you’re an owl and look around you. Turn around really slowly. What can you see? What can you hear? What can you smell?

“Take a raisin and feel its texture. Smell it. Really look at it. Then taste it and savour the sweetness. Children do this all the time with food but we’ve forgotten how to do it because we’re so busy.”

The advent of social media means we focus even less on living in the present than ever before. We’ve all seen parents who are engrossed in Facebook, reading about what school friends they haven’t seen for 20 years are up to, while their toddlers are growing up before their eyes.

“To work out what’s important in your life, ask yourself what you would do if you had just a few days left to live,” says Sam.

“Leave the washing up if you have a toddler. If you’re out for dinner with someone, switch off your phone. Give people quality time and listen to them rather than half listening while you figure out what you’re going to say about yourself. Go for quality rather than quantity.”

Finally, reward yourself for the good things you do. “We say well done to children but we beat ourselves up and push ourselves until we burn out,” says Sam. “Take your foot off the pedal and appreciate how far you have come.”