TO: You & The People!
FROM: Your Pal Dan aka Cool Heat
RE: COVER ME- PREVENT D
Good People,
As we march directly into the holiday season, a rich wintery holiday stew of needs, emotions, and energetic demands is already simmering.
Without placing a negative or positive filter over the ensuing 5-week block standing between us and 2018, as your Good Will Ambassador, I thought it prudent to pause and objectively anticipate the needs and demands of this timeframe, get a plan to deal/cope/rock steady/shine so you can implement legit functional strategies and not let that rich wintery stew boil over the edges and bubble splashy chunk splatters all over your white stove that suck to clean up and leave the stew tasting burnt and you going to bed hungry and pissed (metaphorically speaking).
That simply won’t do.
As we move ahead in this exercise, I encourage you to be very specific and use all of your self-awareness to identify needs throughout the items in the recipe below. Then, when it comes time to map out your plan to address them, take the level of care you would give to the person you love the most on this Earth!
LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT THE INGREDIENTS OF THAT STEW, SHALL WE?
[pdf-embedder url=”http://www.strengthfaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/STRENGTH-FACTION-KITCHEN-•-CHICAGO-IL-1.pdf” title=”STRENGTH FACTION KITCHEN • CHICAGO, IL”]
HABIT REHAB
The five ingredients listed on the label above each represent a category of the experiences you have within any given week. The goal here is to get on that old-school Ben Franklin tip, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” because this time of year is demanding in its own way and we want to stay tall & tight throughout the entire damn thing!
Therefore, working to prevent a backslide in any or all of these five categories is good insurance. You’re covered if the stew starts to boil over, and you’re covered if you just need some straight up maintenance.
The Action Steps: Put it on Tape!
- Assess each of the five categories listed on the Rich Wintery Stew label with the following two questions:
1) What feeds needs here?
2) What drains and strains here?
- Build & Fill
Build on what’s working & fill in the gaps!
1) Write out your top 3 examples of what you are currently doing that feeds needs and what drains and strains from any OR all of the categories.
2) FEEDING NEEDS: From your examples of what you’re doing to meet your needs, what’s the most likely thing to get knocked off your list due to competing needs/other demands? What are you willing to let go of and what is non-negotiable? How will you protect the non-negotiable?
3) DRAINS & STRAINS: From your examples of what’s currently draining and straining you, write 2 new coping strategies for each that you haven’t tried yet. Coping strategies can be geared to work with your thoughts, feeling, and/or actions.
Get in touch if you want to strategize!
Maintain freshness my friends,
Dan Frantz
Personal Growth Ambassador
Agent of Good Will