Rules Of Engagement

Hello, Hello. Hello, Cadre. Hello. Happy Tuesday. I hope everybody's having a great new year. So far, the 2025 part two, it sort of has felt like personally, but that's not exactly accurate. I did a lot of reflection work and I can tell that there are some new beginnings happening. But I can also tell there are some cycles that have not finished themselves in the wide world, let me put it that way. But today we get to talk about resetting the pace and, and what better time to talk about that than as we are getting back into our lives after many of us, not all of us, but many of us getting back into our lives after a holiday time and a downtime.

You know, the end of the year is often, often for. Hello, Emily. 87 70. The end of year is often busy for other reasons than we are usually busy. Let me put it that way. And for some of us, for me included, it was a very quiet time. We did no traveling, don't have family in the area, so it was pretty quiet, which was nice. But this topic of resetting the pace and creating a personal pace, which is what we really get to talk about today, creating a personal pace. I am telling you, I have been at this for 20, 26, eight years now.

I have been at this for eight years now because I left office on January 2nd. Hello, Reedner, Ridner. I left office January 2nd, 2018. So it's been six years. And that whole time since then, I've been working for myself. You know, I've had clients and I've had responsibilities, but I haven't had an office to go to. And I may want that in the future. If folks have a good idea about how to get me some work, let me know. But, but this idea of creating a personal pace, as I was going over my rules of engagement, I realized there were just so many.

And if you're new here, it's a new year, maybe there are some new folks here. I actually literally have a list of my rules of engagement, things I've learned about life that I follow, things that basically tell me what to do and then guidelines which are things to remember and think about. And I have a list and I so much now that it's about this. If you've made one of your solutions, your resolutions for the year or you've just decided, I don't think about resolutions as much as what about my life to look like and what's it going to take to get there and what would be fun, but your mileage may vary.

If you have decided it makes more sense for your life to have a different pace than the one you have. Whatever you want that to be. Good morning, Speak Wonder. There's a few guidelines actually that really spoke to me about this. One of them is every system is perfectly set up to get the results it's getting. If your life is. If you are feeling like I am just consistently overbooked, consistently running behind, consistently overwhelmed. Hello, Speak Wonder. Then. Your system is perfectly the systems you set up in your life or that other people have set up for you.

This could be a work thing is perfectly designed to get that outcome for you. If you want a different outcome, you're going to have to change your system. If you want a different outcome part, it may be you just need to regulate your nervous system so that you don't feel urgent all the time. Because a lot of times we feel urgent when nothing urgent is happening. That is true for me. I have cptsd. So I'm always like, what's happening? Where's the lion chasing me? It's like, there's no lion, there's no lion.

My body is just asking to complete that cycle from long, long, long ago. Every system is perfectly set up to get the results it's getting. That's a Marty Lynsky thing from Leadership Online. I really like Marty and My guideline number 10, for every problem there is a solution better than the one that didn't work. For every problem, there is a solution better than the solution that did not work. So if you've tried a few things and then you got discouraged, try something else. And if that doesn't work, try something else.

There is a solution. You know, there's a. There may not be a full solution to your problem, but there is better than the one that is not working right. That I, I've mentioned before. I have that typed up and framed, printed out and framed where I could see it in my office always. And that's a good reminder for me to put that up here. I'm going to be going through those City hall boxes this year. I'm putting it out there. That's one of my goals. I've. I haven't gone through any of my stuff from City hall eight years in its time, but for every problem there's a solution better than the one that didn't work.

So. And. Guideline number 13, work harder is rarely the right solution. Work harder. So if your thing is, oh, I need to work really hard at creating a personal pace, that is rarely the best solution. We live in a Protestant Dominated culture. We live in capitalism, all of those reward working harder as the solution to everything. But it is rarely the correct answer for people who are already working hard. Right. Part of what I to come to in my pace was I had to move very slowly for a number of years actually while I did a lot of healing around anxiety and around early trauma.

Because if I was gonna not do it on top of the old early trauma, I was gonna have to slow way down and start where I was at, not where I thought I should be. Rule of engagement number two and keep moving forward, you know. And so I couldn't work harder. But what I have come up with one of my goals and it's written. Let me see. Can I show you? This is my big whiteboard planning situation. You can see my word of the year is magnet. But written up there is my goal, which is to be engaged in upward trend activities most of the time.

Yep. To feel good, pretty good most of the time is the goal. And then one of the things that means is I am consistently engaged in upward trend activities of my choosing. Yes. Work harder is hardwired into most of our psyches. Many of our psyches. Right again. There are subcultures for whom this is not true. And we have. And they are trying to teach us their lessons. Right. And instead of learning the lessons from them, what we do is try to oppress them further and tell them they're lazy and not getting it right.

Or we just ignore them all together. But the, you know, the real none of it here for me is I want to feel pretty good most of the time. And I can't do that if I'm emergent. And the two piece sub pieces of that that are written up there are one that means the mean voices are less loud, the mean voices are less frequent, they come less often, and the mean voices are less lengthy. When they do come, they don't stay as long and they're not as loud. That's the goal. And that has actually happened. It took a long time.

It's taken a long time. I don't know, it was relative. Right. But took a couple years of. That's been my goal for like three, four years now. But the second part of it is to be consistently engaged in upward trend activities of my choosing. What does that mean? I would get frozen a lot. So I would say for people who want to create a personal pace, being frozen is not a personal pace. It is just another way of escaping. And for me, frozen looks like scrolling without choosing to scroll. Watching a lot of TV that I haven't chosen to watch.

You know, just sort of, you know, if I decide I'm gonna take a day off in bed and just read my book all day, that's one thing. If I'm reading my book instead of doing the things I've. If my intentions are not driving my actions, I guess is what I'm saying. If my intentions are not driving my actions and I am just doing something because I need to park my brain in neutral because I feel so overwhelmed, that is not setting a personal pace. That is just, you know, reacting on the other end to feeling overwhelmed and too fast on this one end.

So it's just the going back and forth. So when I say upward trend activities of my choosing, I mean, is my intention driving my action here? Whether it is work, I am actually upping the number of hours I'm working this year, not to a crazy amount, but to more because I choose to earn more money, frankly. But that's intentional. That's intentional. That's not. I'm going to work more hours because I want my. I want to avoid my regular life or I want to work more hours because I can't figure out how else to spend my time or whatever it is, it's that and.

Intentional activities. If I. If I'm reading, is this what I'm choosing to do right now? And it's the gap between noticing, noticing and making the change, and the gap between doing it and noticing is smaller now. And the gap between noticing I'm doing it and then changing is also smaller now. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I can be sitting here after a meeting and I end up scrolling, and then I'm like, wait, this is not how I would choose to spend my day. If I were to choose how to spend my day, what would I be choosing to do instead?

And often it's because I'm not tired or I don't want to get up and do what it is that's next or whatever, but. But then just own it, right? I had a friend, I have a friend who I didn't skip a single class in high school. I didn't skip a single class until I got to college. And even then it was very rare. And I remember my senior year, Someone, a really good friend, I'll just put it that way, was like, come on, let's play hooky. And I was like, I don't want. And she, you know, he was like, Don't play hooky.

Because I was. Maybe it was one Day I was thinking about skipping class and he was like, don't play hooky unless you're gonna enjoy it. Like, don't play hooky for no good reason. Play hookies because you're doing something you're really gonna value, right? I offer that to you instead as well. If you're not enjoying that scrolling at some point, even if you like what you're watching, you don't like that you're spending your time doing that instead of this other thing. And that's not fun. That's not fun.

So I'll end with a couple more. You can do everything, you just can't do it all at once, right? So pace yourself accordingly as you set your own pace. Don't be like, I'm gonna do 10 all at once. No, you can do everything. You just can't do it all at once. And number 14. I'm going to end on number 14. Rule of engagement number 14. Protect your peace, protect your ease, protect your calm, protect your nervous system. I haven't quite figured out how I wanted to word that for myself yet. That'll be part of what I do this year.

But protect your self and how you are with the world. If you do that, you will have the resource you need to make other choices about how you spend your time, how you spend your life, how you spend your pace. I will say this. The pace of your life determines a lot about your life and how you feel about your life, how you experience your life, how present you can be in your own life. I have times where things are going fast, but I've at this stage, I've chosen that it's not on top of something else.

It's like I've really. If I have a deadline for something, I'm writing for somebody and I'm really into it. It's like I have chosen this. I really choose to be here. And I did know that when I was mayor. I have chosen to be here. I have chosen to be here. And it took a long time to set my own pace outside of city hall and. And feel like that was working, to feel like that was working. But I will say I'm 85% of the way there in setting a personal pace for my life. As someone who works for herself and does not parent.

I am 85% of the way there, sort of setting the pace for myself that I feel good about. But I still am moving forward in ways that are valuable to me, but not so fast that I can't enjoy it or. I'm Jack. Hijacking. My nervous system all the time. So Happy New Year, Cadre. Happy New Year. Glad to see everybody here and spend this time with you. I look forward to more next week. Until then, set your personal pace. Do some experiments with it. Right? You can try something. If it works, great. If it doesn't, great.

And let me know. Let me know in the app, let me know in the comments.