Are You Paying Attention ?

The rule of three

Busyness is potentially one of the most virulent, pervasive and damaging diseases of the 21st century. It's not spread by air, touch, fluids or any of those things. It just sort of creeps up from you. Maybe it's a bit like shingles ? It sits there quietly in your spine, loitering with intent and waiting for your immune system to lower its guard enough to let it out.

But, unlike, shingles, it doesn't body slam you and throw you into a world of hurt for a few weeks before buggering off. Busyness quietly, slowly and relentlessly eats into your free time until you wake up one day and you just don't have time to stop and think. The true brilliance of busyness is that its nature makes it hard to cure, even though it's really easy to cure 🤔

The cure for business is a simple one:

Slow down a bit; prioritise; do less.

But the key to curing yourself of it is noticing that the busyness is upon you. That's what is so brilliant about busyness. It makes you so busy, you don't have the time to notice you're busy. And, if you're not noticing the busyness, why would you try and cure yourself of it ?

I've been at this personal development lark for a while and have done a lot of noticing and a lot of sorting out. I can confidently say that the busyness is not upon me and I'm more present than I've ever been. So how come this week, the universe had three goes before I bloody noticed 🤦

Attempt 1

I was on a monthly catchup call with the fabulous Art of Brilliance team last week and we were chatting about the how to catch a monkey story, who was using it and how it was playing with audiences. Plot spoiler if you haven't heard it - it's not about catching monkeys. The short version is:

1. You need a cage with a hole big enough for a monkey's hand to go in, but small enough that a monkey's hand holding a banana won't come out;
2. Bury said cage with banana in forest and retire to a safe distance waiting for monkey to come along;
3. When monkey comes along and grabs banana, return to cage and throw sack over monkey. Sorted !

The technique relies on the monkey valuing the banana more than its freedom. Then you ask the audience:

So what bananas are you holding onto

It's a great way to get people thinking about stuff that they hold on to despite it not serving them any more, which is a start to getting them to let that sh1t go. I've used it a lot in the past and it was a nice reminder to maybe use that again when needed. But I've sorted most of my stuff. I'm banana free I thought. So I didn't do any reflection and left it there.

Attempt 2

A few days later, I'm walking up to Asda for lunch with Vanessa and my grandson (inset day). I slip on my well worn walking shoes and off we go. It's a 10 minute walk and I'm struggling. My toes are hurting and it's like someone has swapped my shoes out for a size smaller. So I start thinking have my feet swollen ? Have I injured my foot ? What the flip is going on ?

Anyway, lunch was eaten and we head back and it's still hurting so I stop and take the shoe off. In it I find a soft material cat toy that one of the small furry sociopaths I live with had managed to lob into my shoe overnight. I remove it and all was fine.

As we walk back I think back to the monkey chat and smile. That cat toy was something I carried that was not doing me any good but it took me a while to notice. What a coincidence...

Attempt 3

That same day, now fed and watered, we jump in the car and head to the stables to muck out while our grandson went for a hack. On the way to the stables we had a car stand off in the lanes. The other person had seen me and could have stopped at a passing place but didn't. Instead I had to reverse about twice the distance into someones drive. As they waved and passed I recognised them as someone local WHO SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER !!!!!!

Yes, it pissed me off more than it should have. It was, in my opinion, rude and as the person knew those roads well they should have known better. Anyway, another 4 minutes drive and we're parked up. Wellies on, wheelbarrow brush and rake sorted. Horse moved out of stable and I'm shovelling poo, hanging up a fresh hay net and topping the water up while listening to an audiobook. But the incident was still with me.

Second stable sorted. Still with me. Walking in the forestry while the grandson has a ride. Still with me. Dropping him home and back in the house....

STILL WITH ME

After another 30 minutes I realise that this was the universes third attempt to alert me and finally it got through. So I had a chat to myself and looked at it a bit more. It was a 0.00000001 on the richter scale of importance. I've reversed further on sh1ttier roads without any reaction. But despite that I let it dampen my day (not by much).

Spotting patterns

One of the important learnings I got from studying Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) was about pattern spotting. There is a lot of stuff out there about behaviours and body language. If you do this it means that. Some of it is right, some of the time, but most of the time it's a guess. The classic is

Crossing your arms is defensive

That could be right. But it might mean you're cold or you always cross your arms when you sit down, or loads of other things. That's where patterns come in. If I notice that whenever you get accused of something you cross your arms, maybe it is a defensive posture for you. If I've seen someone do something behavioural every time a certain thing happens it would be reasonable to say that they are linked. Spotting a pattern increases your certainty from guess to habit and humans are creatures of habit.

Noticing patterns in others is really useful if you want to understand them and really essential if you are a poker player, therapist, negotiator, police officer etc. But noticing patterns in yourself is the key to being able to change yourself. For me, the rule of three is the trigger to look deeper. There may be some science behind that, but if there is, I'm not aware of it. It's just my simple logic:

Once is an event;
Twice could be a coincidence;
Three times is enough to make note and take action.

Getting to the root of things

Working on yourself is a bit like cracking open a russian doll and your awareness is the key that can unlock each layer.

The first layer is noticing the busyness
The second is getting less busy so you can notice more
The third is noticing the behaviour
The fourth is noticing the pattern
The rest of the layers are about sorting things out

As I've said before, sometimes noticing is enough to fix it. Sometimes noticing is the start of a short journey to a solution. Occasionally, noticing is the start of a journey of discovery that may take a while. Whatever it is, all those roads lead to a better version of you and are worth it. Because you are worth it ❤️

One final thought. If, after reading this, you are sitting there wondering whether the busyness is upon you, I would suggest:

1. Unless you have been taking proactive steps against the busyness, you are probably suffering from it;
2. The fact that you've invested time in reading this blog means you've already started curing yourself of it. Well done you 👍

Mike xx