Hughs Blog

Honor the Mundane

It happens every day. The mundane, boring, humdrum and ordinary tasks that don’t belong in the life of a successful person like you. Shouldn’t your rise to success mean you never have to pay another bill or take out the garbage?

Think again, you’re human and everyone has to put in their time grovelling in the ordinary. In fact, I think it’s an essential part of keeping life real and should be celebrated.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting hanging onto tasks that someone else or some nifty software can do  just so you can cross them off your list. But there will always be tasks that can’t be outsourced, automated or dumped, and someone (like you) has to do them. Try looking at those tasks as more than an unwanted irritation. Instead they can  be a time to be mindful and even grateful to be doing something simple and easy for a change.

As Stephan Rechtschaffen, co-founder of the Omega Center, warns in his timeless book: Timeshifting, “If we push away the mundane, we push away the present. And when pushing away becomes our habitual pattern, we’re likely to push away the extraordinary moments, too, unable to fully savor them in our rush to ‘get on.’”

Here are some mundane tasks I can look forward to:

• paying bills
• updating my Action Plan for the week
• taking care of my vehicles, bikes, kayaks etc.
• buying clothes (Yup, it’s mundane to me)
• checking finances
• making new investments
• preparation for seminars or keynotes (the packing and checking lists)

What is on your list of ‘mundane’? This could be a good time to see them more as a gift, a chance to focus on the simple, rather than always trying to unload unwanted tasks.

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