In his video this week, coach, speaker, trainer & all-round-good-guy Mike Blissett was talking about the six human needs identified by Anthony Robbins. These are different from, but clearly aligned with, Maslow’s hierarchy. According to Robbins (and Mike) six things we all need are: Certainty, Uncertainty; Significance; Love & connection; Growth, and Contribution.
At the end of his video* Mike asked his viewers what we’re doing to ensure our own personal mix of these crucial ingredients remains in the perfect proportions in these difficult times. I’m going to pick up that ball and run with it. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to share what the mix looks like for me and what I’m doing to try keep it cooking.
Let’s start with CERTAINTY, and its cousin CONTROL. The panic-buying of random things is an attempt to regain control, to have a measure of certainty in a suddenly unbelievably uncertain world. In the UK it seemed that people found comfort in toilet rolls. Maybe we were scared enough to think that we would need more than usual, but whatever the deep-seated psychology it did seem that as a nation we had decided that if this was indeed the end of days, then wherever we were headed (hell & handcarts came to mind) we were at least going to go with clean bottoms.
For the record, no, I did not join in. I figured that if it came to it, I could revert to the Roman method of vinegar and sponge. Pleased to report it didn’t come to that. By the time I’d reached my normal restock level, supplies were being drip-fed back to the shelves and the panic was abating. People were getting used to the situation. A (small) degree of certainty was being found.
Another panic-bought item here in the UK was flour, as if everyone who hadn’t baked so much as a packet-mix cake since they were eleven years old was suddenly going to dig out the Delia and the Marguerite Patten from the loft and start baking for Britain. The strange thing about this one was that bread and cakes had not disappeared from the shelves. So perhaps this one wasn’t about certainty at all, but about another of the ingredients (GROWTH) which I’ll come back to in a future post. Suffice to say: perhaps they really were going to dust off the Be-Ro book.
So. If I didn’t stockpile toilet paper and flour, what did I do? What am I doing? What is my approach to ensuring I have the requisite level of certainty in my life, given the current circumstances?
Firstly, I went to local Library on the day it was due close its doors and checked out a dozen books. At that point there was talk of lock-down potentially lasting three months, twelve weeks, twelve books, a nice neat equation. Like most people I have an unread stash of books at home anyway, but you can never have too much reading material. I wanted to be certain that I would have something I wanted to read, no matter what mood I found myself in. I took a random selection: cosy crime, biography, essays, sci-fi, literary fiction, memoir, fantasy, philosophy…there was even a chick-lit offering in there, which as it turned out I needed early on. I enjoyed it and confess to becoming emotionally engaged with the characters. Ok! I didn’t actually shed a tear, but did choke-up on a couple of occasions.
I taped Bridget Jones movies, which are guaranteed to be unemotional and make me smile. The last of them which I haven’t seen, is being held in reserve.
I have tuned away from news channels and into re-runs of favourite old feel-good shows like The Dukes of Hazzard and Death in Paradise. Pure silliness in which you know the good ole’ boys will win and the bad guys will be caught.
I accepted work commissions that play to my strengths – and stepped back from those which would be a stretch, when I’m ‘stretched’ enough.
Most importantly, for me, while we were (are) allowed out for exercise and/or “health reasons” I figured out which routes I could walk where I could clock up the most miles and meet the fewest people. Walking matters deeply to me. Walking has a rhythm to it. One step, then another, then another. If you’re walking alone then you find your own pace. The rhythm of the footsteps aligns with the rhythm of your mind, of your spirit, of your soul. It is meditative.
I will come back to walking over the next few posts because is it such a core value in my life and it feeds into and weaves around several of the other ‘needs’.
In terms of certainty, the main thing about a walk is that I know, absolutely 100% sure, that I will feel better for having done it. Even the ones that turn out to be uninteresting of route, uninspiring to the spirit and downright miserably uncomfortable to the body (let’s face it, there are weathers I have yet to learn to love!) – even those, even a total trudge in foul weather can provide a sense of achievement, physical upbeats in endorphins or adrenalin, and at the very least, at the very last the lovely feeling of stepping into the warm and the dry.
An old friend of mine used to say, “you never regret a swim.” That is true also of taking a walk. I don’t claim to have enjoyed them all. I have been a Moaning Minnie on more than one. If happiness is dry socks, then leaking boots, torrential rain and a heavy pack do not a happy hiker make. But I can’t remember one when I came back and thought I wish I hadn’t done that.
A walk will usually make me happier in the doing of it; it will always make me happier in the having done it.
Other small certainties include having some elements of structure to my day. I’m not living on clock-time but there are fixed points. The timing varies but the framework is constant.
I start every day with my journal. I’ve been doing this for three or four years now and I cannot imagine missing a day. I’m currently relishing the days when I can do it sitting on my back step, but over the years I have written in my living room, in bed, in hotels, railway stations, on the beach, on cliff-tops, sitting on the stairs of my old house waiting for the removal men, but it’s always one of the very first things I do. It varies between meditation and diary and deep pondering. Factual records mingle with fantasies. Sometimes a rant is required. What gets down doesn’t matter, what matters is that it does. Out of my head and onto the page.
It’s a fixed point, non-negotiable.
A second given is that I will take a lunch break…simple food (a sandwich, a salad, a soup) but something on a plate or in a bowl and a break from whatever I have been doing that morning. Off-line for an hour or two. Reading maybe. Or just enjoying the sights and sounds of wherever I happen to be.
I will cook dinner – even when there’s only me to feed.
Another ritual is that before I turn in for the night, I will step outside or at least open a window, to look at the sky.
There is nothing unusual or magical about any of these things. Only the journal is sacrosanct. But they are the punctuation marks that give structure to the narrative of my day.
In times when our activities are curtailed, they are also a measure of the freedoms I still have.
Small certainties that mean a lot.
*You can find Mike's video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaSBaXpJLuU&feature=youtu.be
