(Excerpt from Pam’s forthcoming book, Timeless in Less Time: 12 Weeks to Optimized Fitness and Wellbeing, for Life.)
Readiness is the first PRTL principle because a commitment to being as ready as possible naturally comes before anything that is about to happen. Readiness refers to being present, willing, and able to handle whatever is coming our way. Obviously, we can’t ever truly know what is coming, so being as ready as possible is the best we can ever do. There will never be perfection here. Being as present as possible, that is, being in the moment, focused on the full context of all that is, and truly receiving the truth of that moment. This is best understood in contrast with not being present — not being present is paying attention to anything other than what is fully happening in the moment with what we intend to be present to, whether it is a person we are connecting with or an activity we are supposedly responsible for such as driving. Being on our phones, paying attention to thoughts about what happened yesterday, paying attention to a squirrel that suddenly runs by, paying attention to anything other than what we intend to be responding to with presence. Paying attention to anything other than what we are handling at that moment. Pay attention to your attention. Gaining more and more control over what you choose to pay attention to is the power of presence. Where our attention goes, energy flows. If our attention is going all over the place, our energy is all over the place, and we aren’t in a high level of readiness.
Our willingness to respond to life, whatever the challenge, aka opportunity is, is the next factor in our mastery of Readiness. Willingness is our openness to discomfort, to work, to response. We may find ourselves exhausted and truly unwilling because we are beyond capacity at times, and we need to rest. We aren’t ready. Humbling, yet we are human, and we need to honor this. We may also find that we have limiting beliefs around what is possible or what is worthy. These limiting beliefs are the biggest area of opportunity I believe we have as human beings to truly transform and are what much of the 12-week program addresses.
Lastly, we come to true capacity – present, willing, and able to respond, to handle what life is inviting us to rise to the occasion and handle with grace. Sometimes we find ourselves outmatched. We fail, we lose, we fall short of our goals. It is a true capacity issue, and we have had the grace of practicing, learning, and expanding our capacity in those moments of shortcoming. We weren’t masters of readiness because we were not yet truly masters, and we get to come back and have another swing at the plate another day. Intentionally being more ready tomorrow than we were yesterday.
And intentionality is the second PRTL principle.
Check out our Readiness Quiz here to learn about YOUR READINESS.
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