(Today's tip is adapted from the Success Made Fun one year e-course.
For more information, please click here!)

Have you ever found yourself dragging your feet through a chore or a meeting, giving as little as possible, cursing every drop of energy you felt you were wasting on the task at hand?

Bill Cumming, one of my mentors and creator of the life-changing What One Person Can Do program, teaches a technique for handling those annoying yet necessary tasks which he says was originated by Dr. E. E. Lim. As the story of the technique unfolds, however, Bill's trick is revealed - E.E. Lim is actually an acronym for:

Energy,
Enthusiasm,
Like it matters

Energy, enthusiasm, and importance (treating something 'like it matters') all sound like things that exist outside of us, but in fact, each one of them is a choice that you can make in any moment. Let's explore each one in turn...

1. Energy

"Life begets life, energy begets energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich."

-Sarah Bernhardt

Before Chuck Norris became better known for movies like 'Missing in Action' and the TV show 'Walker, Texas Ranger', he was one of the world's greatest competetive martial artists. In his book The Secret Power Within, he shares one of the secrets of his success. The longer a fight would go on, the more energy he would decide to have. By simply practicing his power to choose energy in any moment, Norris became adept at energizing himself in the midst of the arena. Therefore when his opponent was at his weakest, he would be at his strongest.

To give yourself the experience of choosing energy, experiment with the simple task of going for a walk around the room you are in.

Think for a moment about how would you would be walking if you were fully energized and engaged - as if you had all the energy in the world (like Popeye after two cans of organic spinach :-)! How would you be standing? How would you breathe? What tempo would you move at? What expression would be on your face?

Take a minute now to get up and walk around the room you are in with full energy. If you are afraid that people will stare at you, give yourself permission to stare back and do it anyway!

Welcome back...

Give yourself a few moments to jot down what you noticed.

2. Enthusiasm

"Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

According to the American Heritage dictionary,

To experience the difference enthusiasm can make to even the most mundane task, I'm going to ask you to untie and tie your shoes. First, untie your shoes the way you normally would. Now, before you retie them, think about this...

If you could earn a first-class trip to the destination of your choice, all expenses paid, all hassles handled, just by completing this task with all your heart, what kind of enthusiasm would you muster? How would it show on the outside?

Show it, now - get enthusiastic and tie your shoes!

Again, give yourself a few moments to take note of what that experience was like and how it differed from the way you normally do it.

3. Like it matters

"The most important choice you make is what you choose to make important."

-Michael Neill

In his five day Warrior's Wisdom retreats in Taos, New Mexico, author and metaphysician Stuart Wilde did an exercise he called 'The Sacred Raisin'. Each participant was given a raisin and asked to keep it in their mouths and make it last for a full five minutes. By the end of the five minutes, almost everyone in the room had developed a bond with the raisin in their mouths that would have been comical if it wasn't so profound.

The simple truth is that what we get out of any task or situation comes directly from what we put into it. When we treat even the most ordinary of activities as though it were sacred, we create it as sacred.

To experience this for yourself, go back and re-read this tip as if it REALLY mattered. If you knew that reading this tip carefully would bring more meaning into your life and bring you closer to happiness or love or God or however you define the highest and best that is possible in your life, how would your care, passion, and attention to detail show themselves?

Go back to the top of the page and read through it again now...

...and take a last few moments to make note of what you've learned!

Today's Experiment:

1. Choose a task you know you need to complete but don’t feel inspired about (or even dread doing!). Just for today, do it with energy, enthusiasm, and like it matters - as if it were the most important thing in the world. Notice how you feel as you do it, and notice how you feel afterwards.

examples:
housework/doing the dishes/etc.
bookeeping/taxes/filing
getting dressed
going shopping
etc.

2. Consider taking one day this week to do EVERYTHING from brushing your teeth to going to work to preparing your evening meal this way. Notice your energy levels throughout the day. What difference does this make to the quality of the work you are doing? What difference does it make to your experience of being alive?

Have fun, learn heaps, and ponder on these words from Mother Theresa:

'There are no great acts - only small acts done with great love.'