Embracing Our Three Agreements: Productivity, Peace, and Purpose
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the demands of daily life and wondered if you’re truly making the most of your time and energy? Our daily choices shape our legacy. Leveraging the power of free choice with conscious awareness can help us forge a life of significance. This journey invites us to look beyond youthful ambitions towards a life of broader intention. Why wait to explore these profound aspirations? The time is now.
Figure 1-Three Gifts and Agreements
At backtothepresent.net, we embrace a framework for health and well-being that focuses on maximizing the present moment—our only true opportunity to exercise our gifts. This model introduces several Critical Understandings, guiding us towards a fulfilling existence through three core Agreements (Figure 1-Three Gifts and Agreements):
Productivity: I commit to harnessing my physical talents.
Peace: I vow to use my emotional strengths to nurture harmony in all relationships.
Purpose: Guide your decisions with spiritual insights into faith, aiming for a meaningful existence.
By being productive, maintaining peace, and pursuing our purpose, we ensure we're making the most of each precious moment. This moment, free from past or future distractions, is where we truly live and choose our path. Our dreams are only limited by how we choose to spend our time and energy. As beings acutely aware of these Limited Resources, we’re called to use them wisely. Why not choose a path that enriches the world around us (Figure 2-Limited Resources)?
Figure 2-Limited Resources
Actionable Steps to Implement These Agreements
1. Being Productive:
Morning ritual: Identify 2-3 Most Important Tasks (MITs) daily.
Scheduled focus: Allocate specific times for MITs when energy peaks.
Distraction minimization: Use techniques like turning off notifications to minimize distraction.
Example: Consider John, who begins his day with a clear plan, identifying his top priorities. He schedules his most demanding tasks for the morning, when he feels most energetic, and avoids checking his phone until he completes them. This approach has drastically improved his productivity and sense of accomplishment.
2. Finding Peace:
Mindfulness practice: Dedicate time daily to meditation, loving yourself.
Open communication: Embrace honesty and active listening in relationships loving your friends, family and society appropriately.
Gratitude cultivation: Maintain a daily gratitude journal.
Example: Emily starts her day with a short meditation session, followed by writing three things she is grateful for. She also makes a conscious effort to listen actively during conversations, which has deepened her relationships and brought more peace into her life.
3. Living with Purpose:
Values identification: Reflect on personal values and passions.
Goal setting: Align goals with values, ensuring you are not acting on our F.A.S.T. emotions (fear, anger, sadness, temptation)
Community service: Use strengths to serve others, enhancing purpose.
Example: Sarah volunteers at a local shelter every weekend. This aligns with her value of compassion and gives her a deep sense of purpose. She sets personal goals that reflect her passion for helping others and finds fulfillment in her contributions.
Teaching These Agreements
These Agreements can be taught. By envisioning an education system that empowers our youth from the start, we can instill a mindset of mindfulness and presence (See Exercise of Pledge of Agreements below). Such education would equip them to navigate life with intention, making the most of every moment. By guiding our young ones to embody the best version of themselves, we can lay the groundwork for lives filled with impact and joy. To instill these values in the younger generation, we propose a simple yet powerful daily pledge.
Pledge of Agreements
Every day of my life I will use my physical gifts to be productive.
Every day of my life I will use my emotional gifts to be at peace in all my relationships.
Every day of my life I will use my spiritual gifts to help me make decisions to fulfill purpose.
Our capacity for free choice sets us apart, urging us to use our time and energy wisely. By committing to these principles daily, we journey towards realizing our deepest ambitions.
Figure 3-Three Gifts, Limited Resources, Manifestations, and Obligations
Mindfulness, to be practiced using our Obligations of Awareness, Challenge, Patience, and Honor helps us to live productivity, peacefully, and with purpose in mind (Figure 3-Three Gifts, Limited Resources, Manifestations, and Obligations). These Obligations involve being
Awareness: Being aware of what we are doing, feeling, and thinking, which forces us to be present.
Challenge: If we do not like what we are doing, feeling, or thinking, we can challenge ourselves to do, feel, or think differently.
Patience: We must be patient with ourselves as we learn how to optimize our physical, emotional, and spiritual gifts.
Honor: Finally, we must honor our Three Gifts by:
Physically: By eating well, sleeping well, and challenging our bodies physically.
Emotional: We can honor ourselves emotionally by loving ourselves, our friends and family, and society.
Spiritually: We honor ourselves here by acknowledging the guidance available in loving intention and having faith in it when making decisions. This is how we can help ourselves make the most of our time and energy, guiding us toward realizing our dreams by manifesting the greatest version of ourselves.
This is how we can help ourselves make the most of our time and energy, guiding us toward realizing our dreams by manifesting the greatest version of ourselves.
Challenges and Reflections:
Agreement Challenges:
Productivity: Rise an hour earlier for a week, dedicating this time to personal goals.
Peace: Practice active listening in every interaction for one week.
Purpose: Engage in daily acts of kindness or volunteer work.
Journaling Prompts:
Reflect on a highly productive day and the factors contributing to it.
Recall resolving a conflict through empathy—what did you learn?
Describe a passion or cause that invigorates you. What steps can you take to pursue it further?
Exercises
Exercise: Morning Ritual
Task: Write down your 2-3 Most Important Tasks for the day each morning.
Reflection: At the end of the day, review your tasks. Did you complete them? How did it feel?
Exercise: Gratitude Journal
Task: Every night, write down three things you are grateful for.
Reflection: How does focusing on gratitude impact your mood and relationships?
Exercise: Volunteering
Task: Choose one day a week to volunteer in your community.
Reflection: How does serving others influence your sense of purpose?
So, what are your grand ambitions? Focusing on productivity, peace, and purpose can lead to a life brimming with fulfillment and joy in this and every moment. Let’s embrace these Agreements, reminding ourselves daily of the profound impact we can make through mindfulness and presence.