H.A.L.T before making a big decision

Every Wednesday, I join an online event called 'Connection Café' with an amazing facilitator, Vix. One of our sessions we spoke about using the acronym H.A.L.T, before making decisions. It blew my mind, and will form part of a daily practice for myself going forward.

The general idea is to check in with yourself when making decisions and ensure that your decisions are not led by (H)unger, (A)nger, (L)oneliness or (T)iredness, because they won't be your finest decisions. I guess you can interpret this in a bunch of ways, but here's how I've applied it to myself:

HUNGER: Learning to avoid making big life decisions when i'm hungry—whether that's food-related hunger or hunger for success, approval, love.

Being home-bound has changed a lot for me—I used to be extremely active and adventurous, but now the most adventurous thing I do is eat 85% dark chocolate. This sudden and extreme lack of adventure has left a gaping hole in my stomach, which means I'm constantly trying to fill it—in other words my desire for adventure has changed to hunger. Hunger for anything that would give me a little line of serotonin...and actually, just general hunger too.

However, the 'hunger' has most recently manifested itself as 'hunger for approval'—mostly at work. I've noticed that I have been choosing to work longer, later hours so I can get more done, and as a result gain positive approval (ie. #Winning). But am I really winning? At the end of the day, I would feel absolutely exhausted, drained and lazy—and I'll make a conscious decision to then "treat" myself with terrible food and a lazy evening...every day. Now that's some negative feedback loop right there.

It's fair to say, all of this global change has changed my priorities—i'm hungry for the wrong things and it has been draining my spiritual balance, so I am currently learning to not make decisions when I am HUNGRY.

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ANGER: Letting my first, primal thought surface and disappear before I make a more conscious decisions.

Often anger is a very primal tool for survival, however, I've not ever been a really externally angry person. I'm pretty calm and kind, and yet I hold a lot of anger inside, beating myself up, turning my nose up at things I don't agree with and so on. And I've noticed that over the years, I became extremely bitter—and so, anything that saved me from those feelings of bottled anger were gold dust to me, even if they were bad for my spiritual self. Let's not do that anymore.

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LONELINESS: Use loneliness as an opportunity to make decisions that reflect my authentic needs.

Queen of "I am lonely, so I'm going to text this guy to see if he is free". It's no good. It's never good.

Loneliness has stunted my growth in the past—instead of using it to take time with my actions and decisions, I've sought distractions. I've used loneliness, to seek short-term solutions, but really it's about taking the time to check-in with myself and think clearly about my actions.

Fuck it! There's no one about to sway my decision—so I'm going to take my sweet arse time and think about things a little more clearly.

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TIREDNESS: Give yourself a break when you need one—you'll burn out if you don't.

This one is simple—if you're tired, you'll make quick-fix decisions that aren't water-tight, you'll make mistakes, you'll text the wrong person with an inappropriate message.

Give yourself time to rest properly—switch off your mobile, laptop, disconnect from the world, simply rest.