Archive for taking action
You’re Not Confused – You’re Scared
Posted by: | CommentsPhew. What a day. And it’s not over yet!
Yesterday evening I sent in my “homework” for the coaching school which seems to have triggered another couple of breakthroughs. By the time I woke up this morning I needed to add an addendum because I’d already moved on from where I was last night and then, during the course of a conversation with a client, I had another breakthrough and realised that something I’d been puzzling over wasn’t an “either or” but an “and and”.
I felt a split between creating my coaching pratice “my way” and doing the usual marketing things like asking for referrals etc. But I was a bit suspicious about my confusion since feeling confused is always a cover up for being scared. So I asked myself “if creating my coaching practice the traditional way was the right thing to do, what would I do next”? And I realised that the thing I would do next, in this case putting up a web page describing the services I was offering, felt pretty terrifying to me. Now I knew I was on to something. So I decided then and there that, by the end of today, I would have just such a webpage up on my new site.
I’d brought a fear into consciousness and I wanted to see if I could blast through it. To help me I tapped into my spirit of adventure and came from a place of curiosity and not knowing rather than from a place of thinking this is the right thing to do. I allowed myself space to see what happens next (an approach that inspires me) and to sit in the not-knowing.
After much resistance which took the form of wandering around shops, returning library books and feeling way too tired to start writing anything I finally sat myself down, in a cafe and just put pen to paper. Once I’d written 4 paragraphs, that I wasn’t at all happy with, the words began to flow. And now I have a page written and ready to go live on the web.
It’s rough and unlikely to stay in it’s present form but it’s a start. The goal was to take action and thereby neutralise a fear, which is what I’ve done. And now I’m really curious to see what happens next.
If you’re confused about something can you get to the fear that is underneath? Can you choose to neutralise that fear by applying curiosity and creativity?
Please leave a comment and let me know how it goes.
Progress Report – June
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s been over a month since I started this blog so I thought it would be a good time to take a look back and see how things are progressing. Right from my initial post on May 7th, I’ve been writing to try and get clearer about what I want to do next and about what I could build a business around. Also, back in that original post I was wondering to what extent I was willing to “go public”.
Well the latter question has at least been answered. Over the last few days I’ve decided I’m ready to “come out of hiding” so have started adding my blog to the blog directories and will write some articles for the article directories, when I have time.
In relation to the question of what I want to do next, I’m beginning to move in the direction of restarting my coaching practice. I’m not totally sure at this point but am hoping to be clearer about that by this evening. More on that later . . .
Overall, my mood has improved considerably and I put that down to truly making a commitment to change. See my intention versis commitment post for more on this as this is a critical breakthrough. But that breakthrough only came about because I followed through on putting the strategies in place I described in my post – the trick is to get out of bed.
In the post do what you love I stated that I was going to put myself in front of as many opportunities as possible and I’m pleased with my progress on this. I went to the Mike Southon talk, even though I didn’t feel I had the energy and that resulted in my being offered a mentoring session by him at a later date, I’ve stopped watching television mindlessly and I’ve joined Club Fearless which led to the unexpected bonus of my having a coaching session with Michelle Pippin this afternoon. With her help I hope to get clearer about whether or not to restart my coaching practice.
Most importantly, perhaps, I’m beginning to reconnect with some of the fundamentals that make life exciting again. Hoorah!
So, where I am currently is . . . Committed to making changes in my life . . . which are evidenced by:
1. Writing a blog post every week day to help me stay aware of the process, learn new things and share them.
2. Taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves to me even when they take me outside my comfort zone.
3. Replacing mindlessly watching television with consciousess, more inspiring choices about how I spend my time.
4. Going for a walk every day.
5. Taking a step each day to further publicise my blog.
6. Listening to/reading inspiring stuff each day, especially if my mood starts to drop or I start to get scared.
Please feel free to comment and share your own list of things you’re committed to. You’d be surprised how powerful “going public” can be.
Fearing Death
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve sometimes had a suspicion that part of the reason I struggle with living my life to the full is because I have a fairly pronounced fear of death. I’ve assumed this came about as a result of losing a brother and my dad in sudden and unexpected circumstances. In fact, it was suggested recently, that I might benefit from therapy around this issue but I resist that idea. My idea of therapy is old school, i.e. the disease model, which basically says that there is something wrong with me that needs to be fixed. I’ve had enough of this fixing over the years and, nowadays, prefer to see myself as someone already whole. A little lost maybe but not someone in need of fixing. So, I was interested to see this quote:
“When you say you fear death, you are really saying that you fear you have not lived your true life. This fear cloaks the world in silent suffering.” by David Viscott.
Profound stuff!
There is definately an element within me that fears I am not living my “true life” and the fact that the world might suffer as a result spurs me on to find what I need to be doing next. The quote came from a free chapter of the book “100 Ways to Motivate Yourself” by Steve Chandler and he suggests that in order to find out what your “true life” could be, you need to look for clues in whatever makes you happy . And if, like me you’re not sure what makes you happy you have to keep asking yourself the question – “What makes me happy?” and keep asking it until you know.
This is important he says, because “In the answer to that question, you’ll discover where you can be of most service. You can’t live your true life if you’re not serving people, and you can’t serve people very well if you are not excited about what you’re doing.”
So I’m going to create a new page and keep it updated as I learn more about the things that make me happy. I’m also going to check out more of Steve Chandler’s stuff 
The Trick Is To Get Out Of Bed
Posted by: | CommentsIt was beautiful weather here in the UK, over the weekend, but I spent most of it in bed. Not sure why really except I felt like s**t and I just couldn’t make myself get up.
Sometimes, when the black cloud lifts, it feels like the cause was primarily hormonal, or bio-chemical because one day I suddenly don’t feel so bad. It’s not that I leap out of bed or anything but I wake without this heavy weight hanging over me. I woke like that this morning and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. But something else was different about yesterday compared with the weekend – I did some work. I took some action and achieved something. Maybe that’s the key, taking action, rather than it simply being a case of ”bad” chemicals.
But in order to take action you have to get out of bed and I still haven’t cracked that yet, if I’m feeling crap. So, I need more strategies to get myself out of bed before the heavy feelings take a hold and I need to put those strategies in place when I’m feeling good. Will need to work on this.
In the meantime I came across this video today. Although it’s aimed at entrepeneurs it spoke to me of life in general. I think the question that’s unspoken at the beginning is “What do you find hard about being an entrepeneur?” Given that sometimes I struggle to even get out of bed it’s easy for me to change the question to “What do you find hard about living?” And Matt’s answers make wonderful sense to me. And, it’s such a relief to know that even someone as successful as he, finds it hard to keep going sometimes.
I love the thought that the idea you start with is not necessarily “It” but that by keeping going it will lead you to what you’re looking for. In a way that’s what I’m trying to do by writing this blog. I’m hoping that by following the process of daily life I will find something better I want to do. But, first, I have to get out of bed!
