Many of you regular readers will notice that you haven’t had anything new to read here in months! It’s confession time for me. I am dealing with my success! Yes, it’s true! I have achieved the latest element in my long term goal of going to college. It’s a goal that has been on my list for many years and now it has come to fruition.
Remember earlier this year, I told you that I was applying to go to college, now that my children are older and more independent? Well, I’ve been accepted into the college of my choice here in Dublin. I am thrilled. I am proud of myself. I’m even a bit gobsmacked that I’ve been accepted (old bad habits die hard!), but I have!
All my time since February has been college related. Not just on my own account, I should say, but this family is just at a college-phase of our existence. My daughter was busy submitting projects, studying for finals and then, in May, sitting her finals. My son was busy planning his college path and making his applications, based on how his exams go (they are ongoing - so fingers crossed) and I have been applying, doing aptitude tests, interviews and then waiting… and waiting … and waiting … until finally I got the letter that said “We are pleased to inform you …”
I’m struck daily by the difference in the way school leavers and mature students approach the idea of college. Firstly, when I was applying, I got a terrible fear of “What if I don’t get a place?” But my daughter, who’s been through it all, said simply “They you’ll apply again next year”. It had felt like a do-or-die issue to me, until she made me see that, while there is a lower age limit for mature students (23 in this case) - there is no upper age limit. I need have no fear that my time was running out!
I wrote a letter accepting the place. I asked my daughter if she thought I had given enough information. She smiled and told me that a school-leaver would have said - “Yes thanks, I’ll take the place” - whereas I said “Thank you for the offer of a place. If you need any more information please contact me at home (number) on my mobile (number) or at this e-mail (address).” And I signed off with “Looking forward to seeing you in September”.
Attitudes on exams also differ. My childrens’ exams give them the feeling that they are somehow being personally judged in their exams, whereas at this stage of my life I see them more as useful benchmarks of progress (or lack of) and I know that - win, lose or draw - life goes on after exams. I am not my work. It is just one expression of who I am.
A friend of mine told me: “Mature students always sit at the front of the class. They really appreciate being there. They want to see and hear everything that goes on.”
I agreed.
She said: “But, sitting at the front, you don’t see the people behind you. When you put your hand up to ask your very interesting question at 12.50pm, you don’t see the murderous looks of your classmates who were watching the minutes till lunchtime ticking slowly by!”
Apparently that’s one of the quickest ways to lose friends in college! So now I know.
I could keep on rambling on here about my college hopes, dreams and realities, but then this blog would never end. All I will say is that from Sept/Oct, I will no longer be actively pursuing my life coaching business.
This blog may continue. Or maybe someone will pay me to blog on the experiences of a mature student? Who know? My future awaits me!
Maybe I should say “give yourself a GOOD talking to”! What’s your inner voice saying to you most of the time? Is it saying: “I’m a truly wonderful human being” or “I am worthwhile” or “I’m always good enough”? I’m guessing that, most of the time, it’s more likely to be “Oh no, I failed again” or “Loser” or “What can I do/say/think in order to be accepted and loved?”
I’m a life coach, not a psychologist, so I can’t tell you why we do it, but as a member of the human race I can vouch for the fact that we definitely do it. Here in Ireland, maybe we even have an extreme habit of doing this. Our historically Catholic ethos does not promote our ability to be proud of ourselves, congratulate ourselves or speak confidently of our own achievements.
So with that sort of background and schooling, I’m guessing that most of you know the kind of self-talk that I’m getting at here. Fair enough. But what can we do about it? In my life coaching business, I regularly come across people who are very keen on positive thinking, affirmations, visualisations etc. Great. Great for about the 20 minutes that you are doing your affirmations/visualisations etc. What about the other 23hrs 40mins of the day? Hmmmm?
Here’s where I’ve got to so far. I started out doing yoga when I was about twenty. I thought it would change my life. I enjoyed doing it. I loved meeting other people who were interested in yoga. But it didn’t change my life.
Years later I trained in massage and aromatherapy. I thought “This is it! This will change my life.” I loved/love being a massage/aroma therapist. It’s very fulfilling. It’s part of who I am. Helping people is what I enjoy. It didn’t change my life.
I studied Life Coaching. Now - if ever there was something that would change my life - this would be it! I trained and practise now as a life coach, helping clients, blogging and writing an e-newsletter. I LOVE it. I get great feedback from readers and clients. It didn’t change my life.
When I started learning/studying NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) I began to see what was going on in my life. I read books by Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Michael Neill, Paul McKenna, Owen Fitzpatrick and Brian Colbert, among others and these writers helped me to make sense of my life so far. Things that fall into the “DO” category, do not change my life. They are actions I take in my life. I can use them to help me make positive changes. But they are not the changes, they are just the tools.
Things that fall into the “BEING” category, are the ones that change everything. When the things that I DO are in tune with the person that I AM, then my life starts to flow in a way that no amount of training can achieve. I am very proud of all that I have studied and achieved (although even being so proud of myself took years and lots of positive self-talk), but most of all I am proud of the person that I am. That is who I am 24hrs of the day. So, while I may spend time visualising, time meditating, time doing positive affirmations, the most useful thing I can do is to tell myself, 24/7 that I am loved, that I am worthwhile and that I am always good enough, just as I am.
Try telling yourself that, 24 hours a day for even a week, and see how you feel. You’ll sleep better, feel more relaxed and more positive about each new day.
Some schools are receiving the results of their “mocks” this week, so tread carefully around the teens in your family. You don’t need the advice of a Life Coach to know that!
How do we find the right balance of things to say? We want to encourage and support our kids, but we don’t want to be so soft on them that they don’t get to grips with the reality of facing the end of their school career and the beginning of the next phase of their development. We’re all afraid that, by being too gentle on them, we may fail to help them cope with the normal disappointments and knocks that every life is prone to.
I tend to err on the side of stepping back and looking at the fact that life continues after exams, one way or the other. The proof is that millions of people are doing it, and have done it for generations. I can point to my parents and to myself and husband as the most immediate examples that, for good or bad, the end of school - while significant - is not the end of life as we know it.
This post is not a “How to understand your teens” or a “10 steps to guiding your children to success” because I don’t have the answers for you. You have. I am busy working my way through it for myself. All I can suggest to you, from my own experience, is:
do a lot more listening than talking
assume the best about your kids - it gives them something positive to live up to
use the phrase “how do YOU feel about that?” in place of telling them exactly how you feel yourself
remind them that no exam changes how you feel about them
tell them you love them, don’t assume they “just know” it
tell them again
and again
and again
…
and remember - you, as the responsible adult, have seen many things come and go, so you can afford to be philosophical and know that - this too will pass!
Procrastination is a state of mind that’s a bit like the twilight zone. It’s a behaviour we all know, to some extent. I found this clip today and, sad to say, it is something I TOTALLY understand! Ah, stuff! And getting it done! If you’re a procrastinator, you probably looked at the clip and thought - “That’s really funny”. But why is it funny? Let me tell you - it’s funny because you understand it, because you’ve been there, and because - if you’re watching the clip - then you are watching the animation instead of “getting stuff done”!
We all drag any number of things and actions (always useful and essential things and action, I want to stress) into our day, in place of getting done the things we had actually set out to do in the first place. We have the clean desk, the anti-bac wiped phone and keyboard, the re-sharpened pencils in their holder, the felt tips all tested and the old ones binned … need I go on? You probably have your own favourite.
For me, as a parent, I can always find a “family” reason why I didn’t get my blog post written. I had to collect my daughter from the station, I had to drop my son to guitar class, I had to shop for the dinner etc. These are all blessed with the special category of “family”, therefore I cannot be blamed for doing them before writing my blog.
What’s really going on here? Yep, I’m trying to justify NOT doing something I’ve already committed to doing. Beyond that, what’s the story? Well - is the thing I’m avoiding necessary? To whom? In what way? To whose benefit? One possibility is that it’s not something I really want to do at all. If that’s the case, why am I doing/avoiding it? Does it comply with my role in some way? (e.g. is it so I’ll be seen as a good/better businesswoman/coach/worker or - dare I say it - person)? Maybe it’s not something I need to be doing at all.
Or is it something I want to do, in order to have it done, but don’t enjoy the doing of it? What can I do? Maybe I can delegate? Maybe I can do turn-and-turn-about with a colleague/neighbour? Maybe I can offer to exchange my skill in some other area, with someone who has skills in my area of procrastination?
Finally, it may be something I want to do, I need to do it and, in the circumstances, I’m the only one who can do it. At this point, the easiest path is acceptance. “Ok, I have to do this. I don’t enjoy it, but I will enjoy the benefits of having it done. So - as Brian Tracy might say - “Eat that Frog!” Just bite the bullet and do it. Pick the nastiest, most put-off job and start with that. You will feel such a sense of satisfaction and - yes - self-righteous pride when you have it done, that it will make you look forward to the next challenge with more enthusiasm and less procrastination than you have before.
Now I have a frog called “ironing” that I have to go and eat!
I’m a person who likes to be useful, to be needed. In my own family I would feel positively unloved if I thought my parents, siblings, children, even nieces and nephews - couldn’t rely on me for support and comfort. I don’t quite hijack people in order to help them, but sometimes it comes close!
It’s no surprise then that I’m involved in an area of work that requires me to be of help and support to people. However, as in my personal life, I do draw the line at hijacking people in order to help them.
I was talking to a fellow Toastmaster recently who didn’t know a lot about life coaching, but knew it was becoming a bit of a buzz word. She asked me if I thought she needed coaching. When I asked her how her life was, she said it was fine. She is a wonderfully positive, kind, generous, organised and generally (it seems to me) a very happy woman. I said “What on earth would you need a life coach for?”
It got me thinking about my profession, life coaching. There is a danger out there that people are being encouraged to believe that their lives are unfulfilled, that there is something missing, that they’re not achieving what they might. In order to “sell” the idea of life coaching, there is a more hardline approach of selling the idea that people need it. Clearly this is true in many cases, but certainly not all.
In my line of work, my aim is for my clients NOT to need me! That is the goal of my life coaching. I want them to see that they have control of, and responsibility for, their own lives and choices. I applaud the client who contacts me for coaching when they are in a phase where they need (or would benefit from) a coach; when they want a non-judgemental, supportive person who can question, coax, comfort and challenge them through that phase. I’m delighted when it becomes obvious to both of us that they no longer require regular sessions.
I would not be helping them, or my profession, if I were to hang on to them as a client simply to be my meal ticket. Or if I had attracted them in the first place by convincing my customers that their lives were unfulfilled, just so that I could help them to fulfill imaginary gaps in their lives.
I suggest that people consider life coaching as they would any other trade or profession. When you need a plumber, you call a plumber. When your pipes are fixed, you don’t keep arranging to meet the plumber. When you need a lawyer, you hire one. When your legal requirement is dealt with, you say “Thanks very much” and “Goodbye”. I realise that, even in these professions, there are doomsayers who would try to convince you that you do need more lagging for your pipes, more insulation, to sue your neighbour, to claim against the council etc. You can’t stop this type of marketing, but you can be aware of it.
Immediately I have to step in on my own conversation at this point and declare that I know that most coaches (and other professionals) do not do this. However, you will all be aware of the growing number of ads, e-mails, flyers etc. that try to convince the reader that there is something wrong with the way they are right now. That may not be the case. There is much you can do to help yourself. There are books, CDs, DVDs, free workshops and webinars, all of which can help you “self-coach” (which is something we do every day of our lives, I believe).
Then if, or when, you feel you need an ally, a support, a life coach - that’s the time to investigate who suits you and what programme will help you.
Sorry for having a bit of a rant, but it’s something I feel strongly about in my work. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
If I could tell you just one thing that has made a big difference to me in the past year, what would that be? It would be to bring gratitude and appreciation into your life. I don’t mean going out, stopping people in the street and thanking them for being there. Start with yourself.
For the past year I’ve been noting down, at bedtime, the things I’m grateful for throughout my day. This practice sprang from my original routine of noting down achievements from the day. I found that, when I focused on my achievements (no matter how small or seemingly insignificant) it gave my final review of the day a very positive feel to it. Instead of going to bed with an unfinished To Do list in my head, containing all the things I had failed to do during the day, I would go over what I had achieved. Without even trying, or noticing, I discovered that my sleep was more calm and untroubled and I would wake up feeling that I had achieved so much the previous day that it would be easy to tackle lots of new tasks.
When i found that this routine had become second nature, I started to add in the practice of writing down five or six things I was grateful for during the day. Again - it needs to be simple and sincere. Sometimes I just write down “I am thankful for the sunshine today“, or “I am thankful to be part of a loving family”. It doesn’t have to be “things” to be thankful for, just whatever has helped make the day a good one.
Now when I settle down at night, no matter how many things might have gone wrong during the day, or how many things I could find to complain about or be regretful over, I feel more inclined to let go of the things that have upset me. At the very least I can mentally list the good and the bad and cancel out any bad events in favour of a positive event.
Start doing this right now, and I guarantee that, by the end of the month, you’ll feel a lot brighter getting up in the morning, and sleep a lot more soundly at night. Good luck!
While I was looking in the shops over the Christmas, I found a book called “No More Clutter” by Sue Kay. I had heard the author interviewed on the radio, and was interested in her views on decluttering. I like the fact that she is a psychologist, so she understands the reasons behind why we clutter. That helps me more than someone just setting out a bunch of rules I have to follow to clear out my stuff. I have started reading it, and I have started decluttering. They go hand in hand. At the moment it has a real feelgood feel to it, and that has to be a good thing.
I suppose it wouldn’t have appealed to me as a book to read if I wasn’t in that place mentally, where I want to clear out old “stuff”. I mean mental stuff as well as the daily clutter of my home and life! Readers who are interested in the life-coaching elements of this blog can probably relate to this too. Possibly mental clutter is the reason behind the physical clutter, but - unlike Sue - I am not a psychologist, so I don’t know for sure.
One of the most useful exercises in the book is the “Smile Test”. I hope she will forgive me for reproducing, verbatim, her piece on the Smile Test:
“Your pink shoes pass the Smile Test - you just have to smile because you feel so good in them! A photo of you drinking champagne on your 30th birthday reminds you of a great evening friends. The Smile Test tells you when something is real treasure. Even practical things like wine glasses and mugs should be a pleasure to use and pass the Smile Test.
Stay tuned in to your reactions for warning signs that you feel unhappy or negative about an item. People often start sighing when they hold up something they feel ambivalent about. Or they give long, complicated explanations of why they should keep something, even though they never use it and do not like it.
Paula was keeping old love letters in her wardrobe from a man who had brought a lot of misery into her life. She could not bear even to handle them, let alone re-read them. So she asked me to shred them. Letting go meant she was literally no longer giving him space in her home or her heart.
You deserve to surround yourself with beloved possessions and warm associations from your past. Junk bad memories like rejection letters from interviews and you will let go of a lot of negativity in your life.”
Sue Kay makes a very good point. When we’re kids, “things” have no emotional hold on us whatsoever. If we like something (whether it makes sense or not) we hang onto it for dear life. If we don’t like it, we quickly lose it, or forget to bring it home, or give it away. We don’t agonize over it. We don’t say “I’d better keep it because auntie so-and-so gave it to me and she’d be really upset if she knew I gave it away”. Our decision making was simple.
I’m not suggesting you broadcast to auntie so-and-so if you’re giving the lamp she gave you for Christmas to the charity shop at the very beginning of January. But you are entitled to make your own decisions about your own life and your own possessions. That’s what I’m trying to do, starting this month. I also accept that, for it to work, it has to be ongoing and not just for the holidays. Watch this space …
I wish all of my readers a very happy, healthy and joyful new year for 2010. The capacity for joy and happiness exists within all of us.
Portmarnock Beach
It is like a rich seam of gold that can be ignored and left undetected for years, hidden out of sight. At any time, we can decide to uncover that treasure in all its glory and use it for our own good and that of our neighbours and the world.
I’m looking at what new levels of “treasure-hunting” I can get up to this year. I am freshly accredited with NLP Life Coaching skills from the Irish Institute of NLP, building on my existing six years of coaching and NLP qualifications. I have my website and blog up and running, newsletters going out regularly (sign up if you want to be included), have completed my first four Toastmasters speeches, got the job of Sgt-at-arms in my local Toastmasters club, have exhibited my art in various local venues with the Portmarnock Art Group, have finished my coaching with the Jack Canfield coaching organisation and have been co-founder of a Skype mastermind group (with members in Spain, Germany, Ireland, and others joining from Switzerland this year, we hope) arising from the Canfield coaching programme.
This all sounds like blowing my own trumpet and - y’know what? - it is! Try it! It’s good for the soul! It took me most of my year with Canfield to learn to acknowledge my achievements, allow myself to take credit for my hard work and just rewards and to learn to plan for more successes in my future.
So I’m recommending that you start your year with a nice long list of all your achievements/successes in 2009. What a great way to head into a new year. And let me remind you that often the things that you take for granted are really successes. For instance, what if you stay at home to care for an elderly or sick relative? You might think - well, I don’t go out to work, so I’m not really achieving anything. Wrong!! You can write down as achievements: caring, nurturing, sharing, nursing, showing love, supporting, helping, organising. You can write down as skills you have: patience, caring, love, willingness to help, interest in others, using your strength to ease others weakness, compassion and understanding.
Start now. Write down lists and lists of achievements, successes. Don’t try to categorise them or rate them. They are all valid. In my personal life I often find that at the end of a day, my greatest success might have been to show understanding and a listening ear to my teenage son, when I might really feel like screaming at him instead! Any of you with kids will know that this is a REAL achievement!!
I’d love to hear how you get on with this. You are my readers, my clients, my supporters. Without you there would be no reason for me to write this. It’s a two way street. If you have something to say, tell me.
For now I leave you with my best wishes again, for your health, happiness and the uncovering of great “seams” of joy in your life for 2010.
… any road will get you there. This is a quotation often attributed to Lewis Carroll - mistakenly. But it sounds good.
Goal Setting
The actual text of Alice’s conversation with the Cheshire cat, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” asked Alice
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
This brought to mind, for me, how I deal (or don’t deal) with goal setting. We’ve talked about this before I know, but it’s an issue that comes up again and again for people. I’ve likened it to heading off in the direction of your destination, but without a map and just hoping that eventually you’ll end up where you want to go.
Listen, I have a very poor sense of direction and when I set off somewhere -even WITH a map - I often end up somewhere else! I dread to think where I’d be without one.
But when it comes to life goals, I’m in a dilemma. If I’m trying to live “in the now” how can I have long term goals? And - if I have goals, then how can I be living in the now?
As a mother I’ve become used to reacting to everyone elses’ needs, all day, everyday. That’s normal. You have to be able to respond to whatever situation crops up, often involving picking someone up unexpectedly, cleaning cuts and worse, and searching the household for something that can be used (always at the last minute) for a class project that you only find out about on the morning it has to be submitted!
So how can I turn this around? How can I set and achieve my own goals?
Well I’m proud to tell you I’ve started. As always, I’ve had to get to grips with goal setting in a small way first, before I can replicate it elsewhere. For me the key was firstly to acknowledge my previous successes. I had difficulty with that, I felt awkward and unworthy praising myself for things I expected to succeed at anyway. Perfectionist tendencies! But I’ve been working on that for more than a year now and I’ve made real progress.
The most useful change in my pattern was to start acknowledge my past successes, and beginning to feel proud of myself. Then I began to be able to look forward to setting new targets for myself, and praising myself for those successes. I suppose, up until that, there was no psychological “reward” for my achievements, so there was no joy in setting up new goals and targets.
This is an ongoing process, so - if I think about Alice (above) - I can see how I was always going somewhere, but without any direction there was a lot of energy spent getting places I wasn’t sure I wanted to go!
This is my first blog entry from my new netbook. I know the tech-savvy among you are shaking your heads and probably thinking I’m sad to be so excited, but hey - get over it. I’m a kid with a new toy. I’m allowed to be excited! It’s so neat! It’s so tiny. I can take it everywhere I go!
The portability of this new computer makes me think of all the ways we limit our self development to a particular time and place. It’s easy to forget that we take ourselves wherever we go!!
Years ago, I did weekly yoga classes, but from one week to the next I did nothing. I simply limited my development in that area to one class once a week. It was as if Wednesday was Self-Development Day! As time went by I realised that, without even doing the yoga poses, I was becoming more aware of my posture, my thoughts, my diet - in fact all the things I was learning weekly at my class. This was happening all the time, not just on Wednesdays!
It seems naive now, but I never really thought about it at all. I just had in mind that yoga class was Wednesday, and didn’t pay attention to how pervasive our thoughts and learning are. Once we hear something, learn something, decide something - we’ve already made a slight change to our way of thinking.
Since that time, I accept that the learning never stops. And the implementing what I’ve learned never stops. That’s a good thing. If I’m always choosing self development books, seminars and classes - and if I’m regularly in the company of people for whom developing their full potential is important, then there will always be something self-improving going on in my head and in my life. What a boost!
So today - be aware of all the positive, self development elements that come your way. It may be a person you meet, an article you read (might even be this one!), a Tweet you receive, en e-mail, a blog, etc. Maybe in your own house, maybe at the railway station, someone you meet on the bus, at the cafe etc. And it’s just as important to remember that you are also that development contact for everyone you meet today. What you are giving out is being received by everyone who comes into contact with you today. It’s the ultimate give-and-take. Go Give! Go Take! Perfect balance.
