Archive for Happiness
How to keep on going when you feel like giving up
Posted by: | CommentsHow to keep on going when you feel like giving up
Working towards your dreams and goals isn’t always plain sailing. There are times when you don’t see much progress, when events do not turn out as you expected and when you just think you are mad to keep on trying and even believe that your dreams are possible.
Your inner resistance, or what I like to call the inner gremlin, will rejoice in these moments and happily tell you that there is no way in hell that your dreams will ever happen, that you’ve spent enough time and money on them, that your sacrifice has been too great and that it is now time to throw in the towel. The inner gremlin loves to win its battles in your mind and the battle to give up or keep on going is its whole reason for being!
If you find yourself in this situation, what should you do? Give up or keep going? There are many things to consider and a reasoned appraisal of how your time and resources are being spent may well be necessary. Alongside that, here are some other things you may like to ponder:
- ‘The darker the night, the nearer the dawn.’ This Buddhist expression means that as your journey gets scarier or you arrive at a situation which you think you can’t handle, the closer you are to a breakthrough. Sometimes we give up on a plan just before something wonderful is about to come to fruition and if we had just hung on in there for a bit longer we would have won that particular fight.
- Some things take longer than we had originally planned. When we start taking action towards our goals and dreams we may have a time period in mind in which we want to achieve those goals. Alternatively, we may see people around us achieving similar goals to us and wonder how they can achieve them in a timely manner and we can’t. Imagine that there is a bucket or large bowl in front of you and every time you take action towards your dreams you throw a pebble into the bowl. Gradually the bowl fills up with the pebbles of your effort. When the bowl is full of pebbles, your goals is achieved. It is easy to keep putting pebbles in the bowl , the difficulty is that you don’t know how big the bowl hence you don’t know how many pebbles it will take to fill it. This is where frustration can set in but if you just keep putting in the pebbles of your effort then all the time you are moving towards a full bowl.
- Short term gain versus long term pain. If you are really worn down with making effort towards your goals and just can’t see enough results in exchange for that effort then you might get some short term relief from giving up. But how are you going to feel in the medium or long term? The urge to do your own thing will probably surface again in the future and the pain of burying your dreams this time round could exacerbate feelings of frustration and discomfort in the future.
- Is there another way? What does your dream represent? What does it means to you? Perhaps there is another way of achieving that aim or ‘scratching that itch’. Sometimes we become very entrenched in ‘it has to be like this’ or ‘ this is the only way that I am going to be happy’ and not being able to deviate from this way, or succeed with it, can be very painful. Spend some time brain-storming different ways to achieve the same aim including whether it is possible to combine that aim with your day job or organisation / industry in which you currently work.
It is natural to have doubts and everyone has an inner gremlin that tries to thwart them, even people who appear to be very successful. In order to make the decision whether to give up or keep going you need to ignore what the gremlin is telling you and use your own wisdom as to whether you should carry on regardless, change course or find another way to achieve the same end.
Download my 6 Steps To Lead The Life You Want To Lead talk
Posted by: | CommentsDownload my 6 Steps To Lead The Life You Want To Lead talk
Just to let you know that, by popular demand, I have recorded my Six Steps To Lead The Life You Want To Lead talk and it is now available as a 1hr MP3 download. For more details click here. http://leadthelife.net/products/audio-training/
How to feel better when life is crap
Posted by: | CommentsHow to feel better when life is crap
Some ideas on how to make life more bearable if work or other stuff is getting you down.
Be Bold, Show Up and Enjoy 2012
Posted by: | CommentsBe Bold, Show Up and Enjoy 2012
Happy New Year!
I hope that you have had a lovely Christmas and New Year period.
Whether you are excited about the Olympics, the Diamond Jubilee or the intricacies of the Mayan calendar, 2012 has been on the horizon for a long time and now it is finally with us. I have decided that this is a year for me to be bold and for ‘showing up’. I invite you to do the same.
In his latest book, Resisting the Soul, Nick Williams says: “The world can’t respond to what you are planning and hoping to do. The world can only respond to you showing up, to your energy, intelligence, enthusiasm and your love and contribution.”
Showing up doesn’t mean being reckless nor does it mean over burdening yourself with more than you can manage. To me, showing up means having the courage to do what needs to be done even if you are a little nervous or frightened at the prospect. It means acting out of reason rather than fear and it means embracing life as it unfolds through both the ups and the downs.
Show up at your work, whatever your feelings about what you do, and do the best job that you can; show up in your relationships and be the best friend that you can and show up in any endeavour in which your heart wants to participate and make the best effort that you can.
Have a wonderful 2012. Be bold, show up and enjoy!
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part 2
Posted by: | CommentsHow To Deal With Overwhelm – Part Two
Pretend you only have one thing to do
When there are too many urgent tasks in your day or your week, the thought of them stacking up in from of you can lead to stress and mental paralysis. You can end up getting nothing done or feel too tired and stressed about what lays ahead.
If it is not possible to offload some of these tasks then just pick one that needs doing now (if several need doing now still pick just one of them) and just say to yourself “All I have to do is this.” In doing this you are switching your outlook to one thing that is doable instead of focussing on an overwhelming list.
Whether it takes two minutes, two hours or two days, it is much easier to focus on getting one thing done and completing the task than worrying about everything else. When the first task is done then apply the same technique to the next item on your list – “All I have to do is this”.
Human beings respond better to success than to failure so being able to tick off just one task as completed from your list is better than doing random bits of several activities and never feeling that anything is finished.
You can also use this approach to manage different sections of your day. For example if you have to take the cat to the vet after work and then visit a sick relative you might feel so overwhelmed about what you have to fit into your evening that you are stressing out all day about it. However if you say to yourself “All I have to do is go to work” and then “All I have to do is go to the vet” and then “All I have to do is have a cup of tea with Aunty Mary” you can give your full attention to each of these activities without worrying about what follows.
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part 1
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part 3
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part 1
Posted by: | CommentsHow To Deal With Overwhelm – Part One
Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t
When you are overwhelmed by having too much to do it is easy to get distressed about other activities that you would love to do but just can’t get around to. Maybe you are very busy at work but you would like to spend some time on your own project such doing something creative or finding time for a hobby. Or maybe you have a lot of commitments this week and are panicking about how you will get enough time to exercise or see your family.
When this happens it is easy to focus on and get upset about what you can’t get done. You find yourself thinking or saying stuff like “I’d love to do that but I can’t because I haven’t got time” or “I really wish I could write more this week but I can’t because I haven’t got time”. Instead of getting stuck in the “not enough time = I can’t” pattern it is easier to think of what you can do.
OK, so you might not have enough time to commit to a weekly yoga class but you can do a few minutes of stretching when you get home from work before you start cooking dinner. Although you would love to write up a business plan for your new product ideas your client commitments mean that you can only write out some skeleton points but at least you can complete these in more detail in small chunks of time between appointments.
When you switch to an “I can” mindset from “I can’t” you will start to find little windows of time where you can do quick productive tasks. Even though it may not be as pleasing as having great swathes of time to do your project exactly as you wish, it is better to make progress in small increments albeit at a slower pace rather than get stressed and miserable at what doesn’t seem to be possible.
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part Two
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part Three
How to make life bearable if you hate your job
Posted by: | CommentsHow to make life bearable if you hate your job
If you wake up every morning with the thought “I hate my job” then life can be pretty miserable, especially as we spend a huge proportion of our life at work. The obvious answer is to get another job but this isn’t always practical or possible in the short term especially in the current economic climate.
It is easy to blame your job for life’s ills and have unrealistic expectations about how great life would be if only you didn’t have to work but before taking the plunge to something else it can be a very useful exercise to analyse specifically what is making you unhappy about your current employment. Do you hate what you do for a living? Is there a specific person who is making your working day miserable? Would you be happy doing a similar occupation but in an organisation with a different working culture? When you know the true nature of the problem, then you can start to take action that solves or mitigates the situation.
If you have an overwhelming feeling that you are in the wrong profession completely then you have three options. Option one is to take action and change to your chosen career. If that isn’t possible, for example because there is very little chance you would make a living as a professional rock guitarist especially as you are 46 years old and you haven’t played guitar since you were a student, then option two is to think of ways that you can get a flavour of that of that chosen profession in a more realistic way. To continue the rock guitarist example, you could carve out time at the weekend to play guitar, find some like-minded souls and form a band, determine to go to one live music gig a month or write a blog on rock music. All of these ideas are activities which you could easily do alongside your job and in making time to do something that you enjoy, you might find that your job becomes more bearable. Option three, by the way, is to do nothing and stay miserable!
Another way to make life bearable is to get into a hobby. Very often when I coach someone who isn’t happy in their job but doesn’t know what they would rather be doing I ask them what they are passionate about. They come back with a variety of answers such as cooking, horse-riding, the environment and then they very often add the sentiment “oh, but I haven’t done that for ages.” What is it that you enjoy doing but you haven’t done in a long time? Could you make some time to do that activity? Even if you are very busy could you ring-fence one Saturday morning a month to go windsurfing? Could you leave work on time just one night a week to go an evening class? Could you find twenty minutes a day to play a musical instrument?
Doing a hobby can build your self-confidence, restore your motivation and give you something else in your life over and above the treadmill of work. As well as being enjoyable, all of these benefits of doing a hobby can also spill over into your work life and may help you find a realistic way out of your current crisis.
If you know what you would rather be doing with your life, whether that is something completely different to your current occupation or a new role within your company or field, then think of some steps you can take now to start manoeuvring yourself into that position. I call this building ‘Plan B on the side’ and have found from personal experience that it massively reduces stress and anxiety from the day job. This is because you are taking constructive action to build an escape route and are therefore no longer stuck purely at the mercy of your job. Again, it will help your motivation and this will benefit your work life as well as your Plan B activities.
Finally, try to find some positives in your current situation. What value does your job give you? Your salary enables you to live, you may be learning useful skills and your colleagues form a great network which you may need to draw upon in the future. At the end of each day note down three positives and have gratitude for them. Over time this exercise will help you to change your mindset from one that is dominated by negativity and stress to a state where you can see an improvement in daily life and new possibilities for the future.
Forget New Years resolutions – make determinations instead
Posted by: | CommentsForget New Years Resolutions – Make Determinations Instead
It is that time of year again when we vow to stop smoking, lose weight, go to the gym and never consume chocolate or alcohol or carbs ever again. And how miserable to we feel making those resolutions? And how long do they last? Exactly!
How about making determinations instead? Determinations allow you look ahead and feel positive and they give you something much more constructive to aim towards. Maybe this is the year when you will make a career change, start a business or learn to dance the Argentinean tango! Doesn’t that make you feel a lot more excited? Now you can offset the winter gloom and feel energized as you take those initial fledgling steps towards your goals.
It is a good idea to write down your determinations. Not only does putting them on paper seem to increase your commitment to taking action towards them but it also helps at times when your activity levels start to flag. It is natural that you will have bursts of enthusiasm for your determinations and times when they seem to go by the wayside. By writing them down you can return to them at any point throughout the year and start to take constructive action towards them again.
Once you have decided what you want for the year (and written it down) think of three simple things you can do towards them this week. Now do those things and you are on your way!
When the going gets tough – have fun!
Posted by: | CommentsWhen the Going Gets Touch – Have Fun!
On and off I suffer from back pain and there have been many moments this year when I have felt quite crippled purely from stiff muscles in my lower back. In the past two months I have been having Bowen therapy treatment and thankfully these problems have eased in a miraculous way.
However, over the past few days I felt a little of the stiffness creeping back. In many ways I’m not surprised as it has been a stressful time caused mainly by the vendor of my London flat changing his mind on his proposed purchase and thus scuppering my plans to buy a new house and set up home with my partner!
