Category Archives for "Stress"

“I’m feeling overwhelmed with so much to do at home and work. I have a big proposal that needs to be in tomorrow and then I have a presentation to prepare before Tuesday with Monday already full with stuff, so if I don’t get a move on I will be working the weekend which I haven’t got time for, as lots on at home with kids’ social schedules, building work and a poorly husband who can’t drive. I so need to be super efficient and effective right now, but telling myself that still isn’t getting me there! I just can’t mentally apply myself to anything important and I am procrastinating a lot and making lots of cups of tea!”

This is a quote from Eleanor, one of my clients. She’s not alone in feeling overwhelmed and the description of her week echoes those I’ve heard from most of my clients at some point. If I had a pound/dollar/euro for every time I heard the word “overwhelmed” from my clients over the past 16 years, I’d be a rich woman by now!

90% of the women I’ve worked with over the years have had caring responsibilities – usually for children, sometimes for ageing parents, sometimes as carers, and increasingly – as I get older! – I am noticing that many of my clients have both children and parents to look after. 21st century life is busy for most of us, but for women who are mothers or carers, ‘busy’ is taken to a whole new level.

I get the “jugging act” and “balancing act” of work, life and family. I get it because I speak on an almost daily basis with my clients who are striving to master that juggling act. I also get it as I’m at the sharp end myself! as a mum, with a coaching practice and a new business, maintaining a house, raising 2 energetic boys (and of course my 4-legged “boy”, Ernie) I often wonder how on earth I keep going! And just like my clients, I’m keenly aware of the dangers of burnout and conversely, the importance of carving out time for my own health, wellbeing and happiness. But how do we carve out that time when we have so much on our plate?


Of course, the more we have on our plate, the longer it takes to clear that plate. And the plate is never empty. Just as soon as you’ve cleared a space, something else appears on it. Looking at that plate, piled so high that you don’t know where to start, can be completely overwhelming!

But here’s the issue: For the most part, we are loading up that plate ourselves. We are largely responsible for our own tendency to fall into overwhelm, as we are so busy trying to be Superwoman.

Are modern women a “generation of control freaks”? Judith Warners, in her New York Times bestseller “Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety” thinks so – and control freaks who are unable to say “No” to boot: In “Perfect Madness”, Warners cites an article from Redbook, a women’s magazine about the cult of busy-ness amongst modern women:

“What has modern woman done with the four or five hours she used to spend at the wash line? Chances are she has let herself be dragooned into doing something that is just as tiring and time-consuming. She is working on one more committee, helping out at a pre-kindergarten art group or collecting furniture or clothing for the town swap shop.. permi(ting) the time saved by (the) mechanical devices to be wiped out by increased standards of performance”.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is a description of a stay at home mum: The “modern woman” described above is also highly likely to be building a career, as well!

Here’s the rub…

“The obligation for working mothers is a very precise one: 
The feeling that one ought to work as if one did not have children, 
whilst raising one’s children as if one did not have to work”

There are 8 main reasons for overwhelm in talented women that I have observed over many years of coaching. Only the first two are external; the other six are about talented women getting in their own way by trying to be that mythical creature – Superwoman:

1. Information overload
2. Volume of work
3. High expectations of myself
4. Putting too much pressure on myself
5. Trying to be perfect
6. Needing to live up to other’s expectations of me
7. Taking on too much
8. Needing to do it all, “because nobody can do it as well as I can”

HOW TO STEP UP

One of the best ways to let go of the habit of being Superwoman is to get real on your expectations of yourself. Superwomen with control freak tendencies tend to have unrealistically high expectations of ourselves. This inevitably leads to overloading your metaphorical plate which in turn leads to you becoming overwhelmed. Getting into a cycle of coping-overwhelm-coping-overwhelm is not, as you might have already suspected, a sustainable one. Ultimately it leads to burnout and this has some serious health implications.

Checking in with your expectations of yourself is simple, but not always easy. Simple because you just have to take a step back and ask yourself, “What am I expecting myself to do here?.. Is this realistic/reasonable?” However, it is not always easy – because you are likely to be so ingrained in the habit of handling everything and getting things done that your default position is to respond to each challenge with

“How can I fit this in?”

rather than

“Where are my expectations unrealistic?”

This is why it is helpful to speak regularly to a good Coach or a friend, to get them to reflect back to you. You need someone who can pull you up short and point out the obvious…

“Hang on, you’ve just told me that today you are going to do A, B, C, D and E at work. That’s going to take you at least ten hours, and you’ve only got six working hours in the day!”

Gina had a big list of “must dos” in her week but she was frustrated with herself, as she wasn’t achieving them. She said:

“There’s no reason I can’t do all of these things. I just need to be more efficient with my time”

We drew up a grid and sectioned into days of the week and waking hours in the day. We walked through every single thing that Gina wanted to achieve in an average week.

Gina had a picture of how her life was going to be completely perfect with every element of a balanced life incorporated. She believed that the only thing that was stopping her was her own lack of time management. She believed that, if only she could get it right, she would be able to “do it all : Time for work, time for the kids, time for herself, time for her community, time for her hobbies and time for many other projects she was trying to juggle.

As we listed all the elements of her ideal week, I asked Gina how many hours per week she wanted to spend on each activity in her life. As we went through every element of her week, I asked the same question and quietly added up all the hours.

She was shocked when I told her the total hours: In order to achieve everything, she needed to have over 130 waking hours per week. There was no room in Gina’s week for the unexpected curve balls that have a habit of popping up regularly and certainly no room for anything to deviate from plan. Most of all, there was no room for sleep! It left her with just over 5 hours per night. Hardly a perfectly balanced life!

This was a reality check for Gina and it was a useful exercise. But she was only doing what millions of women do – over-estimating what she could achieve in the time given and setting expectations that only Superwoman could meet!

You might have a to-do list, and you beat yourself up because you haven’t achieved it, try this exercise yourself. Get real about how long things take – by underestimating you will feel constantly disappointed with yourself and constantly anxious.

This is a painful way to step up – no doubt about it! Looking at how long things really take is uncomfortable. However, this is the only way to prove to yourself that you are setting your expectations too high.

Have you seen any of those provocative memes on social media that warn people not to mention Christmas until 1st December?

I don’t comment that I covertly started buying my first Christmas presents in October, when I happened to see an advert in a paper for toys that I thought my nieces would enjoy.

When my youngest son mentioned an author he likes, I checked Amazon one evening and pre-ordered his latest book for Christmas from shhh.. you know who. Also in October.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those incredibly organised people who finishes all their Christmas shopping by 1st November and who has written, addressed and stamped all their cards ready to be sent on 30th November.

But I AM a woman who is mum to two boys and aunt to three girls.

And I am also a woman who thinks about what we’re going to eat every evening and who plans, shops, cooks.

I am a woman who suddenly remembers, smack bang in the middle of my working day, that my youngest son mentioned his friend’s birthday party next Saturday. Who emails the boy’s mum to ask for details, because the party invitation has gone astray.

I am a woman who makes packed lunches every day and constantly reminds them to pick up their towels, make their beds and clean their teeth. I am a woman who drives her eldest son to football practice, with 15 minute notice, because he’d really like to go.

And as well as all that, I am a woman who runs a business full time.

In short, I’m a woman who is constantly trying to get things done.

So when I see those social media memes that tease people who start thinking about Christmas in November, I quietly wonder if their life might be a little less jam-packed than mine!

I suspect you will get this completely! Whether you start thinking about Christmas in November or not!

Because for so many women who are always trying to get things done, particularly at this time of year, the dial is turned up high on freneticism.

The danger is that you constantly feel as if you are falling behind or that you have not done enough.

You might feel that you are somehow not efficient, fast, smart, disciplined, organised enough. You may have a running commentary in your head at the end of the day chiding yourself for what you DIDN’T get round to.

The multitude of amazing mini achievements that you DID clock up are mentally ticked off without a second thought. You probably rarely stop to acknowledge yourself.

The cumulative impact of feeling like you’ve never quite come up to scratch is insidious. Mental self-flagellation becomes a painful habit. It’s as if you are fighting the same battle day in day out, that always ends in defeat and despondency. How can you ever catch up? Get it all done? When will you ever be enough?

So I wanted to give you, as another woman who is always trying to get things done, a little gift in this week’s post. It’s actually a very precious gift.

It’s called “enoughness”

I’m giving you explicit permission to tell yourself that, whatever you did, or did not achieve this week, it was absolutely enough. And that most importantly, YOU are enough.

Let me repeat that:

You have DONE enough.
You ARE enough.

Here is one of the most comforting, reassuring and empowering quotes I have ever read for busy women like you, who achieve so much each day. It’s from Brene Brown. I’ve printed this out and stuck it on my office wall. I read it at the end of every day. I am sharing it to remind you of the gift of “enoughness”:

“Wholehearted living is about engaging with our lives from a place of worthiness. it’s about cultivating the courage, compassion and connection to wake up in the morning and think no matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough”

Enjoy your gift of enoughness at the end of today. Give yourself a pat on the back and ​tell yourself: “I have done enough today. And I AM enough”

If you’ve enjoyed this post, please use the social media share buttons to pass on the gift of enoughness to all those other busy women!

I was like a pressure cooker maxing out… I’d kept on going. I’d slogged my guts out and felt as if I wasn’t getting anywhere. I had worked long and hard, not had enough sleep and it felt that life was always accelerating, forcing me to do more and more, faster and faster.

I suspect you probably know exactly what I mean.

I think the pressure had been building for many months! This year, I feel as if I have worked my little socks off to take my precious business to the next level – and I’m not quite there yet!

If we were rewarded in proportion to the hours, heart and soul we put into our work, most of us would surely be sitting on a million bucks right now!

I bet you’ve had your fair share of challenges as well. What are YOU dealing with? What is stressful about your life right now? What is taking your attention or demanding your energy, I wonder?

Let’s face it – we are ALL dealing with stuff. Every single one of us. I know this because one of the things I do on a daily basis is listen to people.

You only have to scratch the surface to discover that pretty much everyone you know is dealing with some kind of challenge. Here are just a few of the things that my own circle is dealing with, in no particular order…

Marriage difficulties
Grief
Chronic insomnia
Cancer
Loneliness
Debilitating periods
Feeling like a failure
Chronic stress
Parkinson’s disease

The list goes on… !

Right now, as I sit here writing to you, I can’t take away your challenges. I can’t offer you a magic pill to melt away the health problem you might be grappling with, nor can I dampen the grief you might be living with. I can’t magic away your money worries or make your toxic boss disappear in a puff of smoke. I can’t fix your relationship, un-mood your moody teen or do a supernanny on your endlessly tantrumming toddler.

But I CAN do this: I can assure you that we’re all in this together. You’re not alone. And guess what? That means that you don’t have to deal with it all by yourself. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should dump all your problems on everyone you meet, but you ARE allowed to reach out and say;

“Help. I’m fed up. Please can I talk?”

This is what I did when the pressure came to a head last week. I told a couple of friends I trusted – and my mum (of course):

“I’m done with this and I’m bl**dy fed up!”

One listened and acknowledged me – “Yes, this is tough!” she said! And then sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers
One listened and told me she loved me and it would all be alright
One listened and told me I was brilliant
One listened and connected me with a great business contact

And so, aided with a boost from my friends and family, I got on with it. I got on with putting my own sh1t aside and helping my wonderful clients. I got on with marketing my programme for coaches and I got on with building my business.

And I got on with being mum, making soup and sandwiches and washing clothes and buying presents for birthday parties and taxi-ing and reading bedtime stories!

Just as YOU get on with it. Because you simply have to, don’t you? And you will get through it, because you’re even stronger than you think and even smarter than you give yourself credit for.

However, YOU TOO are allowed to let down your guard and reach out. Because we all need to be heard and perhaps even have a good cry. Think of it the way a tropical thunderstorm clears the air and lifts the oppression of a hot and humid day. Talking it out – and being listened to – will help you to reset.

Talking won’t magically resolve everything and it won’t mean that things will immediately get better. But it will release the pressure and top up your reserves, so that you can face the next day with renewed vigour and possibly even a little bit more perspective.

We’re all grown ups and we have to get on with life with all its ups and downs. But we don’t have to do it alone. So my message to you this week is simple..

Reach out, talk it out … and then get on with it!

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If you enjoyed this post please consider sharing, you may also enjoy Once in a While, You Just Want to be Heard

This week, our guest post is from Julie Dennis. Julie will also be running a masterclass for The Academy for Talented Women on managing menopause in the workplace. Read how you can join us at the end of the post.

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In a recent study nearly 50% of the women interviewed felt menopause symptoms had a negative impact on their performance at work. Is that you?

The most common symptoms were poor concentration, tiredness and poor memory.

And surprise surprise hot flushes were cited as a major source of distress for women at work too.

Hot flushes aren’t just uncomfortable, they’re embarrassing, especially when you’re with colleagues.

You know how it is. Mid meeting you suddenly sense that inner spark ignite.

You try to stay focused on what’s being said, maybe casually remove your jacket or put your hair up to get some cool air on the back of your neck.

Perhaps you make a joke about being a woman of a certain age, “is it hot in here or is it just me ha ha?”

Except it’s not funny is it? It’s humiliating.

The good news is it doesn’t have to be that way. You really can learn about managing menopause in the workplace. The secret lies in managing your cortisol levels.

High levels of cortisol, your main stress hormone, is the most common hormone imbalance in women over the age of 40.

Your body is designed to release cortisol when your mind perceives you to be in a stressful situation. It’s part of your fight or flight response.

Your adrenal glands pump out cortisol to give you the energy to either flee or stand and fight. This ancient response was originally designed to help you deal with the stress of a life or death situation. Perhaps a confrontation with a neighbouring tribe or an attack by a dangerous animal.

Modern day stresses of course are very different. They’re made up of certain foods, types of drink, poorly worded emails, traffic jams, toxins and even your working environment.

Menopause itself is a form of stress on your body.

But here’s the thing, the same stress response still gets triggered today even though the danger isn’t actually life threatening.

And stress in the 21st century workplace is unrelenting. So instead of cortisol being produced when you actually need it, your body starts to produce it all the time.

So what’s stressing you out? What are you eating, drinking or experiencing during your working day that’s triggering your fight or flight response, increasing your cortisol levels and making your menopause symptoms worse?

Once you know what your triggers are you can work on managing or eliminating that trigger and you really can cool down, calm down, breakthrough the brain fog and stay on track with your career.

You see, whilst you can’t avoid stress in the 21st century what you can do is learn how to manage it, through the way you eat and drink, the way you exercise, your menopause mindset and by reducing your exposure to toxins.

Julie will be running a virtual seminar on managing menopause in the workplace for my Academy for Talented Women Members on Wednesday 12 October. She will also share a simple but effective framework for you to follow so you can talk to your boss about how your symptoms are affecting your ability to do you job without damaging your career.

If you’d like access to the webinar – both live and recorded version, to watch, listen or download whenever you want, click here to read all the other benefits and join the Academy now.

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What is The Academy for Talented Women?

Imagine a virtual “gym”, but a gym where, instead of working on your fitness, you work on your mindset, your skill set and your life!  Now imagine you don’t have to travel to that gym and you can access it from anywhere in the World – on your computer, your tablet or your phone.

Imagine that, instead of signing up for a Zumba or a Spinning Class, you could go to a class on, for example..

• How to Declutter Your Home
• How to Deal with Conflict at Work
• How to Boost Your Energy When You Have No Time
• How to be Incredibly Confident at Work

or even…

• How Not to Divorce Your Husband (YES! We do have that class!)

And let’s say you could sign up to do that class at the time it’s scheduled. But if you missed it, it wouldn’t matter, because you could simply do the class by yourself, at any time of the day or night to suit YOUR schedule!

The Academy for Talented Women has been created and built by me, Amanda Alexander. And I created it from having coached hundreds of working mums over many years.  I know that, for a woman to be successful, there are many elements of her life that have to work – and they have to work in harmony.  That’s why I built The Academy is around 3 pillars of a working woman’s life:

– Your Career
– Your Life
– You

Would you like to coached, but it’s too expensive?

I believe that getting coaching with a GOOD Coach is an invaluable investment in your career and your life. It certainly changed my life for the better when I first worked with a Coach back in 2002! But what if funds simply won’t stretch to your own Coach? I get that – even if you’re earning a good salary, after food is paid for, kids’ activities are paid for, the phone bill, the council tax bill and the boiler you’ve just had to replace.. you quite understandably might see coaching as a luxury that you literally can’t afford.

But what if you COULD get access to a GOOD Coach without the usual price tag? In fact, what if you could access not just a GOOD Coach but a multi-award winning, highly experienced Coach who was accredited as Professional Certified Coach with the ICF? That’ll be me then! (You can read more about me here).

That’s why I included a monthly “drop in” coaching call” within The Academy membership. It’s usually held during “lunch hour” from 12.30 to 1.30 pm BST, with the odd evening call at 8.30 pm BST.  But if you can’t make it to the call, you still get to ask a question beforehand.

The idea of the coaching calls is – if you’re stuck, you need an idea, motivation or inspiration, I’m here for you.

Precious Little Time for Personal Development or Investing in Yourself?

The Academy has also been created to allow you to access learning, development and support when it suits YOU.  I understand how busy you are – so am I!  I understand that, for you to invest in yourself and your career, you are probably going to do so in pockets of time, often whilst multi-tasking. So do I!

That’s why I created an online members’ area with all the Academy’s fantastic masterclasses, coaching sessions and online life coaching course under one roof!

For me, it’s about the right kind of support

None of us can do it alone. Whether your goal is to change your career, get a promotion or even leave your career and go it alone, you need support. Or maybe you’re just struggling to keep up with the fast pace of life – you need support (and practical strategies).  You need someone who can be your cheerleader when the going gets tough, who can be your advisor when you’re stuck and who can hold up a mirror to  show you how capable you really are, when you have lost sight of the fact.

I created The Academy for Talented Women to give you the support you need in order to be successful. Whether it’s in our warm and friendly private Facebook group, in our monthly coaching calls or even at our annual “Stepping Up” live event (yes, you even get a live event!),  The Academy for Talented Women is all about providing you with the right kind of support you need to be successful, fulfilled and balanced.
How do you join?

You pay a monthly subscription via PayPal or your credit card. You can leave at any time. There is no “minimum contract”. There are NO catches.  You can get the full details about The Academy and join here. 
I look forward to supporting you!

 

The “bedtime story”: An unfortunate series of time drains

My friend Chris says it’s because I have a lot of fire energy…

But for whatever reason, I seem to have been plagued with more than my fair share of technical failures recently.

In the past two months alone I have faced hard disk failure TWICE, keyboard failure and now, the latest technical misadventure is that my brand new Apple MacBook has developed a mysterious, intermittent fault with the space bar.

Always looking for ways of logistically maximising my time, yesterday I decided I could fit in an appointment to get this issue fixed after a meeting in London.

After my meeting in South East London, I headed to the West End to the nearest Apple store – Regent Street.

The underground line that should have taken me directly there broke down and a 30-minute journey turned into a one-hour journey.

I finally arrived at Piccadilly and discovered the Regent Street Store was closed for refurbishment. So I identified the next nearest store, Convent Garden, and started walking there. I got lost – because that’s how I roll – so the half mile walk became 1 mile.

I arrived at the Apple Store and booked my appointment. Despite having a business service plan for technical support, which is supposed to guarantee me an appointment within 15 minutes of requesting it, the Convent Garden store was so overwhelmed with people that the guarantee failed to deliver.

I waited as long as I could, eventually giving up as my time ran out: I had a train to catch home.

The naughty space bar magically started working on the train home – hence me writing to you now – but I’m sitting on a time bomb until the problem re-occurs. So after writing this, I will have to drive to my nearest Apple store – a two-hour round trip.

I am not holding my breath for an instant fix when I get there. The riveting saga of the dodgy space bar, will, no doubt, be continued…

Sh1t happens… for all of us

You might be thinking of a similar experience you’ve had: Something “small” goes wrong in your life and the solution never turns out to be quite as simple or as quick as you’d hoped.

This kind of “spanner in the works” inevitably happens when you’re busy, when you’ve got an important and urgent deadline; when you really cannot afford the time.

Let’s face it: Sh1t happens.

It seems that life conspires to see how much more nonsense you can take. And the less time you have, the more time the issue will take. It’s almost as if there might be an additional Newtonian Law we haven’t yet proven: For every problem, the amount of time it takes to resolve is in inverse proportion to the time available.

Not so long ago, this series of time drains would have made me into a foul, angry, bad-tempered, slightly unhinged, highly stressed harpy. My knickers would have been in a right old twist.

However, I have *mostly* kept smiling…

Amanda, are you on drugs?

I believe that there is ONE thing that has made a HUGE difference to me being a less stressed out woman. Whilst I’m certainly not sitting here with a beatific smile on my face, a halo over my head and a zen-like aura of calm, I AM taking most of this in my stride.

For example:

• I was able to be philosophical about the train that broke down, doubling my journey length.
• I was able to laugh at myself and appreciate the extra walk after getting lost even WITH the aid of Google Maps.
• I refrained from taking out my annoyance on the guy in the Apple store because the service I’m paying for failed to deliver
• Whilst the LAST place I want to be today is in a large, windowless shopping centre trying to get the problem fixed, I’m looking forward to borrowing the bloke’s car (decent acceleration) to drive there: Silver lining!
• And I’m very aware of how LUCKY I am to have a problem like this : First world problem, innit?!

So what has made me calm and philosophical about a frustrating series of time drains?

And do *you* want some of what I’ve been taking? 🙂

Drum Roll Please…The best thing ever for stressed out women is…

No, it’s NOT drugs. Or Prossecco. It’s not even coffee.
And no, it’s not regular……………exercise.

The one thing that is the best thing ever for stressed out women is **meditation** – also known as mindfulness. I’ve been practicing meditation reasonably regularly for about 2 ½ years.

In the past couple of months, I resolved to make my meditation practice the ONE SINGLE HABIT that I do, without fail, on a daily basis.

And I’m convinced that it’s changing my brain for the better!

What if this could help YOU to cope better?

If a barmy, fiery, electrical-breaking disaster-zoned fruitcake like me is able to remain calm(er), then how might meditation help YOU?

• What if this made you less critical of yourself and more accepting?
• What if this helped you to shout less at your kids and feel like a better mum?
• What if this helped you to remember more and forget less? And let’s face it, you have a lot to remember!
• What if this helped you not to take a snide comment from a co-worker to heart and you were able to shrug it off more easily?
• What if this helped you not to wake up at 3am worrying about your project deadline?
• What if this simply helped you to roll with the punches more?

The Scientific Proof That This Works

The Washington Post published a fascinating article last year showing how meditation not only reduces stress, but also changes your brain. A neuroscientist from Harvard conducted brain scans demonstrating the changes that meditation makes to many areas of the human brain.

Long term meditators have increased amount of grey matter in the insula and sensory regions, the auditory and sensory cortex, the frontal cortex and the prefrontal cortex.

None of which will mean much to you unless you’re a neuroscientist! However, what all this does mean is that meditation can improve your memory, your sense of equanimity, your sense of perspective and your ability to empathise, to name but a few.

And as for the impact that meditation might have on your stress levels: The area of the brain associated with stress – the amygdala, responsible for our fight or flight response – got smaller for the people in the group who went through an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction programme.

You can read the whole article here.

“But Amanda.. I don’t have time to meditate”

Wrong, rubbish, incorrect! If I have time, so do you!

We carve out time for the things we value. If you think you don’t have time to meditate, it’s because you don’t value it.

The tricky thing is, you won’t value it until you experience the benefits. And you won’t experience the benefits if you don’t carve out the time on a daily basis and do it for several months. Bit of a catch 22, isn’t it? I completely understand that, as it’s taken me years to get to the stage of committing to meditate on a daily basis.

Which is why I’m writing to you about it today. I’m hoping to convince you.

If you read the Washington Post article, you might think that you need to find a meditation teacher and carve out 40 minutes a day. This is not my experience. I meditate for 15 minutes a day. When I’m really pressed for time, I reduce that to 10 minutes.

And as this Buddhist Monk will tell you in a 90 second You Tube video, you can spend just a minute meditating and still experience benefits.

Here’s how I make time to meditate…

And the only way I can possibly keep the promise to myself to meditate on a daily basis is by doing it first thing, before I get up. Before coffee, before kids, before anything!

The difference is that I’ve set my alarm 15 minutes earlier and I committed to myself. This happens, no matter what.

I open the blinds, sit up in bed, grab my phone and open an app. The one I use is called “Get Some Headspace” and I pay a subscription for it. However, you don’t have to pay for an app. Try a few of the apps for free or type in “10 minute mindfulness” into YouTube. You’ll find plenty of free lessons.

A Baby Step Challenge to help you get started

Tomorrow is the start of a new month, the perfect time to start a challenge.
Baby steps are always the best way to create positive new habits. So here’s my simple and gentle challenge for you:

1. Set your alarm 5 minutes earlier.
2. Sit up in bed
3. Set a timer for 5 minutes
4. Close your eyes
5. Put your hands on your belly and focus on your breathing for 5 minutes.
6. Try saying “in” as you breathe in and “out” as you breathe out.
7. Do it for 7 days straight, no matter what. Commit to it.

If you find this easy, try 10 minutes for the next 7 days.

Meditation doesn’t have to be hard – don’t overthink it and don’t worry if your mind wanders. All you need to do is gently bring yourself back to focusing on your breathing.

Let me know how you get on, and please share this post with all the busy, juggling stressed out women (and men) you know. It might just inspire them to give it a try.

And now, I’ll leave you, as – guess what? My space bar has started missing a beat again!

It’s off to the Apple Store for me…with an ever so slightly beatific smile on my face. 🙂

via GIPHY

I had a session with my own Coach this afternoon. She started in the usual way:

“What are your goals for today’s session?”

I thought for a long time.. I wasn’t sure. I almost felt too tired to speak, let alone make the mental effort to articulate a GOAL!

Eventually I replied,

“I just want to be heard. I want to be told I’m not alone in feeling that there are so many things to fit into each day and everything takes so much longer than I anticipate.”

I wanted to be acknowledged. I wanted to feel that I was doing OK.

The Magic of Being Heard

Sometimes, a coaching call is like a Magical Mystery Tour. You never know where you’re going to end up – but you know it’ll be good. And sometimes, your “goal” needs to focused on how you want to feel, rather than what you want to achieve.

My Coach acknowledged me for all the things I do. She said:

“It’ so exhausting isn’t it – there are multiple things to deal with. And then you deal with them on top of things like not having had enough sleep or dealing with a moody teenager, it makes it even harder.”

This was all I needed to hear. And I think we all need to hear these things sometimes. We want to hear…

* We are not mad/bad/selfish/ungrateful/silly for feeling this way
* We’re all in this together
* It’s ok to find it hard
* It’s tough being a grown-up, isn’t it?!

Ever had a BMW Session?

We had a short BMW session. What’s a BMW session, you ask? Well, BMW is an acronym I use when my clients need to “sound off” before we focus on the real work within the session.

It stands for Bitch Moan Whine: It’s good for getting stuff off your chest. I usually set a strict time limit for the BMW session.

Mine consisted of relating a couple of trivial but irritating things. Here is one of the very trivial but irritating things that I mentioned to my Coach…

Waiting Time at the Surgery

A while back I wanted to get a mole checked out on my leg. I was 99% sure it was fine, but it looked a bit different. I wrote the task “Call docs” on my To Do List about 2 months ago.

It took 4 weeks of periodically trying to get an appointment, setting an alarm and phoning at 8 a.m each morning, only to find myself at the back of the phone queue, no appointments left other than at times when I had clients booked or meetings booked.

I eventually got an appointment 2 weeks ago. I waited for 30 minutes in the surgery and was in and out within 3 minutes max. The doctor measured the mole and we scheduled a follow-up for 2 weeks time.

This morning, my phone pinged a reminder:

“Docs in 30 minutes”.

Damn, I’d forgotten! I was just about to start work…Scrap that. So I arrived at my allotted time – 8.50 am – the 3rd appointment of the morning. Surely I’d make it in near to my scheduled time on this occasion?…

Nope. At 9.30 am I was still waiting, trying to send a few emails from my IPhone, despite the lack of any signal! Eventually, at 9.35, the Doctor called me for my 8.50 am slot. I was in and out within less than one minute. Mole no bigger. Looks fine. She’s happy, I’m happy. Keep an eye on it. Job done.

Rage Against The Machine

It’s such a petty thing isn’t it? Moaning about the waiting time at the doctors! But when you add it to all the other time sucks from your week, your energy reserves are low and you feel like you’re running on nervous energy just to fit it all in, perspective has a habit of getting skewed.

“Oh my God, why doesn’t everything just work more efficiently?! Why does everything take so long?”

A friend posted a comment on Facebook this week that made me laugh out loud. She said she was back on the Tube in London for work and she’d forgotten how much she hated it after a few months of not doing it. She mentioned this to the guy next to her on the tube and he replied:

“It’s the rage that keeps us all going.”

One of those comments that’s funny.. and yet not so funny. I think they call it black humour.

3 Simple Steps to Stop you Raging Against the Machine

So how do we deal with all this frustrating, time-sucking stuff that 21st century life throws at us, without becoming stressed-out raging lunatics?

Well, here’s what works for me (and how I – ahem – coach my own clients!):

1. We seek what we need to redress our balance. For me today, I simply needed to be heard, acknowledged and reassured. I can do all this for myself, but sometimes I need to hear it from another human being, just as we all do.

On Wednesday evening I needed to be outdoors, walking, spending time with Freddie, soaking up the nature, the stillness and the sunshine. I needed to stop and get back in touch with simplicity and just “being”.

What do YOU need?

2. We remind ourselves – or we get someone to remind us – that these are First World issues. That doesn’t mean they aren’t hard when piled one on top of another in an increasingly pressure-cooked Western society, but they ARE First World issues.

Waiting for the doctor to get a mole checked out and having to do some work on your iPhone and not having a decent 3G signal are first world issues. Not having access to medical care or medicine when your child is dying of malaria is a third world issue.

How tough has your week been, on a scale of 1-10?
Now frame those frustrations within the “first world – third world” perspective.
NOW how tough has your week been, on a scale of 1-10?

3. Find the gem. This was my coach’s exact phrase: It’s about finding the positive in the situation and it’s the next logical step to reminding ourselves of our First World issues. My gem is that I didn’t have to pay the doctor and that I have access to medical care for whatever little thing I might be worried about. It might not be perfect, but it’s there.

Do a quick mental list of the things that have bugged you this week.
Now find the gem for each of them.
What’s the good thing about this thing that’s bugged you, even if it’s not immediately “good”?

Follow these 3 simple steps and you’ll reign in your rage, feel MUCH calmer and be a much nicer person.

Or at least until the next rage comes along…  😉