Once a month I will record a short 3-5 min video with a practical Tip, Tool, or Strategy. Today is the first edition, and is one of the most important (and simple) STRATEGIES that I teach all my private Coaching clients. It will improve your decision-making “RESULTS” by about 200%!
Enjoy.
One thing I think is very important in life is having loads of ENERGY.
I think we can all agree on that.
Which means, I am actively on the lookout for things that drain us of energy or cause us to have energy “leaks“.
Imagine if we start the day with 100% of energy credits.
But we “leak” 5% here.
And we “leak” 12% there.
Plus, we unknowingly “drain” 9% of energy in another place.
Essential that means – before we even get started in the day – we are only at 74% of our true energy potential.
So, it makes sense to plug leaks wherever we can.
The book I wrote called “18 Ways We Make Life WAY Harder Than It Needs To Be” is the perfect resource to identify where you might be leaking energy, spending too much energy, or getting a lower ROI from the energy you are spending.
In the book – which I wrote a couple of years ago – I did not include the energy leak we are focusing on today.
And as often happens, this leak was highlighted by a recent conversation with a Coaching client.
So this article is dedicated to JB.
Hopefully we can learn from their “mistakes”.
Here we go.
There are a few very valid reasons why this tool is one of my favourite, and most effective.
They include:
But most of all…IT WORKS!!!
Imagine a stress management tool like that.
Learning it and using it would have to be a “no-brainer”.
Well, it is for me.
For over 16 years I have been Coaching.
Essentially helping people get from where they are to where they want to be.
And figuring out what is in their way.
That is, what might be their greatest obstacles.
Real and PERCEIVED.
Is the obstacle a poor understanding of what they want?
Are they unclear of where they are starting from (i.e. don’t ‘know thyself’ so well)?
Is there a skill gap?
Etc.
Of all the things that disrupt people from navigating life in a meaningful, fulfilling and joyful way, something keeps showing up as numero uno Root Cause of Trouble (with a capital ‘T’) in our lives.
Extract from 18 Ways We Make Life Way Harder Than It Needs To Be by Carl Massy (WAY 16)
“Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.”
Thomas Jefferson (US President and primary Author of US Declaration of Independence)
I think most of us were taught that ‘pride’ is a good thing. To feel proud for who and what we are. To take pride in what we do. To take pride in what we have achieved – be it over the course of our lives or over the last few weeks working on a new project at work, which we totally nailed!
So yes, pride can be a good thing. But like many things, there can be another side to it, when taken to extreme. It is like all great virtues. They are great when they are applied in a conscious self-aware way. Too much bravery and someone can become reckless. Too much loyalty and someone can be taken advantage of or stuck in something for longer than is healthy. Too much single-mindedness and someone can meander down the wrong path. Too much flexibility and someone can be all over the place.
ANOTHER EFFECTIVE WAY TO DEAL WITH GREATER LEVELS OF OVERWHELM.
In the past I have spoken about different ways to deal with stress and OVERWHELM.
And I am sure it (overwhelm) is a topic you can also relate to.
It is not whether we will experience overwhelm or not.
It is about ‘when’, and then HOW WE DEAL WITH IT.
That is where I will take you.
I am personally feeling overwhelmed about now.
But it is not the minor daily stuff, but the “WTF do I do next?!” sort of stuff.
My Morning Rituals and Weekly Meeting with Me Inc do a great job most of the time, but if stuff builds up, or there are new factors, our ability to cope can reach overflow.
That is what today’s strategy is dealing with.
For me, the overwhelm is the result of: selling our house, building a new house (in a foreign country), doing the money juggling act, managing my current coaching clients (and new clients), helping my first-time authors finish their books, getting coaching programs organised for 2024 (because this year is whizzing by), plus finishing my book and associated parts, then publishing and launching it on 20 November. And a couple of weeks ago I made the decision to have our sausage dog of 16-years put down.
So a bunch of stuff going on, but maybe the book launch is the thing that is probably pushing me over the line, since it is a significant project.
So what to do????
Essentially I need to figure some shit out.
Organise the jigsaw pieces.
But how best to do that…??
One of the primary things I do when working with new clients is have them record when they get TRIGGERED.
This information is gold dust.
Outstanding feedback.
BUT…only if you do something with it.
We all get triggered.
But IT is the wisest among us who learn from it, in order to grow and evolve and to not get triggered (as much or not at all) next time.
Firstly let me define what I mean by ‘Getting Triggered‘.
It is essentially any time where we are reactively taken out of an elevated emotional state, neutral state or homeostasis, and dropped into a survival emotional state. Essentially the amygdala has determined there is some sort of physical threat, so it activates the sympathetic nervous system, and we have a physiological fight, flight or freeze response. This does not include automatic responses to real physical threats.
Sometimes we are ‘positively’ triggered and that is awesome and another great thing to learn from.
Thumbs up and now do more of that.
However, for this article (and your ongoing well-being) I am more interested in the ‘negative‘ triggers, and the bigger the trigger, the more (loving) attention we need to give them.
Examples include: getting triggered by an email, getting triggered while driving on the road, getting triggered by your partner or friends, getting triggered by people wearing face masks while alone on a beach, getting triggered by being told ‘no’, getting triggered by people riding motorbikes through intersections while texting on their phones, etc..
Goals. Goals. Goals.
We all have them, because worthy Goals give meaning to our life.
Without worthy Goals we stagnate, don’t experience fulfillment and spend our waking hours on a mindless hamster wheel.
Therefore we want to know what processes help us kick those Goals we have our beady eyes on.
And derail us.
Are you ready to hear about one of the places where people screw it up?
Let’s dive in.
A CASE STUDY: GENES VERSUS ENVIRONMENT
Knowledge is powerful stuff.
I know you know.
The greater knowledge we have, the BETTER choices and decisions we can make.
So I am here, for your benefit, sharing some knowledge I discovered along the way.
My full time job is reading, researching and working with people to better understand what makes us do what we do.
And experience the outcomes we do.
A few years ago I had a fascinating experience with a client of mine.
Which supports my observation that the medical ‘healthcare’ system, really doesn’t understand the importance of the environment on our behaviour (and therefore results) and therefore treats ‘symptoms’ with the wrong stuff, which barely touches the root cause.
Let me share this case study of mine, and you can decide if it was primarily a ‘Gene’ thing or an ‘Environmental’ thing.
I will let you be the judge.
I will also leave this section with a quote from Paramahansa Yogananda – who was highly influential in bringing traditional yoga to the west.
He said: “The environment is stronger than the will.“
Hands up if you experience overwhelm occasionally (or a lot).
Hands up if you are human.
Chances are that if you are human you have experienced, do experience, or are currently experiencing, overwhelm.
We have all been there and done that.
So what I want to focus on today, is how to move through, and beyond, overwhelm as ease-fully as possible.
I often work with clients to take them beyond overwhelm into the ‘now I have got this sh#t figured out‘ realm.
My suggested strategy is also inspired by a great book I was recommended (thanks Tom!) called ‘The Master And His Emissary‘ by Iain McGilchrist. It is looking at the similarities and differences between the brain hemispheres, given they are actually asymmetrical.
Fascinating stuff.
But now let’s make it practical.