Even Life Coaches Get Stressed

This is the cross word cathedral. Three letters beginning with E.

It is called after a fish.

Cross words maybe should be calm words?

Even Life Coaches Get Stressed

Tim Brownson

It all started about mid-December of last year

when my anxiety levels started to creep up on me again.

This is nothing new, I have had an on-off relationship with GAD (generalized anxiety disorder)

since as long as I can remember.

And I’m being serious, I have no recollection whatsoever of a time in my life when anxiety

wasn’t a mosquitoes dick away from making an unwanted appearance.

For the decade or so before I started coaching I relied on self medication 

and distraction tactics, such as working all the hours I could in the week 

and partying hard at the weekends.

But those tactics were about as likely to succeed as if you were to decide 

to feed the Lions at the local zoo by strapping a dead Zebra to your back 

and asking them to please nibble carefully.

Into Life Coaching We Go

It was the search for other alternatives that took me on to a stress management course

and then into Life Coaching.

It probably saved my life.

Since then I have acquired some rather sexy tools for dealing with my anxiety.

It doesn’t mean it never rears its butt ugly head, just that I know now what to do when it does and can counteract it (usually in minutes or at the most hours, rather than days, 

weeks or even months).

In December I was really tired and also really busy.

Running A Daring Adventure is enough on its own, but Coach the Life Coach was taking off 

and I was trying to get a lot shoe-horned into a shorter month 

with a vacation back to the UK looming.

The first thing to drop off was my meditation.

Actually I say it dropped off, it would me more honest of me to say, I dropped off.

Bye-Bye Meditation, Hello Napping

I was so tired I took to meditating lying down, usually doing a body scan,

knowing damn well I’d fall asleep for half an hour.

Sleep and meditation are not the same thing.

If they were the world would be a lot more chilled, happy and even-keeled.

By mid-December I’d convinced myself it was already the holidays so it was ok to relax

with a glass or two of wine rather than meditate or work out in the evening.

If you’re shaking your head and thinking. ‘What the fuck was he thinking off?’

you’d have my admiration for being so on the money – 

maybe you should become a Life Coach?

The vacation was brilliant, but turned into a full frontal attack on my liver.

Travelling with friends who like a drink, seeing old friends who like a drink

and spending time with family who like a drink is a recipe for having quite a few drinks.

It was fun – a lot of fun, and I don’t regret it, but coupled with the fact I didn’t meditate once

or put in more exercise than walking to the bar, 

meant I got home, not refreshed, but exhausted.

The stress didn’t abate when the New Year kicked off because I had more on my plate

than Mr Creosote in Monty Pythons ‘The Meaning of Life’.

About a week into 2015 I thought, ‘This cannot go on, I’m sliding back to where I was 12 years ago

and I don’t want to die just yet. I want to win Miss World and save the Panda’s first’

With Coach The Life Coach I feel like I have a massive duty of care to the people I train

to make sure the information I give them is as good it can be.

I was trying to keep up with all the Social Media and SEO (search engine optimization)

changes on my own.

Both industries are constantly changing and morphing and I was having to read up on them

on a daily basis and still struggling to keep my head above water.

There are people bailing out of the SEO industry because they can’t keep up with Googles changes and that’s all they do! They aren’t having to coach and run two businesses too.

Life Coaches Need Life Coaches Too Sometimes

I hadn’t worked with my own Life Coach for almost 3 years,

so I changed that by hiring Meredith Hooke.

Not only is she a great coach, but we share the same dark sense of humor,

love of Jim Jeffries humor and she’s also a meditation expert.

Since I committed to her that I would stop dicking about and do it properly I haven’t missed

a days meditation. What’s more, for the first time in 8 or 9 years  I’m really enjoying it.

I also hired a Social Media expert so I could forget about having to trawl through the daily,

and sometimes twice daily, updates knowing not only was I not letting my students down,

but they would be getting even better advice.

I hired a designer so I could drop the feeling that some of my course information

was as attractive as Keith Richards after a 3-day bender,

and I re-hired Chris Gaskill my awesome web guy to help in certain areas.

I also started doing Rick Hansons incredible ‘Foundation of Well- Being’ course.

I am only about 1/5th of the way into this as it’s designed to be a 12 month course,

but the material, (both depth and breadth) is like nothing I’ve even seen before.

You can check it out here because I think it’s going to be a real game-changer in the industry.

It is an affiliate link because as soon as I got into it I knew I wanted to share it with clients

and my readers, but if you hate the thought of me earning a few bucks if you sign up,

then just Google it and avoid the link.

By the way, I plan on writing a more in-depth review when I am further into the course

that will appear in my newsletter.

I also plan to hire some other people as I develop the Coach the Life Coach course

and so I can also get back to do what I do best, which is coach, teach and write.

Oh, and I’ve knocked the alcohol on the head for a month or two

because I didn’t like the way that was going.

Whenever I have quit drinking for extended periods in the past it’s been daunting.

For some reason this time it feels nothing like that, it feels liberating.

I have no intention of never having a glass of wine again. 

But I have every intention of never pouring one because I’ve let myself get stressed senseless by not taking care of myself.

That’s a promise I’ve made to my coach, my wife and now you.

We all have one body and one life and sometimes we need help.

I had forgotten that.

Which is kind of weird when you think I earn my living by helping people.

http://www.adaringadventure.com/life-coaching/even-life-coaches-get-stressed/

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blog:

www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com    for extra TCR information

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

A Cunning Trick To Help Beat Procrastination

A Cunning Trick To Help Beat Procrastination

tim brownson

If I had $100 for every person I’ve heard say

they work better the nearer they got to a deadline, 

I would probably have bought Bermuda by now.

Ok, maybe not Bermuda as I’m not sure it’s up for sale,

but certainly a nice small island in the Caribbean.

The reality of the situation is (up to a point) almost everybody works better

the closer they get to a deadline, it’s how our brains are wired up.

The Flow State

I feel sure you are familiar with the flow state made famous

by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, right?

Very briefly it is when you are performing at your optimal level.

Often, time seems to stand still, things seem to be incredibly easy and life is,

quite frankly, a walk in the park where all the paths are downhill.

Some people think that stress is absent from flow,

but nothing could be further from the truth, except maybe Putins claims

that he had nothing to do with the murder of Boris Nemtsov.

What is actually happening, is your are experiencing just the right amount of stress to heighten all your senses, get blood flowing to your brain

and improve your overall performance.

You need a certain amount of stress just to get out of bed in the morning

and without it you simply cannot perform adequately.

Stress Is Not A Bad Thing

Stress in and of itself is not a bad thing, as long that is,

we allow our body to recover properly.

When people procrastinate up to deadlines, by and large,

it is because they are not stressed enough by the consequences of their inaction.

In other words the pain of not doing the work

is not as intense as the pain of doing it.

Note: It can also be because they have tipped the other way

and or way too stressed to work.

If you get too stressed, your senses actually start to shut down,

you memory worsens and you turn into gibbering wreck

incapable of even basic tasks.

As human beings we are terrible at predicting how we will feel about future events, especially if we push them to the back of our minds.

And that is what most people are doing when they are procrastinating.

They are busying themselves with other stuff and using an avoidance strategy.

I have a Coach the Life Coach course starting on the 28th March 

and I haven’t even properly started the marketing process yet

because of ‘stuff’ getting in the way.

However, I know if I do not start to act before the weekend my stress

will start to amp up in the form of anxiety and force me to act,

because at the moment I still have 4 open places

and don’t want this to be the first course that doesn’t sell out.

Maybe I should implement the technique I’m about to teach you myself

and get my head out of my ass!

To make this work we are going to trick your brain into thinking

it’s more stressed than it is.

But don’t worry, our brains like to be tricked

and we’re doing it to ourselves in some way shape or form all the time.

Beat Procrastination Now

Take 5 minutes out of your day and relax.

Then close your eyes and focus on what will happen

if you do not do whatever it is you want/need to do.

Hear what you would hear and see what you would see if things go badly.

Then let the negative emotions arise

that you know you will encounter close to a deadline.

The important thing here is not to go too far, we want your heart rate up a tad,

a slight feeling of uneasiness accompanied by a desire to take action.

Because, and this is the key, that is EXACTLY what is happening

when you are working like a whirling dervish up to a deadline.

It’s just that normally it’s happening at an unconscious level

and largely out of your conscious control.

When you get a bit anxious about your inactivity,

open your eyes and get the shit done.

Now go and try it, but please do not take it to the point

where you feel like a drug smuggler being cavity searched,

I don’t want you having a panic attack!

http://www.adaringadventure.com/stress-management/a-cunning-trick-to-help-beat-procrastination/

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blog:

www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com    for extra TCR information

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

Wheels of life or how your stress and time pie is cut.

This sun dial at Ely Cathedral has probably seen all the emotions, follies and time considerations of man.
Photo taken by M'reen

Wheels of life or how your time pie is cut. M'reen

First draw a simple circle and divide it into 8 equal segments and label each segment

1.  Spouse/partner          2.  Children          3.  Work                    4.  Home

5.  Social life                    6.  Health             7.  Family/friends       8.  Problem/s

Now give each segment a subjective satisfaction score by

putting a number in each segment that represents your general satisfaction in this area:

0 being not enough > 10 being just enough.

Then shade in how much you feel that number applies to you today 

or just now after a comment has been made or a thought thunkJ

The Wheel of Life.

You may wish to draw multiple wheels or you may find using

Label the segment and fill in your satisfaction level.

Choose a category or make one up. Do the ones you’ve missed.

You might want to draw a wheel for X years/situation ago and one for where you would like to be.

children   /   own    /    others	home /  house	opportunity
charity	habits	look after / self / others
change	health	personal growth
danger	image / personal / public	relationship / self /  others
energy	joy	relaxation
education	kindness /  self / others	security / self / relationship/ things
entertainment	love / self / others	social
home/ physical/ work	money	serenity/ self/ family /work/ others
fun	maturity	sport
family  /  you are in / came from	new	travel

  

It would be interested to make your own categories, make more segments if you want.

Leave some blank one so that you can add categories.

For example if you are working on weight you could do a new wheel

on your weighing morning once a week for 4 weeks.

Things like: feeling> thin days, happy, optimistic, relaxed, patient, sleeping better, more forgiving of self and others, less stressed, don’t notice irritations as much, thinking nice things about myself, 

more creative, giving myself time, etc. You could list these along the long side of a page and put 

a little bar thermometer above each ranging from 0 to 10, 0= this doesn’t happen in your life 

to 10 I’m full of these feelings/skills.

Research shows that filling in a chart gets 55% better results.

Now make a 24 hour clock and guess how much time you spend per day doing whatever.

Or a week clock and guess how much time you spend sleeping, working etc.

Then actually find out what you really do and you may be surprised at the results.

And find that you can, in fact, squeeze in some e.g. exercise with this awareness.

Or you could create a hierarchy of needs chart and this is not a wheel

but more like an ordered bullet point scale.

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

www.innermindworking.blogspot.com            gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com       describes the steps to reading in the way your mind prefers

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com          just for fun

www.turbochargedreading.com                    for your advanced reading techniques

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Finding Inner Peace

                                                           (not my painting or photo)

Finding Inner Peace. 

Curtis H Stamey shares his simple ritual for finding inner peace and letting go of the stress

and negative energy that we collect throughout our daily lives.

In the midst of turmoil, stress and anger I discovered a simple process that fills me with peace.

It has become a ritual that begins every new day. I find that:

      it removes all the negative baggage I have been carrying

      it cleanses my mind of all of the negative words, thoughts and feelings that oppress me

      it cleanses my spirit of all the negative, foul and ugly stuff that sticks to it through the day

      it erases painful memories and prevents nightmare dreams

      it connects me with my creator: my true source of wisdom, love, forgiveness and healing

 I’m sharing my ritual with you here in the hope that it will help you too, find inner peace.

Step One: Sit in Silence

Though my healing journey I have grown to love silence and to respect its healing power. 

In silence, my spirit experiences the love of my creator as the two become one in perfect union.

In silence, your spirit can embrace the author of your being without the distraction of words,

visions or the spectrum of feelings.  

Silence allows your spirit to be refreshed and renewed; it allows your body to heal.

Make sure, as far as you can, that there is no music playing, that there are no sounds invading 

the room where you sit.  Imagine the silence as warm rays of sunshine gently flowing over you.

Step Two: Empty Yourself of You

In just one day we can collect so much negative junk.  There are hurtful words from

other people.  There are happenings that discourage us and make us feel sad, angry,

and even worthless.  There are mistakes we make and their consequences. 

There is old baggage from our past that we haven’t got rid of.

There are worries about money, relationships and our future.

The first thing to do is to empty yourself of you.  Empty yourself of all of the negative junk. 

Empty yourself of your ego, your resentments, and your failure to do what love requires. 

Empty yourself until you are completely empty.

Here are some ideas to help you:

1.     Visualization exercise – Close your eyes and see yourself covered with mud from head to toe.  Imagine walking out of your house into the rain. Feel the heavy weight of the mud.

            Feel the raindrops as they touch your body and wash the mud away. 

            See the mud fall away as the rain washes your body and feel yourself getting lighter

            and lighter as the mud is all washed away.

2.     Physical exercise – Tighten your fists and hold them in front of your shoulders with your elbows bent.  Slowly open your hands as you relax and straighten your arms.  

      Allow your hands to fall to your sides.  Repeat this exercise 3 times.

3.     Kenpo focus exercise – Breathe in slowly until your lungs are filled with air then breathe out slowly until your lungs are empty of air.  Repeat three times to feel empty and relaxed.

Step Three: Wait Patiently

It took me a long time to learn patience. 

It means stepping out of ‘Success World’, 

a world full of deadlines, and leaving my stress behind. 

Learning patience taught me an odd lesson, a paradox of being:

When we take our time and don’t rush, we get a lot more done.

The end result is that we are able to do what we do so much better.

The most important lesson we can learn from patience is that everything happens when it is time.  Patience is a way of being; we don’t lag behind, but we also don’t get ahead of ourselves. 

It is the symmetry of every part of our life being in balance and in the right proportions. 

Patience is the state of being where we receive all good things.

When you sit in your daily ritual you must never hurry, all you must do is wait patiently.

Step Four: Be Open to Receive

The opposite of openness is bracketing.  Bracketing is a controlled way of thinking that always sees, hears and feels things from a fixed point of view.  It filters out new ideas, other points of view

and resists any kind of change.  Bracketing says, “That’s the way I see it.”

It is often very difficult to be open to new ideas because it feels like a risk because our point of view feels safe and normal to us.  Being open means that we might have to change and we don’t know what we will become. It may require you to experience some chaos in your orderly world.  But, as you learn and grow, you may find yourself able to admit that parts of your point of view are wrong. You may also find that discovering and adopting a new point of view sets you free and teaches you how to be a better person. It’s also an “I am right and you are wrong” kind of thing. 

But once you start taking that risk it can open your eyes to a new world, a world that is a feast for divergent thinkers and creative minds. 

Openness sets all of us free to have new journeys of learning, growth and meaningful change.

Openness is an essential part of this simple process because it allows us to accept everyone for whom and what they are and to celebrate our differences. This harmony leads to peace because

it allows us to discover the beauty of being connected without any fear.

When you sit in silence and wait patiently you are open to receive. Wisdom, Joy and Peace

So to recap, the simple steps to inner peace are:

Sit in silence.

Empty yourself of you.

Wait patiently.

Be open to receive whatever comes.

Feel yourself being filled with wisdom, joy and peace.

Don’t try to control this process. 

It’s not important to analyze it or create expectations of what you want to happen. 

It’s not about you.  It’s all about your connection with your creator.

To be clear, this is not a religious process. I’m not preaching. There are a lot of words/names

for what I connect with through this process and each of you has your own. Twelve step groups call it, “Your higher power” but you might call it “God” or “Allah” or “the Universe” or “Source” or you might call it nothing at all but simply recognize the feeling.  It’s all about the connection we make.

http://kenpobear.com/2013/05/finding-inner-peace/

Perhaps you’d like to checkout my sister blog www.innermindworking.blogspot.com

and find easy, fast and efficient ways of working with the issues or little unpleasantness’s in your life.

I am now featuring aspects of my upcoming internet programme teaching Inner Mind Reading.

How to be successful at everything

"I completely agree with Leo and should you feel that you are being held back with these ideals

to work towards then perhaps you’ll find my sister blog www.innermindreading.blogspot.co.uk

to be helpful or to re-read many of the articles below. I think that each point is worth far more than 

a single read through and might be printed and ‘meditated’ on or thought about during your day." M'reen

                                 Photo by M'reen. Skipton Castle up at the left. Yorkshire UK

HOW TO BE A SUCCESS AT EVERYTHING

12 TOOLS FOR MORE MINDFUL LIVING

LIVING A MORE MINDFUL LIFE IS WORTH THE EFFORT, BUT REMEMBERING TO FOCUS AND KEEP YOUR MIND IN THE MOMENT IS DIFFICULT.

HERE IS A TOOLSET DESIGNED TO HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS.

LEO BABAUTA

The focus of my life in recent months has been living mindfully, and while I don’t always remember 

to do that, I have learned a few things worth sharing.

The first is a mindful life is worth the effort. It’s a life where we awaken from the dream state 

we’re most often submerged in--the state of having your mind anywhere but the present moment,

locked in thoughts about what you’re going to do later, about something someone else said,

about something you’re stressing about or angry about. The state of mind where we’re lost

in our smartphones and social media.

It’s worth the effort, because being awake means we’re not missing life as we walk through it.

Being awake means we’re conscious of what’s going on inside us, as it happens, and so can make more conscious choices rather than acting on our impulses all the time.

The second thing I’ve learned is that we forget. We forget, over and over, to be awake.

And that’s okay. Being mindful is a process of forgetting, and then remembering.

Repeatedly. Just as breathing is a process of exhaling, and then inhaling, repeatedly.

The third is that mindful living isn’t just one thing. It’s not just meditation. Nor is it just focusing

on the sensations around you, right now in this moment. I’ve found mindful living to be a set 

of very related tools, perhaps all different ways of getting at the same thing, but each 

useful in its own regard.

THE TOOLSET

1. Meditation. 

Meditation is where mindful living starts. And it’s not complicated: you can sit still

for even just one minute a day to start with (work up to three to five minutes after a week),

and turn your attention to your body and then your breath. Notice when your thoughts wander

from your breath, and gently return to the breath. Repeat until the minute is up.

2. Be Awake. 

Meditation is practice for being awake, which is not being in the dream state (mind wandering

into a train of thought, getting lost in the online world, thinking about past offenses, stressing about the future, etc.) but being awake to the present, to what is. Being awake is something you can do throughout the day, all the time, if you remember. Remembering is the trick.

3. Watch Urges. 

When I quit smoking in 2005, the most useful tool I learned was watching my urges to smoke. 

I would sit there and watch the urge rise and fall, until it was gone, without acting on it.

It taught me that I am not my urges, that I don’t have to act on my urges, and this helped me change all my other habits. Watch your urge to check email or social media, to eat something sweet or fried, to drink alcohol, to watch TV, to be distracted, to procrastinate. These urges will come and go,

and you don’t have to act on them.

4. Watch Ideals. 

We all have ideals, all the time. We have an ideal that our day will go perfectly, that people will be kind and respectful to us; that we will be perfect, that we’ll ace an exam or important meeting, 

that we’ll never fail. Of course, we know from experience that those ideals are not real, that they don’t come true, that they aren’t realistic. But we still have them, and they cause our stress and fears 

and grief over something/someone we’ve lost. By letting go of ideals, we can

let go of our suffering.

5. Accept People and Life As They Are. 

When I stopped trying to change a loved one, and accepted him for who he was, I was able to just be with him and enjoy my time with him. This acceptance has the same effect for anything you do--accept a co-worker, a child, a spouse, but also accept a “bad” situation, an unpleasant feeling; 

an annoying sound. When we stop trying to fight the way things are, when we accept what is, 

we are much more at peace.

6. Let Go of Expectations. 

This is really the same thing as the previous two items, but I’ve found it useful nonetheless. 

It’s useful to watch your expectations with an upcoming situation, with a new project or business, 

and see that it’s not real and that it’s causing you stress and disappointment.

We cause our own pain, and we can relieve it by letting go of the expectations that are causing it. 

Toss your expectations into the ocean.

7. Become okay with Discomfort. 

The fear of discomfort is huge--it causes people to be stuck in their old bad habits, to not start the business they want to start, to be stuck in a job they don’t really like, because we tend to stick to the known and comfortable rather than try something unknown and uncomfortable. It’s why many people don’t eat vegetables or exercise, why they eat junk, why they don’t start something new. But we can be okay with discomfort, with practice.

Start with things that are a little uncomfortable, and keep expanding your comfort zone.

8. Watch Your Resistance. 

When you try to do something uncomfortable, or try to give up something you like or are used to, you’ll find resistance. But you can just watch the resistance, and be curious about it. Watch your resistance to things that annoy you--a loud sound that interrupts your concentration, for example. 

It’s not the sound that’s the problem; it’s your resistance to the sound. The same is true of resistance to food we don’t like, to being too cold or hot, to being hungry. The problem isn’t the sensation of the food, cold, heat or hunger--it’s our resistance to them. Watch the resistance, and feel it melt. 

This resistance, by the way, is why I’m doing my Year of Living Without.

9. Be Curious. 

Too often we are stuck in our ways, and think we know how things should be, how people are. 

Instead, be curious. Find out. Experiment. Let go of what you think you know.

When you start a new project or venture, if you feel the fear of failure, instead of thinking,

“Oh no, I’m going to fail” or “Oh no, I don’t know how this will turn out”, try thinking, “Let’s see. 

Let’s find out.” And then there isn’t the fear of failure, but the joy of being curious and finding out. 

Learn to be okay with not knowing.

10. Be Grateful. 

We complain about everything. But life is a miracle. Find something to be grateful about in everything you do. Be grateful when you’re doing a new habit, and you’ll stick to it longer. Be grateful when you’re with someone, and you’ll be happier with them. Life is amazing, if you learn to appreciate it.

11. Let Go of Control. 

We often think we control things, but that’s only an illusion. Our obsession with organization and goals and productivity, for example, are rooted in the illusion that we can control life. But life is uncontrollable, and just when we think we have things under control, something unexpected comes up to disrupt everything. And then we’re frustrated because things didn’t go the way we wanted. Instead, practice letting go of control, and learn to flow.

12. Be Compassionate. 

This sounds trite, but compassion for others can change the way you feel about the world, 

on a day-to-day basis. And compassion for yourself is life-changing.

These two things need remembering, though, so mindful living is about remembering

to be compassionate after you forget.

That seems like a lot to digest and remember, and I often forget all of this stuff, 

but then I remember, and say, “Ah, I was doing it again!” And then I practice again.

And then I forget, but I reflect, and I learn, and I practice again.

This is the process of learning mindfulness. It’s forgetting, and then remembering, again and again.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3023459/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/12-tools-for-more-mindful-living

Perhaps you’d like to checkout my sister blog www.innermindreading.blogspot.com

and find easy, fast and efficient ways of working with the issues or little unpleasantness’s in your life.

I am now featuring aspects of my upcoming internet programme to teach Inner Mind Reading.