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Happy 1st of April!

Spring has sprung on the River and it’s lovely to have some sunshine and blue skies.

For me, the expression ‘spring cleaning’ has far more to do with fresh starts, new beginnings than it does with cleaning, which I’ll readily admit is not my forte!?

I’m far more interested in de-cluttering my mind than my cupboards. A time to take stock of what’s working well and what’s not, check in on what’s most important to me and where I want to focus my energy and time in the coming months.

Making better decisions is an integral part, so today’s nudge is a conversation about some ways to make that easier.

1 How clear are you on how you’d like your life to be? – I know I bang on a lot about this, but with good reason. If you don’t have a clear picture on what is important to you, why you’re spending your time as you are, and how you’d like life to be then how is it possible to make any decisions, let alone better ones?

Reminds me of that old story about Little Red Riding Hood walking through the forest. When she comes to a fork in the road, the Wolf is sitting there. When he sees her hesitating which road to take, he asks her “Where are you going?” “I don’t know” she says….”Then it doesn’t really matter which road you take then” he replies.

2 How do you define what’s important? – a good place to start is to notice how you’re already living and responding to people and things in your life – often on auto pilot. What tends to rile or trigger you, and what’s happening when you feel more at ease and relaxed?

I’ve referred to this before as your blueprint, or internal software that’s running your show. Far easier to change your own blueprint over which you have total control than it is to change external circumstances or people over which you have little or none.

3 What are your non-negotiable values? – there’s a lot of discussion in the personal development world about knowing your values, but how well do you really know yours? And I’m not talking about one word values like trust, honesty, integrity, but delving deeper behind what those words specifically mean for you in practice, how they play out in your life and impact your decisions and relationships with others.

4 Where do you rank yourself on your ‘to do list’? – if you’re not putting yourself first – and yes, you read that right – then things can quickly unravel in times of indecision for two key reasons:

i you’re far more likely to make decisions based on others’ needs and agendas and not your own, which can lead to resentments building up over time, and two

ii if you aren’t taking care of your physical or mental well being to begin with, the resulting stress can make for poor decision making. Being a masterful gatekeeper over your thoughts and emotions is an absolute must for making better decisions.

5 Do you have a morning routine? – a game changer for me and my clients for improving all aspects of your wellbeing, and how you approach difficult decisions. If you jump on your email first thing, or are glued to your mobile phone, chances are you are not giving yourself the best start to your day. Taking a quiet hour for yourself to exercise, journal, read or listen to something that inspires you, and think through your important tasks for your day goes a long way towards ensuring you take decisions based on your priorities and not others’ demands.

I hope you’ve found this conversation helpful, and it gives you some ideas about making better decisions!

Making better decisions will be the focus of our next nudgeme Small Group in May. We’ll be delving deeper into this conversation then. Click here to see what joining a group will give you, and how much easier life has become for others who have already dived in!

Spring Clean Your Mind – 5 Ways to Make Better Decisions

This is my family of swans I see regularly outside my kitchen window on my boat – it’s lovely to have watched the cygnets gradually lose their darker feathers and grow into beautiful swans! And since swans are known to mate for life, I thought this would be a fitting pic for today’s Conversation for Valentines!

It’s not about the dishes ….

What’s not I suspect you’re wondering?

Well, last week I came across a blog post that resonated so much with me that I decided to share it with you. It caught my attention as it was entitled “she divorced me because I left dishes by the sink“. At first that might seem like the most ridiculous statement to make, but bear with me.

Sadly, the author wasn’t joking about the divorce, but what he went on to describe reminded me so much about why I do the work that I do, and why having a “different conversation” is so important.

The interesting twist is that the author is a man talking about his relationship and wishing to share – in a, what I find, an extremely humorous way, what he’s learnt from his experiences.

There are two big highlights in this post relating to better communications between the sexes that form the basis of my nudging, and I bang on a lot about!

1 The differences between how men and women think – yes, we’re all equal but, IMHO, we’re not and can never be the same. And to be even more precise, I’m not talking about gender i.e. being male or female, I’m talking about masculine and feminine energy and how we process information and can view things entirely differently. In my experience, not getting this lies at the root of more misunderstandings and pointless arguements than almost anything else.

2 A signal to have a different conversation – when either partner seems fed up, distant, angry and makes it all about the “dishes” – and this becomes a regular pattern that just keeps on showing up again and again, leading to the same old discussions and problems – it’s a signal to have a different conversation about what’s really going on beneath that. And it’s usually never about the dishes as the post highlights so well!

Here’s the full post. http://mustbethistalltoride.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/

What do you think?

I’m undertaking my own straw poll on this at the minute and would love to know what you think! I promise to share the findings in a future post!

I hope this prompts some different conversations over this Valentine’s weekend!

Make it a good one!

Happy 2016!

I hope your New Year has got off to a great start.

I decided to do something new with my first blog post for the year, and have recorded my first video nudge!

It has a simple, but I feel important message, to forget about resolutions this year, and decide to do things a little differently!

So, before the busyness takes over again, I hope you’ll grab yourself a cup of coffee and take less than 5 minutes out to take a look.

As I say in the video, recording this put me way out of my comfort zone, but I hope it might encourage others to take the plunge and do something a little scary kicking off their New Year too!

Last month’s nudge suggested 3 main reasons why we can tend to procrastinate.

1 Lack of clarity around what it is we want.
2 Fear of failure or rejection.
3 Being a perfectionist.

This month, I said I’d follow up with some ideas on ways to help overcome procrastinating.

Here’s my starter for ten in no particular order.

1 Get honest with yourself – which of the three reasons I’ve mentioned resonate with you the most? Just taking some quiet time out to consider what your pattern tends to be can give you a better understanding of what drives you. This is not about beating yourself up, but rather getting clearer so you can start to do something about it.

2 Get clear on what’s really important to YOU – what are your important priorities? What is the direction you want your life to go in? What really matters to you at the end of the day? It is so tempting to blame others or external situations when you’re not happy with things, but if you don’t know what it is you want in the first place, you’ll constantly find yourself feeling conflicted and pulled from pillar to post.

3 Question unhelpful beliefs – be it about others and importantly yourself. So often we can be ruled by old, unquestioned beliefs that are way past their sell by date and keeping us perpetually stuck. For instance, telling yourself things like:

“That might work for others, but not for me.”
“I’ve done x so many times in the past and it’s failed so what’s the point in trying again?”
“I’m too old, unattractive, unintelligent, set in my ways, [fill in the gap] to do x, y or z.”
“I never have the time or the money to ….”

Instead, take a decision to catch yourself when this happens and decide to tell yourself the exact opposite. Have a simple word or phrase you can immediately say before the momentum starts to build! “Stop It” usually works pretty well!

4 Start putting yourself on your ‘to do’ list – yes, you read that right! Recognise when your boundaries are being stretched and you’re putting others first at the expense of your own wellbeing. Make better self-care a non-negotiable on your ‘to do’ list. Getting good at saying ‘no’ is a key part. Far from being selfish, rather see a ‘no’ as a ‘yes’ to yourself, which only serves to protect against potential resentment, anger, frustrations that can build up from over people pleasing, resulting in a win win all round.

5 Productivity is about habits not actions – use your energy to change habits that are no longer serving you and you’ll find taking action will inevitably follow more easily. Mastering better habits that support you and your priorities make all the difference. Focus on changing one habit at a time over a period of 30 days until it becomes second nature, something you do without thought or willpower like brushing your teeth.

6 Design for default – changing habits is so much easier when you put things in place to automatically help you. For example, if you want to change the habit of not drinking enough water, be sure to have a full glass beside your bed when you wake up, easily to hand while you’re working, and when you go to sleep. If you want to cut down on watching TV, re-arrange your furniture away from your set. If you want to free up 15 minutes for yourself in your morning, sort out what you’re going to wear in advance, and have fewer options (think how Steve Jobs would wear same black turtleneck every day).

7 Set yourself forfeits – this is a strategy I use in my nudging when someone finds themself continually unable to follow through. We discuss what’s the worst thing they can think of having to do instead of the thing they’re wanting to, but not managing to. Once they’ve told me, I come up with a forfeit based on this that they have to do instead. This invariably solves the situation pretty quickly!

8 Learn from your procrastinator – get to know that personality in you that tends to procrastinate. This is something we delve into much more deeply in nudgeme conversations, but the point is we are not just one person. We’re all made up of different personalities or roles that we play, and when you realise that you are lots of different people you can start calling up the best person for the job rather than them popping up and controlling you when you least expect or want it.

For instance, different personalities are often triggered to turn up when we need to protect ourselves, or need to learn from them. Or there’s a positive reason why a negative personality is taking over. For example, someone might complain a lot, but is in fact covering up something they badly want or need with their complaints – they’re critical because they’re afraid. The idea is to get to know all your personalities and their positive or negative qualities, as there’s usually a good reason for that particular personality showing up.

9 Give up all resistance & illusion of control – accept things as they are, but not worse than they are. Tony Robbins has an expression that captures this so well “pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” In other words, things happen, but it’s almost always the story we tell ourselves about it, and illusion we can control things, rather than the actual event that causes our upset.

10 Follow your Rainbow – finally, I’m sharing a photo a neighbour of mine took just down from my Marina. It reminds me of two important things that can stop procrastination instantly for me. Firstly, a full half Rainbow came out the day after my father had died suddenly so whenever I see one it reminds me to live life to the full. And secondly, he had an expression to always ‘Trawl for Gold’, look for the good, find something to be grateful for at the end of each day – procrastination doesn’t get a look in when you do.

I hope you’ve found this nudge helpful – especially at this busier time of competing priorities!

I’m often surprised at how many of us suffer from procrastination, which can make it much harder to take consistent action – or to follow through on something even when it’s seemingly something we really want to change or achieve.

It’s not unusual to see people getting all fired up at the start, often staying on track for a while, and then gradually things go back to the way they were. For instance, even when people have bought expensive courses that they don’t complete – let alone implement – and don’t get me started on gym memberships or diets!

What’s that about?

Certainly, proof that even when money is involved, it’s not always a motivator for many. Tempting to blame lack of time next, but we all know that’s a cop out – we all have the same 24 hours in a day.

Here are three of the main reasons I see that cause people to procrastinate – see if any ring bells for you.

1 Lack of clarity

Being unclear on your ‘why’ for wanting to change or achieve something in the first place. Put another way, you simply do not have a compelling enough reason to do so.

2 Fear of failure or rejection

Usually rooted in any number of old patterns or, invariably, unconscious beliefs, which, if left unquestioned, will continue to trip you up or sabotage your success.

3 Being a perfectionist

Wanting everything to be just right or perfect before taking a decision or action. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to give yourself the best chance or do a good job. It’s when we start setting ourselves impossible standards, or take forever to do something, that it is often a sign that we’re wanting some kind of external validation, or as a way to avoid judgement or feeling vulnerable.

Shorthand – as long as we’re overly concerned or worrying about what others think of us, we’re missing out on living life to our full potential, and the enjoyment and results to be gained from being ourselves.

So what’s the answer?

All too often, it can be a key life event that prompts, or even shocks us, into doing something differently. How often have you heard that someone loses their job suddenly, a relationship you thought was rock solid ends abruptly or someone has a health scare that causes us to reassess our own lives?

Change usually happens when the pain of not taking action overrides the pleasure of staying stuck. Or put another way, when being in our comfort zone has begun to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

Of course, there’s a much better way – starting with taking some time out for yourself to consider the reasons above.

I’ll be sharing more ways to help overcome these next time, but that’s my nudge for today!

When I re-launched nudgeme it was to encourage us all to stop all the busyness, and have a different conversation with ourselves about how we’re spending our time.

My personal challenge was to share new ideas and strategies to yes, help us reclaim our agenda, but far more importantly, take back control of our thinking, design the life we want and experience much greater levels of fulfillment, ease and good times in 2015.

The question?

So my question is, with three months – or 96 days – left of this year, have you achieved that?

If your answer is yes, a massive congratulations, but if it’s a no, or a “not as much as I would have liked to”, then I’d love to share some ideas to help you remedy that.

The things that make all the difference

Based on the experience and feedback from the nudgeme small groups I’ve run this year, I’m more certain than ever that the biggest difference between those people who are breezing through life on their own terms, free to make the changes they want, experiencing real fulfillment and joy, and those who are not has something to do with these three things.

1 Mastering their state – that is consciously managing their thinking and how they talk to themselves. So, rather than blaming external situations, events or people when challenges arise – or finding themselves triggered by unconscious thoughts or beliefs – they take personal responsibility for how and who they are showing up as on a daily basis.

2 Accountability – making a non negotiable commitment to be accountable to an independent individual or group to keep them on track, and just as important, provide support and inspiration when things get tough.

3 Daring to have a different conversation in the first place – fuelled by a desire to keep growing and making the best of their life and relationships with the people around them.

Personal invitation

If this nudge resonates with you, and you have things you’d really like to achieve, change or resolve, it’s not too late to do something about that before another year is out. I invite you to consider joining our small club of ‘nudgers’ and give yourself the chance to have a different conversation with yourself, whilst experiencing the support of likeminded others to nudge you on.

Recently, I’ve been working on a project about ways to encourage health and wellbeing in the workplace. Perhaps not surprisingly, managing workplace stress figured highly in some feedback from employers, so today’s conversation is about stress.

When your life conditions do not match your blueprint

Stress often occurs when we feel we cannot change or control a situation. Or, as my mentor, Tony Robbins, says “when your life conditions do not match your blueprint”, and you feel powerless to do anything about it. The idea being that you are happy if your life conditions match your blueprint – that is your picture, beliefs, values of how you’d like your life to be. You are unhappy if your life conditions are not living up to it.

What’s your story when you’re stressed?

It’s fairly safe to assume that we’ve all experienced stress at some point in our lives.

Throughout my work, I’ve found that it is rarely the situation or circumstances that’s actually causing the stress, but rather the story we’re telling ourselves about it, and the meanings we’re giving that story.

There’s the facts and then there’s the story. The facts might be true, but is your story about it empowering you or keeping you stuck and stressed?

Change your story

We get to choose our stories. No one makes us choose one story or another. It’s up to us, and how we choose inevitably has an impact on our decisions and relationships.

We might not be able to control others or what’s happening around us (life conditions), but we do have control over the story we tell ourselves and how we react (our blueprint).

So, it naturally follows it can be easier to change our blueprint and tell ourselves better stories, than it can be to change our life conditions.

Here’s three questions to help you do that.

Q1 What’s your blueprint? Do you know?

We’re all regularly running patterns – be it consciously or unconsciously – which can give us a good clue about our current blueprint.

This can show up in the way we tend to react to certain situations in an angry, critical or fearful way. Or find ourselves automatically becoming triggered by certain people or events.

Take some time out to think about the times this occurs in your life. What tends to be happening? What causes you to feel that discomfort? Don’t censor yourself, just see whatever comes up and write down everything that comes to mind.

You’ll quickly get an idea of the things you don’t enjoy experiencing in your life, the opposite of which will give you a good idea of the blueprint you’d like to be living from.

Q2 How is your current blueprint working out for you?

Now take a look through what you’ve written, and ask yourself how is your current blueprint working out for you?

Make a note of all the thoughts that are coming up. What are you feeling, what’s the story you’re telling yourself as you’re reading what you wrote?

Q3 What will be the impact on your life continuing that blueprint?

Write down the first things that come to mind – how will it affect you, your important others, your health perhaps, your dreams of how you’d like life to be now and down the line?

The idea is to be conscious about the blueprint you’re running so it supports you in living the life you want. Keep the good bits that are working, and let go of the ones that are not.

And decide to tell yourself better stories – you get to choose so you might as well make them good ones. Navigating stressful times gets a whole lot easier when you do!

My nudge today was going to be about putting things off, and then I remembered I’d written something on this before so went back through some old nudges. Coincidentally, I wrote the following in June 2012, and three years on, I think it’s more important than ever to have this conversation with ourselves.

A nudge about putting things off

So, we’re nearly half way through another year…how’s that make you feel? Good, you’ve done so much you wanted to? Or a sinking feeling because the year has run away again, and you’ve not done an eighth of what you set out to at the start?

Well do you want the good news or the good news …? There’s no point worrying about the time that’s passed, you’d only be wasting more time, and you’ve got the next 6 months to achieve more of what you want.

Start with not working so hard …

I think this one applies to all of us more and more in this age of 24 hour, non-stop, real time communication, and the resulting expectation that we should somehow respond immediately to others’ agendas. This was brought home to me big time when I read an article written by a palliative care nurse listing the 5 things that people tend to say they regret the most at the end of their lives*.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

The two that resonated with me were:

1 The wish by many people – and in the case of the article, men in particular – who had said “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard”, but had rather spent more time with their children growing up and in their relationship with their other half. To clarify, women also felt this, but many of the men were from an older generation so tended to be the main breadwinners.

Much of my nudging is about helping people to manage the overlaps better between their work and personal lives, and I think this nurse’s findings reflect well what is so often the case now, despite whether both parties are working or not.

2 And the second, which is so powerful was “I wish that I had let myself be happier”. Many had not realised that happiness is a choice, and had stayed stuck in old patterns and beliefs, fearing change, often pretending they were content when in fact they longed for more laughter in their lives.

So my nudge for today is …

1 Take some time this coming weekend to think about some ways you can commit to making one or two small changes so you can spend more time with your partner, children, good friends or other important people in your life.

It might be deciding to block out some non-negotiable time, much as you would an important work meeting; planning to stop work an hour earlier, or doing something you’ve been wanting to, but have been putting off in favour of work.

And remember, there’s no mention on the list of people regretting that they hadn’t spent longer hours working!!

2 Think about something you are far from content with, and imagine the exact opposite is now happening, and you are feeling happier than you have in a long time. What is that one thing? And what can you choose to do now to help bring it about – and possibly create more laughter for yourself into the bargain?

*You can read the full article here:

In the past couple of days, I’d been thinking it’s time for another nudge, but had been mulling over what conversation to have.

While various ideas were going round in my mind, I remembered a quote from one of my favourite coaches Michael Neill: “You’re only ever one thought away from a happier one”. Since we can all get stuck in our own thinking, this immediately gave me the idea to have a different conversation about thoughts.

The map is not the territory

This is an expression, which I learnt years ago in my coach training, which revolutionised the way I think and approach all communications.

The idea is that we all have our own unique, internal maps for interpreting our world – that there is no one map or reality. So, it isn’t a case of there being a particular, or right way, to see, do or approach things, but rather our own way, based on, amongst other things, our individual experiences, beliefs, values, rules, etc that we choose to live by.

The concept might sound like common sense, and yet it can prove hard to make it common practice! Just think for a minute about all the times we try and persuade someone of our opinion about something, or disagree with another’s viewpoint, argue about having to be right, or feel stressed or hurt over someone’s behaviour. In these instances, there is little point in wasting energy in persuading people to see things our way. Rather, I remind myself that they’re seeing and believing things through their own unique filter, as I am mine, it’s not possible for them to do otherwise, which makes life a whole lot easier!

We create our own reality

So, if there isn’t one map or reality, my next favourite idea about thoughts is that we create our own reality, regardless of what’s going on around us. This can take a little more explaining, but the best way I know how is capturing it in a phrase: “A thought is only ever an idea crossing your mind. It only becomes real if you choose to attach meaning or importance to it”.

The concept comes from something called The Three Principles – Mind, Thought and Consciousness. Sometimes referred to as Inside Out Thinking – the idea being it’s not anything that goes on around us externally that causes us to think or feel as we do; it’s only ever what’s happening internally i.e. the way we choose to process/think about something, and all the meanings, beliefs we attach to that thought. And this is where we can get stuck in our own thinking. It’s that old age pattern of never questioning our thoughts – or worse, believing our thinking is the truth, which of course it isn’t.

The nature of thought

By way of an example, I came across a video recently from a psychiatrist called Dr Bill Pettit who specialises in the Three Principles. He does a lot of work around trauma and PTSD, and told the story of a girl who’d had multiple suicide attempts following an horrendous kidnapping and torture situation, and had been in and out of mental hospitals numerous times.

As he was standing in one such hospital reception one day, he overheard the girl ask why she couldn’t be allowed to die. He quietly said to her whatever it was she wanted to die over was over now, it didn’t exist anymore, except as a thought. He then invited her to come to a workshop, and if she didn’t like it no worries, but just come this once. She did and her life changed from that moment on when she saw her distress lay in reliving her recurring thoughts. In understanding The Three Principles, she was able to see that there was nothing wrong with her, nothing to be fixed, but rather to quieten her mind, let the thoughts come and go, and eventually she would return to an easier state of consciousness. Also known as innate health, as getting back to a natural state of wellbeing – or inner wisdom – that was available to her at any time.

Which brings me back to that quote, which I feel, captures this concept so well: “You’re only ever one thought away from a happier one”. Now, that’s a much nicer thought to have isn’t it?

Happy first Sunday of Spring!

How good are you at saying “no”? This was a recurring conversation that came up in the nudgeme Small Groups, that people can find hard, which only exacerbates the “busyness” syndrome. From saying “no” to others’ demands on them in their work or business to invitations from friends to go to social events they’d rather not attend, to requests from acquaintances, or even strangers, who they find themselves nodding a “yes” to, when they’re inwardly screaming “no”!

Here’s 3 ways to help make it easier to say “no”.

Setting healthy boundaries

In my experience, a key reason we have difficulties with saying no often relates to the value of putting others’ needs before our own, and that’s a good thing, as long as we also take care of our own needs too, which is invariably the bit that we miss! And I don’t mean trading ‘you do something for me and then I’ll do something for you’. I’m talking about being really clear about what your needs are in the first place, your important priorities and the things you value the most in your life because then it gets much easier to set healthy boundaries around that to guide your dealings with others.

Being true to yourself isn’t selfish

I often hear but isn’t it selfish to put your own needs first?

Well, let’s look at that. How is it really possible to be responsible for another’s needs? We can only take personal responsibility for meeting our own needs, and how we think and feel about meeting those will be different depending on our own beliefs and values. Just as we can’t possibly think and feel exactly the same as someone else does, how can we expect another person to know exactly what we’re thinking or feeling either – put simply they are not us.

By the very nature of the different beliefs and values that we each choose to live by it follows that saying “no” is not selfish, but an inevitable part of respecting our differences and being true to ourselves. This is possibly a good reason why we can feel uncomfortable when we don’t!

It can really help to bear this in mind when you think you’ve upset someone by saying “no”. Or alternatively, someone appears to be being selfish from your perspective. Reframing their behaviour as being true to themselves puts a very different spin on it!

Giving and receiving

Interestingly, saying no seems less of a problem when it comes to giving and receiving. Here’s when many of us can find it easier to give than to receive. In those moments, we don’t hesitate to say no – “no I couldn’t possibly let you do that” when someone is offering to do something for us. The irony is that it’s in those moments when we should be saying “yes” more often as in doing so we give the other person the pleasure of giving to us, and we all know how good that feels.

I’ll sum up the conversation by suggesting you give it a go this week. Try saying “no” more to others’ demands and “yes” more to their offers for help – in doing so, you’ll not only be giving both of you the chance to be true to yourselves, but helping to alleviate the busyness in the process!