On keys, doors and opportunities…

My ten year old daughter has just started walking to and from school by herself. This is a real nail-biter for me but, two weeks in, I’m getting much better at not rehearsing all potential disaster in my head as she’s en route, and I feel proud that I can trust her to handle this responsibility.

The decision to let her go was mostly based on my faith in her generally being sensible and trustworthy. But it was a decision I was unlikely to have taken without her having petitioned for it, persuading me that she was ready and equipped to go out into the world without a chaperone (gulp!)

We marked the occasion by getting her her own key cut, and it struck me that not only can she open our front door now, but also her new-found independence will be the key that opens metaphorical doors for her too.

But what about her feelings on this? After the success of her campaign for freedom, she needed to believe her own hype and actually walk to school by herself. She knew she could do it, as I knew she could do it, but those first few days were pretty scary for the both of us. Now that she’s done it several times, her confidence has grown considerably (and I’m much less jittery around 3 o’clock!)

And isn’t this the case in our lives as adults too? So often, we see a next step – maybe a promotion we want to apply for or a big client we want to work with – and, after a deep breath, we set about selling our talents and doing a pretty neat PR job on ourselves. What we are saying is true, of course, but often there is doubt and fear there too which we conveniently edit out when faced with a panel of interviewers. When we have succeeded in convincing our audience of our positive qualities, we have to start convincing ourselves too. And that starts with proving it by getting on with the job in hand. Then we grow into our new roles and prove ourselves worthy of our ‘new keys’.

Seeing an opportunity outside of our comfort zones and going for it is how growth happens. Sure, it’s sometimes scary having the responsibility of ‘new keys’, but stepping out into a bigger role is great for self-esteem and the esteem that others hold us in. Not only that, but our ‘new keys’ open up a myriad doors that can take us further.

Speaking of which, my daughter is now pushing for further freedom. We’ll have to see about that, but one thing is certain – she’s proved herself worthy of this new responsibility, both to herself and to us as her parents, and that has been a real shift for all of us. She has the key now, and she can open the front door. But her new independence will be the key that will open doors of opportunity for her future.

What’s your next challenge? Want some help in going for it? What keys will it give you and what doors might they unlock? Contact me and let’s plan your next move.

01903 244747 claire@straightforwardcoaching.com

Life lessons from a five year old on wheels

The other week, I went roller skating with Richard and the kids at a brilliant place called GYSO in Shoreham, set in a disused Parcel Force depot.

We were all rather wobbly on our feet, but Trinity (5) found it the hardest going. However, she was determined to get round the rink, to do it mostly on her feet (and not her bum!) and to do it in style. Her tenacity really impressed me, and she came out with a few comments that I thought were rather pertinent to life in general and an Onwards and Upwards blog post, so here they are:

• “How does she do that?” she asked, marvelling at her sister gliding along. Without pausing, she then followed on, “I know, she just DOES it, doesn’t she?” ‘Just do it’ has been the famous Nike slogan for an aeon. But that’s probably because its strength is in the simplicity of its message – don’t faff about, don’t question yourself, just bloody well get up and DO IT! Captured here by a little scrap of a girl in massive roller boots.

• “I’ve done it once, and that means I can do it twice!” she announced on completing her first lap of the rink. It can be good to sit back and relax after an achievement, but sometimes it’s a golden opportunity to strike whilst the iron is hot and capitalise on the momentum you’ve created.

• “I think it’s easier when I just look at where I’m going and don’t think too much about how I’m doing it.” Similar to the first one, but I thought it showed some great insight. It’s so easy to get so caught up in the ‘hows’ that we lose sight of the bigger picture – the place we want to get to. To get there, we need to keep focused, and not be looking down at our feet, so to speak. This is also the philosophy of Mike Dooley, author of the fabulous ‘Notes from the Universe’ (if you don’t already subscribe to these daily nuggets of email wisdom, Just Do It! Now! ;-D)

• (Having lunch at a cafe a little later): “I think I deserve a cake after all that hard work skating.” A girl after her mother’s heart. Don’t forget to recognise your achievements and celebrate them in some way, calorific or otherwise…

So, are YOU looking ahead at where you want to go, wobbling on your wheels or getting up after a crash landing? Want your wheels oiled, your path smoothed, or a refuel? Give me a call! 01903 244747 / 07929 764162

I give up!

It’s the first day of Lent today and, whether or not you are Christian, Lent has become a traditional time for ‘giving things up’.

But why?

OK – here’s a very quick RE lesson (please bear with me – there’s a more secular point to this!): Lent commemorates the 40 days that Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness, preparing for his death and ultimate resurrection. During this time, the devil came to him and tempted him to relieve his suffering in various ways, including turning stones into bread. Christians generally ‘go without’ to a greater or lesser extent to mark this time before Easter.

Society in general has also taken this up, with many people giving up things such as chocolate or wine for Lent, without any religious meaning. A sort of second-chance New Years Resolution, if you like, with a more achievable duration.

I’m personally interested in the ‘temptation’ bit. Because, after all, that’s what stops so many a good intention in its tracks. All temptation is – really – is a distraction from what we really want (long-term) with a short-term, easy pleasure. Think diets and chocolate, productivity and Facebook, exercise and the sofa…

Turning stones into bread when you’re starving and have the necessary Son-of-God touch would have to be a pretty massive temptation. But Jesus had a bigger picture in his head that enabled him to say no to the short-term (very attractive) distraction.

So there’s two strands here:

1. having a clear and attractive big picture/goal/target/vision, and
2. avoiding the short-term distraction (temptation)

Have YOU got a big picture you’re working towards? Remind yourself of it daily. Get excited by it.

(Not got a big picture? Give me a call – let’s get you one!)

What is it that usually tempts you away from that big picture for an easy, short-term pleasure? Is it, in retrospect, worth it? What can you give up, or cut down on that would lessen the diversions in your journey to what you really want?

Oh, and a couple of useful points to note:

1. in the spirit of keeping things light and being your own best friend, traditionally Sundays don’t count during Lent, so it’s not completely cold turkey on your guilty pleasures…
2. rather handily, it’s Throw Out Thursday tomorrow (and every Thursday) on the Straightforward Coaching Facebook page, so why not come and share what temptations you’re ejecting from your life, and get some support and accountability whilst you’re there?

So… what will YOU give up this year for Lent?

Want some help with this? Give me a call on 01903 244747 or drop me a line at claire@straightforwardcoaching.com.

PS I wrote another blog about Lent 3 years ago. It’s here, if you fancy reading it.

Have you plugged in to your God socket today?

My youngest daughter, Trinity, often makes us laugh with the misnomers she comes out with. She does a particularly good line in religious sounding ones; for example I think that, long after she’s grown up, members of our family will ask to be passed the ‘Jesus grater’ whenever cheese needs sprinkling, and a cathedral will always be known as a ‘confusery’ (I love that one, but goodness knows where it came from!).

Her latest came when we were camping this summer. The three girls in the family were packed into one tiny sink cubicle space, brushing our teeth. Trinity gestured towards the shaver point, with its unfamiliar French shape, and asked what it was. I answered that it was a plug socket, but the combination of a mouthful of toothpaste and dodgy communal washroom acoustics turned it forevermore into a ‘God Socket’.

I suspect what’s so poignant about these little linguistic errors is the strong visual image they so often create. I immediately imagined the fantastic possibility of being able to ‘plug in’ to a God socket and achieve instant Nirvana, without any need for bothersome spiritual journeys, prayer, mindfulness, meditation and all that malarkey. Zen at the flick of a switch!

And then I thought about the wise words of the lovely Corrina Gordon-Barnes, whose course ‘Passion to Profit’ I finished earlier in the year. In the very first (and possibly most important for me) session, she extolled the virtues of a daily ‘Connection Practice’. This is a daily habit where you connect to your source, be it God, the universe, your higher self or whatever it may be for you, using whatever technique feels right for you to do that – meditation, prayer, journaling, running, dancing around to your favourite music, for as long as you feel like doing it.

And that’s it.

There are no rules. No guidelines on how long to do it for. No prescription as to what form it should take. Just a suggestion that we do it every day.

A daily plug into the God Socket. I mean – who wouldn’t?

Well, lots of people actually, including me sometimes. It can be so hard to take that time out for ourselves in the busy-ness of life. There are many days when I feel that my connection practice slides down towards the bottom of my to-do list and sometimes just doesn’t get done at all (hey – positive not perfect and all that…!)

I know that when it gets tough, I challenge myself to just close my eyes for 2 minutes, slow my breathing down and be still, and that is often enough to give me a boost. When I have longer, I like to sit in the tree house in the garden for 20 minutes, or write all my thoughts down in a notebook, stream-of-consciousness style. When I make time for it, I wonder why on earth I have resisted it all the other times. And on those days, my connection practice becomes the very paper the to-do list is written on, not just a thing to be ticked off.

Plug into your God Socket every day for instant Nirvana (or at least a comma in the middle of a long sentence of a day). Go on – give it a go.

I mean – who wouldn’t…? 😉

How to Move On(wards and Upwards!)

Another Top Sante article, another BIG topic, and another request for coachy advice from yours truly very gratefully received! This article was published in the September 2011 issue of the magazine and was
entitled ‘How to Move on from Absolutely Anything’, a title I thought
particularly fitting for a blog named ‘Onwards and Upwards’, so I thought I’d share my unedited ideas on the subject for you lovely blog readers.

The subheading ran ‘A close bereavement, a broken relationship or a sudden redundancy – no matter how great the loss, you can get through it. Here’s how…’ (See what I mean?! There are BOOKS written on this stuff, and they still manage to cover the basics in 2 pages. You have to hand it to them!) With that rubric in mind, here’s my advice:

• Take responsibility. It’s very easy to look around for someone or something to blame when disaster strikes, but ultimately that’s just a waste of energy and time, and it gives away your power (not to  mention your sense of being able to take charge of things). Even if someone else IS responsible for the situation you find yourself in, YOU are responsible for how YOU feel about it and what choices YOU make from that point on. Channel your energy away from negative feelings towards taking positive action to make the best move forward.
• Give yourself some perspective. 2 clichés spring to mind here: ‘time is a great healer’ and ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. You probably know from experience that these are true, but it can be very difficult getting a sense of perspective when you are smack bang in the middle of a crisis. One way to see your situation through new eyes is to write yourself a letter from the future. Date it a year or more from now and write it as the successful future you. In it, tell the you that’s in crisis how different and wonderful your life is going to be and detail all the fantastic positive spin offs that happened as a result of this perceived calamity. Looking ‘back’ on your situation will boost your morale and remind you that happier times WILL be ahead. If that doesn’t appeal, another way to get a different perspective is to write a letter to a much-loved friend, imagining they’re in the same situation as you and giving your best advice and encouragement.
• Allow yourself to feel rubbish for a while. I know this seems very un-coachy, but when bad stuff happens, it’s normal to feel upset, and putting yourself under more pressure to cheer up or put on a brave
  face sometimes adds to the hurt. Give yourself some grieving time when you allow yourself to cry, rant and rave. Vent your feelings to a close friend or in a journal. Also, give yourself the ‘Fluffy Slipper Camp’ treatment – this is the polar opposite of Boot Camp. Set aside an evening, day or weekend and spoil yourself with hot chocolate, your favourite DVD boxset and an early night or two. This is NOT the same as ‘wallowing in it’. Set yourself a date to come back out and join the rest of the world with a smile, but make sure you still allow some time every day to journal or talk through your sadder thoughts until they subside.
• Take baby steps. When a crisis hits, the ‘to-do’ list it creates can seem overwhelming, especially when you’re reeling emotionally. Remember you don’t have to do it all in one go. Each day, take a small action towards rebuilding your life the way you want it to be. It could be as simple as looking at the jobs page in the local newspaper or  meeting up for a coffee with one of the mums from the school gate. Write down what you did – aim for one a day (however small) – and celebrate it. You’re paving the way to your new future!
• Surround yourself with support. When you’re going through a difficult time, it’s great to enlist the help of a support group or online forum where you can meet lots of other people in the same boat. These kinds of support are wonderful in that they are specific to your problem so the others taking part have empathy and can sometimes mentor you through with ‘been there, done that’ good advice. They also give you the opportunity to support others, giving you the chance to get that change of perspective discussed above. A note of caution, however – don’t immerse yourself completely in that world or you could find yourself out of touch with everyone and everything else. Balance is key.

Do you need some extra support in moving on from something? Give me a call on 01903 244747 or drop me an email (claire(at)straightforwardcoaching(dot)com) and let’s have a chat to see whether coaching might help you.

On Being a Grown Up

The other day (probably shortly after being berated for some misdemeanour, I can’t quite remember), my nine year old daughter Emika grumped, “I wish I was a grown up.”

Being not only a grown-up, but a pedantic grown-up, it took me until halfway through my five minute lecture on the correct use of the subjunctive (‘I wish I WERE…’) to think to ask her WHY she so aspired to adulthood.

“Because grown-ups can do anything they want!” she harrumphed.

Now, being more in harassed mummy mode than sage life coach mode at the time (yes, it does happen now and again), I confess that my initial reaction was to harrumph back about paying bills, shouldering responsibilities and the like. However, once we had sat down on a bench together, ice creams in hand, it occurred to me that she was right:

GROWN UPS CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT.

Think about that for a moment. Maybe view your life from the eyes of a child. You can drive a car! Stay up past 8 o’clock! Go out on your own! Eat chocolate whenever you want! You can do whatever you want, whenever you want. How does it feel? Free? But actually quite scary? For most people, there’s quite a lot of fear attached to the concept of freedom, however attractive it seems on first consideration.

And here’s how we tend to deal with that fear as grown-ups: we build ourselves cages of rules and beliefs and we let our self-made cages restrict our freedom so that it feels more manageable.

Because here’s the deal – we don’t HAVE to get up and go to work, pay the bills, take the dog for a walk or do the washing up. Sure, there are consequences to our actions (or inactions), but we can choose to face them. Obviously, the choice to drive whilst drunk and the choice to leave the washing up undone are going to incur consequences vastly different in severity, but the point is the same – we CHOOSE to do or not do all the time, every day. The choice may be an obvious one, but it is still a choice.

We can choose to do anything we want.

Of course, I’m not advocating that everyone starts breaking the law, causing others to suffer or making reckless, unsustainable changes to their lives. There are workaday things which need to be done in order to oil the wheels of our bigger dreams, and these bigger dreams are the sort of positive consequences it’s exciting to make our choices towards.

So, starting today, make a conscious choice out of the things you ‘have to’ do. CHOOSE to get up, to take the dog out, to wash the dishes. Liberate yourself from the ‘have-tos’ and enjoy the tantalising freedom of choosing what to do from moment to moment, knowing you’re on your way to fulfilling your bigger dreams. Have fun, then dare to make your choices more audacious. Choose to speak your mind instead of quietly agreeing with the boss at your next meeting, choose to strike out on your own, to do that course you’ve always wanted to, to ask that person out… Break out of your cage of limitations.

Because hey, we’re grown-ups and we can do anything we want. And that includes the washing up.

Ready to choose coaching? Email me today (claire@straightforwardcoaching.com) and let’s start a conversation. September sessions are booking up now – will you choose to take the leap and book one for yourself?

And how about choosing to join my mailing list to get this blog and assorted wonderfulness direct to your inbox on a regular (but not annoyingly so) basis? Sign up here…

…Or choosing to come along and join the party by ‘liking’ my Facebook page? See you there!

You’ve achieved world domination (mwoo ha ha ha!) – what next?

I watched a fantastic film with my kids the other day called ‘Megamind’. In it, the dastardly (but rather ineffective) eponymous villain finally achieves his goal of ridding the world of his nemesis, the annoyingly perfect Metroman. After getting over the shock, then a few days of rejoicing by generally menacing the populace and bringing the city to its knees, Megamind realises that he’s bored and unfulfilled now that he doesn’t have Metroman to battle, and he sets about creating a new arch enemy for himself.

This got me thinking about what can happen when we’ve made our dreams come true, especially the big ones that we’ve worked towards for a long time. There can sometimes be a sense of emptiness afterwards if there is nothing further to strive for (you’ve run the marathon now), or no ‘nemesis’ to battle against (the clutter is finally cleared). So, you’re walking into the sunset, hand in hand with Prince(ss) Charming and the credits are rolling – but what next?

Imagine yourself at that point of reaching your target, of ‘getting there’.  What will that be like? How will you know you’re there? How will you feel? What will you see and hear?

From that happy vantage, look to the future. What’s possible now? What do you WANT to do? Notice the feelings that bubble up, positive or negative. If you’re excited and inspired, fantastic – jot down some ideas for further projects beyond your current big goal. No time for maniacal cackling and then slumping when you get there – raise a glass and then get on to your next exciting thing.

How about if the feelings aren’t so positive? If, frankly, you’re feeling a bit freaked out?

Feelings are a great compass for whether we’re going in the direction of our own values or someone else’s, and whether we’ve got our sights set on the ‘right’ destination in the first place. And here’s the thing – sometimes, we distract ourselves with a goal that’s actually enabling us to avoid the scary leap of doing what we actually REALLY dream of. It’s a circuitous detour which can send our compass haywire.

Do you keep trying to lose some weight, get into/out of a relationship, clear the clutter, get a better job, clear the city of your nemesis…? That’s your goal but you never – quite – get there? You know that you’ll be capable of anything when you succeed, but first you’ve just got to keep… on… trying… THEN you’ll get on with your proper, brilliant life.

Sound familiar?

It could be that you’re using your goals to stay ‘small’ and safe. That, by waiting until you’ve lost a stone before you go and conquer the world, you’re actually just procrastinating. And that’s possibly why it’s taking you just so long.

What do you REALLY dream of? If you woke up tomorrow and all the distractions and excuses were gone, what would you do? Get inventive. Can you REALLY not start that today? Does it REALLY require you to be living in a perfectly tidy home first? Get out of your own way and go for your big dreams – and you might just find that Metroman disappears quietly as part of the journey, along with the clutter, the weight and all the other excuses. And trust your compass! You don’t need to create yourself a new nemesis to battle against, but to become who you are, magnificently, in your full power.

(Megamind does just this, by the way – but I don’t want to spoil it, so you’ll have to watch it yourself to find out how.)

Still scared? Not sure where to start? Give me a call!

Some advice on… giving advice!

A little while back, I was called by a journalist to offer some pearls of wisdom on the subject of giving advice (you have to hand it to these magazines for fitting BIG subjects into itty bitty articles…).

The premise for the article was to give guidelines for the reader to follow when asked for advice whatever the issue is, from a bereavement or illness to a missed promotion.

Now the article is published and out (Top Sante, June 2011, p75), but my contribution has been edited down, so I thought I’d share with you, at more length, the thoughts I’d had for the piece. To avoid the clumsy he/she stuff, I’ve plumped for the girls this time, but it’s equally applicable for guys (sorry guys – don’t take it personally!):

• Most important of all – is your friend actually asking for your advice? It may be that you feel a need to ‘fix’ the situation and that you feel you need to give your two pennyworth but it could be that she simply wants to rant/vent/cry/be listened to. Stay quiet. Stay strong. Make tea. Make more tea. Trust the healing power of silence and resist the urge to fill in the gaps with talk. Your presence is needed, not your words. If you want to do something, give her a hug (if this comes naturally and it’s appropriate of course). Be a rock for her to cling to in a stormy sea, not another wave battering her with opinions and advice. She IS asking for advice? OK then, the following should help (but err on the side of silence if in doubt…):
• There’s a great quote I heard recently (though I can’t find any attribution for it): “A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you’ve forgotten the words.” In a crisis, it can be easy to lose ourselves among the drama. Remind your friend of her strengths, qualities and the values she stands for, e.g. ‘I know you’re feeling low right now, but you light up in a group – shall we invite some of the girls and go for a night out?’, ‘It’s really sad about your redundancy. A very good job you’re such a natural networker – that’ll really come in handy now’, ‘I know starting your own company feels like a big risk but you’re determined and a real hard worker and I know you can do it’. Think of a time they triumphed over adversity before and drop it in to the conversation.
• …but don’t remind her of past failures or point out negative traits ‘Move jobs? But you’re rubbish with change, remember?’, ‘well you COULD move in with him, but don’t freak him out like you did with the last one’
• If appropriate, offer to role play the boss / boyfriend / hairdresser / interviewer so that she can vent / practice what she wants to say.
• If you’re burning to suggest a course of action, frame it as an option for her, i.e. ‘have you considered…’ or ‘here’s a thought…’; not ‘if I were you..’ or ‘you should’, which is just imposing your viewpoint and not honouring her choice of action.
• In a situation where there are two or more possibilities for action and your friend can’t decide, ask her to imagine she has taken each option in turn and to notice what has changed and how she feels. Sometimes, it’s easy to get stuck at a ‘before the decision’ point, and changing the view can make a big difference.
• Encourage her to use her network, and suggest anyone from yours if appropriate. ‘Who do you know who…?’ questions can reap big rewards in all sorts of situations.
• In a bad situation, gently ask her if there are any silver linings to this cloud – what opportunities could arise now? For instance, losing out on that job could be just the push she needs to pursue her dream of striking out on her own and starting that company she always dreamed of.
• Never, ever, EVER gossip about your friend’s situation or her reaction to it. It’s nobody’s business but hers, and she trusts you enough to share it with you. That does not give you the right to share it with others and it will always destroy the trust and good feeling that you have built up between you.
• Remember that your friend is strong and capable. Hold her in that space, even if she’s feeling fragile right now. Remind her of her resourcefulness and let her take all the credit for the success she goes on to have (even if it was your suggestion…;-))
• Finally, don’t be discouraged if your friend doesn’t change or cheer up, despite your best advice and distraction efforts. You can’t ‘fix’ another person, you can only be there for her whilst she works things out for herself, and that might be on a totally different timescale from the one you had in your head. Ultimately, everyone is responsible for their own actions (and that includes whether or not they follow your advice).

Some food for thought from Sebastian Faulks

I’ve not long finished reading Sebastian Faulks’ novel ‘Engleby’. Though the novel’s eponymous narrator is rather unreliable, he does have some gorgeous reflective passages. This one in particular impressed me so much I wanted to share it on the blog:

A  lot of time has passed.

Is that good? I never know. I haven’t stopped to reflect and write, and that suggests I’ve been busy.

Busy is good, isn’t it? Busy means we’re hard at it, achieving our ends or ‘goals’. Haven’t had time to stop, or look around or think. That’s considered the sign of a life well lived. Although people complain of it – another year gone, where did that one go? – tacitly, they’re proud. Otherwise they wouldn’t do it: you put your time where your priority is.

Suppose, though, you’re not sure that what you’re doing is at all worthwhile. Suppose you blundered into it over a spoonful of lime pickle. It’s easy, it pays quite well. But really it’s a distraction. It stops you thinking about what you ought to be doing.

Because what you really ought to be doing is weighing up the facts. If the history of Homo sapiens so far were represented as a single day, an average human lifespan would represent a little over half a second. That’s your lot, that’s all you have of living, then you return to the unconscious eternity that came before and will close back over you – over your half-second. If the whole history of the earth (not just the brief Homo sap era) were represented as one day then your existence would be too small to measure. No sufficiently imaginative chronometer exists.

So what you must do – being an intelligent, thinking creature – is make a very careful, well-informed judgement about how best you can spend your one and only half-second. You analyse yourself and your abilities; you match them to the world, its ways and possibilities, and you make a solemn decision to do what would most contribute to the well-being of the world and of yourself.

Except you’ve got a deadline, Friday at noon. And your lover coming round on Tuesday. And there’s football on.

This ‘busy’ thing isn’t a commitment, it’s an evasion.

And what are we avoiding? Facing the problem of the one half-second. Because if that’s really how it is, if that’s time, then nothing is worthwhile and nothing makes sense.

If time is not really like that, then all might yet work out. And in fact – good news – we do believe time is not linear. The trouble is – bad news – that our brains can only think of it as linear, therefore we’re doomed to see our lives as pointless.

It’s funny, really. The most intelligent creature that’s evolved so far (we think) has a design flaw at the heart of its superior intelligence. It can’t grasp one of the dimensions it inhabits.

It’s as though we had longtitude, but no latitude. How then would we navigate or reckon our position on the earth?

We’re deaf men working as musicians; we play the music but we can’t hear it.

 

How does this passage make you feel? Do you use ‘busyness’ as an evasion tactic? What are you evading? If you could grasp the non-linear nature of time, as Faulks suggests,  what would it “working out” mean to you?

Lenten leanings

A good few years ago, I had the pleasure of teaching English to a really motivated and positive Chinese student. This young man was a lover of new words and their nuances as well as the customs and general quirks of his new surroundings.

It was Shrove Tuesday and he came in, full of wonder and questions about pancakes. The discussion led on to Lent and its religious meaning and tradition of giving something up for the 40 day period and how it was commonplace to do this, even in the most secular circles.

Now, this student was almost surgically attached to his electronic Chinese-English dictionary, which he insisted on consulting, even when having apparently understood the explanation of new words. It had become a joke between us that he was addicted to his dictionary, so I was surprised and delighted when he announced that he would give up using it in lessons for Lent. He promptly placed the dictionary in his bag and we got on with the rest of our lesson.

A couple of days later, I met up with a good friend for lunch. He happens to be an eminent clergyman who sits on the Bishops Council (as well as a very good conversationalist with an unrivalled stock of rude jokes). We chatted away as we ate lunch, which culminated in two large slices of a decadent chocolate cake. As we were finishing the last mouthfuls of the cake, I laughingly confessed that I’d given up chocolate for Lent, to which he replied that he had too and we had a conspiratorial giggle.

After lunch, I had another lesson with my Chinese student. At one point, I was struggling to come up with an understandable explanation of a tricky word he’d come across, so I suggested he look it up in his dictionary. He looked at me, rather puzzled, and simply said ‘but I’ve given up using the dictionary for Lent’. The taste of the chocolate cake was still in my mouth.

It really struck me that day that the person with the least obvious  ‘investment’ in the Lenten tradition was the one who was the most committed. This isn’t meant to be a post about austerity or religious values – it’s about commitment to a decision and making it yours. My reasons for giving something up for Lent were vaguely churchy, but mostly because people had asked me what I was going to give up for Lent this year so I picked one of the usuals. My friend had more religious reasons, but still the ‘giving up’ is more a tradition than an obligation within the Church. Both of us had decided to give something up in an ‘I suppose I should’ sort of a way. In short, we were obviously not committed!

My student had decided to give up using his dictionary, despite being non-Christian and not having been brought up in a Christian-ised secular society which observes the pancakes-and-giving-something-up tradition. There was no ‘should’ with him – he made his decision out of a desire to embrace the culture in his host country. He wanted to do it.

Sometimes, the very fact you have done something before, maybe time and again, seems like a reason to do it again. Look at your decision to do something – be it giving something up for Lent, embarking on a new exercise regime or going for a promotion – and take a fresh angle on it. Are there any ‘shoulds’ in play here? Where do they come from? What would make you genuinely want to take this action? Find your motivation – whatever it may be – and really feel it before committing. Watch your results change!

Having trouble committing to something? Call me!