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?

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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!

Onwards and upwards? I went backwards and down!!

Picture the scene – it’s Christmas day in the Highlands of Scotland and we’re staying in a stone cottage with a roaring fire, kids playing happily with the toys Santa brought them.  My husband hands me a present – it’s an upmarket-looking embossed silver envelope.  Surely this has to contain a voucher for some luxury or other – a spa day perhaps, or a ticket to somewhere exotic?  He watches me, smiling, as I open it and read…

…it was a voucher for an abseiling experience. AN ABSEILING EXPERIENCE!!!! Had the man gone utterly mad?! Perhaps he had me mixed up with some other wife he’s been keeping secret?  Had there been some terrible admin mistake somewhere?  All goodwill and warm fuzzy Christmassy feelings went from the room in an instant.  I went completely white and momentarily feigned completely unconvincing delight (whilst tears of fear pooled in my eyes) before fleeing.

The ferocity of my rising panic and anger amazed me.  It’s true that I had lots of gremlins that lurk around such pursuits (due to being frogmarched to outdoor activity centres all too often when I was an overweight and underconfident teen – shudder), but I’m not afraid of heights and I knew the likelihood of everyone else pointing and laughing at me was extremely low (and now I’d have things to say and ways to deal with it if they had done!) – so why this paralysing dread?

When I calmed down enough to trust that I wouldn’t shout, swear or do harm to him, I talked to Richard and asked him (very politely!) what had been his thought processes around this particular present. He said that he’d known it was not the sort of thing I’d usually do (admitting he hadn’t anticipated how strongly against it I’d felt!) and he’d thought it would be a fun challenge, in a widening-your-comfort-zone sort of a way.  He also added that I could change it or not go if I wanted.

Oddly enough, it was this comment that made me decide to do it.  It reminded me that, as adults, we always have choice, even if it doesn’t appear obvious.  The fact I could actively choose to abseil down a 10m tower, rather than react to an event (ie being given it as a present) and therefore give away my choice by making it ‘Richard’s fault’,  immediately quelled some of the panic.  I also decided that I’d phone up and book myself in soon, rather than ‘oops’ letting the deadline come and go without any action (inaction being a passive choice in itself).  Besides, I wanted to show my girls (and myself, for that matter) that mummy can face her fears.

So finally, last weekend, the day came, after almost 9 months’ of nailbiting since that Christmas drama.  Although I felt strong and proud that I’d made the decision to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’, the fact was that I still couldn’t even think about leaning back over that precipice without wanting to be sick.  My family rather sensibly kept a low profile all morning and then the time came.

The more I felt unwell at the very thought of abseiling, the more I became determined to go for it.  However, when the instructor was showing us how to put on our harnesses, there was an almost primal urge to bolt – I had to physically restrain myself from running a mile in the opposite direction.  At the same time as feeling this overwhelming fear (the likes of which I don’t recall ever having had before), I was really interested in the feeling.  I’ve been practising mindfulness lately and it was comforting, in the middle of such an intense experience, not to be trying to block the feelings out but to observe them, almost subjectively, in a loving way. It didn’t stop me sobbing as I watched the first of our group balance on his tiptoes 10m up before lowering himself down though!

When it came to my turn, I focused on the choice I’d made to be there. I climbed up three flights of stairs inside the tower, willing myself on with every step.  At the top Simon, the instructor, explained what I needed to do whilst I clung on to the handrail for dear life. All the time, I had a still small voice telling me what amazing learning this all was.  But I still had to lower myself over…

Well, I did that.  The part that had worried me most was done and I was horizontal, many metres over the ground.  Then Simon said I needed to loosen my grip on the rope if I wanted to go anywhere.

I don’t know whether you’ve ever hung, clinging on to a rope, high off the ground. However, I can tell you that all your instincts scream at you to keep clinging on to that rope, whatever you do, don’t let go.  And here was Simon telling me I had to loosen my grip!  Well, that did it – all mindfulness was forgotten and sheer unadulterated terror took over.  I screamed that I wanted to get back up and was back up in a second, crying on poor Simon’s shoulder.  He was the perfect mixture of encouraging and listening, told me that I’d done the bit most people bottle out at, and asked me what I wanted to do.

I had choice again. I projected forward and tried out telling my daughters both scenarios, and telling them I hadn’t done it was awful, as was the idea of descending those stairs.  My decision was to do it. I composed myself, answered ‘yes’ when Simon asked if I was happy, and I leaned back and eased off on the rope.

It took a long time to descend those few metres as my grip was still pretty tight, but eventually I got to the bottom, to applause from the rest of the group. I had wondered whether I’d feel euphoric having done it, but I didn’t. What I did feel was that the worst part of the experience had just been the fear, but that I now knew I could get through that – even the abject terror. Franklin Roosevelt said “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”, and that seems a particularly apt quotation for my experience.  I saw fear in that moment for just what it was – a feeling, and nothing else.

Having beaten the fear once, I wanted to test myself and eventually went down the tower a further three times. I’d told Richard and the girls to stay away at the beginning (mostly as I didn’t want my daughters learning the swear words which have a habit of coming out when I’m under pressure), but called them after my second descent so they could come and see.  My six-year-old was typically unimpressed (“jump, mummy!”, “mummy, you’re not going very fast!” etc) but I was happy to have been a positive role model for them and I hope that they will remember the experience one day when faced with a massive personal challenge themselves.

As for me now, I will probably never do abseiling again, but I know that I could do if the situation arose. I also know that I have the ability to overcome that sort of fear and so could do something that provoked similar feelings if necessary (although I’ve told Richard that this does not mean a potholing experience would be appreciated this Christmas!).  I also know now – thanks to Simon – that to get anywhere in abseiling or in life, I need to loosen my grip on the rope a little.

Are you holding on too tight anywhere in your life? Do you have a dread of something that’s coming up? Give me a call!

Loosening my grip

Back down to earth!

Back to Straightforward Coaching website

www.straightforwardcoaching.com

The Abseiling Experience was provided by Hatt Adventures
www.thehatt.co.uk

Eco-friendly coaching

Ecology has always been a subject close to my heart. Last month, I touched upon our global responsibility for the future of our planet. As I understand it, this means making sure that our individual actions, indeed our very existence, impact as little as is practically possible on the environment. Simple things, such as using eco- friendly washing products, not taking the car on short trips, recycling and composting our waste and picking up litter are all ways we can help to reduce our carbon footprint (use the CAT calculator to calculate yours).

Last week, on my NLP Practitioner’s training, I learned a new slant on the definition for the word ecology. In NLP, ecology is the study of consequences – the results of any change that occurs. Just as we (hopefully!) are concerned about the effects of our actions on the natural environment, we should also look at the effects of our actions and decisions on our social environment and within ourselves.

Making decisions based on personal or social ecology can sometimes be obvious: a sporty two-seater won’t work as a family car, however sexy it looks in the showroom. Not every decision is so clear-cut though. I often hear clients struggling with a goal they have set themselves which may look good on paper but, after a bit of digging, turns out to be incongruent with their values or beliefs. In short, their goal is not ecological for them.

If you find yourself struggling to manifest a goal you have set yourself, try this exercise* to discover the hidden fears, beliefs and values that might be holding you back: write down all the reasons why you DON’T want that goal in your life. Let your darkest thoughts surrounding your goal reveal themselves on paper and keep writing until you can’t come up with any more. These are some of the fears, beliefs and consequences surrounding your goal or decision and they might include the one(s) that are holding you back. Once they are all out in the open, you may find some issues you need to work through before you are ready to achieve your target. Reframing or redefining your goal to address the conflicting value or belief could also work to integrate the goal with your personal ecology. Of course, working with me as your coach and NLP practitioner would help you enormously here, but you knew that already, didn’t you? 😉

*with thanks to Lisa Wynn and associates