Another post from my archieves, this time from 2008, when I sent monthly rather than weekly messages:

As I sat and wondered what to write in this month’s message I received a thank you message from a friend, who for the purposes of this email I’ll call Bob. I had chatted with Bob last week and he wanted to know if I had done something to him, as he woke up the next day feeling enthusiastic about a task that he had been busy telling me that he really wasn’t looking forward to doing.

The only explanation Bob could come up with is that I’d done some magical coach thing. My answer was to grin – you see, I knew that Bob is normally enthusiastic about the topic the task was about. I had had a hunch that it wasn’t the task itself that Bob had a problem with; I knew he had done similar yet much bigger tasks with enthusiasm. I suspected that the story Bob had told himself about what it would be like doing the task wasn’t a particularly pleasant one. A few questions confirmed my hunch, that he was telling himself it would be a hugely time consuming process which he’d have to start from scratch. The conversation that followed actually revealed that Bob had already done much more work on this task then he’d given himself credit (about a years worth!) so it really wouldn’t take as long as he had thought. As for waking up feeling enthusiastic and not shaking that feeling all week – that was all Bob, all I did was to give him a nudge from where he’d got himself stuck towards what he was naturally enthusiastic about.

As a coach, giving a gentle nudge when they are stuck, towards what they are naturally enthusiastic about and taking their life to the next level is what I do with all my clients. I can do this in many different ways but I am normally first curious about what story they are telling themselves about the situation to keep themselves stuck.

Bob’s email got me thinking about some of the common stories people tell themselves that often keep themselves stuck. As last month saw the release of my first self belief CD (see the PS of this message for more details) I thought I would share my thoughts on one story I hear from people who say they have low self belief in a particular area of their life.

When Bob had thought about this task, he had imagined the situation as if it was a year ago. One of the things that people sometimes do when they say they have low self-belief in a particular area of their lives is to be imagining themselves as they were in the past, ignoring any subsequent learning’s. This perception of how we see ourselves, and what we tell ourselves that means has a big effect on how we feel about that area. In fact it can have a big impact upon the amount in the feeling of self-belief.

For example, if there is a particular area of your life where you do not have a lot of self-belief in the skills that you have, are you basing that on an outdated image? For instance, Joan had started a new job a year ago and yet has little self-belief in the skills that she has developed since joining the company all of which seem so obvious to those around her. When chatting to her it became obvious that she was still seeing herself as new, with only very basic skills.

Self-perception, whether outdated or is one common way someone can get stuck in thinking they have low self-belief.

If there is an area of your life where you’d like to feel more self-belief, I invite you to play with the following to give yourself a gentle nudge.

You may want to read these instructions all the way through first and then play, or you may want to do each step and then refer back to what the next thing is.

Pick a time when it is safe to focus entirely on yourself – do not do this while driving! This works best when you are not going to be disturbed so choose a time to play with this when you know you have no visitors and you may want to take the phone off the hook. You will also find this easier to do when you find somewhere where you can sit comfortably – so pick somewhere where you can relax easily.

Take some deeper breaths and begin to relax, some people like to imagine that feeling of relaxation having a specific colour (the colour is different for each person). Imagine that colour spreading throughout your entire body, filling every muscle from the tips of your toes right up to the top of your head. Enjoy the feeling of bathing in relaxation.

In a moment you are going to imagine that you are going to go on a treasure hunt. You will find that you have a map that show route(s) to safely reach your treasure. On this treasure hunt you are going to take a magic companion who represents your self-perception in this area of your life. You and your companion will be able to help each other to make the treasure hunt even easier with more fun.

As you begin your treasure hunt notice what your companion looks like and what age they are. As you progress on this hunt you may find that their appearance and age alters, and that’s ok if that happens.

Follow your map until you reach your treasure.

Once you have found your treasure, make sure that you put the treasure somewhere safe, where you can access it any time that you want.

Thank your magic companion for being part of this journey with you. As they are a magic companion, who represents your self-perception, you will find that in whatever form and age they are in, they can integrate back into you now.

When you are ready, become aware of the room around you again – you may want to wiggle your fingers and toes.

Think about the area of your life you were playing with for this and notice how different it is now.

“The best way to find out where you are from is find out where you are going and work backwards.”

(The 4^th Doctor, played by Tom Baker from the Doctor Who TV story “City of Death”)

I happened to watch an episode of a “classic” sci-fi TV show recently. Although I didn’t recall seeing this particular story before, it was from a series I’d seen as a child and remembered that it could be quite scary to my eight-year-old self. In fact, a warning that “the following program contains themes of peril” preceded the recent TV airing I saw!

As I watched I found myself laughing at certain points I’d have considered just a little scary as a child. After all, time’s moved on and as an adult I now have a different perspective and knowledge.

The passing of time and things which once seemed important, stressful and perilous becoming inconsequential is not something that just applies to childhood television shows. There’s no doubt occasions you can think of from your past that appeared important at the time, that once some time had passed you can’t recall why that seemed like such a big deal.

This week I invite you to play with that concept to make a difference in the present.

1. Pick something to play with, which when you think about it at the moment seems like it’s a big deal. Maybe it’s a situation that appears stressful, draining or perilous!

The next stages involve playing with imagining things so don’t pick to do that when it is safer for your focus to be elsewhere – for instance when you are driving a car!

2. As I started by talking about a sci-fi program, imagine that you time travelled 2 months into the future – so that it is now January 2012. Look back on the situation that you thought of as big. Notice, now 2 months further on how you think about it now.

3. Once you’ve done that time travel a bit further so that you are two years into the future and it is now 2013. As you look back to November 2011 and that thing that you thought was big, notice how you look at it now with the benefit of 2 years extra experience and knowledge.

4. You obviously have got the hang of the time travelling because you have now travelled 10 years into the future, to the year 2021. Look back at 10 years ago, to the situation that seemed so important then and become aware of how important it is now in 2021.

5. Before we finish our time travelling, visit your “twilight years”, surrounded by loving family and friends, look back at that event, all that time ago. How significant is it to you now? With all that time that’s passed what advice or comment would you have given that younger you back in 2011?

6. When you’ve finished travel back to November 2011, bringing back any and all the valuable and useful information you gained by travelling through time.

7. Some people find that wiggling their fingers and toes, blowing raspberries and/or generally stretching is an ideal way to end a time travelling experience and making sure they are fully back in the present 🙂

8. Now you are back in November 2011, and armed with the benefit of the perspective of the future, you may become aware that the situation you choose to play with is now different. You may even have inspiration of what your next step could be when previously you were stuck.

Have a week with time travelling adventures and decreasing perils.

Love

Jen

This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”

(Ken Blanchard)

Sometimes my work involves me delivering feedback. Sometimes people are just interested in the facts, the objective experience. On other occasions they are more interested in the subjective experience – how those facts could be interpreted.

For instance, lets take an everyday experience of visiting a shop.

If I was to give feedback in an objective style of a shopping visit I could describe precisely how many staff were serving, how long I had to wait to be served, how many products were on the shelves etc.

If I was to give feedback purely in a subjective style on the same shopping visit I may say that there were not enough staff serving, that I had to wait a long time and there were lots of stock on the shelves.

I can also blend both objective and subjective feedback, which would give the facts to justify my opinion and interpretations. So I may say that “There were 2 staff serving, which I felt was not enough. I had to wait 5 minutes to be served – longer than I expected.” etc

All forms can be useful depending upon what they are to be used for. Still using the above example, a shop may find the objective feedback useful to determine how that store performed against their policies and use the information for training purposes. The subjective style they would find useful to find out what their customers actually felt about their experience so that they can establish if what they are doing is getting the results that they want. A blend of both can provide information about which parts were working well and which are not.

This seems pretty common sense to many people when they are looking at giving or asking for feedback to or from others. However, I’ve noticed that when it comes to giving feedback about their own work then the style that is most often used is just a subjective one – so they may say things like “It was great” or “I was rubbish”. Without the acknowledgement of the objective facts then it may go un-noticed if that feedback is justified or how it can be made stronger in the future.

I’ve done it myself – when I came back from the recording studio a couple of years ago after recording my first CD my coach asked how it had gone. My initial response was all subjective. With his usual sense of humour he got me to include far more objective responses which made me realise that I’d based my initial response on an expectation of recording the whole CD in “one take.” Including objective feedback about the quality of the content, the sound of the final recording and that actually I hadn’t taken any longer to record than was allotted for a piece of this length, changed my subjective response.

This week I invite you to be aware of the style of feedback you are using for your own work. Notice the difference including both subjective and objective styles makes.

Have a week full of feedback

Love

Jen

This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com

This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com in July 2010

“The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean.”

(Robert Louis Stevenson)

Today’s piece is written in response to the question: “Can Writing keep us well? The relationship between writing, health and well-being.” A question that was posed here with the invite to different people to respond with their own experiences and opinions.

There is a Zen story about two travelling monks, one was younger and less experienced who looked up to the older brother. On their travels they came across a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. The younger monk hesitated, as their order strictly forbid relations with females. The older monk quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and departed.

As the monks continued on their way, the younger one was brooding and preoccupied. After several days and unable to hold his silence any longer, he spoke out. “Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!”

The older monk looked surprised and then laughed, “Brother,” the second monk replied, “I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her.”

During my school years I occasionally would write a diary. Not the scheduling type of diary but the “dear diary” variety. It wasn’t something I would do as part of any routine so it normally would only have a couple of entries and then there’d be huge gaps until I was next compelled to write.

Normally it was a something that was so fantastic that everyone else was sick of listening about or something I’d found incredibly infuriating that proved to be the spark that provoked an entry. I haven’t kept them but being a teenager I suspect that there were quite a bit of each of those in there 🙂

There was no intended reader other than myself, it was simply a case of getting stuff from out of my head and onto paper – stopped me going over and over something, blowing it out of proportion and stressing over it all. In fact I remember on one occasion, physically destroying what I had just written to let it go completely – Although I certainly wouldn’t have phrased it in that manner at the time, it was simply a way of looking after my emotional health and well-being.

Now-a-days the only diary I keep is of the scheduling variety but I do use writing for a number of different reasons and many all begin with just being intended for my eyes only. This allows me to write what I really mean rather than initially focusing upon communicating with someone else.

This week I invite you to play with using writing that is intended for your own eyes only to “get things off your chest” rather than carrying them around with you.

The exercise that follows is specifically for relationships with other people but you can always modify and adapt it to cover other scenarios you want to let go of.

1. Choose a relationship that you would like to be improved.
2. Write that individual a letter. Be totally honest about how you feel. This is not a letter intended for them to read so get everything down into this letter.
3. Put the letter somewhere safe for at least 2 days and carry on with your daily life.
4. After 2 days you can decide if you want to keep the letter, destroy it (in what ever fashion you see fit to safely do that) or send/give it to the person concerned. If you decide that there is more to add to your letter then do add more and then put the letter to one-side for another couple of days before deciding what to do with it.

Have a week of writing and letting go

Love

Jen

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

(Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher)

I was chatting to another participant at an event recently and the conversation turned to the work of the next speaker. My comment was that, like many books, I had dipped in and out of his book, reading different chapters at different times.

The look of relief from the other person was enormous – “Oh I‘m so glad you do that too.” She went onto explain that she often did that but felt that the right way to read books was from cover to cover.

I don’t recall that it had ever really occurred to me that there was just one “right way” to read a book, just the one that fitted the reason I was reading. Reading a fiction book, for instance, lends itself to reading it from start to finish. Yet, getting specific information from an encyclopaedia, lends itself to just reading a specific part of that book. I guess I consider what I want to get from reading each piece.

With regards to this particular speaker’s book I knew that I was reading because I was curious about the topic – not because I was going to sit a test on it anytime in the future and needed to recall every single piece contained within each page. This meant I had dipped in and out at various times to the bits I was particular curious about and wanted to find out more about. It had obviously worked as I was there participating in discovering more about his latest work.

Later I was talking to a relatively new client on the phone when he asked me if he was doing a particular technique right. I think he expected me to start questioning him about how he was doing the technique as he sounded surprised when I actually asked “Is what you’re doing working, are you getting the outcome that you want?”

He went on to admit that the way that he was doing this technique was getting much better results then his previous method. We did go onto play with the technique even more but that wasn’t because he was doing it wrong, it was to see if he could make it even stronger for him.

When people describe to me something that they are doing, often one of my first questions is “does it work?” From there we can play with tweaking the current method or doing something totally different.

This week I invite you to play with the following:

1. Pick something that you are not sure if you are doing “the right way”.

For example, maybe you are not sure if you marketing “the right way” or perhaps, you’re not sure if you are using the right way to loose weight.

This is something we are going to play with and some tweaks may work better than your existing methods and some may not. Pick something where you are happy that the results may be inconsistent while you play and find the way that works for you.

There may well be a better way to perform in job interviews but if you already do interviews well you may not want to choose to experiment in one for your dream job!

2. What outcome do you want to create?

3. Considering that situation, is the method you are using getting the results that you want?

How can you tweak the existing method so that it is stronger for you?

What other methods could you also use?

(Come up with as many as you possibly can)

4. If you are not certain if something will work or not, pick a time and place that is safe and appropriate to play and try it to find out how different it is for you.

For example, finding a new way to travel into work is great but you may want to experiment with the route on a day when you haven’t got a vital appointment first thing. You may also not want to see what happens if you literally drive through the lake rather than round it!

Lets imagine that Bob isn’t sure if he is running a team meeting the “right way.”

Answering each of the questions in turn he decides that the outcome he wants is improved communication. He wants to make sure that there is a system in place to ensure everyone knows the latest news, and also find solutions to possible problems.

His current team meetings do provide his team with the latest news but he finds that often the meetings end up being the team sharing problems and no solutions coming from the meeting – they come later.

Bob plays with several ideas and eventually finds that by providing an agenda so his team have already had some time before to start thinking of solutions.

Have a lovely week doing it your way

Love

Jen

This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com

“Oft Expectation fails,

and most oft where most it promises;

and oft it hits where hope is coldest;

and despair most sits,”

(All’s well that ends well Act II scene i, William Shakespeare)

Our expectations can affect how we experience a situation and our interpretation of it’s outcome.

This sprang to mind last week when I had a Wimbledon match on in the background, with the “shock” score mid-match of the reigning 7 time champion being 2 sets down in the very first round. The game was by no means over but people’s expectations was that he would easily have sailed through this match but it created a “story” even though he went on to win that match.

In my past I’ve had jobs that had a lot of customer service aspects, and one of the first things I learnt was that if expectations are communicated clearly to start off with so that the customer could agree to that standard, then, providing they were met, the result is happy customers and an easier life all round.

The trick, of course, is figuring out what expectations to set – personally I favoured setting the expectations at something that could be easily met, getting the customers agreement and then strive to exceed them.

For example, in hospitality, if we knew we were that busy that the kitchen had a backlog of orders we would make sure that customers knew of the delay when ordering with an expectation of how long they may have to wait to get their food. With this information customers would be able to decide if they agreed to wait that amount of time and place an order. The vast proportion of the time we would “catch up” and deliver the food quicker than the expectation we had set which resulted in much happier customers. Those who decided that they couldn’t wait that long when ordering nearly always came back another day.

Our own expectations about what we do and how we “should” do them can have such a huge impact upon our experience. It’s often used as a way to put pressure on ourselves as a motivation tool so that we do our best work and get the best results.

You may have noticed the welcoming reaction that others greet uninvited advice about what they “should” do. Having expectations for other people (or yourself) automatically introduces the possibility of others pushing against that and being rebellious.

Then there are the expectations that aren’t shared which so often results in disappointment and annoyance. Maybe it’s a relationship where it seems so obvious to you that the other person isn’t doing what’s expected – but do they know that’s what you think they “should do”? Do they know that you expect someone who loves you to bring you flowers? Does a work colleague know that you expect an email updating you on a project you’re working on together?

Then there are the expectations that we set ourselves, the ones we haven’t even acknowledged until we don’t meet them when we notice disappointment, lack of motivation etc.

For example, Bob was having difficulty starting writing a book, although he wasn’t particularly aware of it, he seemed to think that to write a book you should write massive chunks in one go. He was struggling to find any motivation

So what can be a solution to the “problems” that expectations can bring? One thing that you may like to play with is by making agreements. Making an agreement with someone else means that they have “brought into” and accepted a particular cause of action, eliminating any rebellious pushing against. It also means that they are absolutely clear about what you both need to do.

It’s also something that can make a difference with yourself as well. Going back to the example of Bob and his struggle to find motivation with writing his book:

We chatted and just for fun made the agreement that all he had to do was write one page, every day (even if it was “rubbish” that he wouldn’t share with anyone else.) This was such a different experience then the one he had been working with that even though he didn’t think it would work he agreed to give it a go.

Some days he only wrote the one page on other days he’d find he was on a roll and would write more but he found that the motivation problem he had had vanished. The book also began to grow.

This week I invite you to make an agreement with yourself to take a regular piece of action to get closer to what you want.

Notice the difference that this makes as you go through the rest of your week.

Have a week full of agreement

Love

Jen

This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com

This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com in summer 2010

“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.”
(Earl Nightingale)

For the last few weeks I have been watching an unfolding story of action and perseverance. At times it appeared that it was destined to end in failure but so far despite all appearances to the country it’s looking like a happy ending is on the cards.

I’m not referring to any TV show but a tale that has been taking place outside one of the windows by my desk. 2 wood pigeons have set up their home and have been raising a family.

Their initial attempts of “constructing” their nest looked like a single breeze would bring it down to the ground. Certainly in comparison to the blackbirds in a different part of the garden the term construction would be a generous description of their attempts to balance twigs on a branch.

Yet no one appears to have mentioned to them that they need to compare themselves to other birds. So they persevered with their building until they had a nest balanced precariously on the branch and took up residency. As an onlooker I was concerned as I had seen their attempts at bathing in the bottom of the garden which nearly always led to them knocking over nearby plant pots. Such apparent clumsiness and a balanced nest did not seem like the ideal match to me.

However, not being fluent in pigeon they were unaware of how I expected this story to unfold so they carried on creating a family home apparently unphased by it all.

So after a spell of sitting on her eggs we got a small family, who in recent weeks have been perfecting the art of flying. Sure the parents may not give the most accurate directions – judging by the rebound one of the youngsters had with a window. (Or maybe it’s just inherited it’s parents clumsiness). However, no-one had mentioned to it that if you failed then obviously that’s what it would mean every time because it was soon trying again altering it’s course so that there was no more bouncing of windows.

As I type one of them is currently sat in the tree apparently watching me through the window perhaps wondering what that strange creature is up to this time so that it can tell the rest of its family later the newest exploits!

So often we can get in our own ways by comparing ourselves either to someone else or an imagined perfection. On other occasions we may let someone-else’s concerns drown out our own inner knowledge. Not to mention how easy it can be to use a perceived failure as a reason not to attempt that again.

If you have a situation or project where you have found yourself stuck then this week I invite you to play with the following questions and see which will get you moving again.

1. If it didn’t matter how you completed this, as long as you got there, what would be your next step?
2. If you were invisible, so nobody could see how you completed this situation/project, what would be your very next step?
3. If it didn’t matter if you stumbled or failed, what would be your next step?

These questions are designed to give you new possibilities of action – you don’t have to “do” anything with any of your answers. They are here to give you a different way of approaching what you are stuck with. However, you may find that there is a gem of an idea of what to do next that you haven’t realised before. If there is any answer you want to do and like the consequences of, then by all means take action and get moving again.

Have a week full of taking flight with your next step

Love

Jen

This was originally posted in 2010 on www.YourChangingDirection.com

“Live out of your imagination, not your history.”

(Steven Covey)

You may have noticed that there is a small football (or soccer depending upon where you are) competition happening in South Africa. Certainly where I am the media is full of football related contents. Which is how I came across a professional footballer giving his guide to taking a penalty shot.

The first thing he said was that you needed to visualise the ball going into the net. You’ve probably heard that sort of advice before, because it’s not just confined to football – or sport for that matter.

I know that to some people visualisasing sounds a bit “woo-woo” and new age. But don’t get caught up in the “label” of visualisation. I can ask someone who refuses to do any visualisation to tell me what they think will happen at an event coming up and they are more than capable of giving detailed answers.

Regardless of how you want to label that process – visualisation or thinking through what could happen, the outcome is often the same. Those who tell themselves a story about an event going badly often feel nervous/bad about the prospect of that event.

Often the “argument” or reasoning for doing this is that they are basing it on past experiences, with the logic that if it’s happened like that in the past, that it will always happen like that in the future.

This often means that what is being imagined ignores the possibility that things may naturally go differently (it’s like imagining a tossed coin will always land heads and ignoring the 50:50 chance it may land tails). It also eliminates the opportunity to come up with solutions ahead of time if things don’t go as you planned.

This week I invite you to play with something that you have planned in the future.

1. Imagine that this event goes well, from start to finish
2. As this is possibly an unusual way of you imagining the event, repeat that a couple more times!
3. This time imagine that everything doesn’t run smoothly but you handle the situation calmly and successfully regardless.
4. Notice the difference this makes when you come to the event in reality.

Have a week full of fun imagination

Love

Jen