Self Development

November 7, 2016 by Christine

How to Push Yourself Without Crashing

Hi, I’m Christine, and I’m a recovering overachiever.

As is my good friend Mandy Lehto.

A couple of weeks ago, Mandy invited me onto her fabulous Moxiecast, her feel-good show over on iTunes. Such an honor to be one of the people to whom she has spoken.

Anyway, in our conversation, we jammed on how it’s possible to achieve success in a self-caring way.

Listen to it here!

We talk about what prompted me even to try to achieve what at first felt like the holy grail of having a good business and a great life.

We talk about what self-care means. (No, it’s not sitting on the sofa and eating chocolate the whole time.)

Some of the key ways to enable it.

And how to notice when you’re getting off-track of yourself.

Hope you love listening as much as I loved chatting!

April 17, 2015 by Christine

This Is What Happens When Your Idea of Yourself Starts To Look Important

Let me be honest.

This post is nothing like the one I began to write for you. Nothing at all.

In fact, I’m not sure that I’m going to be writing the same kind of posts again that I’ve been writing over the last few months. I say “not sure” because I don’t ever like to be definitive about these things. All I can tell you right now is that something has changed and that you’re going to notice it.

See, this year, and indeed since I revamped this website and started writing here instead of over on A Different Kind of Work, I’ve been writing articles in quite a logical way. I got the Livingston Consulting creed down and then I thought – great idea – let’s take the creed’s themes and drill into them. One theme a month. I’ve been doing that. And, when I’m not on holiday, writing an article a week which I send out to my list.

As it turns out, I have been on holiday the last few weeks and so there have been no new articles but today was “writing this week’s article day”, and so I dutifully went back to my schedule to see what I’d planned out to write about.

Truth Clarifies

The theme I’d planned was Truth Clarifies. What, I thought, could I tell you about the truth? Spent a couple of hours surfing the internet for some inspiration, but all I could come up with felt somehow hollow.

Unable to come up with any meaningful, pithy content, I was really sweating it.

What would you think of me if I didn’t keep my commitment to post weekly? And post in accordance with how I said at some prior point I would?

Why is that important? Well, so much of it goes to the thing about integrity I keep going on about. It’s important to me that if I’ve said I’ll do something, I honor my commitment to it. I want to be a Servant Leader to the people who read and work with me. I want to serve.

But today, and after a conversation with John El-Mokadem, I’m seeing it a little differently. What’s changing is some greater insight into the nature of what’s going on for me here.

It was kind of funny. Today I turned up for my session with him with a list of things to talk about. It had to be the first, maybe the second time, that I’ve actually had an agenda. Normally I just turn up and we allow the conversation to take its own shape. Those conversations have been immense. Without fail, something important turns up and bites me on the bum in a way I hadn’t expected.

Consistency vs meaningfulness

But today was right down in the dirt of stuff. On the list: consistency versus meaningfulness. I told him of my thing about doing a post a week, and that, when I’d sat down to keep to my schedule today, I couldn’t get the words to flow.

As John said, “In the moment, the feeling was off.”

I think “off” was the polite way to put it!

Anyway, the way John helped me see it, at some point in time Thought took form – and if you don’t know what I mean by this, go check out this post here – and what that looked like was the idea that I should write weekly; that that was somehow “good”. I’d imagined that I was doing that from a clear, insightful place. And maybe I was. But come earlier today, I was caught up in figuring that getting that post written would somehow make me “okay”.

“If I can get this post out – oh, and let’s make sure it’s a wow post – it’ll mean something amazing about me. And then I can be happy.”

We had some conversation too today about structure generally. What it means if you have to turn up and operate within a structure. I had been holding onto some thinking that structure somehow suffocates me. And sometimes it does. But then it would if I have that belief since life only ever works inside-out.

What happens if I choose not to buy into the “structure suffocates” belief – what happens if I can see that’s just an “off” piece of thought form? Can I write here weekly? Not in some preconceived way, but in a more creative, in the moment way?

If I don’t need my turning up – or not – to mean anything, can I turn up and flow?

I don’t know.

Whatever, what’s clear is that my idea of myself has been looking important. I’d been looking at things in quite an egotistical way and putting shape around some concept of “Christine” believing that I am Christine and that I could self-invent. In fact, I’m not Christine.

Sure, you may think I’m Christine (actually, if you don’t quite get what I’m saying on this, you may also think I’m smoking!), and we may talk of one another as if personality is fixed and our lives very self-determining.

But it’s really not fixed. And we’re really not self-determining. Oh, sure, we can set ourselves what appear to be very me-centred goals – and maybe we’ll achieve them too if we push hard enough. But if we’re not allowing of something bigger of ourselves in the process, we’re going to feel exhausted. And produce little of any enduring value.

What has this got to do with you, your life, your business?

Well, everything.

I’ve been out of it for a couple of weeks and coming back in I see it more clearly. So, so much of our lives – whether work or play, and even if we run our own businesses or have quite autonomous leadership roles – is about fitting into some pre-agreed plan. It may or may not look that way. But so much of the time we’re trying to squeeze ourselves into some mold of our own or someone else’s making.

Sometimes that can feel suffocating. We can believe that we have to turn up in a certain way. That only one way of turning up will be acceptable.

We kick against the context but it’s not the context that truly constrains us. It’s our own thinking about our context.

Honestly, when I couldn’t find the words earlier to write, I thought I was going to have to mail my readers and tell them I was having an off day. Or share something I’d written before. Or make some excuse. But when I popped the Thought-bubble that had me in its grip I saw the best place to act from was truth.

Which reminds me of some other words I found recently care of Michael Neill:

“Before learning the truth, the mountains appear as mountain. When one begins to study truth, the mountains seem to disappear. After accepting the truth, the mountains again appear as mountains.”
– Zen proverb

Photo attribution: Copyright: / 123RF Stock Photo

February 27, 2015 by Christine

Frustrated With Your Results? Check Out This Simple Mind Shift!

Shining your light often means digging deep into yourself and pushing past your barriers. Even when you think these barriers are outside you.

What do I mean?

Let’s look at three things I’ve heard people say this week:

“The market is just that way right now; what am I supposed to do?”
“Our Managing Partner is completely closed-minded. So, I just can’t influence him.”
“I just can’t sell. I wish I enjoyed it like you do. But I don’t, which means I’m always struggling to get business.”

These things were said by super-bright people, all of whom have big ambitions and big lights to shine, all of whom were frustrated about not making progress. Each of them believed they were relatively powerless to change things.

Now, I’m not saying that markets can’t be unpredictable, or that senior bosses aren’t sometime intransigent, or that some skills aren’t a ballsache to master.

What I am saying, however, is that, at every juncture in life, we have a choice about how we will deal with things.

Even when at first it might seem like we don’t.

Like Mandy Lehto says, inertia is an epidemic. It’s quite easy to sleepwalk through life at the relative mercy of your circumstances. Senior leaders and business owners are not immune.

Steve Chandler calls this way of being, the way of the victim. And he contrasts it to the way of the owner.

An owner is someone who owns their own spirit, energy and response in any situation.

A victim on the other hand see that forces beyond them dictate the direction of their life and the level of their happiness.

Owners use life. They are proactive. They come from a place of intention. They learn even from tragedies and mistakes. They allow life’s challenges to strengthen and build them. They choose what they’ll do – even if that sometimes means doing things they don’t like.

Victims infer that life uses them. You may hear them say things like “that’s life” or “life is unfair” in the process disempowering themselves even further than they already are. They do things that they feel obliged to do. There’s a lot of “shoulding”.

The vital difference is where they see the power lying for themselves and their lives.

Victims feel trapped by their personalities. Owners understand that, beyond their small egos they have limitless resource. They don’t say, “I can’t make this happen” like a victim would. They ask themselves:

“Who do I need to be to make this happen?”

And so they find the power within and beyond them to push through.

Of course, we can all morph from one state to the other sometimes, depending on what’s going on and how good our energy is.

Also, business and corporate cultures often have implicit invitations for you to play victim. Because for all their hype about change and transformation, they’re mostly invested in maintaining the status quo.

Watch that!

The key thing is always to remember that you have choice. Deciding to be an owner isn’t something you have to work at. You can make that choice at any time; in any moment.

When my examples switched their mindset from victim to owner, the results were profound:

“The market is presenting some challenging opportunities that I’m going to figure out and get on top of.”
“Knowing that my boss is that kind of guy, I need to show up differently in my relationship and conversations with him, so that I can serve him better.”
“I’ve decided that I’m going to learn to love selling – even if it kills me!”

You have a choice about how you turn up to life. On what you’ll focus attention. And who you’ll be in the face of this or that opportunity.

As you decide to get your beautiful bright light out into the world, how will you choose to turn up? Who will you decide to be?

December 7, 2014 by Christine

How To Be Real

Two weeks ago I was at the memorial service for Ben, a friend of mine who’d died of cancer, aged 46.

I’d loved him and it was harrowing to be there.

Still, I was heartened by the sheer number of friends, colleagues and clients who’d turned up to see him off.

At the get together afterwards, we all spoke of what he’d meant to us. I’m sure if he’d been there to hear our words, he’d have cried too.

Ben knew his stuff. He worked hard. He was courageous. He was naughty. He was funny. He was caring. He was loving.

But beyond all else, in a world where so many people hide behind an invented version of themselves, he was real.

Real.

And that stayed with me beyond Ben’s Do and into the past days.

Legacy: what do you want to leave behind when you die?

You’ve probably read the same stuff I have about legacy. Maybe it’s something that’s come up for you in some of the courses, or weekend workshops you’ve attended.

What do you want your life to have been about? What is it you want to leave behind when you die?

Often the emphasis is on tangible things. Money, a business, a novel, a work of art, a movement. I must admit that’s how I used to see it.

But I’ve begun to reframe it since Ben died.

I’ve begun to feel that, like Ben, the biggest thing I could leave to others is the sense that I’d been real. That, for good or bad, I’d lived a life, true to myself and my values. And that, in the process, I’d given others implicit permission to do the same.

The big job opportunity and the myths of self-employment

Maybe I already had a sense of that emerging earlier this year when I said no to an opportunity to take my work in a different direction.

A group of friends and former colleagues are setting up a new consulting company, and I was involved in some exploratory conversations. They are great guys, and from time to time we hook up to do some great facilitation and coaching work. I got really excited about the opportunity that emerged for me, which was to lead part of the business.

If you’re a regular reader here, it might surprise you to know I’d been tempted by what was, after all, a job.

But, you know, there’s a whole lot of mythology out there about how easy it is to work for yourself. How it’s an escape from the drudgery of corporate life. How you can make up your own rules and create your own game and it’s light and happiness all the way.

You absolutely can create your own life.

But that has its own set of challenges. You have to turn up for yourself every day. You have to be very disciplined about what you will and won’t give focus to in order that you stay viable, profitable, and not working all the hours God sends.

You have to decide for yourself the bigger sense of purpose and direction you’ll follow – there’s no big organization, or brand, other than the one you create.

Sometimes that requires you to dig into yourself and to confront and challenge yourself in ways you’d really rather not.

Even if you are successful today, there’s a whole stream of tomorrow’s success you have to enable. After all, there’s no-one other than you putting a salary in your bank account every month, or whenever you decide to pay yourself.

It’s also tough sometimes to stand outside the norm and to be the person who is playing a different game.

To be the one who challenges the status quo, says things that no-one else will and trust you’ll still be profitable.

Sometimes I just ache to fit in. To be part of something bigger.

I think that consulting group caught me at a moment of questioning all that. Of believing that maybe I’d got it wrong.

I was ready to buy some new power suits, get behind a brand that was bigger than mine, and go sell it.

But I began to have doubts.

I began to look past my self-criticism and see what I’d actually created.

The truth? I’ve created a life on my terms. I do wonderful work – a mixture of corporate and individual coaching. I tend to do no more than three paid days a week. Last year I had twelve weeks holiday, traveled to six different long haul destinations, and still earned well.

Last summer I moved house and love where I’ve ended up. A city style house in a friendly village, and within easy reach of a few nice towns.

Perhaps most important of all, I have a fabulous relationship with a man I love and whose company I adore.

And I began to see the value in having created all of that.

For me. For my clients. For the world.

Yes, this takes work. Yes, I want to achieve even more and different. Yes, this takes me back to myself time and time again.

But, for me, it’s real.

Because, being real is about being who you are.

Sure, a former me could do power suits and all that stuff. And part of me still does. But she’s not all of me. And so I really saw that I couldn’t shut the creative, maverick, different kind of me out.

I took courage in both hands and spoke to my friends. I had some concern that, in deciding to be real, I’d lose their love and friendship. I’m sure that fear’s not uncommon. In fact I know it’s what often keeps people trapped.

Still, I told them that as much as I’d love to work with them, a “job” wasn’t me.

To my surprise, if anything, I think they’ve ended up respecting me even more.

What’s really worth it in the end?

I don’t know about you, but when I die, I won’t be thinking about power suits or corporate identity or whether I was an ace at this job or that. I’ll be asking myself whether the people I love knew it beyond any doubt. Beyond that, was I happy? Had I lived well? Was I true to myself? Did I do the things I wanted in life? Go to the places I wanted. Spend time with the people I wanted to spend time with?

These are the things that to me are worth living and working for.

These are the things that are real.

What about you? Where do you allow yourself to be real? Where is it more difficult? Share your thoughts in the comments and let’s talk about it some more there.

March 6, 2014 by Christine

Stop Hacking Your Life and Start Living It Instead

It was such a relief.

Even just scanning Rich Roll’s post I breathed deeply and knew I’d let go of something.

Why You Should Stop Lifehacking and Invest in the Journey spoke to something that has been rattling around in me for some time now. And I was so glad that he’d called it out.

Hacking

As Rich says, the whole idea of hacking is well intentioned.

“In truth, a properly implemented hack is nothing more than leveraging a good idea. A way to cut wasted time so that you can invest yourself more fully in what makes your heart truly beat — a passion and pursuit that can transform your life by catalyzing a new journey.”

But it has become so much more.

Just look around the internet. There are entire blogs dedicated to hacking. And many articles are by their nature hacks.

5 Top Tips To Create More Time In Your Day.
Get Fit in Only 10 Minutes a Day
7 Ways To Get on Top of Your Email Inbox

I get exhausted just reading the headlines!

And let me not pretend that I haven’t been there myself, writing hacking articles. Why? Because I bought in at one point to the belief that that was the way to go.

I remember in my early days of blogging, having a conversation with an internet marketer, who, for the record, didn’t hack it himself.

I’d wanted to write deep, insightful articles. Because I know for myself, and in the work I do, there are no shortcuts. And that change happens, not because of any brilliant advice, but from people seeing things for themselves.

“No-one will read them,” he told me. “You need to be punchy. Give people what they want.”

But that right there?

Looking back, that’s the biggest con for me.

Because more and more these days is seems that people want results without having to do anything fundamentally different. And that’s the issue.

If a hack comes from an expert, it looks like it should carry some weight. You might even go off and put these ideas into practice.

They may even seem to work for a while. But in the end most of it won’t stick. Or it won’t bring you lasting change.

The reasons are threefold:

Thought

I’m drawn to what Syd Banks has to say about the nature of thought. For him, thought is one of the core common denominators that make us human. Thought flows through us, day in, day out.

On the one hand, that’s an incredible gift. On the other, it’s a real curse. Because thinking and feeling are linked. And if I’m thinking, thinking, thinking all the time, it’s affecting how I’m feeling, which is in turn affecting my health and wellbeing.

Of course, in Banks view of the world, just realizing that your thinking is running away with you is by itself therapeutic. The mind, he says, has its own healing powers if you just let it be.

And otherwise meditation can be a really useful practice in quieting the mind and letting go of mental clutter. But either of these views need time for deep understanding and practice.

Hacks, however, pretend to help us take the stress out of things by offering quick solutions. But they actually end up only stoking the fire by giving us more or different to think about.

So we might start out with one problem, like the burgeoning email, and teach ourselves some hacks for that which last for a while until we lapse back into our checking it every six minutes a day pattern. Then, as if the email isn’t problem enough, we’ve now got a lack of discipline problem to go learn some hacks about.

Superficial

So, it’s all very superficial. You might as well go repaint your hamster wheel.

You know, you might be taking your supplements and health food shop smoothies. Great. It’s not that they won’t give you something. But if you’re imagining that that’s any substitute for creating a great, health supporting diet and lifestyle, or confronting the psychological challenges you’re putting in the way of them, think again.

Coping

Some of the hacking stuff too has an element of coping for me. And I think it’s from that mindset that some people reach to hacks.

How can I cope better with the circumstances in which I find myself?

But, back to Syd, it’s not your circumstances that are the core problem, it’s how you’re thinking about them.

Plus, who wants to cope when you can thrive?

So, stop tinkering with your circumstances, imagining that you’re doing yourself any good.

Wake up and start realizing, as Rich says, if you want deep change, you have to put the work in.