I coached a client who’s just opening a new business.
I have a client who’s resolution is to lose weight.
I have a client who wants to know what to do when she retires from her 30-year career, after she sleeps
a lot first.
These clients at some point all ask me, why? Why am I doing this?

The specific reasons are varied and personal, but the overall answer is we are designed and set up to grow and change.  We’ve all heard the saying “a ship is safe in the harbour, but that’s not what it’s designed for.”  Martha Beck tells us we are like horses; a part of us wants to stay close to the barn and the bucket of oats, but another part of us wants to run and explore and go on adventures. Even if we exert all of our energy into trying to keep things the same, change comes along, so we may as well learn how to embrace it or at least navigate it.

When you are first struck with your inspiration, make your resolution or unforeseen circumstances are thrust upon you; the idea of a ‘New You’ can be quite exciting.  The new business owner sees herself serving lots of happy people as well as making lots of money.  The weight loss gal can see herself active, fit and rocking a new red dress.  The newly retired sees a beach and lots and lots of books in her future.  Motivation and excitement is high and everyone shoots out of the starting block.

Then, things begin to and continue to become hard.  Setting up a business has a million details to attend to daily.  Eating less and exercising more becomes a chore and skipping chips and popcorn causes grumpiness.  Sitting on the beach reading books gets boring eventually.  Here comes the ‘Why am I doing this?’

You have reached ‘The Middle.”  The Middle is where you must decide, do you want to go back, because it’s familiar and you at least know what to expect?  Or, do you continue to this unknown place where you can’t really be sure what will happen, because you’ve never been there before?  The truth is, even if you do go ‘back,’ you have already changed.  You won’t be who you were before. You have begun the process and you can’t undo it.  Moving forward, you will discover that there is stuff you can’t take with you to the new ‘place.’  It just won’t fit.  That’s right emotional baggage.  One of the grand points of adventure and change is to bring up your ‘stuff.’  There is a reason you are not yet a successful business owner, a slim, fit person or a happy, content retiree.  All the people you see who have attained what you want have done what it takes to get there.

The middle is always the toughest part. You are no longer who you were, but you are not yet who you are going to be.  Refresh your vision and remember the excitement when first starting out. Then, you must do the work that it takes to become who you are going to be.  In order to be what you are going to be, you must develop the muscles it is going to take to live in and be that “New You.”  And the process of getting there, ladies and gentleman is called Adventure!

Project:  YOU 2014 is turning out to be a wonderful Adventure!  If you are finding yourself not yet starting your adventure or are now in ‘The Middle’ of your adventure,Project:  YOU 2014  is now available in a one-on-one version!  One-on-one coaching sessions are available as well.  http://www.whatnowlifecoaching.com/servicescontact-me.html

Mental Gymnastics

I’ve signed up for tap dance lessons! Yeah me.  It is part of my plan to add more fun and fitness to my life. What does tap dancing have to do with gymnastics, you ask?  Let me explain.   If you are anything like me, whenever you set out to do something new; anything…taking a class, applying for a job, going to a social event, or especially an interview or a meeting, you do what I call mental gymnastics.  I somehow think that if I can anticipate every thing that I may encounter, even anything another person might say, and if I can possibly prepare for all of them, then I, I … I don’t know?  I win, I guess?  What I really get is tied up in knots and tired.

My mental gymnastics have served to talk me out of trying things many times because I assume I can predict how the event/encounter is going to go, because that one time in that one place with that one person, it didn’t go so well, so why bother.  If you do this too, it is a tragedy. 

We think we can know and anticipate ahead of time, what is needed in circumstances before they occur because our brain is wired to apply what we’ve learned from our past experience and apply them to future experiences because it wants to ensure our survival.  It doesn’t want us experiencing any kind of pain because pain may mean our survival is being threatened.  If it can just remind us what happened that one time! Then maybe we won’t suffer pain. The part of the brain that does this does not register that we are no longer on the open prairie and in caves completely vulnerable to the elements and attack of all sorts.  The pain that registers now a days is less physical, more emotional, but the brain still registers it as pain and suffering.

While it is true our experiences are our education, keeping an open mind and heart is the key to moving forward into an expanded life. I have taken tap dance lessons before.  I haven’t taken THIS class, with this teacher, with these people who are going to be there, before.   If we consistently do nothing new, our lives don’t just stay the same they actually become smaller.  Instead of worrying about how to anticipate everything before it happens, it helps to remember that you probably won’t die. (unless you are actually doing something physically risky! But that is a whole other issue.) If I mess up badly, fall or, I don’t know, accidentally pass gas in class!  I know from experience that I can recover from embarrassment.

It helps to tell ourselves that we are a highly 'experienced-in-life' people who can reasonably respond to whatever may come our way, in the moment.  I always, always, coach my clients that we can never know what another person is thinking and that another person response is their responsibility, not ours.  We can’t know how something is going to turn out before we try it.  When I go to my first class this weekend, I will skip the mental gymnastics routine and instead trust that I will respond automatically with my own unique life-experience moves in every moment.

I am disturbed by advertisements and blogs proclaiming that New Years’ Resolutions don’t work. Dare I say, everyone has made lasting changes, major and minor, over a lifetime of resolutions.  And, they don’t have to be made only at New Years’.

I believe resolutions can and do work…BUT…(There’s always a ‘but,’ isn’t there?) they have to be for the right reasons and done in the right way, for YOU! If you are embarking on an effort to change, improve or move forward in some area of your life, here are some reasons why resolutions can and will work for you.

1) Understand your why.
Why do you think you need to do/change what you’ve chosen as your resolution?  Are you trying to please, impress someone?  Are you doing it because your mother said you should?  Do you believe it will bring you lasting joy and happiness?  A major reason resolutions fail is because we think they are expected of us.  We are not doing them because they are right for us.  When you understand why you have chosen what you have chosen, you are better able to decide if the resolution is the right one for you.  If it’s not right for you or even if it’s not the right time yet, then DON’T do it!

2) Connect to the future you. 
Can you reasonably picture what you will look like, feel like, and act like when you achieve your goal?  It is very important to at least be able to have an idea what you are going for.  If you can’t picture it or feel it; do some research.  What do the people that have what you want look like, feel like, and act like?  Create a vision board, or write a story that puts you in that space.

3) Get support. 
Be sure there are people around you who will encourage you, who believe that you can do what you are setting out to do.  Nothing like sabotaging friends or family members to take the wind out of your sails and make achieving your goal harder, if not impossible.  Know that you are going to have bad days.  Be gentle with yourself and call in encouragement.  Avoid calling those that you know will tell you they knew you’d fail and to just quit.

4) Have Fun. 
It is not just about the destination.  Build fun into the journey in any way you can.  The realization of your goals may be a longer way off. Be patient.  It takes a while to turn things around, especially life long habits. 

Some of the changes you are going to make will not be easy.  Turning things around can be hard work some times.  You will have to be uncomfortable during the process.   I think of it like this.  I ‘resolved’ at some point to drink my coffee black and to smoke.  Learning these habits was hard.  It was disgusting.  I had to overcome bitter taste, smelling bad, choking, coughing and watery eyes.  But, I did it!  And sadly, my whole self adjusted to being a black coffee drinking smoker.  So, if one can be so determined to acquire and become adjusted to bad habits, then one can suck up a bit of discomfort to acquire and become adjusted to some good ones!  (Just so you know, I no longer smoke and I now drink only really good coffee with soy milk…)

I don’t know about you, but I am quite done with working on myself all by myself.  Research shows that humans tend to do difficult things much better in teams and groups than on their own. I suggest that this year you join my companionship group I call Project: YOU 2014.

If you have a goal you want to achieve or if you just want to be happier at the end of 2014 than you are at the beginning of 2014, this 6-week class can help you. 

Together we, (2 to 12 of us) are going to figure out what we really, really want (tell me what you want, what you really, really want!) and we will figure out how to make that happen. AND, we are really, really going to have fun doing it!

Sign up now:http://www.whatnowlifecoaching.com/servicescontact-me.html

Early bird deadline in effect!