Dawn Barclay

Helping you align all that you do with your core values

Moxie Living: Courage and Confidence

All blog post Moxie Living

Monday Morning Pep Talks: The What I Really Need to Feel Whole and Alive List…

This was in the ‘Nearly a Newsletter’ Not signed up? See that big box over on the right. You got it. Fill that in, and I’ll send a copy. (It’s suitable for dog lovers!)

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you! Dr Suess

(Don’t you dare roll your eyeballs! If ‘whole and alive’ is too woowoo and touchy-feely for you. Rename it: ‘Things I Must Have In Order to Stay Healthy’. Do what works for you.)

Breathe.

Ahhhhh! Good, huh?

Get a pen, paper, give yourself 10 minutes (go on I dare you!), grab a cuppa or a double brandy, whatever you decide.

I asked on Twitter ‘What do you need to do to stay healthy?‘

Replies came in: sleep, follow purpose, wine, space, time to think, exercise, read, other people, a good laugh, nice simple, easy things.

We’re going to write a list. 10 things. No big hardship. And you’re going to pin it to a wall and let them happen over the next month.

What do you really need to feel whole, healthy and alive?

What are the things that you know are good for you, you know make you feel healthier, happier and hotty (okay, maybe not the last one), but you don’t do enough of them.

The simple things.

The things that only you would know.

The things that if something happened to you, you would want people to know them so they could keep them up, ’cause they make you feel (clap your hands) h.a.p.p.y and in the flow.

Write them out.

In detail. Nobody is marking them. Nobody is judging them.

Get them out. You might get to three and think that’s it. Wrong. Ten. Ten. Ten.

Start them all ‘I feel alive when…’

Declare them, say them outloud (when nobody is listening of course.) Shouting ‘I feel alive when…’ 10x may get you a few stares.

Post them to a wall, a door, a fridge, your lover, dog, cat: anywhere you will see them on regular basis.

Complete all ten in the next month, and if you are able to, do the same next month.

Notice how simple they are. Are they wild and outrageous? Probably not. I bet they are small things that you know are good for you but you forget there importance, I’d take a guess that they are vital to your health, physical and emotional wellbeing, but have been put aside because you spend a lot of time forgetting about you.

Who? You! Me? Yes you!

Self care peeps.

Taking.

Care.

Of.

You.

Because you matter.

You do.

Your health matters. Your emotional well-being matters. You matter to other people. How can you expect to create a wildly passionate hot to trot it life, career or little biz if you aren’t looking after yourself.

It’s not selfish. Selfish is saying ‘I’m more important than you’, not ‘I’m important too’.

Get it? Go. List. 10 Things.

In the comments below complete: I feel alive when I ________. To stay healthy I have to__________.

 

Monday Morning Pep Talk: Stop Dreaming (‘Kinda!)

This was in the ‘Nearly a Newsletter’ Not signed up? See that big box over on the right. Yeah, that one. Fill that in, and I’ll send a copy. (It’s suitable for vegans.)

Following Dreams. Catch the Dream. Dream Big.

You know the words. You’re bombarded with the messages that ‘dreaming’ is a really good thing.

It is.

But don’t betray them.

Now, before anyone sends me screeching hate mail instructing me that it’s my ‘job to encourage people to dream’.

Let me ask you this: are you stuck in the dream of what you would like to create?

Many of you have been sending emails about ‘your big dreams’. And in them, you’re talking about ‘if the time were right I would…’, or ‘maybe when the…(fill in the blank)…I will’.

I know we’ve been here before but no time will ever be the 100% right time to start anything.

Never. Ever. Ever

Wake up. Trust Yourself. Aspire. Action.

Click to Tweet >> Wake up. Trust Yourself. Aspire. Action.

What’s the difference? Loads.

It’s as different as night and day!

Dream: to vision

Awaken: consciously aware

Aspire: pursue

Creation requires action. (And dreaming time.)

How much have you pursued the dream when conscious? How long, specifically, have you been ‘asleep’?

Wake up.

1. Just start.

2. Put in the 1st attempt.

3. Do something towards the creation today. You don’t have to do it all today!

4. Stop listening to your brain critic that it’s not the right time, this won’t work, what am I doing this for, I’m not ready, it’s too big a dream to start.

Really? Then close your eyes.

Sleep on and dream this:

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”

The Life/Balance Wheel (Free Workbook)

You are all out of sorts.

You have plans. Stuff that you want to work on. But thinking about it all has you seeing big mountains to climb over.

Overwhelm? Oh, yes.

You perhaps haven’t got a ruddy clue where to start or what to do first.

This little tool is used a lot (I mean a LOT) in coaching, some call it the ‘Wheel of Success’ others the ‘Wheel of  Life’.

You can pretty much take a blank wheel (which is included in download) and use it for any area of your life.

Clients love it, they always find an ‘a-ha momento’ completing it, but then, they do have someone (me) sitting next to them bursting their brain with a heap of questions, challenging them, asking them for clarification on every little detail.

So advice: take your time, and try not to dismiss the thoughts that come up but question them.

What else?

Oh, yeah, just because it’s called the balance wheel it would be easy to assume it’s all about weighing things up.

It’s not. Not really.

Balance wheels were used in watches and clocks to make sure they were keeping tickety-boo-top-notch time.

Translate that into a wheel for your personal development: it’s about identifying what’s not working, what needs some focus and attention, what’s out of sync, what is long overdue some TLC!

If balance wheels didn’t work in watches, the right time was never displayed.

Same in life, if the balance is all out, some areas of life suffer over others.

I’ll shut up now, ’cause it’s all in the worksheet.

Here’s how to get it…

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Do You Quit or Keep Going?

Photo Credit: neonfreedom.tumblr.com/

What’s your plan of action for the times you feel like you want to quit?

I read in a forum a few months back a question from a member: ‘How do you know when it’s time to quit?’ because the forum is filled with small business owners all but one of the 42 replies said, ‘keep going, you’ll get there’.

The one reply that didn’t say keep going asked questions such as:

How much time do you have?
Do you have the money?
What have you tried so far?
How long have you been attempting to achieve the goal, have you changed the goal?
What’s working?
Have you quit what isn’t working? <—Kaching!

Before we talk about quitting let’s make sure we are on the same page, I’m not saying ‘just quit’.

No way. (This post isn’t you’re permission slip or get out jail free card, I don’t give them out.)

There is a massive difference between the person just giving up because things are getting a little painful and uncomfortable, to the person who has tried a million ways to make something work, and it’s not happening.

There is a massive difference between the person trying something for a week, to another pouring years of their life into an idea: all their time, energy, money and creativity. When what they wanted to achieve has taken every single last piece of their soul.

You’ve probably heard the saying ‘winners never quit, and losers never win’.

Tosh-pot I say.

Some of the worlds most ‘successful’ people have quit and failed, quit, failed, then won.

They ‘won’ because they quit what wasn’t working.

We don’t get that from that statement.

For you, the person who started a business to gain more time, freedom, and money and now find yourself working 20 hours a day, missing your family and wondering where the hell the money is going to come from to pay the bills at the end of the month, you may feel like quitting…I know I have.

For you changing career, when doors slam in your face, when people say again and again ‘we were looking for someone with more experience’ or ‘you were our second choice’, you may want to quit and return to the role you know…I know I have.

For relationships, when you are wanting to make it work but the arguments and pain far outweigh the good experiences and love, you may want to quit…I know I have.

How do we know the difference  from when it’s time to quit, and time to keep on going to reach the breakthroughs we want to happen?

Is the problem we see quitting as a failure?

And failure is such a dirty word, huh? Who wants to fail?

Why is quitting feared?

What’s your definition of quitting? Is it to change paths and direction, to say goodbye to what isn’t working to make room for the new. Or does it include shame and guilt?

Back to my small business owner forum friend. I wonder if they wanted someone to write ‘Just quit’. That they needed to hear if anyone else had been where they were at, and to receive permission would’ve made their decisions easier?

Times when it’s probably okay to quit…

1. You’ve Changed

Take my business for example, I started in 2003, aged 32. The initial business activities sat with a handful of my core values, but not the ones that really mattered. And it was painful. I hated the business as it stood then, and in the end it made me ill.

The clients were great. The business, no.

I quit the model it was then. Letting it go and saying goodbye to what it was known for.

Scary? Yes!

Feelings of failure? No. Fecking freeing.

2. When you can’t bring yourself to work on the business (career, relationship etc) because you hate every aspect of what it’s become: it’s time to quit, to change, to shift paths

Will it be painful? That’s your choice.

3. When the good days are so few and far between. Slogging something out because you’re scared to say ‘shitz, this ain’t working, better try something else’, is more painful that actually doing it.

4. When what you are doing is leaving you empty inside. That seems a little ‘woowoo’ here’s what I mean: when you have no passion, purpose, energy for what you are doing or the goals you created. But don’t get this confused with frustration that things aren’t happening quick enough.

Trust yourself that you know the difference between empty and run down. (I was empty!)

And, while we’re at, goals change, that’s the whole point of goals, to be expect the best, and plan for the worst. Or in this case, plan for the success, and have alternative routes to get there.

4. When there is so much resentment towards what you are doing. If it doesn’t feel good, it’s not good.

5. When what you do de-presses you and you can’t lift yourself up to change.

It’s okay to stop, let go, put an end to something because it just doesn’t fit with who you are now. It is okay. You’re a creative ever evolving being.

And you may be thinking ‘but it’s not my time to quit, I need to try it a little longer‘.

You know, that’s fine too. You know you best.

But I offer you some advice: whether for your life, biz, career. Get help. Tell people what you’re struggling with.

Lastly, Feck The F Word!

Failure.

Look around the Internet for posts on ‘failing and failure’. Plenty will ask you if you’re a quitter or failure.

Screw them. I’ve failed so many times, but is my life a failure, am I a failure, am I heck. Neither are you if you’ve failed a few times, life can get tough enough without adding a label to yourself!

Some of the worlds greatest inventions were built upon many failed attempts, because people were brave enough to quit what wasn’t working sooner rather than later – that has always been the way, and it always will be the way.

We all need to learn what works and what doesn’t, that’s how we grow, develop, become fabby human beings. 

We can learn it quickly from others, or we can discover it ourselves.

Failure isn’t bad.

People teaching we should ‘feel’ bad and guilty for quitting is a crime.

So you may decide to quit a project, goal, idea that you started. You haven’t failed if you learn from it: the errors and mistakes of the past are learning for the future.

Learn from your mistakes and be aware of ‘failed attempts’ quicker.

There is no way a scientist trying to find a cure for a disease would carry out the same experiment over and over again hoping for a different outcome. If something doesn’t work: change it or quit, don’t keep flogging it wishing for a better result.

You aren’t a failure if you quit an idea. You aren’t a quitter if an idea fails.

Personally I feel I’ve failed myself when I didn’t quit something sooner. Or I battled on with a failed idea from the start. But never, ever, do I see myself as a failure. You?

Do you get that?

Deep down, do you see the difference?

Quitting can bring amazing emotional release. I’m not kidding.

Where others see it as a failure, I see it as empowering. If you are the person making the choice and taking the decisions.

To let go, to say goodbye to that which isn’t working, on your terms, is personal power.

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” -C.S. Lewis

Your Turn :: Have you ever made the decision to quit, and it was exactly the right thing? How did you get to the decision? 

 

Life. Are You A Toe Dipper or a Full Frontal?

When you get a minute Google ‘cold swimming images’, interesting pics.

Have you ever wanted to dive into a swimming pool or venture into the sea on a sweltering hot day?

It looks so inviting, you’re dripping sweat like a shoplifter in Harrods and you want to get in, but you just know because you’ve done this before, it’s going to be baltic.

Instead of going for it, you do the Human Biscuit Dunk Test (there’s no such test!) assuming the rather risky maneuver of pool side hovering, or the threat of waves reaching your thighs unexpectedly if your beside the seaside, beside the sea.

You could’ve ran and jumped in.

How long would you have been screaming like a chimp just been robbed of it’s banana? What, five minutes? The pain of a full dive doesn’t last long, does it?

But you went for the toe dip. Not even the ‘Half Shut The Knife‘ move: up to the waist and gagagagagasping because it’s so fecking cold.

See, the thing about toe dipping is, it’s really easy to stop and retreat back.

But the with the full frontal, you’re in there, up to your eyes in it. You’ll probably cope with the change eventually, your body temperature will start to regulate out.

A bit like that (sick) boiling frog experiment. Throw (don’t though, I don’t advocate trying this at home, but I’m veggie) a frog in hot water it will try to escape, but pop it in cold water and heat it up gently it won’t move, just slowly be boiled alive (surely that’s wrong, boiled dead it should be, how can you be boiled alive?) Perfect metaphor for gradual change though.

Sometimes I think personal growth should be a full frontal.

Other times a toedip.

But never a cling on to the sides.

Because that’s no movement. It’s neither in or out.

Where are you clinging to the side? What may happen if you let go?

 

 

 

 

 

You Have a Brilliant Idea, Now What?

“The air is full of ideas. They are knocking you in the head all the time”  Henry Ford

‘Wanna play?

Let’s assume you have a ‘Oh, what a brilliant idea’ brain flash: a moment of sheer fecking genius, inspiration on tap, creativity bounding, what do you do with it?

A. Sit on it.

B. Act on it right away.

C. Question it’s brilliance.

E. Dismiss it because it probably wouldn’t work anyway.

F. None of the above.

Let’s now go have a tangent moment.

Remember your summer school holidays?

Endless fun, fun, summer fun. The days when you returned home filthy, rugged, scorched from the sun, covered in scratches, bumps, bruises but by goodness you were one happy being.

Remember what you used to cram in, in the space of what, 12 hours?

If you, or one of your friends had an idea, it would get tried and quickly, depending on it’s success, it would be dumped, or played out for days, and days, and days, and days.

Yeah, I know you aren’t a kid, the ideas that you have now will (probably) have a greater impact on your life, to those you had when you were an 8 year old.

Deciding to go for a bike ride is not, I agree, the same as changing career.

Deciding to make a den out of sheets, is not the same as creating a new product, or service if you’re a small business owner.

Different consequences, perhaps a higher risk, needing more thought, research and planning.

But the point is, the time it takes to take action on an idea as an adult is too long, for most. 

Why? (Fear aside for a minute)

Right, some ideas you have are going to be massive and their implementation won’t happen right away. But you probably have hundreds of little ideas that crash into your head, those are the ones we’re talking about here.

The ideas that present themselves to you in the strangest times: on the loo, in the shower, having a casual conversation, reading a blog post or comment on the Internet, a tweet, a visit to a website, watching a soap opera (okay, maybe not that!)

Do you keep them safe?

Do you nurture the idea?

Do you write them down?

Do you take action right away, at the risk of not finishing something else?

A big fault for many of us is we don’t complete one project before we move onto the next. If that’s you, you have a not so good habit there, finish what you start, don’t be hypnotised by the shiny green on the other side of the fence, until your own grass is topnotch.

And your ideas, try this:

This is what I do, most of the time (do as I say, not as I do!)

1. Write the idea down.

2. Take some form of action on it right away (when you have finished the most important tasks that require your full attention at that moment of course.)

3. Take action:  research, running it past someone, writing a blog post, tweeting it, give it your full attention for 20 minutes.

4. Commence the ‘sit on it’ part here, 2 days max. Even if you’re tempted to revisit. Do nothing. Just hold onto your galloping horses.

5. Revisit after 2 days. How do you feel about it now?

6. Still the same way? Take more action.

7. Not as excited? Shelve it for one month.

8. Revisit after a month.

9. Does it inspire/fit/mean more now? Yes? Take more action.

10. No? Ditch it. (Or keep a little folder of ideas!)

You’ll have other ideas. Probably better ones.