Just for today....

When we set ourselves goals, they often tend to be the big ones - you know, run a marathon, write a novel, set up a business. Big goals, big plans, intensive strategies. We set off, all engines blazing, full of enthusiasm, a to-do list as long as our arm typed and copied to the laptop, mobile phone, PDA (and possibly taped to the fridge) and we've made sure we've told our closest friends as well so they know we're serious, we mean business.

And then somewhere along the line, the enthusiasm cools. Usually after the first month or so it all starts to feel like hard work. You hit a stumbling block, and another, and then another and your goals and dreams starts to look a bit too... ambitious. Or even just plain stupid?

There are two things I usually do with clients who've hit that wall, when they're just so overwhelmed by how much they perceive they have to do that they become paralysed and stuck.

The first is to to tap into the feelings they had when they first imagined their goal/dream/game plan. When I say "tap into" I mean to experience the feeling fully - emotionally, mentally and physically. When we feel excited, we don't just experience it in our brains - we feel it in our bodies. Our heart beats a little faster, our blood pumps around our body quicker, we feel pumped up as the adrenaline reaches the parts of ourselves other hormones just don't reach.

Sometimes just taking a minute to recreate the feelings of excitement about a new goal can be enough to kickstart you into action, to overcome the paralysis and get moving again.

The other technique I use is something I call "Just for today"... It's about breaking your big goals down into something very small and manageable. Just as horses are blinkered as they're led to the starting line so they're not frightened by the other horses and the course in front of them, this is a method of narrowing your vision to the next 24 hours.

So, make a list. Just for today I am going to take my vitamins. Just for today I am going to eat 5 pieces of fruit and vegetables. Just for today I am going to spend two hours on my presentation. Just for today I am going to set aside an hour to do my accounts.

Forget about tomorrow and the next day and the week and month ahead. Action takes part in the present. Conversely, the mistakes of tomorrow generally have root in something we did or didn't do today. Generally, small goals we set ourselves to accomplish in the day are achievable, they're realistic and specific - and the chances of achieving them are high.

When we achieve these small goals there's a positive feedback loop - we feel good about ourselves and that "feel good factor" triggers momentum, we feel a bit more enthusiastic and energetic about getting on with our stuff.

Repeat the "just for today" exercise every day until the feeling of being overwhelmed gets squashed and you start to feel more comfortable looking at longer-range goals. It's another trick you can pull out of your bag when you start to feel you're losing sight of what's important to you.

Best wishes,

Dawn

Fear Busting

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself”. It’s a quote we’ve probably heard so often we might have become  jaded about its real meaning. The words were spoken famously by Winston Churchill, but also by the American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, during his first inaugural address in 1933. At the time America, and the world, were going through The Great Depression. Much like today, people were losing their homes, their jobs. Hope and optimism were at an all-time low. The full sentence was:

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

In short, what FDR was saying was, while things might well be really bad  right now, if we give in to fear, become paralysed by pessimism and doubt and do nothing to get ourselves back on our feet, then things can and will get a whole lot worse. No matter how frightened you are, take action. Sometimes doing one small thing that moves you in the direction of your goal can kick-start an upward spiral away from feeling that fear and doubt.


Five tips to get yourself unspooked

It's part of the journey
Fear is part and parcel of the journey, the same way service stations are part of the motorway. Expect it. In fact expect fear to raise its ugly head every 10 miles or so. Stop a while if you have to, but ultimately get back in the car and keep on going. Your destination is not a service station.

Call it what it is
Get into the habit of recognising when you feel fear. We've got so good at deceiving ourselves we often deny we're feeling anxious or nervous about a task or project, meeting or appointment. But if you find yourself putting something off time and again or if you're procrastinating more than usual, take a long hard look at what's going on. Label it "fear" and question what the fear is about. Ask yourself: Why am I so afraid of doing this? The answers can be enlightening.

It's like Halloween
The thought occured to me as I watched my kids try on their Halloween costumes, that a lot of what we fear is very much like a Halloween costume - strip away the fake blood, the skeleton outfit and grotty fake teeth and it's just a harmless three-year old with a very sweet tooth underneath. How much of what we fear is as terrifying as it at first appears? Fear can trick you into thinking the very worst thing that can happen ...will happen.

Which is why I get my clients to imagine their...

Worst-Case Scenario
What's the very worst thing you can imagine happening as you try to achieve your goal? Now think through how you would handle it? You'd handle it, right?

How have you handled problems in the past? However you handled them, recognise that you got over, through, past and beyond them.

Trust you have what it takes to get yourself out of the worst predicament. The world will not end, the sky won't fall down.

Here and Now
Fear is paralysing. The fear of putting a step wrong can be enough to stop us in our tracks. But fear is usually all about what might happen in the future, not about what might happen right now. If you find yourself getting overwhelmed by pessimism and terrifying thoughts of what might happen, bring yourself back to the moment. What can you do today to move you in the direction of your goal? Forget tomorrow, next week, three months from now. Focus on the present. It might be a small thing, it might be a small part of a bigger task. But breaking your big chunk of worry down into smaller bite-size pieces helps reduce that scary feeling.

Even the smallest dot of optimism when coupled with action can be enough to keep fear in its place and stop it stopping you in your tracks.


Best wishes,

Dawn