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The Four Secrets of a Great Life
At first, everything is an adventure. There is so much to explore and see and listen to and do and make and learn and take apart. You reach and crawl and pull yourself up and toddle towards whatever catches your attention.
Sometimes you cry and sometimes you smile. Sometimes you are cross and sometimes you are not. Sometimes you are tired and you sleep and sometimes you are wide awake and ready for adventure. All of life is in you. The world is there for you. You do what is in front of you to do.…
How to be a well-intentioned but less than brilliant parent (or coach, teacher, boss...)
I doubt that anyone becomes a parent with the intention of holding someone back. That would be a pretty laborious way of scuppering the human race. But as parents (and coaches, teachers, employers) it can happen that in our earnest desire to help someone we end up doing the opposite.I know that in pretty much every role I have in my life that involves other people, I have unintentionally got in their way. I also know that, despite my sometimes worse than useless interventions, my kids, clients, …
The end of stress. Even when it seems like the end of the world.
The coaching I do is based on the understanding that we experience everything through thought. We cannot experience anything directly. However real it seems, it is always perceived through our state of mind in that moment.
Our state of mind changes from one moment to the next. One moment it is high and we see solutions and possibility. The next moment it is low and we see people who are out to get us and situations that seem impossible. We all experience this. Things that seem insurmountable at o…
What's the point, anyway?
What is the point of life?
I'm asking this because, well, useful to know. And also as a coach who is supposed to help people get better at this life business, I would like to know what I am doing.
Until quite recently I was on a very clear, logical journey. The point of school was to get to a good university. The point of a good degree was a good first job. The point of a good first job was a better second job. The point of the better second job was an even better third job. The point of a sequenc…
If it's just my thinking, I should stay here, right?
I'm lying on a bed, locked in a remote house with an obsessed fan who is about to destroy my legs.
You could come and talk to me about how everything is experienced through thought. But to be honest, that wouldn't be massively helpful at the moment. What I'd find most useful is a way out of this Misery and never see Annie Wilkes again.
In my coaching work, I talk to teenagers who are bullied, teachers who face taunts every day, people who want to leave their marriage, professionals who cry in the …
The end of self-improvement / self-acceptance / self-development / self-anything. The start of getting real.
I spent decades believing that I had to improve and develop myself. According to where I was working, who I was admiring, what I was watching or reading, how I was being told to be, I knew I had to be stronger, cleverer, wittier, funnier, fitter, better dressed, more ambitious, beautiful, creative, decisive, organised, articulate, charismatic and on and on... There was no end of flaws to correct and a deluge of self help books, self development courses and self denigration to the point of self o…
Denial and the 3Ps.
Have any of you Coaches ever had a client say anything like this....?
"Yes I can see how I'm creating my experience of life but those idiots really are ruining the country."
"I realise that when I'm doing other stuff I don't think about food but that's just denying the issue."
"I'd be fine if it was just my thinking but it's not - she actually is a bitch."
"If we don't think about the things that cause us stress we're just being a Pollyanna and ignoring the real world problems."
These comments resona…
How to do your tax return...
...Or the washing up. Or the hoovering. Or the house admin. Or the work presentation. Or the firing of someone. Or whatever it is that you really don't want to do.
Firstly, let's agree that these are not intrinsically awful or boring or scary or cruel.
Some people, for example, won't even bother reading this article because sorting out their tax is second nature. They may even have made a career out of doing it for other people.
Some people find doing the washing up is the most peaceful part of the…
I'm terrified. How awful / amazing / neutral.
On Monday evening, I'll be giving a talk on what I have learned about how people can easily start living the joyful, peaceful, creative and loving life they are designed to live.The simple fact that I am giving a talk is all the evidence I need of how this works.
For decades I had an abject fear of public speaking. Even the mention of a presentation at work made me feel sick and faint. I couldn't even ask a question in a meeting. I tried everything to get rid of that terrible anxiety: courses, de…
How to always make the right decision
Location: A bathroom in Marlborough, Wiltshire.
Eight year old daughter: “Mummy, shall I have my hair in a pony tail or plaits today?”
Mother: “I’m learning about how our feelings are the best guide to what we want to do.”
Daughter (sounding a bit flat): “I don’t really have any feelings about either.”
Mother: “Maybe it doesn't matter which you choose then?”
Daughter (suddenly full of excitement): “Well if it doesn’t MATTER then I’ll wear it in a ballet bun!!!”
Thus, the Ballet Bun Technique of Decisi…
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