So this is a video all about how to actually have resilience in the goals that you set in life. I want to share with you a goal that I kind of committed to, where I wanted to swim a 10 kilometre ocean swim.

What have I done?

I was sitting with some friends who are long kind of amazing swimmers, they swim all the time, and they swam from when they were young, and all that stuff. And we were having a few glasses of wine, and they were like, “Yeah, you should come and do this.” And, I’m like, “Yeah, that sounds awesome, let’s totally sign up.” And, I signed up, paid everything, booked myself in, and then the next day I was like, “What have I done? I just committed to this 10 kilometre swim.” And I’d never swam more than 100 metres without gasping for breath.

Every victory was hard won

So I’d throw my hat over the proverbial wall of that challenge, and now I had to figure out how to go and get the hat. And, what I did was, started getting really committed and got a coach. So that was the first thing I did, I got myself a coach, and I worked with this coach to figure out how move from 100 metres where you can’t breathe, to swimming 10 kilometres in a challenge.

And started the training, and every single kind of training session, every victory was hard won. It was hard to get to a kilometre without stopping. It was hard to swim to two, hard to swim to three, hard to swim to four, and so on and so forth. So every victory that I achieved, it was a battle to kind of get there, and I had to put in a lot of work and training to achieve that.

I had a big setback 

And it was painful, but somewhere along the journey, just when I was kind of really getting … kind of cruising at 4.5, five kilometre swims, and feeling kind of good about myself, I had a big setback, and I tore a tendon in my rotator cuff.

And at that point I went to go and see the surgeon, and the doctor, and everyone, and they were like, “You need to pull out. This is irresponsible, you need to stop.” And my parents told me to pull out, and everybody was like, “You need to pull out.”

Because, whenever you set a big goal in life, what tends to happen is people will around you will pull you back, and back down into mediocrity. And they will want your life to be easier, and they don’t want you to get hurt and to have any bad challenges in your life.

So I decided to ignore all that, and I found myself a kind of interesting physiotherapist in London, and I worked with him, and he taught me a really weird swim technique that protects my shoulder. And I started training with him, and working on these new techniques to achieve my goal.

And he did say to me, “Look, you should probably not do the 10 kilometre, you should do the 6, because your rotator cuff is torn. You’ll actually do permanent damage. So it’s better if you drop to the 6k, but 6k’s is still a long swim. You can totally do that with this weird swim technique.” And I practised that, and I achieved my goal.

90% of us by the 22nd of February are going to quit!

So what can we actually learn from that kind of process and lesson? Because there’s a lot to kind of be gotten when you’re setting New Years resolutions, as some of us do, 90% of us by the 22nd of February are going to quit on that New Years resolution.

So how do you get a New Years resolution, or a commitment that you make to stick?

First things first, is you’ve got to remember that … I’m a coach, I coach people, but the most important coach in your life is yourself. And you are being a terrible coach to yourself if you give yourself a hard time when you hit a setback.

So any big goal that you set, you’re going to have setbacks along the way, and you need to be able be chilled and relaxed about those setbacks that you hit, and find creative different solutions to still achieve your goal.

You are being a terrible coach to yourself if you give yourself a hard time when you hit a setback

Next thing is, when you set a big goal like that, you must not be attached to how it will get achieved. They journey, what is the journey that you’re going to go on? I had this beautiful mapped out training plan, and this journey, and it was going to be beautiful, and awesome, and yeah, it totally didn’t work out that way.

I had to change my training

I had to change the nature of it, I had to change my training, I had to figure out how to be resilient and find a different way to still achieve my goal. So you’ve got to be flexible in how you achieve your commitment.

You’ve got to be a good coach to yourself, so that when you get a setback, you are relaxed about it.

So if for example your New Years resolution is to have… to lose some pounds, or to have healthier eating, maybe week one and two you’re absolutely perfect, you’re spot on. You’re achieving your plan.

You will quit on your goal

Week three hits and suddenly you have a blowout on pizza, or on cake. If you are too hard on yourself over what’s just happened, you will quit on your goal. You will be a bad coach to yourself if you have a blowout. You won’t forgive yourself so that you can find a different way to handle your setback.

The next thing is to kind of get, is that whenever you have a setback, every victory that you achieve is your stepping … you’re walking uphill one step at a time, it’s hard won. But when you come down and have a setback, you come down in an elevator.

It can be really fast and hard. So a blowout can happen in one hour. You can trash whatever diet you had for two weeks in one hour. If you then take that too seriously, you will then never get back to achieving your goal.

So in summary…

The tips that I want you to kind of think of, is any commitment that you make that you’re going to achieve something that’s awesome and big, it’s not going to be easy to achieve that.

You need to understand that every step is going to be hard won, and you need to celebrate those successes along the way.

Be a good coach to yourself

The next thing to think about, is be a good coach to yourself, so that if you do have a comedown in the elevator really, really fast and hard, you’ve got to be chilled about it, so that you can get back on track.

And the same applies for all kinds of goal setting in our lives!

It’s heartbreaking, it’s sore, it’s sad, it’s hard for that person. But day after day… winning those victories one step at a time

One of the programmes that I run, I help people kind of leave an affair. So how to kind of get themselves out of an affair addiction that they have.

And every single day that they’re not in contact with their affair partner, is hard won.

It’s heartbreaking, it’s sore, it’s sad, it’s hard for that person. But day after day, they are clutching and winning those victories one step at a time. If they then go and contact their affair partner and have another blowout, they come down hard in that elevator.

You can’t then quit because that has happened, you’ve just got to be kind to yourself and say, “Okay, we had a blowout, or we fell off the waggon, or we didn’t kind of stay on course, we had a setback, let’s just get back on track.” So you’ve got to be kind to yourself to just get back on track, so that you can actually achieve that ultimate goal.

And then remembering to be flexible about the journey, how it is that you’re going to achieve it.

Okay. So in summary, what I want you to think about is firstly if you’re going to commit to a big goal, you’ve got to be flexible about how you’re going to get there. And sometimes when you have a setback, remember, every single achievement that you have, you’re going slowly one step at a time towards that achievement.

But when you have a setback you come down fast and hard, like an elevator. So you’ve got to be a good coach to yourself when you have a setback, so that you don’t fall off the waggon completely and you can get back on track quicker.

So I hope those tips help you in kind of having more New Years resolution resilience, and kind of focusing on how to achieve your goals in life.

Do you have tips, or a technique that you’ve used to achieve goals, and aspirations, have you failed to hit your target, have you given up on your commitment because of a set-back? Get-in-contact, we’d love to learn more about your story.

Lot’s of Love!

Adele

Hey, this is Adele from Naked Recovery…

So, I want to thank everybody who gave us so many awesome comments about my first tips video in advance of the webinar, thank you.

Thank you for watching the tips video, and here’s the third one. We wanted to make sure that we really covered some good content prior to the actual webinar itself. So in the previous video, we were looking at all the kind of blockages to achieving a victor mindset, and in today’s video, we’re going to look at what it actually takes to adopt a victor mindset when you’re going through any kind of life turmoil.

Cool stuff

So I’m going to cover some cool stuff that we’ve developed in many of our retreats, I’m going to be referring to some notes, hope you don’t mind I’m going to kind of look down at my notes, come back to you, and so and so forth. But, I wanted to make sure I don’t skip any of the really cool stuff that you need to know. All right, so without further ado let’s look at that.

Victor mindset

In the last tips video, we covered some of the blockages to actually adopting a victor mindset. We looked at the concept of resiliency and what blocks resiliency is a kind of learning resistance and the learning defiance. In this video, we’re going to be looking at this mentality of being a victor.

Now, as I kind of covered a little bit in the last video, when you have a bad thing that has happened to you were you’re just cruising along in your life, something really shocking has happened, the first experience is very normally to have that kind of shock. You’re in a shock experience where maybe you’re in a bit of denial about the thing that has just happened, and you feel like this thing has happened to you.

Healing Journey

Now anytime you feel like something’s happening to you and you’re in that place of being victimised this is such a normal response for people to be there. I was just cruising in my life, this thing happened, and now I feel at the effect of it and therefore victimised. Being victimised is a very normal part of the healing journey, it’s actually the first stage is the victim stage, is that feeling of being victimised.

So, if you find yourself in that stage don’t be hard on yourself about it. It’s not a problem. The problem though is when that stage lasts a really long time, and you can kind of get stuck there, and a little bit bitter. So what we want to do is look at what are some of the techniques and mindset you need to have to move on from the victim stage through the various other stages of healing. So, if you’re in that kind of victim mentality you’re going to be feeling not good enough, this thing has occurred and happened to you.

Poor me

You might be saying things like, “Poor me, how could this have happened?” You’re feeling reluctant, you’re feeling maybe a bit of outrage, you’re sympathy seeking, you’re feeling quite righteous in feeling hurt, entitled to your hurt. Maybe there’s a blame of shame game that you’re having your fault-finding, very, very normal to be in that in the first kind of stage after turmoil.

To move from the victim stage to the next stage of the journey, which is the stage of feeling like the survivor, what you need to focus on is shifting your perspective where you’re kind of in this victim place to the next part where you’re beginning to cope with what has happened.

Analogy

Now an analogy that we sometimes use is if you’re driving along in a vehicle, and you’re driving along in that vehicle and the driver of the vehicle is actually the person that has created the trauma in your life. If you’re feeling like the victim you’re actually the person that has been hit by whatever it is that they’re doing. You’re actually the pedestrian that has been hit by this vehicle and you’re in a place where you’re feeling victimised by the driver of that vehicle.

Now whoever the driver is, maybe it’s a corporation that has fired you, or maybe it’s someone who’s cheated on you, or somebody who is divorcing you, or someone that has created an accident in your life. You’re in that place of feeling like the pedestrian at the effect of what they’re doing.

What we want to do is move you from the place of being the pedestrian to being the passenger within the vehicle. So this is the place where you’re actually witnessing what is occurring and you’re beginning to cope with what has happened rather than feeling at the effect of what has happened. So, you’ve gotta shift your attention from blame seeking to focus on what you can take ownership for, and accountability for. And to have a plan in place for managing all the triggers that are occurring off the back of this thing that has occurred in your life.

Survivor

Now, when you’re in that space of being the survivor the mindset of the survivor is you’re beginning to cope with what has happened, so you’ve got some systems in place to survive this event. So you’re starting to take control of various things. You’re tolerating the pain, you’re taking control, you’re starting to get up in the morning wash the dishes, you’re starting to actually do things, and you’re stopping the incessant feeling of being victimised. You’re actually like, “Okay, I need to get on with this. I need to do what I need to do.”

To get from the place of being a victim to the place where you’re starting to survive the situation you must commit to the survival. You must tell yourself, “Okay, I’ve had enough. I need to get over this now. I need to begin to move on.” And you’ve gotta commit to actually moving on and developing those coping mechanisms. So, that’s the next stage and that’s the mindset you need to have to get to that next stage.

Now that’s not the end, right? To move beyond survivor, ’cause survivor’s also a disempowering place. It’s disempowering because you’re alive but you’re not living. You’re surviving but you’re not thriving, right? You’re not actually loving life, you’re just kind of surviving life. So to move on from survivor the next stage is to be in the learning stage, and that’s where you really decide that there’s gotta be a better way.

Learning

We’ve gotta start learning from what has happened to us so that we can actually begin to incorporate moving forward from what has occurred and what has happened. This is where you’re starting to kind of attend some workshops, attend some seminars, take on your personal development, read some books, experiment, practise, workshop. You’re accepting help, you’re starting to go to therapy, you’re doing counselling. And this is where you’re taking on the concepts that, I need to learn from what has happened, and I need to actually start being proactive in my learning.

Now whenever you want to heal, the first stage of healings is committing to learning from what has happened. And that’s hard when you’re in the victim stage. When you’re in the victim stage the first thing you’ve gotta do is just survive. You’ve gotta start coping with what has happened. But if you want to kind of be more than just coping you’ve gotta commit to learning, that’s the next stage.

So if you commit to learning, you’re starting to kind of learn and integrate things that you’re learning, you’re in that learning stage and that’s the first stage of the next part, which is healing. So you’ve got victim stage, survivor stage, learning stage. If you want to get into the healing stage this is where you need to start actually processing and integrating some of those learnings.

So in the learning stage, you’re just learning as an intellectual concept, it’s a cognitive experience. When you’re in the learning stage you’re kind of just passively interacting with some of the learnings. When you’re in the healing stage you’re actively interacting with those learnings, you’re actually wanting to kind of really integrate those learnings into your lives. This is where you’re starting to have some breakdown and breakthrough moments.

Let go

You’re actually ready to let go of this pain and the punishment, you want to move on. And you’re starting to practise what you’re learning. When you take learning from a cognitive understanding perspective and you start practising what you’re learning that’s when the healing starts to occur.

Now that’s not the end either, because the final stage, the way you really want to get to is the victor stage.

Now the victor stage is not just where you’re learning, it’s not just where you’re healing. It’s where you’ve had a massive breakthrough in your life, and you feel like the experience that you have it becomes a testimonial, an inspiration for your life. You want to share the victory that you’ve had.

You feel like none of the suffering that you’ve been through has been in vain. And you realise that whatever’s happened to you hasn’t made you less, it’s made you more. And you see that what’s happened is an actual blessing for your life, and it was a necessary turning point for you to go through to have this new life. So the victor stage is really what we focus on producing in all of our retreats and programmes, but it’s really for yourself if you want to move from being the victim to the survivor, to the learning, to the healing, to the victor stage, you’ve gotta really focus on integrating all the things that you’ve learned to produce the breakthroughs, to eventually have a place where you feel grateful for what has happened.

When you feel grateful then you’re in the space of being the victor.

So, to develop the mindset just to recap, what you need to do shifting from victim you’ve gotta move into the place where you commit to survive what has happened. You’re like, “I’m done. I’m done with winging about it. I want to survive what has happened.” From that survivor place, you need to then move to the learning phase, and that’s where you commit to learning from what has happened.

Experience

When you actually integrate those learnings into your life and have those breakdown and breakthrough moments then you’re in the healing phase. And when you start having an experience that you can share the victory, and you’re grateful for everything that has happened because you feel like your life is better for the trauma that you’ve been through, that’s when you’re in the victor stage.

So, I hope that’s kind of helped you in terms of what are all the stages you need to go through to develop the victor mentality, but you’ve gotta take it one day at a time. You can’t leapfrog from victim to victor overnight. You’ve gotta really go through the stages of development. So, some other principles to look at is, at the end of the day you’ve gotta take responsibility and ownership for your own healing journey, your own recovery.

Guilt

Don’t take on any kind of unearned guilt or shame from the event. Focus on having compassion for yourself and just moving forward every single day. Don’t compare yourself to other people. Be nice to yourself. Just give up all those destructive emotions, and the parts in the victim stage that keep people stuck, just keep committing and moving forward, and developing all of those steps as you go.

All right, so that’s what I wanted to cover in this tips video. I hope that was useful.

Come and join us on the Overcome Any Life Event online seminar, we’re going to be covering in a lot more detail a very special technique that you can use to really overcome any trauma in your life.

So we look forward to welcoming you on the webinar, till then.

Hey there, this is Adele from Naked Recovery.

In preparation for our webinar next week, I wanted to just put a few tips videos together to cover some of the other tips and techniques around how to overcome any torment that has happened to you in life. 

Now, it doesn’t matter what the torment is, whether you’ve uncovered an affair in your marriage, or you’re going through a divorce, or you lost somebody really important to you, you lost your job, you’re going through a health scare, you’ve been attacked, your child is really ill, or there’s just been some horrible accident or event that has just side wiped your life completely. 

Learning

There’s always something to get out of the thing that has happened. There is always a way to turn what has happened into a victory in some way, shape or form. Now, it’s very difficult to image that when you’re going through that trauma, because the first place that people go to when they’re in that horrible place, where you were just cruising along your life and this thing just came side wiped you, is that feeling of just being victimised by life.

How could this have happened? Why has this happened to me? And that place of feeling victimised is so normal. That’s such a natural stage of development that we go through as we are developing ourself through the journey of overcoming a trauma. But it’s staying stuck there that is the problem.

Stages of trauma

Now the various stages of moving through trauma. The first stage is that place of feeling victimised and feeling like a victim of the situation. The next stage is what I will call, being the survivor. So that’s when you’re starting to develop coping mechanisms to kind of move on and deal with and adapt to the situation that has happened. When you’re in a place where you kind of get that there’s something to be gotten out the thing that has happened, then you’re in the learning stage. 

Learning stage

The learning stage is where you’re actually, not just developing skills to survive what has happened, you’re actually seeing what has happened as an opportunity for growth, for development, for learning.

They should actually re-label healing, learning

And hand in hand with learning is healing. They should actually re-label healing, learning. Because it is kind of the same thing. When you’re learning from something horrible that has happened, healing is a foregone conclusion. And the final stage, which Is really what we attain in all of our retreats and our kind of big programmes, is the stage of being the victor. And the victor is really where you haven’t just learnt, you haven’t’ just healed, you’ve used this trauma as the catalyst for your transformation in your life. 

Self actualize

So whatever it is that you wanted to self actualize in your life has actually become possible out of harnessing all the energy and all the drama out of the trauma that has happened, for the good, for the best, for the better in your life.

Okay, so let’s go right back to the beginning of this stage, and all of us have been there. Something horrible has happened. You’re just cruising along in your life, and suddenly you discover somebody’s had an affair in your marriage, or you discover you’ve just been dumped. Your job has just let you go. A horrible thing has occurred. That first stage of feeling victimised, totally normal, totally natural to be there.

Resistence

What is the very next thing you need to do, to kind of move out of that, and to begin to develop that kind of survivor mindset? First thing is you’ve got to deal with your resistance to learning, and your resistance to kind of moving forward. And that is the process of what we will call resiliency. And resiliency is such a key cornerstone to adopting a victor mindset at the end of the day. And two of the things that really block resiliency is learning resistance, and learning defiance. 

So learning resistance is whenever we are unwilling to accept what has happened. It’s just like no, this has not happened. It’s like total denial. And we’re in total denial where we’re just kind of numb. This thing has occurred, and we’re just carrying on with life as absolutely normal. Our routines are completely normal. And we’re just continuing. We’re just numb, we’re not even thinking about that thing that has occurred.

Or we’re doing some panic or some kind of negotiation to maintain the status quo. But that kind of unwillingness to accept what has happened, it can manifest in many ways. And some of the signs are even retreating, like just getting away. Like you don’t want to talk to people. 

You avoid people completely, you bury your head in the sand. You indulge in what we call short term emotional avoidance tactics. Excessive shopping, excessive drinking, drugs, sex, TV binge watching. Anything to an excess, that is actually quite negative and not good for you. That obsessive rumination, that’s all avoidance tactics. And it’s anything we can do to kind of avoid dealing with the thing.

So learning resistance is our inability to accept that which is. And you’ve really got to, in those moments stare the demons straight in the face. And just get it. It happened. It happened. It’s not great that it happened but we cannot resist reality. Reality is that that horrible thing has happened to you. 

And I’m really sorry that it happened to you. And you beating this and you overcoming this, is a function of embracing the learning from this. That is what you need to do. And the first step of the learning, is to stop the resistance, accept that this thing has happened. Now you’re beginning to develop the muscle of resiliency.

Learning defiance

The next resistance to resiliency is what we call learning defiance. So learning defiance is when we’ve accepted that the thing has happened. We’re completely clear that the thing has happened. But we’re unwilling to adapt. We’re unwilling to grow, or learn, or adapt, or adjust in any way shape or form to the thing that has happened. So here is where we … What I see the most with our clients, they go on a quest for justice. 

Now you might recognise that in yourself. Where it’s like what’s happened isn’t fair, it shouldn’t have happened. I’m not okay that it happened. And now what I’m going to do, is I’m going to seek ultimate justice from the universe. I want vengeance, or I want this to be even, or I want an explanation, or I want to be able to understand this, or I’m not willing to adjust. We begin to have external criteria and conditions for our willingness to adjust to what has happened.

We become rebellious in these phases. And to move on, you need to kind of understand that putting external conditions or demanding justice, running around gossiping about what’s happened, or repeating the same story over, and over again. None of this is actually moving you forward. 

What it does is it just keeps you stuck. And people get stuck in this place for years. I’ve seen people ruminating and asking these questions and being unwilling to adjust to the circumstances in life for years, and years, and years. And it’s just ridiculous.

What you need to get in that moment is have compassion for yourself, but don’t … Suffering is optional. And you don’t need to be in this place forever. 

Become a hero of your own story

What’s ridiculous is accepting that this trauma that has happened is somehow now going to define you. And is going to be your cross that you must bear like a martyr for the rest of your life. Nonsense. Absolute bollocks. What it is, it’s an opportunity for you to get something. It’s an opportunity for you, if you’re willing to adjust from this, and to take the learning from this, to really move through those stages and become a victor.

Not have this thing beat you. And to become a hero of your own story. So drop the quest for justice. Life isn’t fair. There isn’t always coordinated reasons for things occurring. Sometimes really uncoordinated reality is present with us. Random things occur that are horrible, to really, really good people. 

Justice

Trying to get justice for these things, it leaves you in a place where you can become really angry and bitter, and full of outrage. You become the person that is just gossiping about the situation all the time. Or you become the one that is always bad mouthing the situation or always complaining about what has happened. Just stop talking about what has happened. Focus on, what can I do to accept and adjust to what has happened. 

Those are the two important things I want you to understand in this video, so that you can move through those stages. Because once you get that, you begin to survive the situation. You actually begin to have techniques that you can adopt to get out of the place that you’re at. And when you’re beginning to get out of the place that you’re at, and you’re learning, then the learning begins to occur. Then the healing will occur. And then you will become a victor of your own story. And you will use this horrible trauma that has happened to you as a catalyst for your ultimate transformation. 

Next…

Alright so in the next tips video, I’m going to talk about how to develop that mindset of the victor and how to move through the stages of resiliency in a faster way. So I hope this was useful, until next time.

Pain is a great motivator…

When you put your hand on a hot stove, what makes you pull it away? Pain. Physical pain is your body’s way of telling you that you need to take action and change the situation before you do yourself serious harm. 

When it comes to your emotional wellbeing, we feel emotional pain for the same reason it’s our body’s way of telling us we need to take action, we need to change the situation to avoid further harm.

Been through a traumatic life event such as divorce, bereavement, physical trauma, bankruptcy, redundancy, miscarriage, family dispute or something else?

In the early stages, it’s that acute, unbearable mental pain that makes you say: I can’t go on like this. I have to find a way to make this stop. That’s good.

… But what happens when the worst of the pain subsides? When you get to the point where it still hurts, but you can live with it?

This is the danger zone. You haven’t fully healed, but you aren’t driven to get better by a pain you can’t bear. This is the point where many people stall in their recovery – and that’s why, if this is where you are in your healing, it’s crucial that you find another way to keep up the momentum and keep pushing yourself to get back to peak performance.

The good news is, this motivator is no longer pain. Instead of running away from something, you’ve reached the point where you’re running too something: a positive goal that you can work towards, rather than a negative to escape from.

The unfortunate reality is that most people never complete their healing process fully because as soon as the pain disappears they think their healing is complete. It isn’t.

Adele Theron

Fake It ‘til You Make It

The important thing here is to focus on a positive goal that’s within your power to achieve. 

If you’re healing from a horrible life event such as a breakup for example, it’s not helpful to set yourself a goal like, “I want to be married by the time I’m 35” or “I’m going to have a new girlfriend by this time next month”. These are things that depend on other people and their desires, putting them outside of your control. Instead, you need to focus on your own behaviour.

Imagine the kind of person you want to be, and set that ideal as your role model. How would this ideal version of yourself relate to others? Manage their relationships? Handle stressful situations? Communicate with others? Set boundaries? Show kindness?

Once you’ve visualised this behaviour, and pictured yourself doing it, emulate it in real life – and keep doing this until you’ve made it second nature. 

 Separate “I Did…” from “I Am…”

In order to truly heal, you have to like yourself. You have to believe that, whatever mistakes you’ve made, you are a worthwhile human being with the potential to do things better. 

The very worst thing you can do in this situation is to say to yourself: “I am this way, so I’ll never be able to be a better person, or have a loving relationship”. Or: “I’m a horrible or unlovable etc person because I did XYZ”. 

These thoughts will not allow you to heal. Instead, you need to separate action from essence. 

Sometimes you’ll do shitty or self-destructive things. We all do! That doesn’t mean you let these things slide or shrug them off as inevitable; rather, you should address these things, admitting that you’re in the wrong, apologise for what you’ve done (whether to others or to yourself), and endeavour not to repeat the same mistake again. In other words, you need to recognise the thing was bad, take responsibility for it, and try your best to learn from the situation to avoid repeating it.

What you absolutely should not do is take this as proof that you’re a bad person, as opposed to a person who did a bad thing. I can’t state enough how important this is for your healing. If you let yourself believe that you are just “the kind of person who does things like that”, not only will you hate yourself, but you’ll never change your behaviour, either.

Recognise That This Is a Journey

Healing doesn’t happen overnight. 

In all areas of life, expecting results too quickly is a serious motivation-killer. 

Instead, to keep up the momentum, you need to keep in mind that you’re working towards getting healthy, re-learning the way you manage relationships, and putting an end to self-destructive spirals of behaviour. It’s a process, not an either/or situation – and having the odd bad day doesn’t mean that you’ve failed.

When you find yourself starting to question your progress, take the time to reflect on how far you’ve come and remind yourself what your goals are, visualising your role-model-self again for inspiration.  

I can’t state strongly enough that setbacks don’t spell the end, nor are they a good reason to throw your hands up in the air and stop trying. The key is to keep heading in the right direction overall, even if you take a few detours or wrong turns along the way.

Be Grateful 

It sounds cheesy, but keeping track of the good things that happen to you seriously helps to challenge your perceptions when things seem bleak. 

If you feel yourself losing momentum or getting sucked into a black hole, force yourself to step back and take stock of the positives. For example, note down all the things you have to be grateful for that day, and be specific. 

It could be a small, random act of kindness from a stranger. It could be the phone call you got from your best friend checking in to see how you are. 

The point is, when you’re feeling down, it’s very easy to overlook ways in which others are looking out for you, trying to be supportive, or just making an effort to brighten up your day. Being more conscious of these things can really change your perspective and give you the strength you need to push ahead with your healing.

Get the Support You Need

No matter how strong you are, there will always be times when you need other people to lean on, confide in, talk to about how you’re doing. 

But remember: not all friendships however strong are a source of wise advice despite their best intentions. It’s tempting to rely on that drama-loving friend who sympathises and eggs you on with your anger, vengeful thoughts but they may not serve you.

The thing is, these friends don’t have the wisdom, experience or position to advise and guide you properly.

It’s much better to seek out people who are motivated to see you succeed in overcoming your trauma whatever it takes, rather than someone that may sympathise and join you wallowing in the pain of it all. 

If you really want to keep up momentum, look for support from people who understand and care what you are trying to do – and reach out to them regularly for motivation.

Heal from emotional pain – The Summary:

1. Pain creates the initial motivation for change

2. But that energy does not last forever 

3. To complete healing shift to ‘towards’ motivation

4. Motivational and visualisation goals will help

5. Support is essential to complete the healing journey

6. If healing isn’t totally complete symptoms will reoccur

7. Download your Free PDF: 5 Tips to Complete Emotional Healing

Struggling to keep up the momentum in your healing journey?

No problem, we have a solution…

Existing clients can enrol in the MOMENTUM coaching package.
Or you can contact us for a Free CLARITY CALL for more guidance.

My deadline-work-stuck-distract-lurk-loathe-recommit cycle would go on and on.To cure this cycle of endless beating myself up, I decided to take on the ultimate challenge a year ago which was to take on 2 businesses at the same time.

With this kind of pressure, I am bound to have a breakthrough, right?

Not quite.

I had a breakthrough all right but first came the breakdown when I realized that the coping mechanisms I had previously designed were completely inadequate. I was burning out and not getting anything done.

SO, I developed some new habits. Initially it was very tough. I had been driving the ship of procrastination on my ocean of happiness for many many years AND NOW I had to turn the ship around to work more efficiently, make use of all of my time and increase my productivity by 150%.

I did achieve it but I won’t lie to you – it required insane patience and an insane amount of concentration to not simply slip back into the automatic ways of being I had always had.

I say concentration because to do anything great and build a new business from scratch you need to put in HUGE amounts of effort for absolutely no result or reward for months and months and months. To keep putting in 10 and getting 0 out takes something. Statistically, most people quit about 12 days before the effort gets rewarded so I want to share with you – NEVER QUIT. Whenever you feel like there is no point to continue, simply tell yourself you are just 12 days away from some traction. Keep going and follow create a method which works for you to keep up the hard work so you can build some momentum.

Here are some tips from me – steal whatever you want from my GETTING SHIT DONE formula and I wish you all the best with turning your ship around!

Marathon– not sprint

Getting Shit Done Principle #1:

Marathon not Sprint

Building ANYTHING amazing cannot be done by sprinting. Life is not a sprint – building a business or building yourself up to be someone who makes an extraordinary difference is a 10 year commitment. Most people quit because it takes SO LONG to see results. Prepare yourself for the reality that you will probably spend MONTHS putting in ALOT of effort to see not much coming back in. There will be a rollercoaster of ups and downs. So relax. You will get there. Forgive yourself for taking 9 times longer than you imagined. Just keep going. The pace you will move at is ultimately the speed of your biggest bottleneck so focus on managing those bottlenecks vs. freaking out every time you don’t hit a deadline.

Building something amazing takes time. It’s a marathon so treat yourself like an athlete

– Eat well
– Exercise
– Sleep well
– Schedule time for training and development
– Nurture yourself
– Schedule time out

Getting Shit Done Principle #2:

ACTION>TRACTION>ATTRACTION

Any challenge: whether you are starting a new fitness regime, starting a business or studying again after 10 years – whenever starting anything big – you do need to throw yourself into it to create some initial momentum.
When I started building my business I worked nights, weekends, didn’t see my family or friends, barely saw my boyfriend, gym became something I paid for but never saw and my hair lost the plot. BUT that is what it took to start something. Be prepared to dedicate your life to your cause and throw yourself into it to create some initial momentum. It took an immense amount of concentration and energy to start naked divorce.

I was on fire and loved every minute of creating something I cared about and breathing life into putting my mark on the planet. Sure that year was a write-off and many friends are still peeved with me becoming a hermit and missing luncheons, catch up sessions or weekends away– but I figure that you have one life and if I want to spend 2-3 years throwing myself into something I care about – that’s cool. It took letting go of being liked, being perfect, having balance and being superwoman. I became the scruffy workaholic for a while.

What it took was taking big ACTION — Eventually this created TRACTION and momentum. Sometimes this takes weeks or even months – the trick is when you hit momentum and some traction – DON’T CHILL!!!!! Keep up the big action and intense concentration. If you do that, you will begin to stabilize and this is when you change your tactics to begin training for the marathon – rather than the initial sprint. During stabilization is when you begin to ATTRACT opportunities towards you.

Getting Shit Done Principle #3:

There is no such thing as WORK-LIFE BALANCE when you are building a business or creating something new

Balance is a myth. No one is in perfect harmony or balance 100% of the time. Chasing this concept is stupid and will make you do ludicrous things like bake cupcakes for your kid’s school disco at 3am whilst you attempt to be superwoman (or man).

Trying to achieve work-life balance or have all aspects of life perfect will stress you out. It’s ok to be imbalanced for a while whilst you build something new.

The way I look at it is if you look back over 6 months, overall did you progress in the areas you were committed to? Did your health, wealth, family, friends, business, etc. move forward overall? If yes, you are on balance, balanced – if no – something to look at!

Getting Shit Done Principle #4:

Ensure you have funding along the way

Building a business or starting any new huge venture takes about 5 times longer than you first thought. Therefore ensure you have a plan for how to fund your venture OR you can find yourself being so stressed about money that you are not making that you cannot create anything and are paralysed by fear. You need a solid foundation to create so ensure you have funding, a roof over your head and can create some free time to make it happen.

Getting Shit Done Principle #5:

Schedule your life around the creation of your new venture vs. trying to fit your venture into your life

Choosing to start anything new, it works when you schedule your life around the creation of your new venture vs. trying to fit your venture into your life. If you try to fit your venture into your life, then you will spend a great deal of time in conflict over what to choose and how to choose it in your quest for balance. It’s easier in the long run to choose your new venture and structure the rest of your life around it.

Getting Shit Done Principle #6:

Be honest about what you want to do and then create a project if you are serious

Is what you want to achieve a ‘want’ or ‘desire’ OR is this NO KIDDING what you seriously intend to do? You always win the game you are playing so it’s key to work out what game you are playing. Are you playing at your new venture or are you serious about it? If you are playing at it and simply have a need or desire to do something but are not really serious about creating it. If you have a strong desire but are unwilling to do whatever it takes to achieve a goal then you will be setting yourself up for struggle, depression and a lack of results. Being serious means you create serious intentions which translate into projects with actions to take, milestones, deadlines, investment and timelines. Be clear about the game you are playing.

Succeeding at your new venture is all about creating effective EXISTENCE systems. Write things down, tell people you will do it, put it out there so its hard to run away from achieving it.

Planning ensures you don’t get into SPACELAND – you ALWAYS have stuff to do.

Failing to plan is planning to fail SO I recommend spending a day planning everything out that you INTEND to achieve vs. what you would like to/ want to/ need to achieve.

Getting Shit Done Principle #7:

Set yourself up for success

1. Write everything down, this keeps your head clear of stuff and ensures you remain PRESENT so you can create.
2. Put your alarm clock on other side of the room so you HAVE TO GET UP
3. Have a capture tool/ iPAD/ PDA/ Notebook and write down everything there is to

do every day. Before you sleep that night – empty it and record commitments and actions in your calendar (tear out the pages so your notebook is always empty)
4. Categorise things that come in as being urgent/ not urgent/ important/ not important as Daryl Cross explains in his video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHM3U2Fg9HM
5. If you are already running a business whilst trying to create lots of things, then split your day into income generation, income maintenance (customer service) and administration
a. Generation of income = 30% of time
b. Maintenance of income and customer service/ on-selling = 30%
c. Administration and emails = 10% — Try to put all admin in on one day or half day. Try not to do admin in-between if possible

6. Ignore the beep – switch off your MS Outlook’s email message alerts. Try Xobni (www.xobni.com) which is a tool which tells you the best time to check your email. Read email at end of day if possible otherwise your day is dictated by email.
7. Limit your browsing – mindlessly surfing the internet is a complete time killer. Try www.rescuetime.com which will monitor how long you spend browsing certain sites and give you a heads up when you have been on one for too long. How cool is that.

Getting Shit Done Principle #8:

Create more time

1. Tweak your TV time – try to avoid lounging in front of the TV for hours on end. Watch just DVDs or recordings of specific programs you want to watch. Unless I am consciously choosing to relax, I always sit with my laptop on my lap so I work at the same time!
2. Make use of dead time (trains, queues, even when driving) always have something with you to work
3. Become a clock watcher – according to David Allen – author of Getting things done, a lot of us work late because we don’t set a time to wrap things up by. Knowing you have to leave at a set hour forces you to focus. Try this: make a pact with a friend that you will meet them for a gym class after work – if you don’t make it, you have to pay her £5.
4. Get ready in a flash: a minute or 2 here/ 30 seconds there – it all adds up. Have your bikini and armpits waxed once a month instead of shaving. Also throw out things in your makeup bag that you don’t use so you can find things easier.
5. Have interrupt times with colleagues – schedule times when it’s ok to interrupt. When people want to interrupt you, simply say ‘I am right in the middle of something, can we schedule some time at 2pm to go through those things’ – not only will you become more productive, you will get more respect.

Getting Shit Done Principle #9:

Get help

1. Help costs less than you think – there are some incredible people in Serbia, Poland, India, Phillipines and Malaysia who are happy to work for $3 per hour. Believe it or not!
2. If you are worried about quality of people, check out www.burnyourtodolist.com
3. Try to limit the admin PER day by hiring an assistant to do the things you don’t want to do (emails, social media, twitter, researching things, updating websites, blogs etc.)
4. There are EXCELLENT websites for hiring people (www.elance.com, www.odesk.com and www.guru.com).
a. Create a clear brief of what you want
b. Say that written English is an important criteria for you
c. Ask for examples of their work if possible
d. Ask for their approach
e. Always hire people fixed fee or agree the hours upfront
f. Trial anyone with a short interim project and monitor their success that way. Only if they pass the first stage do you hire them for the longer  term
g. Pay promptly and give good feedback
h. If you find amazing people – promote them – they will then be far more willing to work hard for you!

Getting Shit Done Principle #10:

Manage the Procrastination Monster

1. Understanding what motivates you
a. Away from something you fear may happen if you don’t get this thing done
b. Towards something positive that pulls you towards it
2. Move yourself out of procrastination

3. Schedule rewards I.e. I will go out for dinner if I get the book/project/exam done

Just frikking do it.

You have one life so getting shit done is better than becoming a lounge lizard. Good luck to you till next time!!

Adele