He’s not a paid friend. He’s not looking for your defects. A life coach is always on your side… He just doesn’t buy into all your malarkey.
What the heck is a life coach?
Nobody knows- Right?
Life Coaching is an unregulated industry.
So basically, a life coach is anything anybody decides it to be.
Here are some of the definitions I’ve heard –
– A friend you pay for
– An accountability partner
– A cheerleader or a motivational speaker
– A therapist but cheaper
– A nutritionist
– An exercise coach
– A woman in a long skirt who burns incense and thinks the universe will make her rich
And frankly, because there’s no standard definition, any of those things might be true for some life coaches – except the therapist thing. Life Coaches are definitely not therapists or shrinks, or medical professionals or psychologists.
So, do your homework.
Most life coaches have websites, blogs, podcasts, webinars and books you can check out before you hire them. Most life coaches will give you a free session so you and the coach can decide if you’re a match.
I hired my first life coach without having a clue what to expect. I’d read her books, listened to her podcast and checked out her website. Then I handed over a big wad of cash, with no idea what I would get for it.
Best decision ever.
Why would I do that?
Listen, I don’t pay for anything I can do myself. Not plumbing, not housekeeping, not dog grooming. But I will pay a boatload of money to anyone who can help me with any of these:
– quiet my internal monkey mind
– stop messing around and start getting things done
– stop overeating
– manage my time better
– be more productive
There are tons of qualified coaches out there who can do just that. I’m one of them. But back when I hired my first coach, I wasn’t.
After I started with my first coach, I decided one wasn’t enough. I added two more. One for weight loss and one for figuring out work-life balance.
The results were stunning.
I not only lost weight, but I also got control of my mind, got better at managing my time and my productivity, started accomplishing life long dreams and, wait for it, experienced self-compassion for the first time in my life.
Here’s my definition of a life coach:
A person who helps you see what results you are getting now, and figure out how to change them – all without judgment and without having to pull all your old baggage out to do it.
Sound good? You bet.
If you would like to try working with a life coach, it would be my pleasure to go through a free 25-minute session with you. Sign up here.
Your Brain isn’t out to get you new results…it’s busy in the kitchen looking for snacks.
Look, You Aren’t Stupid.
You know you have to change your actions in order to get different results, but why, oh why, is it so hard to do?
I know! Especially when you’re trying to change the actions you take in situations that repeat. Those are the worst. I sit at my desk and boom! An hour’s gone by. I’ve answered a ton of emails but I still don’t have my project done. Bummer huh?
Changing our actions, especially context driven actions, is really hard.
Most of us just vow to take new actions.
How’s that been working for you?
Me neither.
But, if we take a moment to reflect on the results we’re getting and the thinking that is leading us there, we can start to tie results to thoughts. We can start to change our thoughts, which will create new feelings and new results.
Here’s one of mine.
I used to think “I don’t even have a minute between meetings for a bio-break.” And that seemed to be true. I felt rushed and mistreated when I thought that. And I would go from meeting to meeting, uncomfortable and, let’s admit it… a bit of victim about the whole thing.
OK… now that you’ve stopped laughing at me… let’s move on.
It’s funny, right? Because it’s clearly ridiculous. But that’s not the way it felt to me at the time. I felt bad. I was considering just not drinking any water all day. I couldn’t see another way out because I really believed that I didn’t have a single minute to spare. Worse yet, my results were proving that my thoughts were correct.
Hold the Circus Wagon, Spunky.
Then I said those words in a coaching session. Because my coach cares about my well being but doesn’t particularly believe everything I say and she isn’t being paid to sympathize with me, she asked me “Is that true?”
Um. Yeah?
Seems obvious, but to get to the point where she could ask me that, we had to know what I was thinking. And that is what a coach is for. If you would like to have a coach show you what you’re thinking … you can sign up for a free 25-minute session with me here. Click here. My goal here is to help other people the way my coach helped me. True dat.
She didn’t buy it. “What would you tell a team member with that problem?”
Huh. “I would never condone that kind of self punishment. I’d tell them, you take a break when you need a break. Everybody else is.”
Whoa. Wait a minute. So everybody else has time for a break. So, I must have time for a break?
I started to look at my thinking, feelings, actions and results from a more objective perspective. And, I started to believe that the results I was getting were unacceptable.
That was the turning point for me. I would never condone any human being enduring the results I was getting, so … I’m a human … and … therefore… I don’t condone those results for me.
Suddenly I had tied my outcome to a value (people shouldn’t be treated like that.) Then I changed my thinking.
So my thought became – Hey, my biological needs come first. That includes sleep, hydration, fresh air, sunlight, movement, and food. (You need those things, Dudettes – just in case you’re not sure.) When I think like that- I feel empowered and committed – to my own well being. And so I take action. I take care of myself.
Here’s the magic… when I started doing that, always taking care of myself – I did wind up being late. I started suffering the consequences of fitting in my basic needs.
I had new, much better problems. I was hydrated, well rested and felt comfortable – but I was a few minutes late to meetings.
So then my new thought was… how can I take care of myself and be on time? Do you see the beauty of that?
If I’m late and I don’t like the way that feels, I start to make it more important to end meetings early. But I don’t apologize for taking care of myself. And I don’t go back to believing I don’t have time for a pit-stop.
And that? Changes everything.
Next week – What is it like to work with a life coach?
But if she won’t, here’s how to make sure you get your zzzz’s and why it should matter to both of you.
There’s Falling Asleep…
Falling asleep is an art. And like any good artist, you have to practice. You have to pay attention and care about the process and the results.
My own journey with re-learning to fall asleep started with a small notebook and pen. Every day for about two weeks, I jotted down all the random details I could think of about my environment and my perceived quality of sleep. I did this both before I went to bed and when I woke up.
What time I got in bed.
What time did I last check the clock? (When did I fall asleep?)
When did I get up?
How did I feel in the morning?
What temperature was the room? What blankets did I use?
What type of light was there?
What did I do just before I went to bed?
What did I eat?
Out of all that note taking I learned this – to fall asleep quickly, I needed:
Pitch black (I went from using night lights to total lights out)
Cool temperatures
A bit of protein – like yogurt.
No laptop in bed before lights out
Your results might vary but by doing this exercise, I got to my minimum number of actions to ensure a fast descent into blissful sleep. Try it yourself. It only requires about 2 weeks of notetaking.
This method worked far better than tracking my sleep with a device – using my perceived sleep quality turned out to be less ambiguous. With the device, the overload of data made it more difficult to narrow my results.
and Then There’s Falling BACK Asleep…
If you’re a person who wakes up in the middle of the night with your thoughts racing… and then suffers, praying to fall asleep again, until finally, you pass out about fifteen minutes before the alarm goes off – you know that finding a way to fall back asleep is key.
During the night, your brain is consolidating all your learning from the prior day. It’s busy in there, Dude. My theory is that when we wake up and catch it working, we get sucked into thinking that we’re actually figuring out important stuff. Trust me, we’re not. How many of those sleepless nights actually yielded great insights for you? Right. Not enough to be worth it. To fall back asleep, you have to stay out of your brain’s way and let it do it’s job.
Here are three ways to fall back asleep.
Count Sheep
Basically, count backward from 100. If you get to 0, start at 100 again. Usually, by the third time through, you’re out. The key here is to make the counting just hard enough that you have to stay focused, but boring enough that your mind gives up and goes to sleep.
Count Sheep Version 2
Count backward from 100 by threes. You’ll probably have to move this option within a week or so of counting backward. The first method will have become too easy. Your mind will be able to wander back to your mental busy work. To make it hard enough to keep you focused, count down by 3 – 100, 97, 94, 91, 88, 85, 82, 79… see how the pattern doesn’t repeat for a long time? That’s what keeps your mind focused just enough. Again, you won’t often make it through three rounds before you’re out like a light.
Hack Your Mind
This is my new favorite way . Just stick with me here.
During the day – pay a lot of attention to the idea that sleep is very important. What you’re doing is priming your brain that sleeping is as important as whatever else you spin out on at night. Try to tie some emotion to the thoughts. I had “Get a Good Night’s Sleep” up on my whiteboard for about 2 months and when I looked at it, I tried to feel grateful that I was going to give myself the gift of sleep. I also noticed that all that thinking I did in the middle of the night never actually got me any results. By paying attention, during the day to the idea that sleep is a top priority, you’re telling yourself this is important stuff. Sleep is vital. Thinking at night is not valuable. You need to believe both of these. Fortunately, you probably already do.
2. When you wake up in the night with your mind racing – ask yourself the question, “Where Am I?” This is an old Zen question that changes your perspective from rumination to observation. Answer yourself with “I’m in my bed.” Let yourself wake up enough to really see that you’re in bed.
3. Next, as your mind picks up the thread of whatever thoughts it’s working on – tell yourself some version of “I’m not working on that now. The bed is for sleeping.”
If you’re like me, you’re brain will release the thought and you’ll drop right back to sleep.
I’d love to hear if this brain hack works for you. Drop me a line on facebook @RockYourDayJob or on LinkedIn – Amy D’Annibale and let me know how it works for you. Or set up a 25-minute free coaching session here and tell me in person.
And Then … There’s Why It Matters…
I just got done listening to The Passion Paradox by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness. Here’s a quote from that book, that explains why a good night sleep is good for you and your company:
“If you really love your work and want to do a good job at it, the last thing you should do is sacrifice sleep. In the early 2000s, then groundbreaking research out of Harvard University found that it is during sleep that you retain, consolidate, store, and connect information. In other words, your mind doesn’t grow and make leaps when you are at work, but rather when you are at rest. “
Another thing I read this year is that your brain prioritizes consolidation of negative memories first. Why? Well, it’s super important to remember where the tigers are. Remembering where the raspberries were? Not as much. You need to get about 6.5 hours of sleep to get the neutral and the positive learning consolidated too.
You might not be able to control what station is on when you start the car… but you don’t have to leave it there.
Last week, I stated that our thoughts cause our feelings, and that’s true. However, there’s a whole category of feelings that arise before we even have a thought.
Disclaimer: There are a lot of areas of the brain engaged in collecting sensory inputs and shuffling them around in there. If you want to know the names of all of them, and how they all fit together, rock on. Just know you won’t find it in this blog.
Data is being smuggled into our brains twenty-four seven.
For our purposes, it’s enough to know that our brain is actively collecting information about the world around us and that information is not being brought in through the main command and control center.
This information cargo includes facial expressions, sounds, smells, tastes, physical feelings – basically everything your senses can detect. All that data is then compared to memories of emotionally charged events and, without your permission, elaborate defense systems are engaged, based on the level of the threat. When this happens, all we know is that we’re suddenly frightened, or angry, or stunned.
It’s like the military staged a coup in our head
It kinda did. No amount of thought work is going to prevent those protective systems from engaging – initially. But here’s the brilliant part –we can get very, very good at interrupting the process.
Here’s the deal. Once that defense system engages, a lot of stuff happens super fast. Our heart rate picks up, our digestive processes stop and our higher thought centers come offline – just for a hot second.
Think about it, when a bus is barreling down on you, standing around wondering – “Is that the airport shuttle? Will it to turn left just before it gets to me?” is a sub-optimal plan.
So the defense center shuts down your internal re-run of Frasier and sends you jumping back to the curb like your ass was on fire. Good deal – if there’s a bus coming.
Sadly, when we’re in a meeting and a micro-expression of fear flashes on the face of the guy next to us, our inner General MacArthur might decide to assume control of the bridge. What comes out of our mouth next, might not what we hoped for. Welcome to the human race.
Normally, when the defense system kicks in, we just go with it. We get upset, we fight back, verbally or physically, or we turn away, either by running or by withdrawing from the social setting. That can mean tuning out the rest of the meeting or obsessing about all the negative things that could come from the situation. This type of engagement keeps the defense system on high, keeps the hormones flowing and can create chronic stress and all its negative health implications.
The name of the game is “Stand Down, ASAP.”
If you would like me to help you calm your inner Viking and get your personal Einstein back in charge, sign up for a free 25-minute session by clicking this link –https://rockyourdayjob.as.me/free. It would be my pleasure, no strings attached.
The first alert system might not be under your control, but all the rest – absolutely is.
Tuning into the physical feeling of your amygdala firing can give you an edge. Get curious about your reactions.
When strong feelings arise spontaneously, like anger or agitation or simply a big fat impulse to run your mouth, stop and take a moment to notice how you feel -emotionally and physically. All this defense is being driven by hormones and we can notice how they feel in our bodies. And if you’re driving a big ol‘ negative feedback loop by ruminating on a problem? Brilliant – because you have plenty of chances to catch on to the sensation.
The next step is to train yourself to pause when you feel this, verbally identify the event and then wait for the hormones to dissipate. I’m such a nerd about this, that I actually say “I’m having an amygdala hijacking, just give me a moment.” And yes, that gets me some odd looks.
If you react by engaging with the emotions – yelling, running, arguing, asserting a brilliant defense of your rights – the hormone pump will keep running. If you wait patiently, the defense system will stand down, your amygdala hijacking will end and you can continue making logical decisions about how you want to respond to the world around you.
And that? Can have a huge impact on your health and your relationships.
Next Week: Why your boss should be buying you a mattress.
This guy’s not thinking that he can’t catch up at work. What are you thinking?
Here’s the deal. What you think determines how you feel. Slam. Dunk.
So if you’re walking around thinking that your situation is making you happy or sad or one of the four other feelings you know how to describe, read on. Because when you understand this, worlds open up.
Take one look at the guy in the picture. You might not know exactly what his circumstances are, but you probably have some pretty good ideas about what he’s thinking. Maybe something like ‘Yes!’ or ‘I found it!’ came to mind? You have no idea what elicited the expression on this dude’s face but you know what the feeling is and you know the thoughts are about something that went his way.
The reason you can guess the thoughts but not the situation is easy. Thoughts drive feelings, not circumstances.
Here’s another, less happy example. If there are four people present when someone near to them passes away, if the event caused the feelings, all four would feel the same thing. But it doesn’t take too much thought to imagine a range of possible feelings. One of them might be devastated. One might be mildly sad, sympathetic to the feelings of the others. Still another, might be angry and, it’s possible, one of them might be relieved, especially if the person had suffered.
If Facts Drove Feelings, We’d All Feel the Same Way at the Same Time.
But that’s not what happens. We have thoughts, sentences that our brains offer up and those thoughts? Create feelings.
So. What.
I’ll give you so what. So your feelings are being created by your thoughts and, your thoughts… are within your control.
Feel Me Yet?
Let me say it again. What you think is what creates the emotions you have and if you’ve been paying attention, you might now be thinking something a little wild. You might be thinking that our brains offer up easy options for us to think. And those thoughts are often cheap shots offered by our mid-brain because they’re easy for the brain to find and toss out to us. That means, a lot of what we’re feeling is in response to some pretty shaking thinking. Hold the horror show Bat Man. You mean I’m feeling worried for nothing? Maybe so, Dude.
If you’d like to have me walk you through an example from your own life, book a free 25 minu session here: Book A Free Session I would be thrilled to take you through it and I won’t be a bit offended even if you decide never to coach with me again. No problemo.
Let’s write this in code.
If: Thoughts create Feelings
And : People control their Thoughts
Then: People can control their feelings.
WHAA?
Try it. The next time you feel a powerful emotion, figure out what you’re thinking. Write it down. Later, try thinking that same thought and see if it brings up the same emotion. Or better yet, try this. The next time you feel a powerful emotion, try to amplify it. It’s a pretty empowering experience. Because you’ll be quick to figure out, that if you can make a feeling stronger, you can also make it weaker. Suddenly, you’re in the driver’s seat. You get to pick what you want to think. You get to dial emotion up or down. You get to decide how you want to feel.
One word of caution. None of this works with pretend thoughts, meaning thoughts you don’t really believe. Telling yourself you’ll win the lottery tomorrow when you don’t have a ticket, isn’t going to bring you any joy.But telling yourself that you can manage your work load (and really, isn’t that what you’re already doing? For real?) can bring you real relief, real fast.
Next Week: My amygdala made me do it. The exception that proves the rule.
