Do you make excuses for not making changes in your life?

In reality I don’t know anyone who doesn’t make excuses sometimes.

I know I do. 

My monkey mind gives me all the reasons I need to turn around and walk away from certian changes I need to make. 

This week though something shifted and I have made some huge changes, that, I have to be honest, were long overdue.

The thing is, I’m usually pretty motivated. If I set my mind on achieving something, I invariably do, but a few things seemed to come together to defeat me this time and I know I am not alone.

What has been the issue?

Well, this time last year I was feeling great. I had been going to the gym, eating well, rehearsing every week for the show I was due to be in and I was feeling strong and happy. 

Then lockdown hit.

I made a rookie error and decided that one way I could try to help my children feel less scared and have happy memories of lockdown was to allow a few treats in our diet that we wouldn’t normally have.

It worked. Every lunchtime we would get together, watch an episode of Dr Who (our lockdown 1.0 treat) and have some crisps or chocolate, maybe popcorn and a film in the evening. Everyone was happy.

It was a great idea, if lockdown had lasted for the 3-5 weeks we originally aniticipated. The problem is we have scarcely been out of lockdown since then and the treats, though in fewer quantities have continued to flow. We have all been missing our friends and family and food has been our comfort. 

More truthfully, my mindset shifted for me. 

I don’t know about you, but I have been feeling a change in the air. The world feels more positive, people seem to be looking forward to life opening back up and things feeling more normal. There is less fear in the news, the statistics are looking positive and everyone is starting to feel more buoyant.

I have also finally got to a point where I absolutely had to make a change. I can cope with feeling tired and sluggish for a while but I’ve had enough now. But what have I done?

Well, I have dramatically changed out diets. Treats are only for the weekends now. We have upped our vegetable intake even more and I have been trying to get moving more.

As someone who has never enjoyed exercise this is HUGE. Going right back to primary school, I was never allowed to participate in team sports because I was the only asthmatic in the school and the teachers were worried it would make me ill. as a result, by the time I got to High School I already associated sport with not only danger but also being left out and excluded.  As you can imagine, this isn’t a great foundation for building a love of exercise.

Throughout my life I have made myself exercise. I went to step aerobics and yoga when I was a student. I even joined a gym and went religiously for 12 months before I got married. I walk and dance and have a sporadic relationship with yoga.

I have owned just about every type of gym equipment; exercise bike, rowing machine, air walker… always second hand and usually with a squeak or glitch that put me off using it. I have bought a kettlebell, I bought a dumbbell and then yesterday I took the plunge and bought a cross trainer. 

I love walking and I love going out for a walk, especially if I can walk with someone else and have a good chat. I can walk for miles. Some days though I don’t have time to squeeze in a walk outside, or it is really windy (which makes my breathing difficult), this way, I will be able to walk or even run, short distances between clients or pieces of work. 

I know that this is going to make a difference for me. 

Making changes is about small, consistent steps and being realistic. That’s what I’m aiming for. I find it easier to do 20 minutes a day than I do an hour three times a week.

The biggest step is already taken. 

Making the decision to change is always the biggest and hardest step.

Deciding to do something and for the right reasons is so important to achieving your goals. For example, my change isn’t about weight loss. That will hopefully be a welcome consequence of the change, but my focus is very clearly on strength and lung health. 

The condition I have (acromegaly) causing joint issues, osteoporosis and also heart conditions and I am asthmatic, so being able to make my body as strong as possible is so important, especially as I glide through perimenopause.

Whatever changes we want to make though we can choose to listen to the excuse monkey, or we can prove it wrong. For the most part I am an “I’ll prove you wrong!” person, but unfortunately I am also very persuasive and think things through thoroughly… and so does my mind monkey!

We all have things that we tell ourselves that aren’t true. 

When you realise you are making excuses, ask yourself these questions: 

Is this true? 

How do I know it’s true? 

What would happen if I tried?

What’s the worst thing that can happen?

I’m not saying that you can do absolutely anything, we all have our limits. For example, I might be able to “run” a marathon one day on my cross trainer, but I know I couldn’t run one on a road because my joints would be too damaged. That isn’t an excuse, it is a fact. I’m not making my life better by damaging my body, this is about positive changes not being stubborn.

For you it might not be about fitness, it might be about getting the garden tidy, clearing out the spare room, leaving the job you hate… whatever it is you are making excuses about, I encourage you to stop and ask yourself the questions above and see what changes you can make. You might be surprised at the results.

Stop making excuses – Eric Thomas 

Stop making excuses and create your own reality

Reflections. This time last year we were all merrily going about our business without a hint of how life was about to change. As we approach our first anniversary of being impacted by COVID 19 I felt it was a good time to stop and reflect on how our lives have been changed and hopefully find some positives in a year of deep learning for everyone on the planet. 

There have rarely been events in history which have impacted the whole world. It could be argued that the world wars impacted the whole planet but there were many people who would have been unaffected even by those. During the last 12 months everyone in the world has been impacted in some way by the new virus, COVID 19. We have had travel restrictions, national lockdowns and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Have all the changes we have experienced been negative though?

I’m not one to let things get me down. I always look for the rainbow and the silver lining and the last twelve months has been no different. I’m not saying I haven’t struggled, I have, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t, but I have also been really grateful for the many wonderful lessons this time has taught me.

The impact of the pandemic has been wide reaching; health, work, school, financial concerns, job losses, mental wellness, bereavement, missing our loved ones so much it physically hurts… the list goes on.

Have I been personally affected by all of these and more? 

Yes.

Have I cried because I miss my parents and worried about the fact my husband’s work dried up last March and there is no sign of it returning? 

Yes.

But the last year has brought so many blessings that those things have been made more bearable.

I have loved spending more time with my children. It hasn’t been easy juggling home learning and work, but it has been so lovely having them home all the time. Having lunch together every day. Watching whole series’ together while snuggling on the sofa under a blanket. (If you’re wondering we did the whole of Dr Who during Lockdown and we’re about to finish the Marvel films as our Lockdown 3 treat.)

We have done many jobs around the house that we didn’t have time to do before. We have sorted through the contents of the loft and organised everything. We have made a start on really organising our photos and all our precious memories, rearranged rooms so that they function more effectively for our growing family. We have done work in the garden and got back into growing our own veggies, which we hadn’t done for a couple of years.  

I have loved having a reason to send people gifts in the post. I have always loved sending little messages and gifts in the post, but the last twelve months has given me more reasons to share a smile and I have loved receiving thoughtful gifts from loved ones too. A cream tea from a friend, drawings from my niece and nephew or a bunch of flowers from my parents have given me a reason to smile for days.  

We have allowed ourselves to stop and breathe

Life is so busy usually. 

Between work, family, after school activities, socialising… sometimes it felt like we didn’t have a minute to stop and think about what we wanted to be doing. 

Personally, I have taken time to really think about what makes me happy. How I want my business to grow. What I want to focus on and who I want to serve. 

I have spent time talking to my children about their plans and dreams.

I am almost embarrassed to admit that I have done some online courses (I know such a cliche, but I love learning!).

I have adapted aspects of my business so that I am able to continue working online and there are many aspects of that which have worked brilliantly and I would love to maintain once all this is over. 

I have made sure that I have made the most of all the amazing tools at my disposal and kept in touch with loved ones via video call or messages. I know that I will keep doing that even when I am able to see them face to face more. Weekly chats with my parents and my sister on video chat have been a life saver. My brain actually convinces my heart that I have seen them after our call. Since they live too far away to see every week, we will definitely keep our weekly chats going.

I have also made a list of all the things I never want to take for granted ever again:

• Visiting my parents and sister
• Hugs (with anyone and everyone)
• Playing with my neice and nephew
• Popping to my inlaws for a cuppa and a chat
• Cuppa with a friend
• Having friends round for a catch up
• Wandering round a shop browsing
• Theatre treats
• Gigs and concerts
• Days out as a family
• Trips to the cinema
• Eating out
• Weekends away
• Trying on clothes/shoes in a shop
• Being able to walk along a pavement without moving to the side for someone coming the other way
• Going to a shop without getting glared at because of my face covering exemption
• … the list goes on and on.

The sad thing is that human nature dictates that we will all be so grateful for all these simple pleasures for a short while, but within a few months that will become normal again and we will forget to be thankful for hugs again.

I would like to invite you to take the time to create your own list of things you have really loved during the last 12 months. There will be many things I am sure. 

Then create a list of things you want to try to appreciate for as long as possible, things you have missed or want to make the most of when life returns to normal.

Find out why it is important to appreciate the little things:

Mike Robbins – The Power of Appreciation

Rose Chachko – Appreciating the little things in life

If you are a parent you don’t need me to tell you how stressful home learning has been during the pandemic. Many parents here in the UK have been educating their children at home for almost six months out of the last twelve, it doesn’t get any easier.

During the first lockdown there was an air of excitement and schools were encouraged to do whatever was needed to get our children through this time of crisis. Parents were baking, gardening, colouring and watching nature programmes and that, perhaps combined with some worksheets, was deemed to be enough to get our children through this temporary emergency state. As the time frame has changed and we are now looking at at least twelve months of disruption to learning though, the pressure put on schools by the government has changed dramatically. 

They are now being expected to teach a full timetable, mostly on live video calls, and the government even encouraged parents to report schools to OFSTED if they weren’t happy. What an appalling way to treat a profession who have worked, alongside our other keyworkers, throughout this pandemic, working much longer hours and putting themselves and their own families at risk.

Before I go any further I want to assure you that, however you are feeling about home learning, your child’s teachers are doing their best. Often teacher key worker’s children in the classroom, while supporting the children working at home and worrying about their own children. They would much rather be teaching your children in school, it is easier for them and it is the part of the job they love the most.

Now we have established that noone is particularly happy about the situation we find ourselves in I want to reassure you. 

You are doing an amazing job.

You might feel like you are drowning some days, you might have lost your temper or had a good cry. Maybe you had a really big gin and tonic at 6pm yesterday, or ate a whole packet of biscuits. You are human. You didn’t plan your life expecting to have your children at home during the school term. It isn’t that you don’t love them. You may even be enjoying having them at home all the time. 

You aren’t a teacher – and even if you are, teaching your own children is a very different thing to teaching other people’s children. I would choose teaching a class full of other people’s children over teaching two of my own any day!

1. Take a deep breath

Breathing exercises calm the body and help your brain to function more effectively. When we feel stressed or cornered our breathing becomes shallow and our ability to problem solve and process information logically is reduced dramatically. Take three or four deep breaths before you start and everything will feel easier and more logical.

2. Don’t try to make home learning school

Unless your child asks you to make your time learning together like it would be at school, don’t even try. Honestly, unless you have worked in schools recently, you probably don’t really know what schools are like and how children learn in school these days anyway. Make a space on a table or desk where you will do written work but if your child wants a snack during a lesson, and youthink that will help them concentrate, then there’s no harm in them having one. If your child is getting restless and fidgetty, let them go run round the garden for a few minutes. Create your own routine and your own rules.

3. Talk to the teachers

Teachers want to know how you are getting on. If your child is really struggling, you don’t have the equipment you need, or you are worried that you don’t know how to explain something properly, just talk to them. They may not be able to respond immediately, but teachers are working so hard to make this easier for everyone. They don’t want you to struggle alone. 

4. Prioritise

Depending on the age of your child you can probably prioritise certain aspects of their work. For younger children this will probably be reading, writing and maths work. Older children may be allowed to not attend all the online sessions if they need time to catch up with their written work. It may be better for them to attend the online sessions and not worry about all the written work. Ask the teachers and let them know that your child is struggling.

5. Use relaxation techniques

Managing our emotions has never been more important. Whether it is breathing techniques, meditation, yoga… use whatever you feel works best for your family to help everyone stay calm and happy.

6. Get plenty of exercise

Exercise is so important for helping us regulate our stress levels, as well as keeping us physically well. With everything happening inside our homes at the moment and children spending so much time sitting in front of screens, just going for a walk every day will have a huge impact on their mood, as well as their physical and mental health.

Whether it is a family walk, bike ride or a play in the park, make sure your children are getting outside every day.

7. Make sure you are all getting enough sleep 

With no school run to be up for it is easy to fall into the trap of allowing your children to stay up later than usual and then let them roll out of bed five minutes before their first lesson. Children need to be awake and alert if they are going to learn, but equally importantly, it is while we are asleep that we process most of the stress chemicals our body releases during the day. Without sufficent sleep we wake feeling stressed and short tempered. 

8. You can’t pour from an empty cup

If you are one of the many parents juggling full time work at home and home learning make sure you don’t end up exhausting yourself. If you are working into the night catching up on your work so that you can be there to  help your children through the day you will burn yourself out and then you can’t help anyone. Your work is putting food on the table and a roof over your child’s head, that makes it your priority. Find something educational on the TV (BBC Bitesize has some amazing programmes on demand) and let them sit and watch that while you get some work done. Perhaps you could read a book together while you have a break or do a worksheet while you eat your lunch. As long as you are doing something, you are winning. 

Everything will be ok 

This isn’t a tip as much as a message.

Whatever you do or don’t manage to do during this time of home learning, please know that everything will be ok. Our children will be learning so many life skills at the moment. They have already learned to be so adaptable. They are learning to cope with changes to their routine, learning to process their emotions, perhaps to bake or cook, to be more patient with each other. They are learning that life is unpredictable but that everything will be ok in the end. It really will.  

When our children do return to school, and they will, every child in the class will have had a very different experience of home learning. The teachers are acutely aware of this and will be prepared to fill in any gaps and support the children as they carry on their learning journey, whatever point they are starting from. 

 The most important thing we can do for our children right now is make sure they are happy, that they feel safe and loved and they are ready to return to school. For our children to be happy and calm we need to somehow manage to remain calm and happy too.  

If you need help with your child’s wellbeing or you are a teacher looking for wellbeing resources please do visit my Calmer Classroom website. 

Find out more about change:

Mental health and the Coronavirus

 Shift your focus

Do you believe you are important?

That’s quite a difficult question for most of us to answer I think. Of course the answer is yes, you are important, but do you believe it?

Over the last few weeks I have had the honour of interviewing many amazing women for my The Super Woman Life series. They all had one thing in common. None of them believed that they had done anything special, or that they were anything out of the ordinary. 

Let me tell you these are incredible women, they have achieved amazing things against unbelievable obstacles and they are inspiring so many people, but they can’t see it. They think they are just “normal”.

Of course, the reality is, they are normal.

We all are.

Does that make us any less impressive, or any less important?

Hell no!

Part of the issue, as I see it, is that we all grow up looking up to someone. It may be our parents, grandparents, teachers, celebrities… whoever it is that we admire, we put them on a pedestal. They are perfect. They have achieved phenomenal things and inspired us to be the best version of ourselves we can be. 

Then as we grow, we update our idols. We begin to look up to other people in our industry, friends who have survived and celebrities who reflect everything we want to be. 

We continually update our list of people we admire but at what point do we allow ourselves to be on that list?

My background

I didn’t grow up in a show biz family or anything but I loved theatre and did a lot of musicals in my teens and twenties. I did all sorts of shows, I even did one night at the London Palladium. I had friends who did pantomime, I wrote for the local newspaper when I was at school writing reviews for plays and shows we had seen with school. As a result I met, and often spent time with, lots of celebrities.

These are some of my most treasured photos of me meeting Alan Rickman following an interview I did with him for the local newspaper. Even at 17 years old, I wasn’t star struck, I had met enough actors and performers to know they are just people. I worked with Jane MacDonald on a show and at one time was meeting so many “famous” people I don’t even have any photographic evidence because it just didn’t seem like something that significant (and of course we didn’t all carry a camera phone in our pocket then!).

Despite this, I have still struggled with feeling overwhelmed at the thought of talking to some people I have interviewed. 

Imposter Syndrome

I still don’t feel starstruck at the thought of talking to, or meeting, celebrities. What I do struggle with is interacting with people I really admire. People I feel have achieved so much more than I have. My imposter syndrome comes out to play and I ask myself questions like “Who am I to interview them?”, “Why would they want to talk to me?”, “What have I got to contribute?”. Sound familiar?

What if I told you that everyone feels the same way?

I have spoken to many people in the public eye and rarely do they think they are any better than everyone else, most are still amazed that they are recognised and that anyone listens to them. More importantly most would still be surprised if someone they look up to approached them to do some work. 

Last week I interviewed the beautiful Theresa Cheung. Theresa is an author and spiritual expert. She has also been one of my greatest teachers. 

A few years ago now Theresa contacted me by email. Having read Theresa’s books for many years, at first I thought it was spam. Imagine my surprise when I replied and ended up chatting with her on the phone about a project she wanted me to work with her on!  I was blown away. Why on earth would this best selling author want to work with me?

We have kept in touch ever since so when I started my Super Woman Life interview series I contacted her to ask if she would be interviewed. Bearing in mind she was on Russell Brand’s podcast recently and has been featured on various TV programmes talking about how we are all coping with lockdown and the dreams we may be haivng, I was honoured when she jumped at the chance. Not only that but when I interviewed her last week, she spent the first few minutes complimenting me – you can imagine how that surprised me!   

That was what got me thinking about this subject. It doesn’t seem to matter who I meet, who I work with, there will always be people who I admire and look up to, and who I am amazed want to work with me. 

For me it is a sign of respect. I am in awe of their knowledge, their skills and their strength.

Gaining Perspective

Some of the women I have interviewed for this amazing series have wondered why I have approached them. What have they done that’s so remarkable? Why would anyone be interested in them? Yet some of them have actually cried as they watched back their interview and heard them telling their own story. We are all capable of incredible strength and courage when necessary, we just get on with it. When we see that same resilience in others we are amazed at their courage. Somehow watching themselves back on screen enabled them to detach from their own story and see their own strength, their achievements and their own ability to inspire others.  

We are all SO important. 

If you have any doubt about that, just stop to think about what the world would be like without you. That’s a bit intense, but if you are still struggling with believing your are important, that’s a great way to realise how many people love you, need you, would miss you, you have an enormous impact. You are incredible.

Accepting compliments 

I am slowly learning that I can look up to people and still be important and have an impact myself. Admiring others doesn’t mean I don’t respect myself, or that I feel unworthy.  

Learning to accept compliments and praise is something many of us struggle with. For years I would bat away compliments with a justification or a dismissal. Over time I have learned to say “thank you” or “that’s so kind”. Sometimes it still takes effort to do that, but I am getting used to it and you can too. Next time someone pays you a compliment accept it graciously. It isn’t big headed or showing off, it is being graceful and grateful.  

I’ll start you off. You are amazing. You have achieved so much and I am so proud of you for the way you have coped with this year. I love you.

Do you want to read more about confidence? Have a look at these articles.

Body Confidence Reading List

Empowered Feminine Reading List

Focus on the positives. 

We are often told to shift our focus, aren’t we? To stop focusing on the negatives. We know it helps us feel better, more than that, it can completely re-wire our brains. Evolution has taught us to pay more attention to anything dangerous or scary in order to keep us safe. Which is great, and really important, up to a point. We need to remember that fire is hot and it can burn us. It is important to be wary in certain situations, such as when we are near a wild animal. All those situations require us to be cautious and we should remember the danger. 

It is this level of danger that our brain has been trained to focus on though, and it finds it difficult to scale down the reactions when the situation is something less life threatening, such as an interview or meeting that we are worried about.

We go into our primitive fight, flight or freeze response for these situations too, which unfortunately changes our body physically, preparing it for physical battle, not mental challenge. Our recall and problem solving ability are reduced and priority given to the need to run and hit. Not very helpful.

The last few months have been challenging for everyone. We have had a physical threat to our health, the emotional challenges of not being able to see our loved ones, financial worries… Many of us have spent the majority of 2020 in an almost continued state of fear and anxiety. 

This has impacted on our ability to sleep, eat and affected our mental and physical wellbeing massively. 

I am going to be completely honest with you, (because that’s what I do!) I was doing ok, I was focusing on the things I could control; caring for my loved ones, working, getting my daily walks in… then a couple of weeks ago something changed. 

I started reading lots of the articles shared by some of my friends on social media about the some of the darker aspects of this pandemic. I began to feel very scared and although I wasn’t feeling that way all the time, I did notice the impact it was having on my mental health.

At the moment though I have a different issue. The people I really love and align with morally and spiritually, are all sharing articles about the awful things which are happening and might be happening, disguised by this pandemic and the related consequences. This is all very plausible, almost impossible to prove or disprove – I mean, who can we trust for certain as an information source these days? As a result there possibilities are swirling and my head is spinning. 

At the start of this week I had a massive rant to my family. It was completely fear based. That was the point that I realised I had been sucked into a wormhole of fear and frustration. 

I made a conscious decision that day to focus on the things I can change. To focus on my family, my friends, making my life as positive and happy as I can. I started planning fun activities for Halloween and thinking more about Christmas plans (who knows what we will be allowed to do by then!). I am concentrating on spreading joy and happiness, not fear and anxiety. 

Don’t get me wrong, there are still aspects of what is happening nationally and globally that concern me greatly. Until I work out what I can do to really make a difference to those, I am going to focus on me and the energy I am putting out into the world. 

I know it’s easy for me to say, “I shifted my focus”, I have been learning how to do this for years. How do you actually change the focus of your thoughts? After all, it is out thoughts that control our thoughts, isn’t it? Firstly it is important to say that these are helpful tips for someone who has got stuck in a cycle of negative thinking, if clinical depression is causing the fear and negativity, this advice may be beneficial but it may not be enough. I would always recommend seeking a professional for help if you feel that you may be depressed.

Make a choice

Well, as with so many things, the first step is making a decision. decide that you aren’t going to allow the negative, fearful thoughts to dominate your mind any more. Whenever you find yourself thinking something negative or fear based just make the choice to think about something positive instead. Once you have acknowledged that you are in this thought pattern that is the first step. If necessary, decide upon something that you will choose to think about every time you have a fear based thought. Perhaps when you notice the thoughts you will think about your children, dog, an event you are looking forward to? Whatever it is make that switch as quickly as you are able to.

Be kind to yourself

We are all guilty of being more compassionate with others than we are ourselves. When we give ourselves a hard time that makes it even easier to amplify the negative thoughts. If you are feeling down don’t beat yourself up about it, treat yourself kindly. Make a hot drink, have a bath, put on your favourite Netflix show and give yourself time to move through the emotion. We are all going through a challenging time, many of us have had months of uncertainty and there is currently no end in sight. If you have put on a bit of weight, not been as productive as you wanted to be or been a bit short tempered with your loved ones, take a deep breath and forgive yourself.  

Surround yourself with positivity

This might sound obvious but if you notice that you feel anxious or even angry when you have watched the news or been on social media, stop paying attention to them for a few days. Give yourself time to reset. Equally if there are certain people who are making you feel frustrated or fearsome avoid them for a fews days, weeks if you are able, to allow yourself time to collect yourself. You can also prepare yourself for seeing them by protecting yourself energetically before you see or speak to them, this will reduce the impact of their emotions on you. (For full instructions on how to protect yourself energetically have a read of this blog.) Equally important is surrounding yourself with people who make you feel happy and calm. If you are fortunate enough to live with your loved ones at the moment give them a big hug and show them that you appreciate and love them. Watch a film together and snuggle under a blanket. Comfort yourself and enjoy the company of loving people.

The most important thing you can do for your wellbeing is acknowledging that something needs to change. It crept up on me and I am usually so careful about what I pay attention to; I avoid the news, negative people and keep my social media light, but at the moment it is difficult. We all have to find the balance between being informed and not allowing the fear in. 

If you need any additional help with your wellbeing or you are worried that you are past the stage of these suggestions being helpful please do contact your GP or consider contacting one of the many amazing mental health charities.

Samaritans