Patience, patience…

Hello gorgeous,

This week I still don’t feel like going back to fears, I find it funny but there’s always something else coming up in conversations that make me tilt and change my mind 😉

This week I want to talk about patience. I guess if you are anything like me, you don’t like to wait at all. When you set your mind on something, you want it and you want it now! While I am writing this, I have to think of little kids who are just the same, wanting their toy or their bottle right now, they don’t know what patience is, the only thing they know is the Now, they live in the Now…

Well, we also live in the Now, but life taught us that we often have to wait in order to get the things we want. How’s that for waiting:

• I finally got a house with a swimming pool at 46 (while I had been praying like hell when I was about 6…)
• I finally met my husband (and father of my kids) when I was 34, got kid #1 at 36 and kid #2 at 39
• My mum finally became a grand-ma when she was 69 (and nearly getting desperate!)

Well, still, I am not patient. When I ask my kids to do something and I have to repeat it 3 times before they act, I get annoyed. When I ask the Universe for something and I don’t get it right away, I get annoyed. When I see people bragging about their business successes, launch successes, I get jealous.

And then I have to stop myself and remind myself that it’s important to enjoy the journey, not the destination. Like in this saying: “Happiness is not a destination, it is a way of life.” We can’t let our happiness depend on something that we want and do not have yet (be it a house, a job, a partner…). I can’t let it stop me from enjoying myself in the Now. And, the other thing that I often forget to do, is to stop and look at all I am doing, recognize I could not fit anything else into my schedule, and pat myself in the back for my hard work, and realize how far I have come.

So how about you? Is anything stopping you from being happy now? Is there anything you want to have (need to have) before you can allow yourself to be happy right now? And can you stop for a minute and look at where you were 6 months ago, and pat yourself in the back, before you go on with your life and your desires for a better life? 😉 (I do have those too, and they are necessary as well for us to progress!)

I wish you a wonderful week!

Perfectionism and Procrastination

Hello gorgeous,

Instead of what I had planned for you this week, I have chosen another topic that came up a few times during conversations this week…

Perfectionism and procrastination often go hand in hand (although procrastination also has other causes ;-)) So you might have the feeling that your life would be easier if you weren’t such a perfectionist, and you are completely right, it would be, a lot… So that’s the first step. Now how do you let go of perfectionism, how do you go from there to “good enough is good enough”?

I think a good exercise here is to think of all the things that you are not doing because of perfectionism:

• Are you not starting this business you want to because you are not “ready”?
• Are you not submitting your book because you feel “it still needs editing”?
• Are you not putting up your website because it’s not “finished” (e.g. “perfect”)?
• Are you still taking course after course because you still need to learn first?
• Are you not exposing yourself (or your work) because you are afraid of rejection?
• Are you not showing up fully because you are afraid of what people will think?

My gut feel is that once you start looking at all those things (that you deeply want) that you are not doing, you will start uncovering those fears that are behind (fear of rejection, fear of being ridiculed, fear of not being loved etc.), but you will also understand that they are not “real”, they are – again – your ego trying to keep you safe.

So now that you know what you are afraid of, how about dreaming instead? Dreaming of those things finally happening, that successful business, that book, that play, that show, whatever it is? Can you let yourself dream of how it could look like, how you would feel? Isn’t that worth the effort and facing your fear?

If dreaming is too difficult for you to do now, another game is the “and then?”. Suppose you want to publish that book and you need to contact publishers. What is the worst that can happen? A rejection, right? Ok, and then? Then you contact another one and you might get another rejection. And then? Every time you dig deeper and ask yourself that same question. Until it doesn’t seem so bad, so difficult, so horrible anymore… Do you know how many times writers had to receive rejection before they got published? There are many stories of famous authors, and J.K. Rowling, to cite only one, faced 12 rejections before she got her first Harry Potter published! So considering your particular situation, what is the worst that can happen? And then?

To conclude on a humoristic note, I came across this tee shirt recently, and I had to share it with you, I haven’t ordered it yet but am considering it! (excuse the offensive language on it ;-)) (here’s the link – am not an affiliate!)

I wish you a wonderful week!

Dealing with fears… Part 1

Hello gorgeous,

We all have fears and we all let them block us from doing what we should be doing (that is: be the best version of ourselves!), at least from time to time!

They might block us from showing up fully (and be successful in business, in our relationships…), they might block us from making that difficult decision we know we need to make and we keep postponing…

But, let me tell you (in case you don’t know that yet ;-)): they are not going anywhere. They are way too comfortable with you. They are gonna stay right there with you, keep you company and especially keep you safe.

Because what are those fears? In most cases, they are simply your ego wanting to prevent you from doing something that he (the ego – sorry guys, it feels more masculine to me ;-)) believes is dangerous for you, be it for your health, your safety, or even your sanity! While this is very important that we don’t get ourselves into dangerous situations, like jumping from a bridge or a plane, sometimes the thing we fear is deemed dangerous by the ego simply because it means exposing ourselves to something new, maybe risking a failure, and simply getting out of our comfort zone.

In a book I read a few months ago (Playing big, by Tara Moor),
she explains that there are 2 types of fear: Pachad and Yirah (2 Hebrew words for fear). The first one, Pachad, is “the fear of projected or imagined things”, while the second one, Yirah, is “the feeling that overcomes us when we inhabit a larger space than we are used to”. While Pachad is more about the ego perceiving a potential threat (not only a physical threat), Yirah brings with it expansion, as it is about getting out of our comfort zone, expanding, learning, growing, and that feels much more exciting.

So one thing you could do here is trying to recognize, when you fear something, which one it is. It might often be a mixture of the 2, but I encourage you to try and see when there is a possibility for expansion.

In another book I read a few years ago (Feel the fear and do it anyway by Susan Jeffers),
the main message she is giving is that the only way to deal with our fears is to face them and do the thing we fear. And we are far from being alone, everybody has fears, but they don’t necessarily let them block them and prevent them from acting.

One practical exercise from this book we can do is: to list all the payoffs that keep us stuck.

For instance, we are currently in a job, working for somebody else, but we are unhappy. However we are not (yet) taking action to change job and we stay where we are, complaining… Why is that? Payoffs could be: as long as we don’t try to find another job, we don’t have to expose ourselves to rejection, we don’t have to check and update our cv, send it out, check the ads, receive some negative answers, go through interviews, maybe fail… But yeah, maybe we can and will find the job that is made for us, with the nice boss and colleagues, where we can continue to grow and learn, and go to work with pleasure in the morning….The choice is ours…

I’ll end this first part with a quote:

“Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don’t want.” Esther Hicks

So…if you can do something about it, make a plan and act on it. If you can’t, stop worrying!

I will be back on that same topic next week!

I wish you a wonderful week!

Celebration time baby!

Hello gorgeous,

It just came to me today that I should talk to you about celebrating. Celebrating what, you are asking? Well, there is so much to celebrate…

Think about where you are now. We are past the middle of the year, so look back at those first 6-7 months. What happened in your life during all that time?

• Did you maybe sell your house, or buy a new one, or both?
• Did you launch your first e-course?
• Did you write that book?
• Did you increase your income?
• Did you give yourself an upgrade (whether that means for you, buying new clothes, furniture, more self-care etc!…)?
• Did you take a big (and often) difficult decision?
• Did you decide to be less demanding for yourself and more compassionate?
• Did you finally take (computer-free) holidays?
• Did you make new friends?
• Did you spend time with your good friends?
• Did you love?
• Did you get a coach? 😉
• And whatever else you can think of!

If the answer to at least one of them is Yes, then you’ve got to celebrate!!!

As I write this, I have to think about Brendon Burchard (personal development trainer and author of a few good books – amongst which “The Charge”), his philosophy is to ask yourself those 3 questions (and not just at the end of your life ;-)):

• Did I live?
• Did I love (hey, not just another human being, but yourself as well…)?
• Did I matter?

If we say yes, we are on purpose!

I am planning to celebrate with my friends at the end of August, and I have already a few reasons to: 8 years married, 13 years together, turning 48, 2 years back in the south of France, and I am planning to add even more reasons to celebrate between now and then.

So how about you? Getting in the mood already ;-)?

I wish you a wonderful week!