Tools, tips and education to help you live the life you choose

It was off to more training this past weekend, a 3 day boot camp.  One of the things we were looking at in this boot camp was the effect of your birth on the person you become.  Now I have to admit I was a little skeptical at the start, after all we are all born, does it really effect us whether we had a natural birth or someone assisted us with forceps or if it was a total trauma?  I was open to seeing what others felt.

After the weekend I am now convinced that there is something to the concept, that your birth experience can indeed influence some of your habits and psyche.  Before you start worrying because you may have had a bad birthing experience the effects don’t have to scar you for life.

One of the exercises we did was to get into groups according to births, so we had those whose parents wanted a child of the opposite sex, Caesar births, long labours, forcep births and so on.  Each group looked at a list of characteristics for people with their type of birth.  It was really interesting that for most people in those groups they could relate to several things on the list and felt that the list for their type of birth was more accurate than any of the others.  Not exactly definitive research, but certainly indicated some basis to the idea.

Obviously as you go through life you are exposed to a whole lot of other experiences which for you may build on your birth experience or turn some of the beliefs you got from it on their head.  Part of the process is realising your patterns and understanding where they come from.  You can be more aware of what you are doing and why and can make a more conscious choice of whether you want to continue that pattern.

For example you might have a pattern of not speaking up in public.  Think back about the pattern where it came from, why you do it.  Maybe you spoke up and were ridiculed at some point or your answer was wrong so you might have a fear of being wrong or failure.  It could be that you feel you are not good enough and are not worthy of contributing to the discussion.  When you think about your patterns you will know what feels right for you as to the why.  As I say in general you can’t just stop the pattern like flicking a switch, however being aware of it and why you are doing it can help you make a choice next time you become aware of what you are doing.

So spend some time sitting and thinking about your patterns and why you keep them.  If you are interested in the effect of births on your life, Google it and check out the research or contact me and I’ll send you some links and stuff.

Over time I have been to a lot of seminars and other training events and listened to the stories of a lot of the presenters.  What has amazed me is the common thread that so many of the really successful entrepreneurs had.  If you have been to many of these events have you noticed how many of them have rags to riches stories.

It is the typical fairytale, they were on the streets or poor or abused or a labourer, in some sort of situation where being a millionaire and a respected person seemed an unlikely, possibly impossible, future for them.  Or it  certainly seemed that way to outsiders looking in.  They then have gone against all the odds and proved people wrong.

This got me thinking, do I have to go broke before I can be successful?  Why was this rags to riches story so common?  It took me a little while to work out.  All these people had nothing, or not much, to lose by getting out there and going for it.  They generally worked hard at developing a system or an idea and were determined to get somewhere.

So why don’t we get so many stories from presenters saying I was doing this great job, getting paid lots of money and just decided I wanted a change?  You do get some and again there is a common thread in them.  If you listen carefully you will notice they talk about have some great desire for something, maybe a different lifestyle, could be helping people.  There was always some burning reason for them to change.

It is that burning desire that is missing for many people looking to change their path.  Comfort can be your worst enemy.  You can say to yourself, if this doesn’t work then I can keep doing my job or I might watch TV tonight instead of trying to get my business up and running.  The big thing is that you can do this and you won’t suffer, go without food or be on the street.  When you think of many of the rags to riches stories, many of these people didn’t have that comfort, it was do something or be destined for a life of poverty or discomfort.  Do you think that would help motivate you?

We all have our own comfort zones and I am not talking about the recliner in front of the TV.  I am talking about behaviour and activities that we are comfortable doing.  It is like doing the same job for a while, you get used to what you have to do and it becomes comfortable.  Going to a new job can involve different people, new tasks and so on which can initially be outside your comfort zone.

Getting a business going or changing your life in some way involves stepping outside your comfort zone.  This means discomfort, not always as easy as jogging along doing the same things.  To keep stepping out of your zone you need a good reason, a burning desire.  Do you have one?

So next time you feel you are not making the changes in your life that you want or things aren’t moving along fast enough for you, check whether your comfort zone is holding you back.  Are you holding back on activities that you know will move you forward, activities that are outside your current comfort zone?  Challenging your comfort zone is a key to reaching your goals.  Go for it!

Have you ever had the situation where you have been asked to do something at work and not felt quite comfortable with it?  I am talking something that does not feel right mentally, say paying someone for something that they haven’t done, or paying too much, paying cash, not issuing a receipt, these type of things where you feel the rules are being ‘bent’ slightly.  Or maybe a mate comes over and gives you something that ‘fell off the back of the truck’.  It is different for everyone, some of you may refuse the gift, others may be asking for more.

So what is happening?  We all have values and when something happens that involves us going against our values then we feel uncomfortable.  We each have different values and ideally you should be clear on what they are and then live life according to them.

If you can sit down and write a list of them that’s great.  If you find you are sitting there with a blank piece of paper then there are a couple of things you can try.  You need to imagine what you would like to have people say about you.  Go out a long time into your future and imagine your funeral.  Imagine a member of your family getting up to talk about you, jot down some keywords or sentences of what you would really like them to say e.g. always there for us, fun, loved us, or whatever gels for you. 

Now if the idea of your funeral puts you off or gives you some sort of block then pretend it is some sort of dinner to honour you, or some other event where people will get up and say nice things about you.  Once you have done a member of your family, you do the same for a work colleague, a friend and someone from a community type organisation you have helped with.

Put all the lists together to give you a list of your values.  You can break down any sentences to the key words, e.g. she was kind and compassionate becomes kind, compassionate.  OK now you need to sort out your top ones i.e. rank the list.  This may come easily to you or you may want to take each one and think about, for each of the other values, is it higher or lower e.g. is love mean more to me than being kind, if so put it above kind, then compare it to the next one and so on.

What you are left with is a list of your values in order of importance to you.  These are not set in concrete for the rest of your life and can change.  This is an exercise that can be done when you are making major changes in your life to see if the choices you are make are aligned to your values.  Your values are the things that truly matter to you.

I’ve been away for five days over the last weekend.  Most of the time was spent at a seminar on Public Speaking.  As part of the seminar each participant had to get up in front of the group and do a five minute talk and then listen to the feedback of the group.  You have got learn to walk your talk, i.e. not just sit there and take in the theory and it was certainly a great learning experience, not only doing your own talk, also learning from others.

There was no schedule for the talks, everyone’s name was in a bag and when it came time for talks, one of the organisers just pulled names out of the bag so it was totally random, your name could be picked at any time in the three days.  You could feel the tension mount each time it came to pulling a name out, people thinking ‘not me’, others thinking ‘make it me so I can get it over with.  People came up with some fascinating topics from kinesiology to flying to their life story.

The other fascinating thing was how people performed compared to your perception of them.  Most of the group knew each other and we interacted well during the breaks, catching up since we last met a few months ago.  As such you had a perception of them and how they might perform.  It was interesting how some people who you thought seemed confident seemed to end up more nervous out there than others who had said they were scared.  It just shows how right the saying is that ‘you can’t judge a book by it’s cover’.

So how did I go?  Well after day 1 my name hadn’t been called, day 2 and I’m thinking it would be kind of good to get it over and done with.  No such luck, had to wait until day 3 and it is getting later in the day, I’m looking round the room counting the number of people who haven’t done talks yet, the number is gradually diminishing and time is ticking away.  I am starting to wonder if they will get time for everyone.  It’s sort of like a double edged sword, half of me saying ‘Oh well if I miss out so be it’ and the other half going ‘If I’ve sat here wondering for three days I might as well get up there and see if I can do this’.  You can probably guess – I ended up being last.

What did I learn about being last.  It’s not always a bad place to be.  It gave me a great opportunity over the three days to practice some of the techniques you learn as a coach to help get rid of the fear and be more calm and relaxed.  Without those I could have spent three days in absolute anguish.  It is possible to reduce your fear and anguish, just a matter of knowing how.

The other interesting thing was seeing over thirty different speakers over three days it was really intriguing to see what got through to you.  As we were told the essential elements were having something to say and a burning desire to say it and oh boy how true this was.  When someone was up there delivering a message about something they were passionate about you really got the message, their technique or other distractions were secondary.  Something to remember if you ever do any speaking in front of a crowd, if you can do it about something you really relate to and feel strongly about it is easier to get the message across.

So there it is, don’t judge a book by it’s cover, remember you can overcome your fears and if you ever have to speak in public try and do it about something you feel passionately about – it will be much easier.