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Idea… Vision… Plan…. Nitty Gritty.
Many of us get stuck in the lofty idea stage of a project: expanding on our colourful visions and dreaming big. This is the perfect place to start… but it’s not much good to anyone if we stay here.
Others of us get stuck in the planning stage: making lists and devising strategies. Again, very useful – but only if we actually see these actions through.
When it comes down to it, you’ve just got to get on and do some work.
I know this from recent first-hand experience. Last Friday night, thirty-five people came out on a bitter-cold January evening to watch an inspirational film, dance salsa and discuss peak oil over locally baked cookies. This was the launch event for Transition Cambridge in our village. The vision had been made reality and we left on a high, savouring the new connections made and feeling a genuine sense of community.
The behind-the-scenes reality is that I’ve been planning and preparing for this event since last September. That one event has been the result of 100+ small, tangible actions: “email him”, “phone her”, “attend this festival” and “post that flyer to them”. This nitty gritty makes all the difference – and it’s also where we can really run into difficulties.
It’s understandable that many of us baulk at the detail. It’s slow and somewhat boring and repetitive. It can be frustrating, it takes persistence – and because the process takes time, there’s lots of opportunity for the self-doubt and resistance to take hold. I can’t count the number of times over the past four months I’ve thought: “Why am I doing this?!”
Your job is to grab those pesky detail gremlins and stay in action regardless. These gremlins can be seen as internal mechanisms set up to protect ourselves: What if our action steps don’t work and our vision collapses? Those ‘gremlins’ would rather we didn’t find that out and so they keep us in safety and our dream remains as a dream. Where there’s the possibility of pain, few dare to venture.
Aside from the fears and self-preservation, there’s another reason we avoid the nitty gritty: It’s just not all that sexy. Once the eureka moment has passed and the drug-like emotional high of an idea has faded away, we’re left in our office, toiling away, step after step after step. It’s simply not particularly glamorous. Are you okay with that? Can you put in the hard-graft, knowing what might await you at the end?
You can quickly assess whether you’re a detail-o-phobe or not by glancing at the action steps below. Do you look forward to that section of these blog posts? Do you actually DO the action steps? Or do you avoid the nitty gritty? If so, how does that impact your projects? Instead of taking a generic “It’ll all be okay” or “It’ll happen someday” approach, perhaps it’s time for you to dare to sit in the detail.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) Make a note of your idea in its raw form – like “put on a community event”. Capture that light-bulb moment, that split-second insight.
2) Grow that idea a little. Pad it out, develop its colour and texture and depth, until it’s more like a vision. You may well want to ask your friend or coach to help you with this stage.
3) Now make a list of twenty action steps that would actually move this idea forward. What is literally, tangibly required of you?
4) DO THE ACTIONS! Commit to taking at least ten of those action steps this coming fortnight, so they’re done by the time the next issue of this blog, The World Needs Your Passion, comes out. As you get down to work, notice what resistance comes up. Is it a fear of failure, or a fear of success? Is it a feeling of being out of your depth, not knowing if these are the ‘right’ steps to take? Are you turned off by the tedium of the nitty gritty, do you long for the euphoria of the dreaming visioning space? Keep taking the action steps with awareness on the resistance and notice if it shifts as you move forward.
5) Leave a comment on this blog, letting us know how you find the nitty gritty. Love it or hate it? Which type of actions come easiest and which do you put off? What is your predominant resistance to getting down to the nitty gritty? And what is the impact when you get down to it and actually take the steps that need to be taken?
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2010
Want to receive these blog posts direct to your inbox, plus hear about special offers? Simply subscribe for free here.
Want support?
If you find yourself in the same patterns of resistance over and over again, and if you’d much rather be moving forward with the vision and getting down to the nitty gritty, you might really value individual coaching support. Find out more here.
If you’d like to explore and expand your idea with others and commit to some tangible action steps, come along to the next Kickstart Your Venture workshop on 24th April. Find out more here.
 Do you have a nagging sense that something isn’t right?
Another day, a little more dread. You can’t bring yourself to look at the situation because of fear, shame or anxiety.
Perhaps it’s your finances, or a relationship. A room in your house that’s got over-cluttered, a health concern, or a looming deadline that you know you can’t realistically meet.
I want to share with you a process you can use to clear the situation up. It’s the process I used to turn around the uptake of my last workshop, where I went from having two participants to ten participants in less than two weeks, and regained my sense of peace.
1. What’s going on?
If you’re ignoring what’s happening and just hoping it will get better, it’s time to come out of ostrich mode. What are the facts, what is the truth? With my workshop, I allowed myself to feel the angst I was experiencing and also acknowledged that I might need to cancel. What are you feeling and what is the down-and-dirty reality here?
2. What else is true?
When the facts are out in the open, your gremlins will love to pounce. (Hint: This may well be the reason you told yourself it was better to keep things under wraps in the first place.) Gremlins are hungry for the very worst, the very harshest. With my workshop, they were delightedly keen to focus on all the empty space, on all those people who hadn’t enrolled. Now is the time to seek out some alternative points of view. How did I know, for example, that two wasn’t the ideal number?! Could I say for sure that a dozen participants would be better? There’s an inspirational urban legend about U2 once playing a gig for just four people. This step is about relinquishing our role as master of the universe and conceding that we don’t know the bigger picture and we don’t have control over outcome.
3. Who can help?
It’s vital to break the painful coziness of keeping secrets. Instead, tell the truth, reach out and ask for help. Part of you desperately won’t want this – it will freak out and scream: “What are you doing!? You can’t reveal this!” Just quietly get on with doing it anyway, choosing your confidantes wisely and knowing that there is safety in honesty. I was nervous about admitting in my last blog post that there were low numbers for the workshop because I didn’t want those who’d signed up to be concerned. I was moved when one of them emailed me immediately saying: “However many people attend, it’s gonna be a wonderful workshop”. You may be surprised by the kindness of strangers – and of the not so strange.
4. What are my strategies now?
Fear can keep us absolutely paralysed. Once we’ve acknowledged the fear, loosened the hold of our one-track gremlins and told the truth about the situation, it’s now time to get into action. I committed to pulling out all the stops in my last-minute promotion of the workshop. I wrote some new copy, blogged about it, asked people to recommend the workshop to friends, went on local radio (which you can listen to here), sent the blurb to online publications, tweeted about it, shared the link on Facebook, followed up with people who had expressed an interest. It worked. What are the strategies for your situation? If you don’t know what might work, others will. Seek out a debt advisor, a professional decutterer, a book on healthy relationships etc.
Honesty, cleaning up and returning to action can feel incredibly scary – yet it’s just one part of us which is scared. Another part of us has a constant and unerring sense of safety because it knows that our safety is a given and doesn’t come from any external circumstances – and that part of us will lead us back to peace.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) Choose an area of your life where you’re experiencing that nagging sense of unease. Now use the four questions to face the truth, get into action, and recover your peace.
2) Leave a comment on this blog post, letting us know how this process works for you. Is this a new way of approaching a murky situation? Which steps do you find hardest, and which come easily?
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2010
Want to receive these blog posts direct to your inbox, plus hear about special offers? Simply subscribe for free here.
Found an area you really want to clean up?
Many people will have made a new year’s resolution with the intention of sorting out a troublesome area and then watched it fall by the wayside. It’s important to know that change is often big and complex and there might be some vital parts of the journey missing – like honestly acknowledging where you’re starting from.
The New Way Resolutions e-course walks you through a step-by-step process for making an actual change.
Click here to find out more about this process and how it could help you. NB There’s a special offer on until 31st January 2010…
 Having an idea can be a very scary thing.
Have you experienced that? You’ve had that same idea nagging away at you for a fair little while now, tugging at you to take a closer look.
But when you do, it all just feels too overwhelming. You stumble when explaining it to others, you freak out when you think about whether you’re up to it and you have no idea where to start with all the practical and logistical aspects of this idea.
And finally, the biggest of all, the grandmother of all fears: MONEY. How on earth will you make a living out of this crazy idea?
Fear not, there is one very good solution: Forget about it. Put this idea out of your head – in fact, pretend you never had an idea at all. “La la la, I can’t hear you….”
This works very well. It means you get to stay right where you are and not deal with any of this, including with any of that fear.
It also means that you won’t get four years in to running a business, like me, and feel that scariness still showing up. You won’t schedule a workshop and find that less people sign up than you’d expected; you won’t experience fear gripping you, you won’t feel “Oh my God, no-one wants what I’m offering” shudder through you.
As I’ve been experiencing this fear and these doubts first-hand, I’ve been reminded of how very scary this whole offering-your-passion-to-the-world thing really is. You are putting yourself out there, on the line, on a regular basis. It can feel incredibly vulnerable and it can be very tempting to chuck it all in.
And because I’ve been experiencing this myself, a suspicion has dawned on me. As I look out on this frosty day, I have an image of all these ideas out there, frozen under the ice. Ideas that are so exciting and yet so daunting that they’ve been hidden away, determined to avoid being thawed out. Ideas for community activities… small businesses… projects… workshops… charities. Ideas that you would love to get into action about but which just feel way too big and clumsy and complicated and downright scary.
Well, guess what? I’m not standing for that. I know what that fear is like and I know that it feels horrible. I also know that it is absolutely worth it to do it anyway. Yes, you need to be courageous. Yes, you’ll need to overcome challenges. Seeing an impassioned idea into reality is certainly not always easy, but it is absolutely worth it.
I absolutely love what I do and I am so grateful that I get to follow my passion. This is why I want to share with you my fears so that you know they’re part of the journey – and that I would choose it again and again anyway. As I read the emails from those who’ve already signed up to the Kickstart Your Venture workshop, I am struck by the bravery as they take those first steps, and I urge you – if you’re in ‘can’t thaw/won’t thaw’ mode – to find that bravery yourself.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) Sign up for the workshop. If you live within 200 miles of Cambridge and you have an idea that you’d like to get out of your head and just a little bit more out there in the world, sign up now. The workshop is taking place in central Cambridge on Sat 16th January, 10am – 4.30pm, £40 per person. You’ll receive a workbook and leave with clarity, solutions to some of your key challenges, energy, motivation, contacts and possibly even a few new friends.
Click here, scroll down to the ’Buy Now’ button at the bottom and pay for your place today.
2) Laugh at the scariness. Put on some dance music or whatever rocks it for you and move. You’re not abandoning that scared part of you at all – in fact the opposite – you’re standing eye to eye with the fear and going “Yep, there’s a whole lot of scariness right now… and you are NOT going to win”. Then dance and laugh some more.
3) Leave a comment, letting us know whether my suspicion has any truth… Has the scariness been getting the better of you? What’s it like to freeze an idea because it’s just too scary to think about? How much evidence do you have of feeling the fear and doing it anyway – and it being worth it? (and if you don’t have much, what could you do to find some more…?)
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2010
 I put a request out on Twitter and Facebook asking what your main challenges are at this time of year. Responses came back showing a definite theme: “taking time off”, “I find it hard to stop working”, “striking the right balance between rest, work and play”, “slowing down”.
There may be a clear need for you to take some physical rest – to enjoy a well-earned break and just stop. You may have noticed that if you don’t build in enough downtime, your body takes charge and forces you into a halt. You may also discover that if you’ve been storming ahead at high speed, you find yourself succumbing to ‘relaxation illness’ – in other words, the moment you stop, you get that cold or flu which was being held at bay whilst on the treadmill.
But ‘resting’ might not necessarily involve a physical stop. When I lived in Australia, I volunteered at a homeless shelter on Christmas Day. It was relatively strenuous – setting up the hall, distributing food, clearing up afterwards – but being there got me away from my own drama and the loneliness I felt from being so far from home. It gave me some sanctuary, a time-out of sorts. It might be that your fortnight ahead is full of physical activity: wrapping, packing, traveling and lots of people. What rest can you find amid all that?
It might be that resting is about letting go of the exhausting old stories that you spin about yourself, stories like: “I’m no good” or “I can’t do this as well as her”. Perhaps now is the perfect time to tell that critical voice to go on holiday and leave you alone. Here is an opportunity to say farewell to old stories about what Christmas is meant to be about – whether that involves dropping a super-woman compulsion to get everything perfect, or releasing the need to purchase in order to show people you love them.
It may be that resting for you is about letting go of the fight. Is there a particular topic which you and your mother always clash over? What would it be like to decide to put being peaceful above being right? What if you decided to give that issue a rest, just for a year? Perhaps you could use this time to enjoy the simple pleasure of company, and the fun and celebration of being with people you love, seeing them for who they really are.
It might be, of course, that now is a time for you to rest in to the sadness of loved ones lost. A few days away from work need not be spent productively or cheerfully; perhaps hiding under the duvet and just being with your broken heart is what’s needed.
How does your spirit, your psyche find rest? What brings you that sense of coming home, to a place where all is well? Here is a link to one of my most treasured personal resources, the practice of Remembrance, generously offered here as a guided audio recording by Mark Silver.
And finally, as the Copenhagen climate negotiations come to a close this week, perhaps there’s a bigger question about what we as a society need to put to rest. Maybe it’s time to let go of continual material growth, perhaps it’s time to put the brakes on and take a breather, and assess full-heartedly where to look for our future progress.
However you relate to this time of year and whatever your plans, may you find the rest that you need.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) What do you want to celebrate that you have done, been and achieved which has brought you here? Find that part of you which can acknowledge that you are allowed a well-earned, well-deserved break.
2) What could you build in that would allow you rest? A twenty minute walk by yourself to have some space from a chaotic family gathering… Allowing yourself to watch a film without it being for personal development… A sign up somewhere saying “You’ve bought enough presents already, now stop”.
3) What old stories are you ready to put to rest? Which are the mantras that go round and round, weighing you down and squashing your joy? Commit to this season being the time to let them go.
4) Leave a comment on this blog post, letting us know how you find ways of resting at this time of year. Is the rest you crave more physical, spiritual, emotional or psychological – or all of the above? When do you feel most restful, and when is it hard to find rest?
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009
[Photo © Barrie Gordon]
Want to receive these blog posts direct to your in-box, plus hear about special offers? Simply subscribe for free here.
Start The New Year As You Mean to Go On
Have you just finished a training course and wondering how you turn your knowledge into action?
Had an idea on the back-burner for ages and now feel it’s time to see it into action?
Then it may be the perfect time to consider the Kickstart Your Venture workshop, next taking place in Cambridge on Saturday 16th January.
Click here for more information.
And if you know that someone’s struggling to think of a meaningful present to get you this Christmas, you could send them this link to the booking form and ask them to put “It’s a present” in the Comment section; they’ll then receive a festive voucher they can either email to you or wrap up and give you.
 What’s the difference between following our passion at 29… and 59?
What does ‘respecting our elders’ mean for us today?
Meet Pippa. She’s 59 next month and while many women nearing 60 may have settled into a comfortable rut, heading for retirement, she’s out there looking for ways to make a difference.
A freelance writer and editor, she’s also heavily involved with the Transition Town and Be The Change movements and is perpetually busy dreaming up, organising and helping hands-on with events. This summer found her in Tibet trekking to 16,500 ft.
I was curious to find out what motivates her to stay so involved when she could be excused for reaching for her slippers and a TV guide…
What inspires you to be so active?
I’ve had a very full life, rich in experience with lots of change and some huge personal challenges so I’ve never developed any expectation of how my life ’should’ be as I got older. Seeing my mother – who is now 90 – in poor health for many years, makes me all the more determined to be as fit as I can for as long as I can. I’m very committed to a daily kriya yoga and meditation practice, which means I have far more energy for the things that are important to me.
You certainly seem to be passionate about making a difference in the world. What is it that drives you?
Drew Dillinger wrote a poem that begins:
It’s 3.23 in the morning and I’m awake,
because my great, great grandchildren won’t let me sleep.
My great, great grandchildren ask me in dreams:
What did you do while the planet was plundered?
What did you do when the earth was unravelling?
Surely you did something when the seasons started failing
As the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying.
Did you fill the streets with protest when democracy was stolen?
What did you do, once you knew?
Those words haunt me. If I become a grandmother, and perhaps a great-grandmother, how could I face those young people when I’m 90 and their world is falling apart – knowing that I haven’t done whatever I could to raise awareness and inspire people to work towards an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on the planet?
What are your toughest challenges now?
Letting go of self-doubt and a preference for supporting others while staying in the background myself; finding the will and commitment to keep on doing the next thing that needs to be done, without being too tough on myself; keeping a sense of humour and lightness so that people I talk to feel inspired and not beaten up; getting out of my own way so that, in Ghandi’s words, I can BE the change I want to see in the world.
What would you say to a 20-30 year old struggling to find her way?
Get in touch with what really excites and inspires you and then give it everything you’ve got. Make sure you find ways to resource yourself so that you can stay grounded and connected to your purpose. Spiritual connection, in whatever way you find it, is invaluable.
Pippa, and other women like her, challenge the stereotype that at age 60, we’re meant to bow out and ‘retire’ out of involvement. Instead, these women inspire us with their continual dynamism and well-earned wisdom, suggesting to the younger ones among us that perhaps life is just beginning….
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) What stereotypes are there about what you should be doing at your age?
2) What do you want to be able to say about your life at age 59 (and 69… 79… 89… 99)?
3) Leave a comment on this blog post, letting us know how you feel about your age. What does it help with? What do you feel it hinders? What inspiration do you draw from people around you of different ages? Who are the elders that YOU respect?
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009
Want to receive these blog posts direct to your in-box, plus hear about special offers? Simply subscribe here.
Want A Different Kind Of Christmas Present This Year?
I’d like to make it easy for you to avoid the same-old nothing-really-changes presents under the tree.
Simply copy and paste the message below, deleting where applicable and with links intact, and send to your friend, family, colleague or partner to receive a gift which you actually want.
“Hello! If you’d like a Christmas present idea for me this year, I would love this:
- An e-course to help with my new year resolution
- A place on a workshop to combat my fear of failure / to kickstart my venture
- A one-to-one coaching session
- A coaching journey of eight sessions
When you buy this for me, mention in the Comments section that this is a present and then you’ll receive a voucher back which you can give me for Christmas! Thanks in advance”.
Now sit back and wait hopefully 
 We often stay where we are because we fear firsts.
I’m leading my first teleclass series at the moment. My experience before the first class was decidedly uncomfortable; I was full of nerves and a torrent of concerns; Would the conference line work? Had I given everyone the right number? What if my phone battery died? What if my printer ink cartridge ran out and I couldn’t print my notes? What if… What if… ?
After the first call, I ran around my house, shrieking with euphoric relief. I loved it and could hardly bear that I had to wait a whole week until I got to do it again. I’d broken the seal on a brand new bottle of delights: a new experience, a new territory I’d opened up for myself.
Often, people hire me because they are fed up of being stuck in same-old land, where there are no firsts and indeed great fear of firsts.
What helps them break the seal and crack open the new?
Here are five strategies I’ve seen work:
1. Create a deadline. Publicise a date and commit to some accountability. Manoeuvre yourself into a hard-to-back-out-of situation where you don’t want to let someone down who is depending on you. Let go of the tendency to overanalyze the deadline – you may be surprised by what you can achieve in a short time-span; as Parkinson’s Law states: “Work expands so as to fill time available”. There can be a tendency to over-prepare for a first experience which is why casual deadlines get pushed back and back until they fade away and become forgotten about. And catch yourself trying to back out of deadlines with seemingly valid excuses. Only one person has signed up? Go ahead anyway.
2. Acknowledge that fear is normal. We don’t often see people doing things for the first time. The actress on stage, the seasoned teacher, the accomplished public speaker all seem so polished. But they had a first time too and back then, they were probably terrified. When your fear kicks in, take that as a sign that you’re normal and that you’re moving into new territory.
3. Think ahead. Get out of the now. It’s easy to get blinkered tunnel-vision when all that surrounds you is the fear of doing this for the first time. Ask yourself: What will it be like in an hour? At 6pm? Next week? That future version of you will be on the other side of this situation, having done it and for that future you, this experience will have been worth it.
4. Rely on a champion. If you were the captain of a ship and announced that you were taking the ship into unchartered territory, your crew might become justifiably anxious. They might even mutiny. You want someone there with you, as your unconditionally supportive mate, steadying your hand and believing in your choice of new direction. At the moment, the odds are stacked in favour of the familiar; you need someone to help tilt that balance.
5. Grow your evidence. Every time I do something new for the first time, I sit there with the fear and ask myself: “Corrina, why on earth are you doing this to yourself again?!” I imagine it’s the same question a long-distance runner asks themselves half-way through a race. Why do we do it? Because ultimately the pleasure and satisfaction are far greater than the discomfort. As your bank of evidence grows, you’ll see more clearly that the pay-off from a new first-time is worth that initial discomfort.
Familiarity is a tempting comfort blanket, wrapping us up in the boundaries that we’ve marked out for our existing life. Deep down, that’s not where we really want to stay. We want to be the person who has done the new thing, who has it behind us, and who is now basking in the new territory.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) The action this week is simple yet it’s no mean feat. Use the five strategies above to support you in committing to do something for the first time. Set a deadline that it’d be hard to get out of, expect the fear, project to the future satisfaction, choose someone as your champion, and watch your evidence start growing.
2) Leave a comment on this blog post, letting us know how you find first times. Which of these strategies do you already use? What else might help? When have pay-offs been worth the initial discomfort? And how do you remind yourself of that when the fear kicks in?
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009
Want to receive these blog posts direct to your in-box, plus hear about special offers?
Simply subscribe here.
Want A Different Kind Of Christmas Present This Year?
Fed up of the same old CD, book and pair of pyjamas under the Christmas tree?
You might like to ask for a present from You Inspire Me this year. You could get an e-course to help with your new year resolution (£7.50), a place on a workshop to combat your fear of failure or kickstart your venture (£35 – £45), a one-to-one session (£75), or a coaching journey of eight sessions (£600).
No snazzy vouchers as yet but simply send an email to your loved one with the relevant webpage link and a little ‘pretty please’ note at the bottom and they can fill out the relevant booking or enquiry form and play Santa.
 How do you know when you’re ready to launch a new venture, start a project or quit your job?
The likelihood is, you never are.
Short story for you: I led a workshop which showed fellow coaches how to use Twitter to grow their businesses. Lots of them wanted to learn more so there’s now a masterclass series available, via teleconference, starting 9th November. That’s just three weeks from idea to actualization and the point is: the interest was there, the timing felt right, I was being encouraged from all sides – so why not?
Every time I’ve launched a new workshop or programme, I’ve offered it with just a title and a synopsis. I’ve known the general stake and have felt the heart of the work – and people have hired me or enrolled based on that. Having the date in the diary and people to whom you’re committed provides that all-important external deadline that every solopreneur craves. The detailed planning and structuring then takes place with that date in mind.
So much of what we do as entrepreneurs is stuff we’re not ready for. Our first radio interview, first talk, first community workshop, first funding application. I’m reminded of that scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding when Cameron Diaz’s character has the microphone thrust into her hand and is told she’s singing. She holds back, petrified at first, and yet soon she is reveling in the experience, delighted to have been pushed. On the entrepreneurial path, it is vital to respond to pushes, give ourselves pushes and then feel ourselves being pushed onwards and onwards by the dates we set and the commitments we make.
There’s obviously a balance to be found here. We don’t want to be underprepared. We don’t want to commit to offering anything which we genuinely don’t have the time or resources to put together. Yet nor do we want to fall into the too-common trap of overpreparing, letting a project fall stale because it’s continually being revised on our office desk. We need to trust that there’s a point where we can release into the public domain because so much of the evolution of a venture takes place collectively. If you look at a movement like Transition Towns or 10:10, you’ll see that so much of what takes place is beyond anything that an individual could have conceived in his or her own mind.
The secret is: We’re never really ready to offer anything because the readiness comes as a result of the offering. As with my Twitter masterclass, as long as there’s one person enrolled (and there is!), people will take benefit and the venture will move forward.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) What are you sitting on? What project have you been mulling over and over without really getting anywhere?
2) How could you start nudging this into the public domain? What step do you not quite feel ready for but which might actually be the step that helps you BE ready? One action may be to join a social networking forum – like Facebook or Twitter – and start connecting with others who could collaborate with you, or help you move this project forward.
3) Time for some bravery. Launch an idea knowing the heart of it and with some structure (e.g. a date or a way for people to get connected with you), trusting that ideas and support will flow in from others and in turn bolster you in your feeling of readiness.
4) Leave a comment on this blog post, letting us know how you are doing with moving your venture forward, piece by piece. What helps you know you’re ready? When does holding back… hold you back?
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009
Stop Waiting – Time To Spread The Word
You have a venture and want to let more people know about it. Maybe you want to find your ideal clients, maybe you want to find collaborators or funders.
In my experience, Twitter is a fantastic way of networking with vast amounts of people whilst using little energy. It makes it fun and easy to spread the word about the project you’re passionate about.
Join us for this 4-week masterclass series via teleconference. We start Monday 9th November and then speak again the following three Mondays throughout the month. You also receive a 45-minute mentoring session which helps you get super-clear about who you want to communicate with and how to reach them in the most effective ways.
For more information, click here. There are now only five places available so to avoid disappointment, do book yours now.
 All our miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone – Blaise Pascal
Why is it so hard to dedicate a few minutes a day to still, reflective time? Virtually every client I have worked with has come with the belief that some kind of meditation would be beneficial for them yet has found it inordinately difficult to set it as a daily practice.
Here are three of the most common blocks – which can you identify with?
“It’s only ten minutes, how can that have any useful benefit?”
We seem wary of the simple approaches; we somehow have more trust in complicated, hard-to-reach remedies, like a retreat halfway around the world.
“I don’t HAVE ten minutes to spare. I’m a busy person and must use my time productively”
With our fast-paced life, any time off the treadmill and away from the to-do list can feel like professional suicide.
“It’s dull and boring”
Behind this is often a fear that WE are dull and boring; we panic about spending time with ourselves in the dark with no distractions.
So here are some strategies that my clients (and I) have found helpful in creating a daily practice:
1. Prepare a designated space the evening before: perhaps with a cushion, a candle and matches.
2. Use a timer so that you can relax into a finite ‘zone’.
3. Make a conditional rule for yourself. Hate that morning taste in your mouth? Set yourself a ‘rule’ that you have your ten minutes before you are allowed to brush your teeth.
4. Build it into your existing routine and ritualise it. If you always set your alarm for a five minute snooze in the morning, extend it to fifteen and move to a seated position for ten of those minutes, or decide that the first ten minutes of your commute is for your practice.
5. Use a prop. I listen along with an audio recording by business mentor and Sufi teacher, Mark Silver.
6. Give it a different name. Perhaps ‘Meditation’ feels serious and dutiful whereas ‘My Free Gift’ sounds sparkling and delightful.
7. Make it delicious. Burn vanilla incense and wrap a soft blanket around yourself.
8. If it all feels too indulgent, make it about others. Focus on it making you calmer in your work life or with your partner.
9. Buddy up. Ask your child or colleague to join you every morning.
10. Do it now. I have sat with a client in reflective silence in a coaching session, or asked my client to put the phone down and take a ‘time out’ chi kung break and then call me back. Having that visceral experience can make you more likely to want to repeat it.
It can also be helpful to remember that an agitated mind is repelled by anything which might calm it. Knowing this means we can acknowledge the resistance when it comes up and remember what our purpose is in instilling this habit – be it more calm, more effectiveness or more spiritual connection.
The World Needs Your Passion, So….
1) Would you like a daily practice? What would be its purpose?
2) What is your most common block?
3) Experiment with one of the ten strategies (and then another…. and another…..) and with other strategies until you find a ‘click’.
4) Leave a comment on this blog post, letting us know how you are doing with creating a daily practice. What are your struggles? What strategies suit you?
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009
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It’s Thursday night in a town hall in Brixton, South London. Hundreds of people mill around, steel drums play, bottles of fizzy ginger are generously given away. In this time of giant banks and an insistently globalised economy, I am here to celebrate the launch of the Brixton Pound: England’s fourth local currency. While most of us assume the future of banking is plastic and online, there is a strong energetic push in the opposite direction. In Brixton, as in Totnes, Lewes and Stroud, you can hold in your hands distinctly unique paper notes; in this case, they convey the area’s identity by way of its key historical characters, local architecture and other familiar sights. Fostering a sense of vibrant interdependence, this is money which, as the slogan states, sticks to the community. Complementary currencies like these are experiments, causing us to perk up our ears and consider the fundamental workings of a system – in this case, our economy.
Earlier in the day, I eat at Tibits, a vegetarian buffet restaurant off Regent Street where you pay according to how much your food weighs. It’s an oasis of delicious, conscious dining in a landscape of frenetic eat-as-much-as-you-want, buy-one-get-one-free cheap offers. Here resources literally count and waste is minimal, unusual in this age where we rarely assess how much a thing truly costs. Someone once said to me: “Only dead fish go with the current”. This day in London, I feel that I move from one interesting undercurrent to another, bypassing the mainstream flow. The true spirit of an age often lives just underneath the radar.
Why do we sometimes get like dead fish? Why do we go unthinkingly with a current? I suspect it’s because we forget about the human capacity to choose. To stop, to be discerning, to say: “Hang on, is this what I want? Is this what makes sense?” To recognise our own significance and know that if we want our life, our world, to go in a certain direction, then we need to turn our eyes that way. No matter how strong a current feels, we have the power of choice, the power of directional, decisive action. As Einstein said, “Any fool can make things bigger, more complex. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction”.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) From what you notice in the news, in conversations, in the environment around you, in adverts, in your own habits, which trends don’t sit well with you?
2) Likewise, which currents do you feel are taking your life and our world in directions you’re delighted about?
3) Crank up the element of choice. If you got to direct the current of your life, where would it take you? If you got to direct the current of our society, where would you take us?
4) Finally, if you were to abandon all deadfishness, what would your role be in all this? How would you claim your power of choice and get into action? Action: Seek out individuals and groups whose undercurrents you want to slip in with and join with them. And, of course, make some powerful undercurrents of your own.
Found this post challenging? Helpful? Inspiring? Irritating? Leave a comment and let us know.
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009
* Hello! Your Idea Is Needed!
My guess is that you have an idea for a project, product or service that would nudge us in an interesting new direction. Well, it’s time to start that current.
If you want to explore your idea with other inspirational people, join us for the Kickstart Your Venture workshop next Saturday (10th October) in Cambridge. If you’d love some one-to-one attention, some time and space just for you and your dreaming, book a free coaching consultation. You also might like to read Emma’s case study; when so many people were clinging on to job security, she took a brave leap against the current and into more fulfilling work. Read her story here.
 I know fear well. Symptoms: Sinking stomach, clammy palms, pounding heart, shaking all over. Sometimes it’s mild – ‘nerves’ let’s call it; other times it feels like sheer terror.
When I scan my life for experiences of this feeling, I can quickly find dozens: bungy jumping, telling my friend I had feelings for her, the first time I gave my The World Needs Your Passion talk, sky-diving, handing my notice in at my teaching job, singing a song I wrote in front of 300 people at a conference, our wedding day, hand-gliding.
It’s no coincidence that these are also some of the events I land on when I scan for the highlights, those experiences which have brought the most richness to my life.
Why no coincidence? Well, as Susan Jeffers outlines in her classic ‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway’, we are guaranteed to encounter fear every time we take a risk. It makes sense that moving out of our comfort zone won’t be comfortable. The critical point is that we take these actions because we want to have a more fulfilling experience of life – we want to say that we have truly lived – and so that feeling of fear is worth bearing. Jeffers’ point of view is that we need to accept that fear will always be there and decide to take it along for the ride.
Or we could not. No-one is forcing us to take risks or leave our comfort zone. BUT staying where we are is not the pain-free option. I’m sure you know as well as me that when we stay stuck, we experience that gnawing sense of a wasted life, the silent panic as time ticks by without achievement, that dread, the regrets, the hopelessness and the helplessness. I don’t want that feeling – nor do I want it for you.
Invariably with my clients, a motto emerges. “Get on with it”, “Just do it”, “Go for it”, “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. These women are brave; they adopt their motto because they are committed to moving forward, knowing that encountering the fear is far preferable to living a half-awake life.
You’ve probably seen that there’s a workshop running on Sat 10th October called Kickstart Your Venture. This is a heart-felt plea for you to pause and honestly consider whether this would help YOU move away from a life of regrets. Do you have an idea for a project or business, a charity or community venture, that you’re not currently acting on? How does that feel – that gap between idea and reality? My guess is that it doesn’t feel good.
Now take a look at the Kickstart Your Venture workshop. Can you make the date? Can you afford £35? Now scan for fear; if it’s there, it’s a good sign! It indicates that this could actually be an opportunity for you to finally move forward. I want to clarify: It doesn’t matter how vague and higgledly piggledy your idea is. It doesn’t matter that you have no clue how you’d actually make it happen. That’s what the workshop will help you with. You just have to turn up, willing to talk about your idea, and willing to support the other participants as they share theirs.
Please don’t wait for the fear to dissipate. It won’t. As Susan Jeffers says: “We can’t escape fear. We can only transform it into a companion that accompanies us on all our exciting adventures”.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) Inquiry: Where do you find it easy to move forward, despite the fear? In which area(s) of your life have you taken risks so often that the fear has lessened and a previously daunting experience now feels normal and comfortable?
2) Inquiry: Where are you stuck because you haven’t been willing to experience the fear? What’s that like?
3) Action time! Based on your findings in 2) and encouraged by the evidence you uncovered in 1), commit to taking action TODAY that feels scary. You know that you will feel fear; take a deep breath and decide to do it anyway. And as you feel the fear, acknowledge yourself for how you are able to handle it. It may not feel pleasant but nor does it kill you. You can deal with it. How much freer does that feel, how much more is possible for your life?
4) Leave a comment below, letting us know what you experience when you feel the fear and do it anyway…
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009
The Global Climate Wake-Up Call
Monday 21st September, 12:18pm onwards, EVERYWHERE
Unprecedented grassroots action in our communities to demand that our leaders sign a fair, ambitious & binding climate treaty at the final UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December. Click here for more information; find your local event or feel the fear and put yourself forward NOW to host one!
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