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 Putting it off…
It’s over there but I’m not looking…
Yeah yeah, some day…
These are some of the ways people describe procrastination, along with the accompanying feelings of frustration, disappointment, dread and overwhelm. Procrastination doesn’t feel good inside and it means that we don’t get to contribute as deeply or impact as greatly as we want.
Here is a six-strategy approach for overcoming procrastination:
1) Eat It Like You Would An Elephant
“How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time”. Often we aren’t moving forward with a project because it’s just too big and overwhelming; it can help to break it down into bite-sized tasks. “Sort workshop” means nothing – what is the next tangible step? And then the next? You may be surprised by how many itty bitty actions are involved.
2) Find The Missing Piece
As you create a plan of clear action steps, it becomes easier to identify where there’s a missing piece. One client was struggling to record her album and when we went through her action plan, we stumbled upon a piece of technical knowledge that she was lacking ten strides down the track. Often the missing link is a piece of technical, logistical or legal information; resistance can set in if you know you have to deal with that down the line and don’t yet know how.
3) Find The Fear
If you actually DID this, what might happen? Identify what you’re resisting, what you’re wanting to avoid. Perhaps it’s fear of failure – or fear of success. Fear of being wealthy, being visible, having expectations made upon you. Fear of being busy, fear of the unknown, fear of change. What potholes do you fear this journey will take you into?
4) Set A Deadline
If you’re a natural starter, this practical strategy can help channel your energy into completion mode. When you’ve got a messy house, does inviting people round catalyze you into action? A date in the diary commits you, it holds you accountable. The deadline anchors your good intentions in reality and provides external motivation.
5) Clear The Clutter
Declutter coach Sue Rasmussen maintains that 75% of the ’stuff’ in our world is not moving us forward. Whether it’s appointments in your diary, files on your computer, paperwork on your desk or stress in your body, if you are living with a lot of clutter, you are blocked. Do you need to get a shredder? Have a car-boot sale? Or shelve less meaningful engagements to make space for what really matters?
6) If All Else Fails, Picture Your Deathbed
Firstly, what if nothing ever changed? What if you procrastinated on this forever? Connect with the horror story sense of huge regrets and dissatisfaction. What would you have missed out on? And who else would miss out? This is the stick approach. Secondly, imagine yourself having actually accomplished this. How does this feel? Really connect with the wish fulfilled. If your project currently exists as a bland, one-dimensional imperative e.g. “Write a book”, then it probably has no juice or fuel about it. However, if you can feel it in your hands, picture yourself at your book signing, imagine someone approaching you in the street and telling you the impact you had on them, then you’ll connect with why this is so important for you.
Which leads us to: If this project is NOT deathbed important, perhaps it’s not really worth doing. Perhaps all that procrastination is there for a very good reason – protecting you from wasting your time. In which case, practise that all-important skill of being able to say NO. You can then put these overcoming-procrastination strategies to better use, on a project that you care passionately about.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) Identify an area of your life where you notice you procrastinate. Go through each of these six strategies with pen and paper to hand, or with the support of a coach. Be honest, be thorough, and make shifts.
2) As you work through, you may notice you crave support at various stages. See below for suggested pathways forward and take advantage of these opportunities.
3) Leave a comment on this blog, letting us know what helps you to overcome procrastination. Which of these strategies is new for you? How does it help? What have you missed out on because of procrastinating in the past?
Does the accountability and structure of regular coaching sessions appeal? Book a free consultation here > > (20-30 minutes; by phone or in person)
Do you want to connect with the importance of your project idea AND get next tangible action steps? Find out about the Kickstart Your Venture workshop here > >
Have you identified that fear of failure is one of the potholes along your journey? Find out about the Fail Is Not A Four Letter Word workshop here > >
Want me to give a talk/workshop on How To Overcome Procrastination for your group? Contact me here > >
To find out more about Sue Rasmussen’s ‘Unclutter-Organize-Transform’ programmes, click here > >
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2010
Want to receive these blog posts direct to your inbox, plus hear about special offers? Simply subscribe for free here > >
How are you with with making decisions, not knowing how they’re going to end up?
Often, acting from passion of conviction takes us into the unknown. We take actions blind, not knowing whether they’ll have impact or even if they’ll feel good. And yet these actions can take us down avenues we’d never have dreamed of and can lead us to unimagined bounties.
 Ruthie Collins, who founded Positiveworld Studios in Cambridge, shares with us her experience of what can emerge when you do what you believe in:
“Two years ago I made a pledge to stop buying fashion from the High Street because I couldn’t go on supporting the manufacturing of clothing in sweatshops. I care about gorgeous clothes. Frivolous, yes. Uncommon in young women, no. And I also care about staying true to your principles and following your passions – and I believe what you wear is… well, political.
I started it as a six month experiment; it felt a bit like going on a diet… exciting, liberating, with that dizzying sense of possibility. Only with my new diet of sweatshop-free fashion, far from feeling denied, what actually happened was that a whole new world of uber-green style and abundance opened up to me. It was one of the best moves I’ve ever made.
I’ve discovered the joys of supporting small ethical fashion designers, knowing that my custom makes a difference. I’ve researched sustainable fashion blogs, books, campaigns, portals, writers and magazines and discovered the sheer joy of thrift shops in New York. I’ve found myself at workshops at the London College of Fashion – offered free to anyone interested in sustainable fashion. I’ve been invited to take part in a fashion show as a model and go on the telly to take part in a massive live clothes swap. I was even offered a little PR work for an eco-shoe designer AND the chance to write for the Ethical Fashion Forum’s soon-to-be-launched online magazine, Source.
I had no idea that any of this would happen when I made my pledge. I just did it.
Whatever injustice is unsettling you, you can do something about it. You might not feel that baby steps can smash the system but without them, change will simply flutter off out of your grasp. My boycott has taught me that the best way to change something in the world is to start with yourself. Revolutions start from within.”
Look at the language Ruthie uses – “discovered” “found myself” “was invited” “was offered” “a chance”. Once she made a pledge in line with her principles and when she allowed herself to be driven forward by her passion, opportunities she couldn’t have planned for came her way.
If we can leap without a net… If we can bear the unknown and the unplanned… If we can trust that what our heart tells us to do is the right thing to do… then we break away from the tyranny of having to know how it’s all going to work out before we start.
We are then on our very own treasure hunt; we pick up the first clue in front of us and trust that it will lead us to the next and then the next and so we find that we are on our path.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) What is your impulse? What has been playing on your mind? What do you want to just do – without being strategic and without an ‘end goal’ in mind? Consider these questions now.
2) Trust in that passion enough to take one step. Notice what happens – what the first clue is that you stumble upon and where that clue then leads you.
3) Leave a comment on this blog, letting us know about times when you’ve acted from your passion and principles and what the outcome was. Also let us know: How are you with the unknown? What stops you from taking that first step?
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2010
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Kickstart Your Own Treasure Hunt
What are you passionate about? What’s that seed idea, that one clue you’re holding in your hand but not yet making any moves about because you can’t see the end goal?
The Kickstart Your Venture workshop has been designed to both bring your end goal more clearly into focus AND to build upon your passion at this starting point. It’s next taking place on Saturday 24th April in Cambridge.
For more information and to book your place, click here.
 It was very thought provoking indeed – I was surprised at the extent to which it expanded my idea. I could actually have left at lunch time and been satisfied! I’m now a lot further down the development process and feel a lot more confident about it being a viable idea. I felt reluctant to leave, I don’t ever want to go back to where I was before today.
– Ben Marsh, South East London, Archive & Technical Assistant at the British Board of Film Classification
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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]
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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
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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
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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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Putting it off…
