Ready for Change

On Being “Stubborn” and How to Challenge It

So, if you DO think coaching is for you, but you’re still finding you’re resistant, then that’s where the coaching starts–with your resistance. A coach can prompt you to look at what your resistance is about, where it comes from, and why it’s important to you.

Some coach-like questions you might want to ask yourself:

• What do I believe will happen if I don’t do it myself?
• What do I believe it says about me if I ask for support from someone else?
• Is there a pattern here? Does this do-it-myself / stubborn theme only apply to coaching, or is it a theme in my life? If it is a theme: how has it helped me, and how has it held me back?

What Is It That You Want?

Finally, I offer you the classic coach question: What is it that you want?

And: Are you getting what you want with what you’re doing now?

And: If not, are you willing to try something new in order to get what you want?

If you are willing, then perhaps it’s time to contact a coach and see what might happen. And if you’re not, then I trust you to find something else that better supports you in reaching your goals.

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Laura McGrath is an Ottawa-based life coach and therapist who works with clients all over the world. If you’re considering how working with a coach might be useful for you, she is more than happy to pick up the phone and have a conversation. Get in touch.

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Every Thursday, Ask Laura answers a question from readers. Got a question? You can submit it here.

Dear Laura,

I keep losing sight of what’s important to me. I’m struggling to set personal goals and hold myself accountable to them. For whatever reason I’m not satisfied with where I’m at right now (mainly in my working world) but having a hard time setting the boundaries of what I want to go after. When I seem to be making progress I always get distracted by things right in front of me, such as personal relationships and adventure. Any advice for how I can approach this differently?

-Distracted and Dissatisfied

Dear Distracted,

I hear the frustration in your words! You know you don’t want to be where you’re at, but you also don’t know where it is you want to head. It’s my hunch that you’ll need to get clear not just on “what you want to go after”, as you put it, but also how you want to be as you go after it.

With that in mind, here are the exploration questions I’ve cooked up for you…

How do you want it to be? 

Laura

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Dear Laura,

Sometimes I feel like the whole world’s against me and no one’s on my side. How can I get some support?

-Looking for Somebody to Lean On

Dear Looking,

Ah, I know the feeling. For me, it’s like being crammed into a dark corner, and I raise my fists up in defensiveness. What is it like for you?

I love that you’ve recognized your need for support. Once you’ve reached out and received some support, the feeling that no one is on your side will start fading. Before exploring support, though, I want to ask a bit about “the whole world” being against you.

Is it true?

That’s one of my favourite Byron Katie questions. Whenever we notice ourselves framing things in absolutes (“the whole world’s against me”, “no one’s on my side”), it’s a clue that our thinking has taken a field trip into a world of fixed, unchangeable, absolutist beliefs. So I invite you to slow down and ask yourself, “Is it true?”

Perhaps you can think of someone who isn’t against you: maybe it’s the grocery cashier who helped pack your bags, or the bus driver who stopped to let you off, or someone who gave you a hug when you got home. In any way, little or big, can you find examples from this week of people who weren’t against you?

I know you can. And as you find those examples, your mind will start loosening its grip on the belief that it’s you against the world. And once that belief has been loosened up just a little, you can open up to exploring support.

What does support look like to you?

Support looks different to different people. What’s the type of support you need?

Some people, I’ve learned, feel supported when someone checks in with them regularly to ask how they are. Some people feel supported when they take “me-time” and go to a yoga class, or listen to music, or take a walk. Some people feel supported when they have a list of four great people on their babysitting roster.

What’s the type of support you’re yearning for?

Jot down (or doodle!) what support looks like for you.

• How does it feel when you’re supported?
• What do you notice around you?
• What do you believe when you’re supported?
• What can you count on when you’re supported?
• What changes for you when you get support?

Get Specific

I invite you to list five to ten things that would help you feel supported.

• Try to make these things tangible (e.g. “Jane takes out the garbage”) rather than abstract (“Jane helps out more around the house”).
• And try to make these things statements of what you want to have happen (e.g. “Joe makes dinner on Monday”) rather than naming what you want to stop/change (e.g. “Joe stops eating all the leftovers I was going to use for my lunches this week” — that explains what you want to have stop, but not what you want to have happen instead).

Ask

I think it’s a tragedy that sometimes the people closest to us miss out on supporting us, because they don’t understand what support looks like for us. Often, they don’t understand because we’re unclear on it ourselves, or we’ve never taken the time to tell them what we need.

Do the people close to you know about your personal definition of support? Do they know you’re needing support right now?

I invite you to make the ask. I invite you to step forward, knowing what it is you need and want, and to make a specific request from someone near you for their support.

If this idea feels too daunting right now, start with something that doesn’t feel intimidating or overwhelming for you. For example, get the physical sensation of support by sitting with your back leaning against a wall, or feel supported lying in a hot bath or floating in a swimming pool. Ask someone to give you a call this week just to ask how you are. Tell someone, “I know I need support, but I’m scared / uncomfortable / reluctant / worried about asking for it.” As you make yourself vulnerable in this way, the people you’re reaching out to will see your sincere need for support, and see that you are inviting them in to help you.

It’s beautiful that you’re asking for their help. It’s beautiful that you are opening up to your honest, human, moving need: to feel supported. It’s my wish that as you learn what support you need, and how to reach out for it, that you become a role model to others around you who feel the same way.

Warmly,

Laura

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I’ve been asked to revisit the March 24 post on overwhelm, When It’s All Too Much. In that post, I focused on how to explore your tendencies and then experiment with new approaches to overwhelm. This week, another tool I’ve found useful: the overwhelm spectrum.

The Overwhelm Spectrum

Imagine one end of the overwhelm spectrum: thinking about the day to come, and feeling complete overwhelm.

Here’s what that might look like for me: the dishes are piled up, the laundry isn’t done, I haven’t been able to focus at work in a week, I’m still getting over a cold, my niece/spouse/housemate/colleague is angry at me, exercise is but a dim memory, and the gremlins (“What do you know, anyway?”; “You’ll never succeed at x,”; “No one cares what you have to say!”) show up.

Now imagine the opposite end of the spectrum:

Ahhhhhhh…

I see a sunny day, a light breeze, popsicles, relaxation, ease, all the time in the world.

Now, back to the first end of the spectrum and… ack! Even thinking about the warm sunny day is overwhelming to me right now, because it feels so far away and impossible!

And that, I think, is where we often get stuck.

The Overwhelm Ladder and the Deep Dark Hole

From the place of complete overwhelm, getting to the warm sunny day feels like a gruelling climb out from the bottom of a deep, dark hole, and I’ve got no energy for it.

So, the trick is to map out my overwhelm spectrum, with attention to all the points in between both ends.

If I’m too overwhelmed to climb all the way out of the deep dark hole to the warm sunny day, okay. But what if I could climb just one rung up the ladder?

What’s one rung up from complete overwhelm?

For me, it might be exactly the same scenario as overwhelm, except I feel less exhausted. (What would it be for you?)

So instead of trying to get myself entirely out of the overwhelm hole, I’ll do what I need to do to get one rung up – I’ll take a nap.

Maybe the next day I’ll think: What’s one more rung up the ladder? 

My next rung might be: completely overwhelmed, but I’m less exhausted, and I was able to focus for one hour. (What would it be for you?)

And so on… you get the picture.

When you’re completely overwhelmed, thinking about how to get out of overwhelm is… overwhelming. But thinking about how to feel one small ladder step less overwhelmed is manageable.

Start there, and see where it takes you.

Warmly,

Laura

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Dear Laura,

I did well in school and I have a good job, but I still struggle with confidence and low self-esteem. How do I build up confidence?

-Not So Sure of Myself

Dear Not So Sure,

First off, I want to let you know that you’re not the only one wrestling with confidence. It’s one of the most frequent things I hear in my coaching practice, often from people who seem so outwardly successful, yet who struggle with low confidence on the inside. Sometimes I wonder what it is that causes people to put on a front of confidence when inside, I’m learning, so many of us are vulnerable and uncertain. (There’s an idea: what if you embraced your vulnerability and uncertainty instead of fighting for confidence? Something to explore…)

So, what do you mean by confidence?

I’ve learned that each individual has their own particular brand of confidence, their own personal definition.

What’s yours?

Take some time to explore it.

If you were confident:

• How would you talk?
• How would you stand?
• What would you wear?
• Where would you live?
• Who would you surround yourself with?
• What would your voice sound like?
• What would someone else notice about you?
• How would someone else describe you?

What builds confidence for you?

I invite you to survey different aspects of your life: different roles you have, different hobbies, different work you do. In which do you feel most confident?

Got one? Great.

Now think about how you came to build confidence in that area. What did it take? This example can be a clue to your personal method of building confidence.

When I look at confidence in my life, I notice that my tendency is to think that I’ll be confident when I know enough, so I try to build confidence by studying. But the evidence holds up that it’s not studying that builds my confidence: the true source of confidence for me is doing.

Check to see if you might be trying to build confidence in ways that aren’t actually supporting your confidence. What might you try instead?

Confidence through integration

I have only a few decades of life experience, but I’m fairly sure of this:

Confidence does not come from our grades at school.

Confidence does not come from our job.

It does not come from what we accomplish or achieve.

Confidence has its roots deep within an integration between our minds, our body, and our heart. When these three are in harmony, a beautiful sureness of self emerges.

Do you find yourself living in your head and ignoring your heart? Wrapped up in feelings and leaving your mind out in the cold? Pushing yourself intellectually and neglecting your physicality? Any of these may be symptoms of a lack of integration between your mind, body, and heart. Rather than seeking “confidence”, I invite you to consider seeking how to integrate these three elements, and gently observe the effects.

Warmly,

Laura

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Every Thursday, Ask Laura answers a question from readers. Got a question? You can submit it here.

As a follow up to last week’s Ask Laura post, Can I Change?, here’s a link to a different perspective: Danielle Laporte’s sweeping affirmation: you can change.

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While I’m rounding up things to read on the web, here are a few other posts that have caught my attention recently:

• Danette Relic’s Welcome to the Grief Hotel, a beautiful, heart-searing meditation on welcoming Grief into her life.
• Kate Swoboda’s The Spaciousness of I Don’t Know — “Transference, in this sense, is taking experiences from the past and transferring those old ways of thinking onto the people/situations/environments that are current in our lives.”
• Diane Chung’s 4 Ways to Deal with World Crisis, Global Tragedy, and Planetary Anxiety — “It’s seductive to allow fear, anger, guilt, regret and hopelessness to take over. To engage at the extremes of active despair, or alternately, to be numbed, passive and disconnected. I invite you to choose another way.”
• Elisha Goldstein’s Your Destructive Mind Habits in 5 Short Chapters: catastrophizing, exaggerating the negative and discounting the positive, mind reading, being the external expert, “shoulds”, and blaming.

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Every Thursday, Ask Laura answers a question from readers. Got a question? You can submit it here.

Dear Laura,

Can I change?

-Hopeful Skeptic

Dear Hopeful Skeptic,

Sooner or later almost all my clients ask this question.

“Can I change?”

They ask it of themselves, they ask it rhetorically, sometimes they ask it of me.

My answer:

Yes, you can, and no, you can’t.

I don’t think my love of language is ever going to go away, but how I relate to it and incorporate it in my life has changed (from studying to be a speech-language pathologist to freelance editing work).

My Enneagram Type 5 tendencies mean that I’ll always carry with me my basic desire to be capable, competent, and knowledgeable, but my personal growth means that I’m no longer striving to be the most competent, mind-blowing person on the planet — instead I strive to use my competence and knowledge in the service of others.

I believe I will always need to be cared for, nourished, and loved, yet I no longer believe that all of these needs have to be filled all the time, or always by just one other person.

What I know about change is that it starts with awareness.

In my experience, before changing:

I had to become aware of my habits, patterns, and tendencies.

For example, aware that I try to become an expert on a subject before I act or share my knowledge.

I had to become aware of what those tendencies were about.

What is my snobby need for expertise about? What am I protecting? What’s the fear behind it? What do I get out of it? Is it healthy? Is it bringing me satisfaction? How does it affect the people around me?

I had to become aware of the triggers that send me scurrying into my tendencies.

For example, if I feel insecure or challenged, I retreat and isolate myself in the books, the learning, the classes, the expertise, and I don’t come out again until I’m certain. If I feel that my life or work is overwhelming, I spiral quickly into “It’s because I’m not smart enough / competent enough / knowledgeable enough.”

I had to learn to accept my tendencies.

“What we resist, persists” (a quote often attributed to Carl Jung). As long as I was resisting my tendencies, fighting against them, beating myself up for them, I didn’t change. When I started to accept them, then things shifted.

I had to become aware of that space between stimulus and response, a space in which I can choose how I will act.

If I feel overwhelmed, might I consider that it’s not about what I know / don’t know? Maybe it’s even because I know too much? Maybe it’s because I’ve been isolating myself in acquiring knowledge instead of interacting with people?

I had to experiment with new ways of being.

I had to try not being an expert. Try being dumb. Try half-assing things. Try saying, “I don’t know.”

Tools along the journey

Hopeful Skeptic, you will seek out and find the tools that work for you. Here are some of the tools that I’ve found helpful as I worked toward change.

Working with a therapist. I worked with a graduate of the Transpersonal Therapy Centre (where I am currently completing my own training as a therapist) for three years. Through her mirroring, articulation, and questions, I started to recognize my tendencies. Through her support and acceptance, I learned to accept myself. Through role-playing and rehearsal, I learned to choose new responses.

Working with a coach. I worked with a CTI-trained coach (CTI is the coaching school where I did my coach training too). Coaching work was particularly useful for me to recognize the situations in which I felt like I did not have a choice, and then to find that I could choose. It opened the doors on what I thought was possible.

Yoga (or any similar practice). In yoga, I learned to be patient with my abilities and my inabilities. I learned to accept what I could do and what I couldn’t do. I learned to calm my mind and attend to my body. I learned the limitations of staying in my head.

Meditation. I’m a beginning meditator. I find it useful in increasing my ability to notice what is happening and my automatic reactions, to expand the space between stimulus and response, and to notice what else I might choose, how else I might react.

You can change.

You can change. And you can’t. But mostly you can. And I invite you to ask for help along the way.

Warmly,

Laura

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-Overwhelmed

Dear Overwhelmed,

My heart goes out to you.

I know that feeling all too well — I imagine humans the world over know that feeling all too well. What you are experiencing is human, is normal, is something that happens to all of us.

Congratulations to you on being aware of what’s going on, being able to articulate it, and for reaching out.

Time management fans might advise you to prioritize, to eliminate unnecessary tasks, to limit distractions. Productivity fans might advise you to identify what’s truly important to you, do that, and forget the rest. Fitness fans might advise you to go to the gym to get your energy up. A counsellor or therapist might work directly with the feeling of overwhelm.

All of those suggestions might be useful to you, and I encourage you to explore any that seem promising.

And it’s my job to bring the Ready for Change coach’s perspective.

Explore Your Tendencies

I invite you to pay attention to how you tend to react when you feel “like it’s all too much.”

We all have our different coping strategies, some of which are helpful and some of which are only contributing to more overwhelm.

For example, when I feel like it’s all too much, I tend to withdraw, cut myself off from people, and retreat to my room to lie in bed. It’s a long and ongoing journey for me to learn that isolating myself increases my overwhelm, rather than reducing it. I’m better off when I open up to someone, ask for help, and make an effort to get outside the house.

A colleague tells me that her reaction to overwhelm is to take on even more. She tries to bypass overwhelm by being too busy to pay attention to it. For her, the learning is to resist the tendency to take on more, and to slow down and attend to the overwhelm.

One of my clients tended to deal with overwhelm by trying to give himself the illusion of being in control. If only all the things that had to be done were written down, with associated timelines and deadlines, then he would be back in control and not overwhelmed! But in actuality, the more things he listed and scheduled, the more overwhelmed he felt.

What I’m getting at here is:

What do you tend to do when you’re overwhelmed?

How do you try to manage it?

And is that working for you?

If it is working… well, then you probably wouldn’t have sent me your question.

If it’s not working, then great — you’ve just learned something about yourself! And now you can choose a new tendency to try.

If you tend to isolate yourself, then try asking for help.

If you tend to cram your schedule full to preoccupy yourself, then try creating some empty space.

If you tend to get rigid about tasks and timelines, then try getting flexible.

If you tend to focus on a whole bunch of “little things” to avoid thinking about the big things, then try committing to doing the big things first.

If you tend to cut out all the things that re-energize you, then try prioritizing your own energy before anything else.

Bask in the Learning

Whatever new reaction you try, you are engaging in the beautiful messiness of life. You’ve found something that’s not working, and now you’re going to try a new way of being with it. The first thing you try might work. It might not. Enjoy the journey. Discovering yourself and what makes you tick (and what makes you not tick) is all part of this fascinating business we call life.

Live it up!

Warmly,

Laura

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Every Thursday, Ask Laura answers a question from readers. Got a question? You can submit it here.

Dear Laura,

I am in my last year of my undergraduate degree in engineering.  My perspective on engineering and my analysis of my own strengths has changed over the four years since I’ve started–I’ve found that my interests and strengths lie in the social sciences as opposed to the applied sciences.  My interest in my courses has being waning all year, and it’s been tough to keep up my motivation to work hard and do well in my technical classes.  How can I keep my motivation and interest up in the home stretch?

-Almost There

Dear Almost There,

Congratulations on having so much completed! An undergraduate degree in engineering is nothing to sneeze at. . . it’s a huge accomplishment. And as someone who works with many people who started out studying engineering, I can assure you that there are lots of opportunities that will allow you to combine your problem-solving, analytical engineering training with your strengths and interests in the social sciences. You’re graduating with a special blend of skills, interests, and training.

I hear some determination in your question — you are aiming to finish, to work hard, and to do well. And I’m imagining that four years of engineering has encouraged you to develop planning skills, studying strategies, time-management habits, and discipline.

So, I’m going to assume that you know how to work hard and how to do well, but right now you don’t really want to. How can you crank up your motivation for the home stretch? Below is a mix of exercises for you to try to tap into your motivation.

Imagine Completion

I invite you to close your eyes and imagine what it will be like two months after you have completed your engineering degree. It’s done, and it’s two months behind you!

• How are you feeling?
• What are you celebrating?
• What are you proud of?

Now, imagine yourself six months after completing your degree.

From this six-months-out place:

• How does it feel to be done?
• What do you remember about getting through the last few months of the degree?
• What was easy?
• What was hard?

Now, fast forward yourself ten years into the future.

• Was it worth it?
• What did it take for you to finish?
• What words of encouragement can your ten-years-into-the-future-self offer you?

Write it Down

Take out a blank page and write at the top, “Finishing my degree is important to me because. . . ” and then fill the page with your reasons.

What’s important to you about crossing the finish line? Not important to parents or friends or professors or future employers. What makes it matter to you? What values do you have that you are honouring by finishing?

When you’re clear on the reasons that really ring true for you, I encourage you to post this page somewhere where you’ll see it regularly, and where it will remind you of why you’re going to finish.

Spread the Motivation Around

What else do you do, outside of school, that gets your juices flowing?

What lights you up, gives you energy, and generally makes you feel more interested in the world around you?

Got your answers? Great–those are things that motivate you!

Just because you’re feeling a dip in motivation at school doesn’t mean you need to live a life without motivation. Keep doing things that spark your interest and make you feel involved, because keeping that level of motivation and enthusiasm in your life–no matter what it’s about–will keep your energy and engagement levels up, and that will help you keep your head in the game just a little bit longer.

I know you can do it! Let me know how it goes.

Warmly,

Laura

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Dear Laura,

I’m so tired in the mornings that I hate everyone and everything from 5am-8am. At night, I’m too tired to go out with my friends. How can I convince my employer to let me come in at 9:00 instead of 6:30?

-Tired

Dear Tired,

Most of my friends and family know that I’m a queen when it comes to tiredness. I almost always feel like I need a nap. So I empathize with your situation!

Before I respond from a coaching perspective, I want to make sure to encourage you to find out if your tiredness has any physical causes. If you haven’t already, talk it over with your family doctor just to make sure there’s nothing physical going on that’s causing your tiredness.

From an emotional perspective, I’ll share something a therapist once told me: she said that sleep was a great avoidance mechanism, and got curious about what I might be avoiding by going to sleep at every opportunity. She encouraged me to notice what exactly was happening in the moments before I thought, “I’m exhausted,” and to notice if there was a pattern–a tiredness trigger, if you will.

Now, from a coaching perspective:

From a coaching perspective, I’ll invite you to look at how you’ve described the situation:

I’m tired in the mornings and the evenings, therefore I need to convince my employer to change my work hours.

Another way to look at this situation is to say that you are trying to meet three needs: your need for gainful employment, for friendship, and for rest.

As you wrote the question, your solution to all three was to convince your employer to change your work hours.

What other solutions could meet your needs?

Lunch dates with your friends? An post-work workout to boost your energy in the evenings? A change to a new job with different hours?

Before settling on one solution, I invite you to brainstorm ways you could meet each of your needs. Come up with as many ideas as you can, and then consider which might combine well in your situation.

If you do end up deciding that speaking with your employer about your work hours is the best way to go, consider making the case that it will be better off for your employer if you are alert and energetic when you’re at work, and that you can bring that alertness and energy to a 9am shift, but not a 630am shift.

Warmly,

Laura

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