Hello people and welcome to the not so flaming June 2015 edition of Namaste. Clearly the weather is making an effort to be summer but it hasn’t quite made it yet, for as I sit here writing this my feet are cold! Our boiler has broken down, but at least it’s not winter. Ho hum… Plumber coming in a couple of days to fix it. While I’m waiting, maybe I should invest in a bottle of Pimms and a box of strawberries so I can at least pretend that summer has arrived.
Meanwhile here, I hope, are some heartwarming reflections…
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In this issue:
Oh happy day
Raise your game
Giving
Make a heartfelt decision
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Oh happy day!
Oh joy, oh happiness, let merry-making be unconfined! A miracle has happened.
My iPod has been resurrected, resuscitated, returned from the clutches of the grim reaper, persuaded to refrain from crossing to the other side. My friend Kevin fixed her with his magic powers.
She needed a new charging cable, that’s all! And Kevin gave her one, and with it, the kiss of life.
Undying gratitude to Kevin!!!!!!!!!! (He’s getting married next month).
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Raise your game
Once again here in the UK we find ourselves at the start of the grass court tennis season (Wimbledon and all that) and once again we have the engaging annual prospect of physical and psychological warfare played out at the highest level on our TV screens.
There is much we can learn from this sport to benefit our daily lives, but don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with a treatise on how to play tennis. I use tennis in this context only as a compelling metaphor for many of life’s challenges.
Have you noticed how the top players, the Federers, the Nadals, the Murrays, the Djokovics, the Wawrinkas of this world, all have the amazing capacity to raise their game a notch or two when under pressure, instead of just caving in and giving up? And many of the top women players, Serena Williams for example, are also really good at doing that. This is something we ordinary mortals can do in our own daily lives as we are confronted by our most important challenges, and if we emulate this example, we will achieve far more than we ever dreamed was possible.
Let’s have a look at the necessary ingredients.
Tennis is nothing other than extreme physical and psychological warfare. This goes right to the heart of your motivation and what your goal is. Does your goal truly come from your heart, and does it mean everything to you? Will you do whatever it takes that’s legal and ethical to make it happen?
Perseverance requires grit. You can develop that quality if you believe in yourself and your goal, and you are motivated by a burning desire. So how do we do that?
First of all, think about what you are like: when faced with the prospect of failure or defeat, do you give up and hide under the duvet, or do you try again?
This is where my tennis analogy comes in. One definition of insanity, it is said, is doing the same thing again and again while expecting a better result. The only way to succeed when you try again is by first raising your game. And you can do that by asking yourself, “what can I do to make it better this time?”
You may believe you have already done your best, but I can assure you, there is always room for improvement. How can I know that? When you think you’ve done your best, that’s precisely the moment you should ask yourself that vital question, “what can I do to make it better this time?” When you do that you open the door to developing an invincible, forward moving, positive mindset, for you are asking your higher self for inspiration and creative ideas, which will always come to you if you are genuinely open to receiving them. And by empowering yourself this way, your self-belief will rocket. And then, as long as you persevere, it’s only a matter of time before your goal is achieved.
The key to being happy with your achievements is by ensuring you only pursue goals that are meaningful to you, and in accordance with your natural abilities, talent or calling. All else is a waste of your, and everyone else’s, valuable time and more often than not mere ego-aggrandisement.
The way to go is succinctly summed up by my mantra, “do what you love, love what you do.”
Life’s too short to do what you hate or feel half-hearted about. When you do what you love, you automatically love what you do, and the potential for achieving excellence arises. Then your life will take on new meaning and purpose.
So let’s not play small. Let’s let the world see what we’re made of. No more excuses - let’s go all out to make our dreams come true, and whenever necessary, do whatever we have to do to make what we offer better.
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Giving
While we’re on the subject of living a life of meaning and purpose, here’s something from Louise Hay that fell into my inbox the other day:
“The real gift in life is in giving to others. We have the power and the means to make a positive difference in someone else’s life every single day. Whether you offer a smile to a passer-by, or pay for a stranger’s coffee, or donate your time to help others, giving makes us feel so good!”
Good to be reminded of that.
Funnily enough, that message I received was followed later the very same day by the following thought from someone quoting the late Arthur Ashe, one time Wimbledon champion:
“From what we get, we make a living; from what we give, we make a life.”
Incidentally, Arthur Ashe was the only person I have ever seen meditating in silence with his eyes shut during a match on the centre court at Wimbledon every time he changed ends. It was the men’s singles final one year and it obviously did the trick, for he certainly kept his focus, deepened his determination, raised his game and won the championship.
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Make a heartfelt decision
Any coach who is worth his or her salt will tell you that you stand a much greater chance of achieving your goal if you write it down.
While this is so, so true, there is one more very important thing to remember – many people fail to make a start or even create a goal in their minds because they cannot see at the time how it can be achieved.
Hence I always tell my clients, "you do not necessarily have to know in advance how your goal can be achieved. As long as you consciously DECIDE to achieve that goal, really mean it deep in your heart, and remain super-aware of what's going on with you, your first action step will soon reveal itself to you. And when you have taken that first step, your second step will be revealed."
Then all you have to do is keep going, listen carefully to what your heart tells you, and act on it without hesitation. It may have nothing to do with logic or reason, so be aware that your mind may actually tie you up in knots.
There are many, many ways to say "no" to something, but only one way to say "yes," and that's from your heart.
One other thing that came up with a client only the other morning - if you are unclear about how you feel about anything, not just wondering how you can achieve your goal, you are almost certainly thinking too much. If you are not sleeping properly you are almost certainly thinking too much, if you don’t believe you can achieve anything you are definitely thinking too much, and if you are plagued by indecision it's the same problem - analysis paralysis caused by overthinking.
I am happy to say I have a solution to this and I regard it as my number one coaching tool: silent meditation, in which you practise the art of non-doing and becoming a witness. But that's another story...
Other than that, the only antidote to fear, indecision or lack of self-belief is action. Remember the wise words of the late Susan Jeffers: “feel the fear and do it anyway.”
All of the above simply means that there is no need to be deterred or discouraged from dreaming up your goal and writing it down, just because you don’t know how you can achieved it. The very act of dreaming it up and writing it down encourages your creative process to get going. Listen carefully to your heart and you’ll soon make a start.
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I reckon that’s enough for this month. If you are going on holiday, have a great one and don’t forget to send me a postcard!