Everything is Figureoutable

The brilliant entrepreneur Marie Forleo has recently released her book, Everything Is Figureoutable and I've been totally engrossed in it on the plane to Tenerife today.

The idea is simple: every problem is solvable. But Marie declares that taking on this one empowering belief can override all of your other unwanted beliefs.

HOWEVER – I would like to take Marie’s mantra one step further.

I now know that there is something even more powerful than beliefs: identity. Ever since I’ve overcome my fear of flying, I’ve been absolutely fascinated by the concept of identity. Your identity is a set of beliefs that define who you are. You have the power to change that identity by changing those beliefs.

I’ve also discovered that our results in life are tightly bound to our identity. Our identity (a set of beliefs) creates our thoughts, which creates our feelings, which creates our actions, which creates our results.

Beliefs > thoughts > feelings > actions > results

That means, not only should you take on the belief ‘Everything is Figureoutable’ – you should adopt the identity of “I can figure out anything.” Everything is no longer just figureoutable, YOU are the kind of person who can figure anything out. It’s not just a belief you hold, it’s who you are.

Everything is figureoutable is no longer just a belief, but an identity.

I can figure out anything!

What Is Your 2020 Needle-Mover?

A needle mover is a task that will propel your project or area you are working on to the next level.

I once heard a story about a man who had a whole raft of issues – he was severely overweight, in a troubled relationship, his career was on the rocks, he was a chain smoker and he also chewed gum. He finally decided he needed to make some serious changes in his life – so he chose to stop chewing gum.

Huh?

You have all of those issues, and you chose to use your limited daily willpower to stop chewing gum?

The thing is, this dude clearly had good intentions, and he was ready change his life. He just didn’t stop to think about the actions that would truly propel his life forward. But he was making a crucial mistake: the change he was making wouldn’t propel his life forward to the next level. He needed to focus on one thing that would truly make a difference. Perhaps for him, it was losing weight, leaving his relationship or getting a new job.

If you could only work on ONE thing in 2020 that would propel you forward – just ONE, what would it be?

For me, it’s getting the word out about my members club, Impossible Incubator.

In other words, my sales funnel is my 2020 needle mover.

What is the most important needle-mover for 2020?

Committing to my alarm clock

This morning was tough to get out of bed. That’s not a surprise – it’s always been something I’ve found difficult.

But as a high performance coach, I’m incredibly passionate about pushing my limits to be the best I can be. But it was only recently that I discovered I’d never actually integrated being a high performer into my identity. I loved the concept and loved doing the work, but I didn’t OWN it.

So now I’ve changed my identity to include “I am a High Performer.”

And the funniest thing has happened. My motivation has gone through the roof. I’m actually DOING the things I commit to.

This morning, as usual, I heard my alarms go off:

• 7:30am – Snooze. There’s no way I’m getting up yet.

• 7:32am – Snooze. I’m far too tired. Just 5 more minutes, pleeease.

• 7:35am – Snooze. Don’t even with me right now.

• 7:40am – Snooze. I’m far too tired to… hang on. I am a high performer! Now that I’m a High Performer, what do I do? I follow through on my commitments. And my alarm clock is a commitment! Okay, I’m up.

Identifying with BEING a high performer meant that I felt like I was acting out of alignment with my core values when I snoozed my alarm. I felt accountable to my alarm this morning because I felt the way I started my day was a representation of my true level of performance.

I am a high performer. I no longer press snooze.

How to Get What You Want

It’s not because the diet doesn’t work. It’s because you don’t do the work.

It’s not because your plan didn’t work. It’s because you didn’t do the work. 

Any diet works. Any plan works. 

But did you work?

It’s not what anyone wants to hear. But it’s truer than we’d like to admit. We are the ones who don’t show up.

My clients promise me things all the time. I promise myself things all the time. It’s easy to make a promise. It’s easy to make a commitment. I don’t care if you can make a promise. I want to see you keep a promise.

This answer to how to get what you want is almost too obvious, it gets dismissed. I fear I may not grasp it to its fullest extent yet either.

Show up every day and do the work. Every day. No exceptions. No sick days. No cheat days. Every single day.

Lessons from Daily Blogging

Today is day 141 of blogging in a row (I’ve set myself a challenge to blog every day for 2 years). That means I’m about 1/5 of the way through, so I thought I’d share some of the lessons I’ve learned in the past 4.7 months of blogging.

1. Writing in the day is so much better than writing at night, last-minute before bed. Yet mostly, I write in the dark because my boyfriend has already fallen asleep. The girl in this photo is not a good representation of me – imagine a glowing screen and rapid touch-typing.

2. Writing every day means some of the content I produce is inevitably going to not be ‘my best work’. The proportion of great content I create is still the same as before I started this challenge, but because of the sheer volume of content I’m creating, the overall number of great blog posts is much higher. Generating more content gives me extra opportunities to generate great content. More content = better content, overall.

3. Sharing my blog to social media every day is more draining than actually writing it, and therefore I tend not to share it to social media very often, which means my blog probably isn’t being read by many people – currently. I’m kind of torn between putting out my writing because I love doing it, not caring if one soul reads it, and the ‘Gary Vee Method’ of trying to get as many eyeballs on it as possible.

4. I’m writing for myself, not for anyone else. I have an audience in mind, but I blog because I’m deeply passionate about the topics I write about. It fuels me and it’s exciting to see a collection of works coming together, like an artist creating paintings for an exhibition.

5. I’m still finding the balance between personal and general on my blog. Am I creating ‘how to’ pieces? Or lifestyle photography with a small excerpt from my experience of my day? Am I just sharing my experience or is it more than that? I’ve tried all of these and I’m not totally sold on any of them. Right now, I’m just creating whatever comes to mind. I’m interested to see how it develops.

6. I don’t enjoy writing closing or openings to blogs. I just want to get straight to the point, the good stuff. Introductions and conclusions are generally fluff written out of obligation to the reader. Many posts would be better simply as tweets, as you’d get the point across without the unnecessary details. One of my favourite bloggers is Derek Sivers. He does this.

Even though I said I don’t like writing closings, this feels like it needs one. This is it.

Hold for more

Watch this space.

Intention Words for 2020

As I’m setting up my 2020 goals, I’m also doing a practice I do with all of my High Performance Coaching clients: setting intention words.

Intention words are markers that represent the best of who you are and how you want to show up in the world. You can use them to guide how you want think and act each day – which can have an incredibly powerful impact on your life.

My 3 Intention Words for 2020:

Vibrant
Connected
Unstoppable

Every single day, I want to show up with vibrancy, create connection and not let any set back stop me from achieving my mission.

I want to be vibrant even when I’m doing the dishes.
I want to be connected even when I’m talking to the postman.
I want to be unstoppable even when I’m facing a tiny decision.

Being intentional is about thinking about how you want to be before a situation occurs. Brendon Burchard, the author of High Performance Habits, argues that what makes High Performers so good at being intentional is that constantly remind themselves of their intentions.

I have an alarm on my phone, set to go off every morning at 8 am, and evening at 9:39pm, so my words pop up and I’m reminded to live into them at that moment, no matter what I’m doing. My 2019 intention words are sticky taped to my shampoo bottle so every morning I can ask myself “how could I show up with inner peace today?”

I’d love to hear what your 2020 intention words are – leave me a comment below!

Push Ups Update

I’m back in the game to get to 100 push ups. If you read my November Goals Review, you’ll know that the reason I didn’t achieve my goal of 30 push ups is that I was already at 25. I set the bar too low, and made the mistake of believing “I had time” to work up to it.

But I broke my own rule #1: Don’t set realistic goals.

Realistic goals are boring, and I have no motivation for them. Impossible Goals get me fired up.

So I’ve decided, instead, this month I will reach an impossible goal: 50 push ups.

Ooh, it gets me excited just thinking about it!

Here is my workout routine:

I only started it yesterday, but I am READY to make this happen! I’m going to accelerate them a bit, as I can definitely do more than 5 push ups. Tonight I managed to comfortably do 10 in a row, which is great because it’s actually the 7th day of the month! So I’m going to continue training at the rate of aiming for 50 push ups by the 31st of December.

I’ll keep you updated – make sure to check out my Instagram Stories as that’s where I’ll be posting most!

Put Your Mind To It & Do It

I had a coaching call with one of my clients today, and she was struggling to get herself to do the things she needed to do towards her goal.

She had a massive breakthrough and told me: it’s almost always easier than you think it is. You already know the thing you need to do, you just think you can’t do it yet. She is SO right.

She went away and applied for her dream job right then and there, and sent me proof. Done.

Here’s a series of journaling questions to make that hard thing easy:

1. What is the goal?

2. What needs to happen?

3. What will that take?

4. What bold action can I take right now?

Put your mind to it and do it.

Decade in Review

I’m looking forward to doing my 2019 review in depth, but before I do that, I’m excited to do a DECADE in review, because come on guys, can you believe we’re about to hit the 20’s? Did somebody say Gatsby? Yikes! We’ve come a long way in 100 years, but since I’ve only been alive for about 23.5 years, I’m ready to share my thoughts on the last 10 of my life.

2010-2019

Here’s a quick bullet-list summary of the last 10 years (I realize that ‘quick’ isn’t really going to do 10 years of my life justice, but if I were to do the long version – ain’t nobody got time for that!).

In the last 10 years I have:

• Attended and graduated University with a degree in Psychology & Philosophy

• Climbed Mount Kilimanjaro

• Started a bazillion online adventures – a t-shirt line, an Instagram course, an eco-fashion blog, a travel blog, a coaching practice and a membership site (to name a few!).

• Walked in a fashion show

• Walked a Hollywood Red Carpet

• Had my work published in a fashion magazine

• Fallen in love

• Moved across the world

• Traveled to more than 20 countries

• Overcome my fear of flying

• Been awarded a language cup

• Become a Certified High Performance Coach

• Gone vegetarian (and then vegan)

• Thrown some incredible parties

But listing 10 years worth of ‘successes’ wouldn’t be complete without also listing 10 years worth of ‘failures’:

• A bazillion business flops

• Several painful breakups

• An emotional breakdown

• Experiences of grief

• Got myself into (and out of) debt

• Feared for my life in a New York taxicab

• Made some awful financial decisions

• Been confused, sad, angry and exhausted

• Thrown some disastrous events (remind me to tell you about the time we found moldy bread in the washing machine during a show-home at our house!)

What am I proud of?

I’m incredibly proud of my relationships with my friends, family and my partner. I strive every day to make my relationships as meaningful and joyful as I can. Here are the two pieces of advice I always give to people when they ask for my opinion on happy relationships: First, you must put the other person first, always. In any kind of relationship (familial, romantic or platonic), if you both put each other first, you’ll both end up with what you need and want, and both people will feel good about it. Second, communicate. It’s the most boring piece of advice ever, but it’s the secret sauce for great relationships. Share what you’re feeling before it gets too big, and communicate in a forward-thinking way. (Constantly asking each other ‘how could we move this conversation forward?’) It’s a recipe for harmony.

I’m also proud of my coaching practice. In the past 2 years, I’ve thrown myself into honing my skills as a coach. There is so, so, so much more to come, but I’m proud of the transformations I’ve made in the lives of the people I’ve worked with. I remember sitting in my health class in 2011 in High School, being told that most of us would have jobs that weren’t even invented yet. I couldn’t imagine what they would be, but it’s come true! “High Performance Coach” wasn’t a job 9 years ago. I’m incredibly grateful that I found coaching.

I’m proud of my grit. Grit is defined as ‘perseverance and passion for long-term goals’. In the last 10 years, I’ve really developed my level of grit. I’ve had countless people say to me “wow, I would have given up by now” when I share my impossible goals with them. No matter what, I’m always pushing forward because my vision is so solid, my dreams are so strong. I’ve also had people say to me “you should give up, X isn’t for you.” I’ve been gritty af the whole way through that.

The Obstacles I’ve Overcome:

Being unsure of the career path I wanted to take. In the last 10 years, I’ve considered fashion design, magazine editing, psychology, philosophy, psychotherapy, law, DJing, music production, medicine, entrepreneurship, interior design, acting, television presenting, coaching, dancing, blogging, writing, film making, and a million other avenues. I’m fully serious, I’ve considered every single one. Now, I’ve embraced that I’m multi-passionate, and I probably won’t have one specific career or job for my whole life. Variety is the spice of life! I’ve accepted that and learned to love my many passions.