Pushing vs Being Pulled

The things that feel most right in my life are the things I am being pulled towards.
The things that are wrong, the hustle, the icky feelings – they all come from a place of PUSH.

This distinction hit me like a lightning bolt today.

A great example is my coaching practice. People have often said to me in the past that they would have given up if they were me, based on how much “hard work” I’m putting in. But the thing is, it doesn’t feel like hard work. It takes effort, but I’m being PULLED by my vision. It’s automatic effort. Putting in the effort doesn’t take any effort. When I’m pushing myself towards something, it takes effort to put in effort.

Even though I’m only beginning to understand this, I feel like this is the distinction between a desire and a true calling. A desire requires you to push. A calling is literally reaching out to you, beckoning you, pulling you in. You just have to take the steps.

But the thing is, from the outside, you can’t tell if someone is being pushed or pulled. The only person who knows is you.

Are you being pulled towards your dream, or are you pushing?

Push Ups Update: Injury

50 in a row, even with my little arms!

Day: 211
Push up ability: 50

On the 22nd of February, out of the blue, I pumped out 50 push ups. I think I had extra energy from drinking a protein shake (I always thought those were all hype, but now I’m on board!).

Although I was sore the next day, the pain went away. Unfortunately, due to way too much computer use (I’m guilty of 8+ hours a day due to the nature of online coaching) I have really aggravated my right shoulder and I haven’t been able to do push ups at all in March yet.

Today I went to see a sports therapist, and she assessed me to see what was wrong. I will be going back in a few weeks, but in the meantime I’ve got some shoulder exercises to do.

I also signed up to the gym earlier this month but I haven’t had a chance to go because of my injury. I have still been running 3x a week though.

This has been an interesting journey so far, because I never expected that injury would be what held me back. I expected to struggle with the mental stamina to keep going when my body was tired. Turns out, that is the easy part! Right now, I am mentally ready to train hard, but my body is screaming “slow down!!”

I’ll keep you updated!
Let me know what the unexpected struggle with your goals is in the comments!

What Worked?

Today, thanks to the wonderful coach Stacey Boehman, I came across a brilliantly simple but effective goal reflection tool:

• What worked?

• What didn’t work?

• What I will do differently?

I have resolved to answer these questions every single day in the back of my journal during March. I’m really excited about this because although it seems like it is just three questions, what it actually is, is an advanced accountability tool.

So much of the time, we tend to think “I’ve tried everything!” or “That won’t work.” This tool gives us the chance to prove it, and show ourselves how much effort we have really been exerting.

Why daily?

Because when you’ve got a specific goal that you need to take action on every single day, monitoring your progress daily is paramount. Y’all know my motto: if it matters, do it daily. So here’s my new motto: If it matters, monitor it daily.

Dream Big & Don't Apologise

Happy International Women's Day! Today I want to share my thoughts on why ambition gets a bad rap, and why you should be unapologetic about your ambition. (Spoiler: ambitious people change the world!).

Living The Dream

I heard the words come out of my mouth today and I was kind of taken aback: “I’m living my dream.”

I never thought I’d say those words until I was a MEGA successful person with a whole lot of achievements under my belt. But you know what? It’s true. Because the dream is to be pursuing the dream.

I think of all the people in history who have spent their lives fighting for their rights, or just working to stay alive. No medicine, no rights, no love.

I think of all the people in the world today who are just trying to get by, who don’t have a house or enough food to get them through the day.

I’m blessed to be pursuing my dreams. What more could I really ask for?

Why I started blogging every day

Sean Wes is brilliant. Check him out here.

Every so often, the lightning bolt effect takes place. You know, where you see or hear a concept and BANG, just like lightning, you decide to make a change.

For some people, it might be to give up smoking or pay off debt.

For me, my latest lightning bolt was to blog every single day.

I’d been trying to blog for years. I’d put out no more than 20 blog posts over the years, agonizing about perfecting them.

Then I saw this brilliant piece by Sean Wes, and my mind was made up. I would blog, every single day, for two years straight. I had never committed to anything daily for two years straight. This was going to be a massive challenge.

At the time (226 days ago) I thought it would make me the blogger I’d always wanted to be – taking gorgeous sunset photos of me in a new outfit every day, sharing how my day went. Yet, that isn’t what this has become, because I realised I’d been wanting the wrong thing all along. I don’t want to take photos every day. I don’t want to spend my days creating “instagrammable” content. I’ve got more value to give than that.

Instead, this commitment has taught me how much valuable content I can actually create. Sure, some days I don’t create brilliant content. But on occasion, I create something worth sharing. And then, I share it.

I think at this stage, even 228 days in, I still only have a couple of readers. (I’ve also learned the phrase “build it and they will come” isn’t true when it comes to blogging on the internet!). But I don’t need that anymore. I’m creating this blog for me, now. It’s like a personal diary or manifesto of my beliefs and thoughts. It’s a journey of self-discovery. Yes, writing every day has helped me develop my voice as a writer, but more importantly, it has helped me develop my philosophy as a coach.

Where would your life be enhanced if you showed up every day for two years?

Why Understanding That Your Mindset Is A Menu Will Change Everything

Your mindset is like a menu at a restaurant. You’ve got all of these different beliefs about who you are on the menu.

And you can only order from the menu.

What’s on your menu?

I am a nervous flyer
I am ugly
I am someone who can’t control myself around food.
I am bad at handling money.

If you try to order something that’s not on the menu you won’t get it.

If you try to get on a plane and feel calm, but your menu says “I am a nervous flyer” that’s what you’re gonna get. You’re going to start acting in accordance with that identity.

The dude in the photo is a smoker. It’s one of his beliefs, or he wouldn’t be smoking. Right? It’s on his menu. He has to change the menu before he can order something different for his life.

If I handed you your menu, would you be happy to order from that every single day?

Nervous flyer, bad with money, addicted to food?

Good news, you’re the chef, and you can change what’s on the menu.

First Speaking Event

Tonight was my first speaking event as a High Performance Coach and I was so pumped! It was at a networking event in Brighton and I spoke about how to achieve impossible goals (of course!). I had a little whiteboard that I was holding, and eventually the host Emily stood up and held it up for me, which was so sweet of her because I talked for quite a while! One of my goals this year is to speak on stage (and although this was technically a stage, I’m not counting it as my goal fulfilled quite yet, because I’m excited to speak to a bigger audience than there was at this small networking event). So this was the first step of working towards it. It does, however, check off one of my March Goals, to speak at an event. Woohoo!

I’m looking forward to sharing my talk again at some point so I’ll hopefully get one filmed for you next time… watch this space!

Mirror Mirror

When you look in the mirror, how do you see yourself?
How you define yourself is what controls your life.

Do you see someone who can take on their wildest dreams?
When I look in the mirror I see someone who can do 100 push ups.
I see someone who can build an empire.

When I look in the mirror I tell myself I’ve got this.
I tell myself I can change the world.

Because if the girl looking back at me doesn’t believe it, why would the rest of the world?

The only way to get what you want is to be the kind of person who gets what they want. So make BEING the kind of person who achieves your goals your number one priority – and your goals will automatically become reality.

Money

Money - it’s the only thing more taboo than sex.

When I was a kid, I’d do anything to get out of talking about money. I would rather pay for my whole table’s dinner out than discuss how to split the bill.

As a society, we pretend to have more of it than we do have. Sometimes, we pretend to have less of it than we do have.

These are the rules:

You’re supposed to automatically have it, but not want it.
You’re supposed to get it easily, but you’re not supposed to share how.
You can’t be too poor, or people will look down upon you.
You can’t be too rich, or people will look down upon you.

What kind of society is this? I think we’re all subconsciously messed up from having no one to talk about money with. We’re repressed.

The ’60s was the sexual revolution, I think the 2020s should be the financial revolution.

FREE THE FINANCIAL NIPPLE!

Imagine if people talked about it. Like properly.
Imagine if your teachers, your doctors, your storekeepers, your friends, your uncle, your cousin, and your neighbours all shared how much money they make and have.

Imagine if on your Facebook profile, next to where you went to school and what you relationship status is, we put our financial status.

Debt: X amount
Assets: X amount
Savings: X amount

Why is that such a wild idea?

We all have to use money. And yet, we’re terrified of talking about it. After many years of contemplation, I believe it is for these three reasons:

1. We’re afraid others will judge us for the amount we have (shame)

2. We’re afraid we’ll offend someone because our amount is more than theirs (guilt)

3. We’re afraid we’ll lose it/have it stolen (fear)

So we decide that money is private. BUT WHY?

Because we’ve given it more personal meaning than it actually has.

Your net worth is not your self-worth.

Period.

This is me opening up the beginning of a conversation around money that I think is mighty time we started having.

And who knows, maybe we’ll spark a revolution of people sharing their financial status along with their relationship status on Facebook.