Making Changes

Creating and making changes in our life means to acknowledge we have choice.

It may involve responding to the world proactively, through agency, into engagement, relationship, community; creating connection. This is ‘showing up’, it’s getting out there, it’s knowing what we want and speaking for this and our needs. It comes from connecting to our aspirations, having an openness and an energy of spirit, adventure and risk taking. We want to expand our capacity and willingness to commit ourselves in our decision making; to take small steps in line with our intentions.

Making change is also about how we feel in ourselves, our way of being. Feeling confidence (feeling free to be ourselves), congruence and authenticity about our identity and choosing to respond rather than react.
It’s about embracing change as an invitation into expansion when things seem to stay the same and being able to see things differently.

When Things Seem To Stay The Same

Project Self

Many of us seem to aspire to an alternative life, almost without our current self, as we are, within it. We have an idea of how it could look If Only we aren’t the way we are. The life we’ll have When we’ve done all the work on ourselves. When we’ve addressed all the habits we want to change and When we’ve created new ones. When we’ve found the right thing. A different life Without sabotaging ourselves, reacting to others or getting triggered. Without criticising ourselves, thinking about what’s wrong with us or ruminating on what we should have done…

On Not Knowing What You Want

Project Self

Not knowing what we want seems to be a common experience and to cause discomfort. Why is the question “What do you want?” so difficult to answer when it’s focused on you and your life? It’s an alarmingly spacious inquiry, full of invitation and possibility, a what if? whilst simultaneously requiring definition and self-knowledge. There’s a strong polarity in this seemingly simple query. It’s a challenging question. It puts you on the spot. It’s asking you for clarity. And the kind of clarity that comes from the heart. It asks you to dig deep and to name simply. The question assumes: we…

On Internal Change

Project Self

Small internal changes create greater changes in our capacity to conceive and engage with a richer life, so that the ‘change effect’ works as a kind of feedback loop. Change brings about change. 1. When we talk we voice silent thoughts. Through responding to questioning we hear our own answers, which enables greater insight. As we explore words we reform thoughts, and make new sense. 2. As we reveal, uncover and understand, we feel less overwhelmed so we feel lighter. When we feel lighter, we feel more able to move. 3. When we allow ourselves to acknowledge what we know,…

On Living Without Purpose

Project Self

Do you know what Your Purpose in life is? No? Me neither. Do you have a sense of what your calling is, your gift, your raison d’etre, what you are meant to do with your life? No? Me neither. Does it matter that you don’t know? No. Is there a sense that we should? Yes. You don’t need to know what Your Purpose is, or Your Passion, to lead a fulfilling life. There can be an inherent pressure in life through society, culture and parental ‘encouragement’ which becomes evident from childhood, that we should know what we want to do.…

On Being Into Something

Project Self

I disappeared this summer. I lost myself in a creative project. I let myself be taken over by it; let it be the most important thing in my life. It became my focus, the source of my energy and the distraction of it. It was a joyful and challenging immersion. It was all I thought about and all I wanted to think about it. There was little space for anything else in my life. This kind of creative immersion is often described as flow (Csikszentmihalyi). It was both exhausting and exhilarating to be so caught up and in something. Invested and…

On Acknowledging What You Know

Project Self

The whole premise of coaching is based on the concept that the client already has the answers. A coach works with the client so they can surface what they already know and so this forms part of their solution. The fact that we often know more than we let ourselves acknowledge is usually to do with shutting down part of ourselves, self-protection, devaluing intuition and ignoring our truth because of what it will mean if we face it – a call to action which is often challenging – and may involve facing our fears. But acknowledging that we do know…

On Getting Out There

Project Self

The Latin root of the word adventure is ‘a thing about to come, or happen’. To adventure is to widen our horizons, to be open to events, experiences, places and people. To feel resolute in our own capacity to experience, to have flexibility and contend with challenge. It is what life offers us, whenever we chose it. When we allow and participate in the unusual. To venture, is to take a chance. An adventurous spirit summons up the image of a person who is curious; wants to explore, try new things and go to different places and enjoys and seeks…

On Knowing Your Motives

Project Self

It’s interesting that to question someone as to their motives seems to have a negative connotation. As if there is a sense of something underneath, undeclared and invisible that is driving the person’s behaviour towards their own ends. As if to have a motive, an end in mind, is a negative state which creates deception. When we question someone’s motives, is it because it is not clear from their actions what their intentions are, so we are concerned that things are not as they seem? Yet a motive is a creative, personal and powerful thing. It’s the source; it’s the…

On Seeing things Differently

Project Self

So much in personal or self development is written on the things we need to do and be for ourselves. To be the source of our own resource. We need to learn how to and not to. To be and to do. To be in touch with our emotions, let go of our emotions and express our emotions. To breathe deeply, be balanced and appreciative. To be self aware and be calm. To let go of the past, live in the present and have visions for the future. To be still and be mindful and to have passion and find momentum. To nurture and to…

On Knowing What You Want

Project Self

A coaching colleague wrote recently about dreams in which he said: 1) some people give up before they start; 2) some moderate their dreams (realism being the death of dreams); 3) some keep their dream alive but don’t believe in it so are half hearted and non-committal (the comfort zone I recently wrote about) and 4) some are fully committed to realising their dream – because they believe it is possible. This describes the effect self-belief, mental attitude and self-application has on achieving our potential; making possibility real. But what are dreams? Dreams are also described as wishes, desires, ambitions,…

Making Changes

When Things Seem To Stay The Same

On Not Knowing What You Want

On Internal Change

On Living Without Purpose

On Being Into Something

On Acknowledging What You Know

On Getting Out There

On Knowing Your Motives

On Seeing things Differently

On Knowing What You Want

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