Jill Whittington looks at how we can take responsibility for our own lives and become our own coaches.

“Push off into the stream. Hold your head above the fray. See who else is in the midst of things and celebrate.” Native American saying

My inspiration comes from talking to my sister who has watched a family of blue tits nest right outside her door. She has watched as the parents were busy flying in and out feeding them and listening to the incessant cheeping of hungry growing fledglings. This week the big moment arrived, and the tiny birds fledged the nest carefully watched by Mum and Dad. Some went for it without a second thought; some had to think about it, but eventually flew free. What a wonder of nature this is. What trust in oneself and the future.

It struck me there are such parallels with the unprecedented amount of change we are going through right now and that many have gone through over the past few months in particular. It can suddenly feel as if all our support structures have been taken away – just like the little fledglings.

It is then that we take responsibility for our own lives and become our own coaches.

Troubles will come along the way but rather than allowing them to overwhelm us we can coach ourselves to deal with them.

Prioritise your troubles, this usually fall into three categories: alarm bells, reminders and future problems.

Alarm Bells – are serious and usually mean everything has to be dropped to deal with it.

Regular Worries – such as juggling family life, remembering to send a birthday card should be left to an up to date calendar with reminders in plenty of time.

Future Worries – need consideration but they can tend to override our daily life. Try not to let them take over your life. Set aside a specific amount of time each day to consider them and plan for them.

Practice becoming mindful about your thoughts. Worries mostly come from unmonitored thoughts. See if you worry about the same things more than once a day, ask yourself if you are worrying about something you can do something about or procrastinating about taking action. If you can take action – plan to do it. If not let it go and force yourself to move on with a positive attitude to maximise your chance of success.

Try not to go for the perfect decision. Every decision takes mental energy, so be more discerning about the amount of energy you give to decisions you need to make based upon their importance.

If you are starting from scratch because things have come to a head…

What if you ………………………sat down and just listened to yourself and notice:

· Your Body – How does it feel? – stiff, agitated, headache, etc, etc?

· Your Emotions – What are you feeling right now? Unsettled, worried, anxious, fearful?

· Your Actions – what actions are you taking? Rushing around, multitasking,

· Your Thoughts – are they hindering you? ‘I’ll never get things done,’ ‘How are we supposed to get back to normal?’ ‘I cannot cope’

BEAT – is a Mind Chi staple practice which quickly enable you to receive information ‘about’ yourself to ‘yourself’ and enables you to ‘choose’ to change any or all of your BEAT to what you would like it to be.

For example:

B – clear head, calm, relaxed

E – happier, on top of things, faith in myself

A – sitting quietly, going for a walk, prioritising my to do list

T – ‘I’m able to handle this’ ‘I’m in control’ ‘I like to smile and laugh’

…………… and it only take TWO minutes!

Now none of us know what was going through the minds of those little fledglings, but they took the leap and are now facing up to their new lives in their new world just like us, as every day brings a new dawn and we can all take that leap.

Contact Jill at [email protected] Please get in touch or book a call. We’d love to chat.

See a short video outlining Mind Chi on YouTube