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When is the right time?

Do you have some changes that you want to make that you are putting off?

In my coaching sessions over the years, I’ve always heard the same reasons for delaying a decision for a change. The reasons are usually:“now is not the ideal time” or “I’m not ready yet”.

Sound familiar?
Both of these reasons are actually the same thing. You see, when clients tell me these reasons I know that what they really mean deep down is:
“I don’t feel ready.” 

I get it. I have experienced that feeling, almost an ambiguity in wanting to make a change, to decide to move forward… but also wanting to delay. I know it feels like you are giving very valid reasons for delaying. And I also know that it’s really only in a few cases that situations actually warrant the delay before jumping in.

Still, noone can make you decide that now is the time. That’s why change is always up to you.

If you are at a point and find yourself saying “now is not the ideal time” or “I’m not ready yet”, make sure you ask yourself why. Why is now not the time?  And if I did do it now, what difference would it make?

Too often we procrastinate whilst being well-meaning. We know something needs to change and we have every intention of doing it. But right now, it’s not a good time.

When is a good time? This is the question you need to ask yourself. If you are delaying a decision or delaying making a change, ask yourself:
If not now, then when?

Make sure you get a specific answer. No foggy, round-about vague answer will do.
If not now, then when will I start this?
If not now, then when will I decide – yes or no – to move forward with this idea?

You see this idea of there being a right time is mostly bulls**t! (yes, first swear in my blog posts) There is no ray of insight, clearing of clouds and sudden clarity that brings “the right time”.

So when is the right time?
The right time occurs when you say to yourself“now is the right time”.
The right time occurs when you simply decide yourself that it is the right time.
You decide when it’s the right time, so you can decide now!

Don’t be fooled into thinking that embracing change is a huge disruption and life-changing event.For the most part, our decisions to move forward are in reality much smaller commitments. They are also a lot less risky than we tend to imagine. 

Could you just decide that now is the right time?

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1 change to make this week!

Our ability to create change in our lives starts with our willingness to do something different. All change – big or small- begins with the tiniest movement . It’s a small opening where we allow ourselves to consider that there might be another option. 

We discover or we are shown that there are in fact other ideas or paths, thus creating multiple opportunities. Either way, change starts with allowing something in. Almost a speck and insignificant, this small possibility is the birth of change. 

Change starts small. One decision, one habit, one new idea. 

If you think back to changes that you have made in your life, you will find that there was a time when your thinking about that specific situation that shifted. You reached a point (by force or by choice) where you suddenly opened to another perspective. Then came the willingness to try. And after trying and failing, but keeping on trying, you created a significant change.
You’ve done it before so you can do it again.

What do you want to change this year? 

What 1 change will you make this week to move towards a new possibility?

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Maintain momentum into February and beyond!

So I’m guessing about now you’re feeling the great New Year bouyancy. In this first month of the year we can seemingly all get by on enthusiasm and adrenaline alone. We’re feeling revitalised, refocused and have more energy. But, I’m sorry to say, it just isn’t going to last.

Right now it’s easy and you might be tempted to coast along for the next few weeks. I suggest you don’t. Instead, read my tips that follow on how to maintain momentum and set yourself up for success. Taking the easy road now will not keep you humming along in a month’s time.

I want to keep you moving forward after the energy wears off, after life“happens” and you get derailed. Here’s my 5 tips to keep the momentum way past the month of January:

Understand the structure of your winning actions
Right now you’re doing things efficiently and it’s all working. Why is it working?What are you doing that is producing your winning actions? If you seem to be on top of things, how have you achieved that?Ask yourself: what am I doing to make this work? 
Example
Ensuring that you have only 3 priorities on your list every day. Not answering emails and phone calls for a few hours a day.Even if you put down your current success to the time of year – “it’s quiet at the moment, so it’s easier”… Maybe it is quieter but what are you doing differently?Are you spending less time in meetings? What are you not doing or not being distracted by? You must find out what the structure is that is underpinning your current success. The structure will likely small key behaviours and involve boundaries. This is the foundation of your success! Understand it and aim not to compromise it moving forward into the following months.

Track it
Once you understand your winning structure that is producing your current results, you want to start tracking these small key behaviours now. If you can
keep these small key behaviours going at least most of the time, you will be able to keep up your momentum. So set up a spreadsheet (click here to download my tracking table) or use an app to track your key behaviours. 

Simply record each key behaviour and record the number of times you need to do it in a week.Then update the spreadsheet/app every day or every other day with a tick, an emoji, whatever indicates to you that you have done that action.Don’t leave it for more than 2 days because you won’t remember what you have done. Keeping this record for a week will give you a simple indication of what you have and haven’t done with your key behaviours. At the end of the week, tally your number of each key action. 

With this whole process, your aim is twofold:

  1. Aim to meet your target number of actions
  2. Have a clear visual indicator of any changes in your behaviours.

Tracking sounds simple but is incredibly powerful! Just bringing this information into conscious awareness every week will act as a reminder of the key things you need to do and indicate clearly when you’re off track. And yes, we will all get off track many times throughout the goal achievement process, so this is important!

Don’t allow derailment to mean anything
I absolutely swear by the tracking tip we just discussed for the very reason that you will get off track in pursuit of your goals. Everyone does. It’s pretty simple really. Life happens, unexpected urgent tasks arise, things are delayed, unexpected changes in your office etc. You know what I mean. It’s not inevitable that these things mean the death of your goals, it just means you need to be prepared.

As a Coach I am often coaching clients through derailments and most of the conversations revolve around what they think about getting off track. I spend time reassuring them that it’s normal. Even well experienced successful people will reach the same conclusion when they get off track. They conclude(like you and I do) that something is wrong. We all conclude that our ability or the circumstances around our goal are wrong. We use the“getting off track” week(s) as evidence that“it’s just not working”. 

When you’re at this point, firstly, have compassion for yourself. You’re clearly feeling disheartened. Then gently remind yourself that this is in fact not evidence of anything except for the natural progression of goal achievement!

Let me reiterate: Getting off track means nothing about you, your ability or the potential success of your goal.

Getting off track is a natural part of the journey. Don’t make it mean anything other than that. Keeping this in mind, you will be able to avoid the negative thoughts that can creep in and inevitably impact your momentum.

Plug into the WHY of your goals
One of the reasons that we feel so motivated at the start of the goal setting process is that we are very clear about WHY we want to achieve our goals. We have a vision of what that will mean for us personally. We imagine the accompanying emotions and feelings of success. After we start on the goal achievement journey however, this can often be lost.

The day-to-day disciplines required, the focus and energy that you need for success can erode rather quickly. Understanding why you want to achieve your goals and actually recording these reasons to review later, will help you to keep moving forward. We all want to achieve our goals so that we can experience certain feelings, whether they be of accomplishment itself or the outcome of the goal, such as feeling better/significant/lighter/less stressed. So now is the time to record your WHY for each goal and read over them every fortnight. This will help ensure that you keep your momentum in the months ahead.

Make sure you implement these 5 tips over the next week to get you set up for rolling momentum!

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You need to review 2019 and here’s how…

Before we turn our eyes and expectations to a new year, there’s a place we need to go first. It’s highly underrated but really essential in creating the life and business that you want for yourself.

It’s time to revisit 2019 and review it.

Why?

Because it helps you see what went well and what didn’t.
It reminds you of significant events and the learnings that you have taken away with you. Review is essential in getting an overall picture of what went down in 2019 as this is how you got to where you are right now. And are you happy with where you are right now? Was this where you expected to be?

Reviewing your year in terms of personal and professional events and achievements provides significant insight and wisdom that you need to utilise as you move towards the next year.

There is no better time than now, to review the year before embarking on your path next year. To simplify the process and get you started, I’ve provided review questions for you to consider.

It’s important to take the time to complete this exercise thoroughly, that way you will get the most out of it. So don’t try and squeeze this in before a gym visit and your commute. Set aside a good hour or two of uninterrupted alone time. By the way, alone time also means turning your phone to silent or off completely. Take your time to reflect on each question and record your answers in a notebook or digital resource of your choice.

What were my top 3 accomplishments of 2019?

 Did I achieve the goals I set in my business / professional life this year? Yes/No 

Which goals were/ were not achieved? Why do you think this is the case?
 
What is working well in my business / professional life?

What is not working as well as I’d like in my business / professional life? Why do you think this is the case?

What were my top 3 experiences of 2019? 

What were the 3 most important things that I learnt this year?
 
If I could go back and change things, I would… 

If I could sum up 2019 in 3 words, it would be… 

What I need to do more of next year…Habits or actions I need to DO MORE OF next year:

What I need to do less of next year…Habits or actions I need to DO LESS OF next year:

I think you’ll find that after doing this exercise you will have a better sense of what kind of year you’ve had and what changes you may want to make moving forward. You will know very quickly if you’re on or off track or if your priorities have changed. Take an hour or two this week to complete the review and we’ll continue next week with looking towards the New Year and how we can use the information that you’ve uncovered in this review.

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How to deal with change

Change in our lives can be something we consciously choose or something that is in some way thrust upon us. You’ve likely experienced both types of change and discovered that whichever way it comes, change always poses challenges. Yes, even the things we choose to invite into our lives that require change can be uncomfortable (at first) and difficult to adjust to.


In fact, it’s a natural human response to just resist change. Our brains are wired to keep us alive and to be efficient; two things that the process of change works completely against.


We all struggle with change because initially we cannot be on autopilot as we used to. Doing different things, even just driving to a different workplace, requires more cognitive effort. Having to be more alert and less often on autopilot is tiring and you’ll feel it. Change almost always signifies an end as much as it does a new beginning and dealing with that sense of loss can also be confronting. In terms of the bigger picture, change also interferes with our sense of self. Experiencing large changes, especially close together, can send you into a mini identity crisis. You don’t feel like yourself but you don’t feel comfortable in the new you, so to speak.


As challenging as change is for all of us, it’s also inevitable and very much a normal part of life(although it may not feel normal). So you’ll likely agree that it’s worth building your change adaptation skills. From my personal experience of much change within my own life and through watching clients navigate the change process, I’ve established a change management strategy that you can implement with any change situation.


Here’s 6 approaches to better manage change. Ideally, you would implement all of them, but just start with one at a time to focus on for maybe a week or two.


Accept it’s a challenging time and it’s ok to feel a mix of emotions
We established that change is challenging for all of us. So taking that a step further, you need to accept there’s nothing wrong with you. Everyone is challenged by change. So when you inevitably experience thoughts along the lines of “I’m not managing this very well, there’s something I’m not good at” etc. you can remind yourself of this truth. There is in fact nothing wrong with you. This is an adjustment phase and you are navigating it.A variety of emotions can come up during the change phase, but if you expect them to show up, you’re less concerned when they do. You may experience feelings of doubt, feeling just not like yourself and most likely you will experience stress.


Simplify
If you are experiencing or creating major changes in your life and/or business, then you need to simplify things. This is one of the best techniques to apply, with immediate results. Look at everything that you have on your to-do list, goals and responsibilities and decide which things you can delay(push your deadline back), delegate or delete altogether. You can’t do it all while navigating the change process, as this will only exacerbate the stress and overwhelm. Simplify by reducing responsibilities.


Allow more time
Most of us would prefer that we have a certain established amount of time and at the end of that time, the change process is complete. All nice and neat and predictable. Mostly we just want it to take as little as time as possible. I warn against giving into these thoughts as they completely oppose the process of change. You need to allow more time for this process that you would otherwise anticipate or expect for any challenge. Creating or accepting change takes time. And there is no way to speed this process up. Be patient with yourself and get the support you need to keep you moving forward.

Expect to fall off track
Change is not a straight line from one way of being to another. If you graphed it it’d probably be a zigzag. You cope and adjust to the new habit or situation quite well for a while, but then you “regress” back to the old way of doing or being. This is a normal part of the process. But often this is when we all feel like we’ve failed. This is just the beginning. You need to look at change as a series of getting on track and falling off… or if you prefer this analogy, getting back on your horse, time and time again. Noone decides to change and does it in one decision! We all make the decision to change over and over again as we consciously create a new path or habit for ourselves. Expect that you’ll go back and forth for some time between maintaining the change and then not. 

Keep or create core rituals
The change process by its nature throws into dissarray many aspects of our lives. It often can feel like we have lost our point of reference, our home base. I suggest that you make a list of 3 core rituals that you will continue to do or start doing, that make you feel more anchored. Regular activities that are familiar and enjoyable can create a sense of comfort and control, even if all around you feels very different. Keep it simple. Your rituals could be meditation, journalling, exercise, lighting a candle, seeing a movie each week, chatting with a good friend. Whatever works for you. It needs to be enjoyable and some activity you’d like to keep doing at least once a week if not more, to create a ritual.

Create support systems
Moving through change will require more time and energy from you. It can be unsettling, frustrating and tiring. On the flip side, when you do see progress, it will give you a boost of energy and hope. So you can see how it might be a bit of a rollercoaster ride at times. It’s important to therefore have your own back. Work with yourself and not against yourself by becoming aware of any negative thoughts about your situation. Remind yourself that this is a process and will take time. Having your own back means supporting yourself as much as you would support a good friend in their time of need. Give yourself the things you need to rejuvenate your energy and write our any negative thoughts that come up.

I suggest also seeking out support from others as you move through the change process. Talk with a good friend about it, engage with your faith/higher power, read personal development blogs or consider hiring a coach. 

I hope you will consider implementing these tips when you find yourself on your next change journey. Being able to confidently navigate change in our lives is a practical and essential skill in being able to create new things for ourselves and our business. So the benefits will show up now and in the future.

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