Author: Carol Williams

This strategy will surprise you

How have you been feeling lately? 

Maybe you’ve been trying to get someplace and you just can’t get there. Maybe you’ve been trying to reach a new health goal, you’ve been trying to reach a new business goal, you’ve been trying to just get on, stuck in your life, and it’s spring and you’re feeling like you are ready to pop and want to do these things….but you’re not sure how.

Read on or watch the video

The Surprising Strategy

I’m going to illustrate a surprising way that you can “get there.” This solution is a lot different than you might think. It’s all about vulnerability. I  was inspired about this through a very interesting source. It was in a magazine – there was a guy wearing a kimono which said ‘the art of opening up’ in Japanese. 

The article talks about his experiences traveling, and using vulnerability as a way to experience an opening up to failure, so that he could exceed his limits (as he knew them). For him, it started in high school. He went to France. He lived with a host family. He didn’t know any French, and he was deathly afraid of making a mistake. So he really tried really hard to say the right thing, and at one point he wanted to say how good the meal was and that he was full.  

He used the verb for ‘full’ that he thought was correct, and it meant ‘pregnant’. He was embarrassed. Rather than letting this error stop him, he let himself fail and from that moment forward. Amazingly, he found himself making friends instantly and abundantly.

He later went to Japan, met a woman, and fell in love with her..  They decided to go dancing to a special dance and he knew nothing of the dance. He got the biggest kimono he could get, but it was still about a foot too short, and he was out there dancing, making a complete fool of himself because it was all so new to him, yet, having so much fun. He ended up getting invited to events and homes, and developed a beautiful social network because he wasn’t afraid of messing up, feeling vulnerable, and learning. 

He learned a lot about the culture and he made friends. Last in the story, he went to Cambodia. He stayed with a family and thought, “this is going to be the longest four days of my life”, as he did not know the language at all. It actually went really fast because he decided he was just going to try to communicate however he could without any knowledge of the Cambodian language – and he found that the more he opened up to people and just decided to look stupid, be vulnerable, that he ended up having amazing experiences. With each of these experiences, he grew. 

How does this strategy relate to YOU?

So I ask you, what is holding you back? What vulnerability could you allow to show through? Thinking about the goal that you want, thinking about that breakthrough that you want to have, how might you “stick your neck out and look stupid” so that miracles occur? Now that it’s spring and the ground is starting to thaw, the snow is melting (here, anyway!) what is it that you want to break through with? 

3 other ways to get unstuck:

1. Help me help you: I recently sent out a survey on Monday, March 25. It takes 3 minutes to fill out. It helps me serve you better and I’ll use it as I’m developing something new…which starts April 3…and I truly hope it will help you start to “thaw” or get unstuck 🙂
2. Download and print your Unscatter Guide:  It will take you from ‘scattered and stuck’ to ‘focused and confident’ and it’ll walk you through the steps. 
3. Come to Wisdom Warriors on April 10: I’m skipping Wisdom Warriors on Monday April 3rd and having it on Monday April 10th. We’re going to be focusing on the economy, entrepreneurs,and how you could really capitalize on where we are today. 

Until then, be vulnerable, look silly, open yourself up to miracles and keep being fantastic.

Why bother, when you just keep failing, anyhow?

You set a goal. You watch “stuff” get in the way. You don’t hit the goal. You feel defeated.

Rinse, repeat. 

Why bother, right?  The “why bother” response certainly makes logical sense. Have you considered what else might be at play with this response, and what you might do to turn this “failure loop” around?

Today I will review 3 three ways that you can get unstuck more quickly. A lot of these sound really easy, and doing them is NOT “really easy all the time”. Before I share them, let’s review the “why bother” question. When we don’t hit our goals, again and again, the psyche feels defeated. We are not at peace with ourselves. To quickly reconcile this, our mind comes up with a logical summary: this does not work, please stop. Then, since our brain is constantly seeking patterns, we prove this pattern. Again, again, and again.

Continue reading, or watch the video

If our mind did NOT do this, we’d be in cognitive dissonance. That means that what we see for ourselves is not actually what is happening. That’s jarring to the nervous system. So the nervous system course corrects by telling the brain it’s impossible. The brain acts accordingly. 

Wow! Is there any hope? Why, yes. Not just HOPE but STRATEGIES. Onward to the 3 Ways!

1. Notice if you see one of two F’s or both F’s: Frustration and Failure.  A couple of my clients have been  expressing that they’re not achieving their goals – and of course, that’s why they’re working with me…lol.  It’s quite good that they are NOTICING this…now the next step is to detach from the situation, so that we are able to see what is actually happening.

How do we do this? Notice those 2F’s: the Frustration and the Failure. After that, we can move into “acceptance of ‘what is’ right now.”  Wait, what?? What is that? It sounds like this: “ I’m noticing that things are not working so, this is probably an illusion; a workplace productivity illusion. Now it’s my job to figure out what to do; what illusion am I under?” When you detach and ask yourself those curious questions, you will start to break yourself out of that frustration/failure cycle. 

2. Have more fun. I have a longtime client and his current goal is to “10x his fun”. Woohoo! He discovered this during his time with me and what he determined (among many other breakthroughs that he has had) was that he wasn’t having much fun in his life before and he just kept grinding away. That was getting in the way of achieving his goals. Once he allowed himself to have fun, what happened? It allowed those happy hormones to come in. Next, the ‘law of attraction’ starts to take over, where you want to hang out with people that are fun. We’re going to attract more of what we want. In this headspace, we see opportunities that are already there- that we couldn’t see before when we were in our ‘grinding mode’. 

3. Surround yourself with people you like and places where you want to be. For example, when I was feeling very stuck in my marriage in 2012 I decided to say ‘yes’ to a trip without my family and this enabled me to really see things from a different perspective. I was able to relax, I was able to journal, I was able to talk to trusted people about this thing that was really troubling me.  I had been feeling very, very stuck. It’s important that you surround yourself with people and places. It may not be a trip to the Caribbean, but maybe simply getting out for a walk now that it’s spring. 

These 3 strategies: noticing the 2 F’s, having more fun, and surrounding yourself with more of what you desire, will go a long way in getting unstuck. To become unstoppable, and find much more time in your day, be sure to come along to my next Lorman.com webinar. It’s on April 12th and you can save your space, with a 50% discount using this link.  

And that’s not all!  I’m also having something super special I’m doing in April, but I’m not going to tell you what that is yet. So I want you just to kind of keep your eyes and ears peeled and get excited with me.

Let me know what next move you’re going to make based on this blog – I can’t wait to know what resonated with you the most and what action you’re going to take.

You should read this!

What’s a “SHOULD”?  That’s the ‘I should do this, I should do that’ and it’s interesting that there can sometimes be a feeling of guilt.  If we are not congruent with what we really want, it’s almost like someone saying ‘calm down’ when you are really angry – it doesn’t really ever work! Well, it’s the same thing that’s happening to you and to me when I say ‘I should …’. 

Sometimes it’s ‘I should be more like ….’ (you fill in the blank). This could have originated from childhood….‘why don’t you be like your brother?’ Then, we grow up and we think ‘I should be more like …. (whoever we admire)’ because we think they have it all together. Another SHOULD might sound like, ‘who am I to do that?’ For example, you shouldn’t be writing, if you are a writer, because what do I know about x, y, z?’. That’s  imposter syndrome. Finally, a should might look like attending an event that you don’t want to attend, because you feel you ‘should’ go, or meeting a friend for coffee, who you don’t really want to spend time with.

Let’s dive into how to get out of the “should situation.”. In this example, something happened and you’re feeling angry or sad. 

(Continue reading or watch the video)

1. Part of your brain says ‘You shouldn’t feel like that’. Please don’t listen to that voice because you are free to feel your feelings. Maybe it’s not helping you to be angry at that moment, but there again, what if it really were right? So feel your feelings.  You have a right  to feel however you feel. 
2. Give yourself a time limit – that might not work if for example, you were grieving, as we can’t put a time limit on that but maybe if you were really angry because you wished you had not gone to that event as you had wasted your time.  You can be angry about that, but only be angry about that for so long. Because the truth is, you have to get past that, you don’t want to wallow in it.  And that’s why we don’t go in it at all, because we don’t want to stay in it. 
3. Allow yourself something good – a treat of some kind. For example, you might never go to a certain restaurant as you consider it high end, and why would you when you could have a perfectly good lunch at home?  Or maybe you’re upgrading a ticket, you might just go for the ‘cheap seats’ but think ‘no, I need to give myself a little more’. And you don’t buy the cheapest option.  Treating yourself is really nice and is the opposite to what most people do when they’re feeling down or feel they have made a mistake. They feel they don’t deserve it.  But it’s just the opposite. When we treat ourselves well, we’re telling our subconscious we are worthy and you are worthy. You might not believe it, you don’t have to believe it, take it from me. You are worthy just by being alive. 

If a baby is crying in his/her crib is that baby worthy of love? Of course they are, just as you are worthy of love. You are worthy of feeling good. You are worthy of it all because one at one time you were that baby. 

We’re going to dive deeper into this topic and take all your questions on Monday March 20th (tomorrow!) at noontime Eastern, and you can reserve your slot here.  It’s completely free; it’s my monthly free Wisdom Warriors Group Coaching. See you there!

Hint: it’s much more than time

Before we dive into today’s topic, I have a big announcement:

Monday (tomorrow) from 11am to 5pm EST, there is a Neurodivergent Superpowers Summit that I’ve been invited to speak at. It’s free to join, here’s the link – be sure to sign up to get the recordings even if you can’t make it!

Now, let’s discuss time management in a different way than perhaps you may have been thinking:

time management for things that are new. 

If we have our own business, that means we are going to be doing something that is new. We’ll always be doing things that are new; many things that when we do them it brings up a lot of fears. Most times, these are fears that we didn’t even know we had. In fact, we could even really have been looking forward to doing the thing that we’re about to do for a long time and want to do that new thing very deeply. Yet, there is also a force in us that wants to keep us safe, and we find ourselves procrastinating when we go to do the new thing because it’s new. Let’s go deeper. We don’t think about it consciously because our subconscious is actually running the show.

Here are some tips to DO the new thing, versus getting stuck:

1. Allow far more time for it than you ever thought you needed. One thing that happens when we’re neurodiverse is we have this “plenty of time thinking.” It sounds like, ‘Oh, I’ve got plenty of time to do that’ or ‘I operate best at the last minute, otherwise I’ll just be bored and change everything a hundred times’. These are the things we tell ourselves that are at most -half truths. 

What is the real truth? To do something new, there is a ramp up period, and during that “ramp up period,” we settle our nervous systems. To settle, we might say ‘I’ve just gotta get that cup of tea’, or ‘I’ve just got to clear out my email’, or ‘I’ve just got to clear out the clutter of this room’. 

So you’re saying to yourself, ‘Well, what can I do? Because if something else is running the show, (my subconscious) how can I run my own show?’ 

The answer lies in the “allow more time” strategy.  For example, if it’s a one hour project, try allowing yourself half a day. What’s the worst that can happen – you’ll finish early?

2. Find a grounding ritual. For example, last night my son needed to do some studying, and he was all over the place in the kitchen and doing different things. And I said ‘What can we do here? How about I make you a cup of tea? Would you like hot cocoa? Would you like …..’  and I was trying to help him ground himself so that he could get ready to do what he needed to do.

This is not not only with my children, it’s with myself as well. For example, to do the video for you, I write my notes, I sit in my chair, I take a deep breath, I think about you all, I think about how I can’t wait to serve you. It may be to put on my favorite music, it may be put on a timer so I don’t get distracted. It may be to shut off my phone. It’s getting grounded and getting ready. 

3. Celebrate the little things. We do not give ourselves enough credit with the little things. I was speaking to a client yesterday and she was telling me some of her wins and then she immediately went into what didn’t go as well.  I said ‘hang on, hang on! At the beginning of the session all we’re allowed to do is say our wins. We can go into all the problems later’. And celebration is so important because what happens is our brain is being rewired in that moment to expect success because we get what we expect. 
4. Treat yourself.  A way to dive into the unknown and make the most of your time is the opposite of what you might think – this is to treat yourself (especially what I call ‘extreme self-care’. The bigger you are trying, the bigger step you’re trying to get up, the more extreme you have to care for yourself. I remember several years ago when I found myself in all kinds of crises with my kids and my former husband in arrests and all kinds of craziness. I said, ‘Okay, hang on. Where is the extreme self-care? What do I need to do to myself, for myself, for no other reason than to love myself beyond belief so that I can get through what I need to get through?’ Yes,that was a crisis level, and we’re not talking about a crisis, this is true.  We are talking about doing something new – and that reptilian brain doesn’t know the difference. It believes we are in crisis.

Hit reply, and tell me what are you taking away from this? 

Which of those 4 ideas seem best for you?

Write to me, and  I will help you get through them.

In the meantime, be sure to sign up for the Neurodiversity Summit on Monday. It’s from 11am to 5pm EST Eastern time. I’ll be speaking at 1pm EST.  It is completely free to sign up and you do not need to attend the whole thing. And even if you sign up and you can’t make it you’ll get the recordings. I really think it’s going to be worth it – I have a lot to learn too, so I can’t wait. 

I hope to see you there.