Author: Carol Williams

Life is what we make it.

I know, I know, that sounds kind of cliché, but it’s TRUE!

Personal Development takes time.  I didn’t emerge from the womb full of know-how and experience (though wouldn’t that have been something?!). I was just like anyone else (I still am, really.)

So, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I have reached a level of awareness and grounded wisdom “with a fun twist and ninja coaching skills” magically. I’ve worked hard and have had more than my fair share of struggles. Do you want to know what REALLY helped me get started?

Two things.

Positivity and routine. And grit (wait…that is three…)

Now, the exact specifics of what worked for me might not work for you. And that’s OKAY. Your journey isn’t going to be the same as mine. That’s the beauty of us as human beings; we’re unique. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some general hints and tricks from my playbook I can share with you that might help CHANGE YOUR LIFE for the better. I’m a firm believer in every little help, and you never know… one of these tips might just be the key that unlocks something inside of you that you didn’t even realize you were missing!

So, when it comes to a more positive outlook on life, I found these three things made a HUGE difference to my attitude…

• Stop focusing outside of yourself.  Some might say “avoid the rumor mill.”Whether it’s the latest celebrity news or water cooler gossip, negative opinions are all around us. They seep into our brains without us realizing it, poisoning our mindsets and drawing our focus in the opposite direction to the one we want. So, block out that toxicity and ignore those opinions as best you can or, even better, redirect the conversation to something positive and inoffensive. Not only will you feel better… you might just make someone else feel more positive too!
• Begin each day with 2 things, the first one with a gratitude. Don’t worry, I don’t want you to prepare a Thanksgiving-style speech here. You don’t even need any paper to make a literal list – a mental list will do! All I want is for you to set aside one minute every day to think of the things you’re grateful for. Even on the darkest day, I promise you there will be at least one thing you’ll be able to think of. Focus on the good. Positivity breeds positivity, so that single minute has the power to make a big change in your attitude. The second thing? An intention for your day.

• Crank up the music. Movie composers earn a FORTUNE from their ability to make us weep or scream with fear armed simply with the right combination of notes. Music has POWER. So harness it!!! The right song can be a real balm for the soul, so make yourself a positivity playlist of tunes that really get you going. I don’t care if it’s an 80s power ballad or that dubstep stuff that was all the rage a few years ago… You do you, and turn up the volume! Dance if you want! Sing at the top of your lungs! You’ll feel SO SO SO much better for it!

And as for routine… Some of this stuff might sound a bit unusual, but I want you to give them a try anyway, because they really do work!

• The Coffee Ritual. If you like to kick start your mornings with a cup of caffeine, the habit is probably so deeply ingrained in you that you don’t think twice about it. So, next time, I invite you to really LIVE in that moment when the first sip of the day passes your lips. Focus on the mug. How smooth it is in your hands. Then, inhale. What can you smell? Next, taste. Feel it in your mouth; texture, temperature… everything. And, if you’re not a coffee drinker, that’s fine (as long as you don’t push that habit my way, the no coffee one.) Any hot or cold drink can be substituted in its place – the steps will be the same. The aim here is to focus on the present and clear your mind so you can start your day clutter-free. When my son lived with me, he would walk down to the park each day. I called it “Aaron’s coffee walk.” Now I do it J
• Switch it up. Being stuck in a rut HURTS that beautiful, creative nature inside of you. It’s a one-way ticket to Misery Town. So, if you feel yourself starting to get too set in your ways, pretend it’s opposite day. Have dessert at the start of your meal, perhaps. Take a different route to work. Whatever it is, make sure it’s a definite change to your usual routine. It’ll bring new energy to your day and get your brain FIRED UP! No more rut for you!!
• Set a nighttime alarm. This may sound strange, but instead of just having a morning alarm, set yourself one for bedtime too. Going to bed at the same time each night does AMAZING things for your body clock and sleep cycle, and reminds you to actually shut off at night instead of getting carried away burning the candle at both ends until you eventually burn out. I use “sleep focus” on my iphone. Try it.

One final thing to carry forward on your journey:

“The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.” – Winston Churchill

You can be flying high one minute, cruising along, minding your own business, and BOOM… something knocks you sideways before you even realize what’s happening.

Suddenly, even the smallest of things can feel huge… every tiny failure can feel catastrophic, like the world is literally ENDING before your eyes. Doom and gloom sets in, leaving you feeling crushed by the weight of everything you can’t control or isn’t going how you want it to and, boy oh boy… once you’re down, you’re DOWN… Flattened. Low as can be.

“Just snap out of it,” they say.

“Other people have it worse.”

Cue eye roll.

I mean, seriously?

When has saying that kind of thing ever actually helped anyone?

(I’ll tell you when: NEVER!)

They may mean well, but these people are basically kicking you when you’re already down and trivializing things that really aren’t that trivial in that moment (not to you, at least)! They are no help to you. So, you try to shrug it off as best you can, only to realize you have no choice now but to put your adulting pants on… because YOU’RE the only one who can pick you back up again.

That can feel like the hardest thing in the WORLD when you’re lower than low. Your energy stores have been zapped. Your appetite has gone a bit cuckoo. You’re tired. So tired you don’t even want to get out of bed, let alone start trying to push the weight of the world off your sore shoulders.

In short, your get up and go has officially got up and GONE.

It has well and truly left the building.

“But isn’t finding motivation the only way to get yourself out of a slump?”

NOPE!

Motivation is great. It’s powerful and it’s awesome and it WORKS, and you’ve got to fuel it with something… and your cup is completely empty right now – that’s why you’re stuck in this rut! So, you’re going to have to rely on something else instead.

Momentum.

“Okay, Carol, that’s great and all, but how exactly am I supposed to do that?” I hear you ask.

You do it by trusting me and following these steps:

1. Choose your direction. The whole point of momentum is to get you somewhere. So, pick what you’re heading towards. The finishing line of a project? A healthier lifestyle? It’s completely up to you. Just pick one!
2. Start small. When you’re feeling low, every step you take can feel ENORMOUS. Daunting. Scary. Impossible. So, instead of setting the bar way too high for yourself (like saying you’ll run a 5K tomorrow when you can barely even get off the couch right now), be realistic and keep it simple. If you want to take up running, start by getting yourself some running sneakers. Then get yourself something comfy to run in. Next, get dressed and go for a gentle jog around the block. It may seem simple and like it’s nothing to shout about but, believe me, it is. Why? Because doing these tiny things is what’s going to get you where you need to be!
3. Let that snowball roll. Once you’ve followed steps one and two, you’ll have already done the hardest part of this process – getting started. Now, all you have to do is let that momentum you just generated carry you forward to the next small milestone, then the next, then the next… and then HURRAH! Before you know it, you’ll have created a snowball of positive energy that’s not only going to get you where you want to go, but also kick your low mood into the trash where it belongs.

Sounds kinda easy, right?

That’s because it is.

You’ve got this, my friend.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Tony Robbins:

“People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

It’s the million-dollar question, how do we create order without a plan? What traits or habits can we develop to be as productive as possible? Can an unorganized person become productive and what are the key factors to being successful in creating order?

When we talk about being productive, we don’t mean being as busy as possible or becoming a workhorse. This is a reason for someone, especially a Creative Entrepreneur, a spiritual person, someone with ad/hd…a rebel…etc….to RUN AND HIDE.

So, what if you turned YOUR idea of “productivity” on its head?

What if Productivity meant YOU GET TO LIVE YOUR LIFE, YOUR WAY?

Great news. In my community, it means precisely that.

Remember, YOU are in the driver’s seat of your life, always. Every in-breath is to some degree, your choice! You have far more choices than you may realize. That said, check ou this list and respond – which of these do you wish to incorporate right away?

• Know your priorities (aka…your Why): it’s absolutely crucial that you take time to understand what YOU WANT and that you stick to it. Knowing your priorities will help you set boundaries. And these boundaries will protect your time, allowing you to keep distance between the people or things that zap your time and your energy and decrease your productivity.

• Focus and limit: Focus your attention on a task or project for a fixed amount of time. Set that timer and love up your task. Do it for the “right” reasons, like…”I am in charge of my time!” and not “I should be really productive right now.”

• Arm yourself with the right tools: having everything you need at hand will increase productivity in ways you couldn’t even imagine possible. Starting a task with everything close by will save time and energy and will create headspace to focus on what you are doing. Look after the minutes and time will look after itself.

• Be organized, just ONE step ahead: Ever tried baking a cake without all the ingredients? Make a checklist each evening of what you need for the day ahead to avoid potential setbacks. Those setbacks will send you off into shiny squirrel land pretty quickly so take 5 and get it together – It can be as easy as a quick sticky note near the coffee pot!

• Be consistent: Consistency is Queen (or king!) so….as UnFun as you might think it to be to “not be in the creative spirit of each moment” – give it a shot. Go easy on yourself. Just start super simple like, Have a Morning Ritual. I guarantee that you have one now, anyhow. (It just might not be workin’ for ya!) Just try out a Ritual, have fun with it, and be okay when you forget or it all goes to pieces sometimes…the next day provides a fresh opportunity.

• Be collaborative, ask for help and outsource what you need: somewhere along the line, we’ve trained ourselves to be self-efficient, to not need help from anyone and asking for help can sometimes be perceived as failure. Time to rip that script up and accept this one: Real Leaders allow help. LOTS of it!

• Don’t make yourself too accessible: in one of my recent blogs, I talked about how it’s okay to say no and how to do it without feeling guilty. Saying no from time to time is perfectly acceptable and is a common trait in highly productive people. Saying no will reinforce your boundaries that you set at the beginning of this article and will also stop you from committing to tasks that take way too long for too little outcome.

OK, your turn. Hit reply and tell me which one is talking to you!

I’ll leave you with this quote from David Allen “If you don’t pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.” 

Do you have a trait or traits that aren’t serving you? How can this be remedied? We all have them, there’s no doubt but what can you do to remedy this? Is it a simple fix or is a new habit needed to wipe out the existing trait?

A trait is a characteristic that influences how we think, feel and act. It’s part of who we are. It gives us personality but what should you do when this trait is stopping you from reaching your goals, getting you stuck in other people’s expectations and how do they develop?

Traits can change over time and are influenced by experiences, belief systems and largely depend on what stage of life we are in. How we act are modelled by these 3 things and are often tricky to untangle. The key thing to remember is that when you let go of what you no longer need, you free up space to attract more of what you want.

So how can be easily remedy these traits that are no longer serving us?

• Identify what the trait is that’s not serving you. Are they traits that you get you into trouble? Do they interfere with your productivity? Knowing what we want to change is the first step to eliminating a trait. Once identified, it’s important to assess and evaluate the impact it has. For example, do you find a lot of negativities in your life? Does this leave you feeling upset or depressed? Or perhaps your perfectionism is stopping you from moving forwards with a goal or plan. The best way to identify a trait that no longer serves it by looking at a range of problems or issues that we have faced in our life and looking how it started. Often, we’ll find that there is always one (the same) trait at the center of it.
• Verify the trait with a friend, family, or colleague – our hardest critiques are always ourselves so it’s important to make sure that what you believe is true. If you tend to notice a lot of negativities, you might try asking someone close to you to see how they view you. It’s important to remember that some traits might be serving you, even if you think they aren’t.
• Identify if there is someone feeding this trait – for me, this is one of the most important things to do. Let’s continue with the example of negativity. Have you ever met someone for a coffee and come home feeling deflated because all you’ve done, while sipping your matcha latte, is talk about all the things are going wrong in your lives as opposed to everything you are achieving? Creating distance between you and toxic people will be vital to your success of remedying a trait that no longer serves you.
• Set yourself a goal on how you want to be – think about what you want your new trait to look like? Think about how you will feel when this trait, that no longer serves you, doesn’t have a use in your life?
• Use affirmations or reminders. Write it on a post It note and stick it to your wall, remind yourself each day that this particular trait holds no value and will not contribute to the success of your day.

Remedying a trait, although simple in isolated circumstances may be more difficult in everyday life so it’s important to keep pushing yourself every day to be a better version of yourself. Whatever the reason you are looking to remedy a trait, always remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day and these things take time.

And to finish, I leave you with this quote from Teal Swan as a reminder that you are YOU, you are UNIQUE, and you deserve to be the person you want to be.

“All too often our personality is nothing more than psychological clothing that we wear to hide our true self from the world.”

As humans, we have grown to be very harsh on ourselves caused by high expectations as to what we are meant to be achieving or thriving towards. It’s easy to get “lost” in the crowds, to be a diamond covered in dirt but what if this wasn’t as bad for us as we think? Are the days of “fitting in” over? Well, let’s look at a few strengths of being neurodiverse.

• When identifying as neurodivergent, you think differently to the rest of those around you. Let’s face it, it hasn’t always been easy – to get to where you are today, you’ve had to overcome many obstacles and difficulties and you’ve had to create or find workarounds to situations that don’t come naturally to you. This problem-solving ability is highly sought after in many aspects of everyday life and the race is on to find those with these abilities. So what you consider a FAULT is GOLD to others. 
• You have the power to encourage CHANGE in the environment around you. For so long, we’ve been taught that there is a “way” to do everything. Society expects us to act or behave in a certain way because that’s the norm and it’s what’s expected of us. Being neurodiverse challenges people to rethink how things are done, to take a different perspective and consider that there might be a better way! Last month we spoke about getting caught up in other people’s chains of expectation and how to break free to reach your full potential.
• Some of the greatest innovations have been discovered, designed, or invented by a neurodiverse person. These people push the boundaries of “making the impossible happen” because the impossible presents itself EVERYDAY. Take Alan Turin as an example of greatness in neurodiversity. Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, the list goes on. Times have changed and NOW is the time for neurodiversity to shine bright and show that greatness can be achieved but it requires THINKING DIFFERENTLY, outside of the box, we need to reinvent the wheel…
• Neurodiversity often equals creativity. We know creativity works, we know innovation works and we know that neurodiversity works. With at least 1 in 8 of us being neurodiverse, the diamonds covered in dirt are all around us. You have unique skillsets that are unlikely to be matched in the workplace, in your friendship group and in society itself so use it to its full potential, SHOUT about it from the rooftops, don’t be ashamed.
• You are a teacher in disguise. What if people were watching you because they thought they could learn from you? Companies with heterogenous teams who have neurodiverse team members often outperform those and this is thanks to the range of skillsets and determination that a neurodiverse person brings to any working environment.

The list of reasons why being neurodiverse can benefit you are endless. YOU are changing the world around you one step at a time with what you consider “faults”. There’s a true saying that you always want what you haven’t got but what if you started loving who you are and the gifts that you have?

I’ll leave you with this wonderful quote to keep in mind on the tough days from Carl Jung “The shoe that fits one person, pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases”