Coaching In A Nutshell

When studies are done with people who are approaching the end of their lives asking about their biggest regrets, what they say most often is that there were things that they had always wanted to do but never did.

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”  That is the number one regret in the book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying written by Bronnie Ware.  Bronnie worked for many years with people who were terminally ill. She realized that there were five regrets that were common to those who were dying.

The top regret was always about a dream they had, something that was important to them, but that they kept hidden in the recesses of their soul, never letting it see the light of day.  They didn’t follow their dream and marry the person they really loved or write the book, open the boutique, hike the Grand Canyon, go back to school, learn how to fly or…

They didn’t do what they wanted to do. And now that they were dying, it was too late.

What dream are you letting slip by?  What deep yearning is living in your soul that is screaming – or even just whispering – to be expressed?  Do you have the courage to listen to it and give it a voice? Understanding that you can’t know the outcome but that with faith and courage you can live your passion and truth?

Question: What is holding you back?

We’ll talk about that in my next newsletter.

Talk about living your dreams.  Here’s a ten-year old boy who could teach all of us.  (Ten minutes and worth every second.) Click here to watch.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a question for my Ask Anne feature!  If there’s something I can help you with, click this link (http://coachinginanutshell.com/askanne.html) and submit a question.

Today’s newsletter was in response to questions from several readers who are struggling with listening to their inner voice or listening to others who are telling them to be “realistic” or “reasonable”.

In my last newsletter, I promised to talk about how you can truly feel good about yourself.

Here is one of the best pieces of advice I can give you:

STOP RUNNING AWAY FROM YOURSELF.

That’s it.  (Yes, it’s that important that it’s in big, bold red capitals.)

If you can stop running away from who you really are and from the reality of your life – your reality in this moment – and start from where you are right now, you will be more powerful in your life.  You can only move forward from what’s true for you in this moment. When you deny your reality, you disempower yourself.

How do we run away from ourselves?

Oh, yes, I say “we”.  I spent years running away from myself without realizing that that was what I was doing.  My big clue should have been that things just weren’t working out in my life.  No matter what I did, I always felt that I was struggling.  Struggling to make things happen, struggling to create the life I wanted.  Can you relate?

Like me, you might not be aware that you’re running away from yourself. So how can you tell? What are the signs?  Being unhappy.  Not liking yourself.  Not being able to relax and be comfortable in your own skin.  Comparing yourself to others and always coming out on the short end of the stick.

How you run away from yourself:  Overeating, drinking too much, spending too much, worrying too much about other people’s opinions, exercising too much, watching too much television, spending too much time playing video games or on Facebook or overworking while your bigger priorities are on hold.

Notice the pattern here?  Too much.  Doing something too much/too often and ignoring the rest of your life.

Running away from yourself is all about distracting yourself.  So you don’t have to feel your pain. But you have to feel your pain if you’re going to save your life.

How can you feel good about yourself when you’re running away from yourself?  It takes courage, sweat and energy to stop running and be present for your actual life.  And a huge dose of self-compassion.  Don’t be mistaken – self-compassion is not for the faint of heart.

Do you rush ahead to try to change things because it’s too uncomfortable to just be present?  It’s scary to acknowledge and feel our pain.  Why?  Because we judge ourselves for it.  Instead of seeing our pain or anger or frustration as a message and listening to the wisdom that’s here for us in the present, we tell ourselves that we’re bad or wrong or a loser because we’re suffering.

We often don’t know what to do to get out of our pain to have the life that we dream about – a life of joy, meaning and connection.  That is why I do the work I do.  I am committed to working with my clients to free themselves of whatever is blocking them from living their dream life.  Whatever that means for them.

So stop running away from yourself and face your reality. Start from where you are if you want to create a more magnificent life for yourself. It’s OK. There’s no rush. Your only job is to be the BEST YOU you can be. The world is waiting.

NEW FEATURE: I will be adding a new section to my newsletter: ASK ANNE. Each newsletter I’ll be choosing a question to answer from one of my readers about what’s blocking you from creating the life and relationships you want. (You will always be anonymous.) So send in any questions you have using this link (http://coachinginanutshell.com/askanne.html) and I will respond to as many as possible in upcoming newsletters.

Why do we need other people’s approval?  Because on some level we have abandoned our self.  If we don’t feel good about ourselves we look to others to tell us that we’re lovable, wonderful, worthwhile, sexy, smart and generally OK.  There are a couple of problems with this:  

1. Sometimes the people we desperately want to approve of us don’t feel great about themselves.  We’re asking them to give us what they can’t give themselves.  How much sense does that make?  
2. We often look outside ourselves to assess how we’re doing.  This leaves us without an inner compass to guide us on our journey which makes us really anxious.  
3. Other people are fickle.  They love you today and complain about you tomorrow.  And that doesn’t have much to do with you.    
4. The hunger for approval is endless.  It can never be satiated.  That’s how you know that approval is not what you really need.  If you can’t stop eating the brownies, it’s not about your love of chocolate.  
5. There’s no such thing as purely objective feedback.  Other people’s feedback is based on their perceptions of you which are colored by their experiences, moods, feelings, history, health, needs, etc. (See Number 3.)  

Why don’t we approve of ourselves? Because we allow our inner critic to have the last word about who we “really” are.  We unquestioningly believe that small, loud, persistent and bullying voice inside our heads.   

I bet that if I asked you to make a list of the things you don’t like about yourself, you could come up with a long list in about 10 seconds.  What if I asked you to write down 10 things you like about yourself?  Or 10 things you have done well? 

I challenge you:   

To make a list of 10 things you like about yourself.  Really.  This is going to take a lot of courage and soul-searching.  Write them down.  That will help to make them real for you.  Commit to them. No less than 10 but you can do more.     

For the really brave, write down 10 things that you have succeeded at or done well.  Wondering if something counts as an accomplishment?  Write it down anyway.  Trust yourself.  Your perspective.  Don’t ask anyone else.  

Then stand back and watch your inner critic go crazy.  Argue with you.  Put you down.  Doubt you.  Judge you.  Minimize your accomplishments. 

Now do you understand why you turn to other people to be the barometers of how you’re doing in your life?  To assure you that you’re acceptable and good enough? 

The question is: When will you stop letting your critical mind or other people run your life?        

This issue of not feeling good about ourselves and wanting other people’s approval does not discriminate.  It comes up again and again in the work I do with my clients no matter who they are or what they have achieved. I have worked with CEOs of corporations, lawyers, teachers, doctors and many others who doubted themselves and depended on other people’s approval to feel good about themselves. I have dealt with the demon of wanting other people’s approval in my own life as well.   

One of the things that’s fundamental in determining how happy we are in our lives is how we feel about ourselves.   

In my next newsletter I’ll talk about how you can truly feel good about yourself.  Your life depends on it. 

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, February 29th at 10 AM Pacific, 1 PM Eastern. (Click here to find the time in your region.)  We’re going to celebrate this leap year with a call that will help you stop struggling and blast your blocks to manifesting what you really want in your life. Click here to register and we’ll send you the call-in information. If you can’t make the call, register anyway and we’ll be happy to send you the recording. Send me your questions so that I can address the issues you’re struggling with: Anne@CoachingInANutshell.com. 

I’d love it if you’d go to my Facebook Fan page (click here) and declare one thing you really like about yourself. I already got the ball rolling.

Happy New Year 2012! What are you committed to creating in your life this year? What results do you want to have by the end of 2012 so that you can look back on this year with feelings of joy and fulfillment instead of regret?

REGRET.

What regrets have you been carrying around with you? What are you beating yourself up about that you “should have” said or done differently?

Your regrets have important information for you. About what you want and how you would like your life to be.

But most people use their regrets to beat up on themselves. Do you? 

Do you tell yourself that you could have been happy, loved, effective, wonderful, insightful, smart, beautiful, successful, wealthy, healthy or _______ (fill in the blank) if you had only done or said something differently?

Of course the implication is that YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER. Back then. If you can see it now and know it now, then you should have seen it then and known it then. That’s the overbearing unruly voice of regret. “If only I had…” “I should have known better.” “I should have done it differently.” “I shouldn’t have done/said that.”

Listen up: Your scared, critical inner gremlin LOVES regret. Regret is the ultimate tactic in your inner critic’s arsenal. Why? Because your inner critic knows that regret is a LIE. But you don’t. I’ll say that again: 

REGRET IS A LIE

Your critic knows that when you regret, you’re looking at your past decisions and behavior with the eyes and perceptions that you have now. Your perceptions and understanding of the situation were different back then. As a result of what you have experienced and learned since that time you are a heck of a lot wiser and you see things differently. And because you are wiser and see things differently, if you encountered that same situation now, you would deal with it differently.

So when you regret, you are seeing something with the perception and understanding that you have now. But you didn’t have that perception and understanding then.

Regret is like driving your car while looking in the rearview mirror. You keep looking behind you to see what you have missed. But guess what you’re really missing? The possibilities and opportunities of the road you’re traveling on and the road ahead. And, if you keep looking in the rearview mirror, pretty soon you’ll crash.

The gift of regret is to ask yourself, “What did I learn from this situation so that I can walk this path with more presence, purpose and joy?”

So cast your regrets aside and put your energy and passion into something that matters to you now. Into creating a life that makes your heart sing and drives you to leap out of bed every morning to greet the day filled with possibility. 

“All The Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin’ In The Sun,
Talkin’ ‘Bout The Things
They Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda Done…
But All Those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All Ran Away And Hid
From One Little Did.”

— Shel Silverstein, Cartoonist and Author (1930-1999)

If you don’t know what will make your heart sing or if you are having trouble leaping past the barriers that are holding you back, let’s talk.

Will this be the year that you create the life that you want? Have you been able to do it by yourself yet? Are you ready to invest in yourself?

I have created some packages to work with a limited number of people. These packages are about working one on one with me. Not anyone I have trained. Me. One package is nineteen hours of working with me over six months to get the results that you want.

This is a special offer only for you as a member of the Coaching In A Nutshell community. (Actually my own coach is pleading with me to charge almost twice as much because there is so much personal attention from me. This is not hype. And, yes, I have my own coach to challenge, push and prod me to take my life to where I want it to be. If I could have done it alone, I would have done it a long time ago. I don’t want to look back on 2012 and think “if only…”)

Please email me at Inquiry@CoachingInANutshell.com to talk about how we can work together and which package is right for you. 

Here’s a gift for you: I interviewed Debi Berndt (www.attractlovecoach.com), who is an internationally recognized Mindset Expert and has helped thousands of single women in their quest to attract true love with the power of hypnosis (including herself). She is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist and Love Coach and Author of Let Love In: Open Your Heart and Mind to Attract Your Ideal Partner (Wiley).

This interview isn’t just about finding love. It’s about how your powerful mind can help you create your life. 

Listen to the interview here:

I know how busy you are at this time of year, so this newsletter will be brief. I am so grateful to you for taking the time out of your busy life to read this newsletter. 

Have a joyous and safe holiday season. I look forward to working and playing with you to make 2012 your healthiest, happiest and most prosperous year yet — the year in which you play full out and leave your comfort zone behind.

Here is a wonderful TEDx video on gratitude. It’s less than ten minutes long and worth every minute. 

Click here to view the video.

Anne Pustil, MEd, CCC,
President, Coaching In A Nutshell
Certified Therapist and Relationship Coach
http://www.CoachingInANutshell.com

• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• share via Reddit
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post