Tag: Wellbeing

At the beginning of 2022, I decided I wanted to try to learn a little bit of Spanish. I have long held the self limiting belief that I am “not good with languages,” and I felt it was time to put that belief to the test. I downloaded the Doulingo app and got stuck in.

At the time, I was taking a break from social media, which lasted about five months, so I had plenty of spare phone time. I raced through those initial lessons. They were easy. Juan and his apples featured heavily. I would often spend large chunks of time completing lesson after lesson.

After a while, things started to get trickier. Grammar snuck in, and I would get tripped up forgetting that a cup is feminine and a glass is masculine. I would find myself getting frustrated at how little progress I was making, compared to those beginner gains.

But I didn’t want to quit. So I thought to myself, what is the smallest denomination I can break this into and still keeping moving forward? The answer was simple. A single lesson. 3-5 minutes a day, depending on how many mistakes I made, was all it would take to keep my streak going. I am now 199 days in, which Dou tells me is 83% earlier than all learners (whatever that means.)

Will this get me to fluency in record time? Absolutely not. But it will allow me to continue to improve in a way that is sustainable and enjoyable. I have a trip to Spain coming up in November and I feel confident that I will at least be able to order a round of drinks. We will call that progress.

It occurred to me that this is probably a good approach to take when starting any new habit. All too often we go out hot. We try to completely overhaul our lives/careers/bodies and within a couple of weeks find ourselves stressed, over committed and burnt out.

How many times have you told yourself “that’s it, I am going to get up at 6am every day next week and run for an hour.” Even though you haven’t exercised in ages and don’t even know where your trainers are. With the best will in the world, you are setting yourself up for failure. We try to go from zero to sixty in seconds and it just doesn’t work.

Okay so maybe the first day is good. You get up to your alarm, throw on the gym gear and you’re out the door. Day two, your body is sore from the new exercise routine and getting up is more of a struggle. You fall asleep in front of the TV at 9pm. Day three rolls around and you’re scrambling through the laundry basket because your one and only sports bra is definitely in there somewhere. Day four, it’s raining, you feel guilty because you haven’t had the energy to walk the dog all week, your body is aching from head to toe and you just say “F**k it.” You admit defeat and don’t even try to train again for another six months.

It’s such a familiar pattern.

Wouldn’t it be better to take the Doulingo approach when trying to bring in a new habit. Ask ourselves, what’s the smallest denomination I can do and still make progress. If you never drink water, deciding to chug 2-3 litres every day will be a shock to the system, the bladder especially. Could you decide instead to have 1 glass when you wake up in the morning this week. Next week you can add in a second, and gradually build up to where you’d ideally like to be.

In James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, he sets out four Laws of Behaviour Change. I will get an example of each from my adventures with Spanish!

1. Make it Obvious: Duolingo is one of only about 4 apps on my phone that I allow to notify me. It pops up periodically throughout the day to remind me if I haven’t done a lesson yet. Another habit I want to make sure I achieve is to take my vitamin supplements. So I keep them out on the counter along with the neon pink shaker I use to mix it. If I ignore these reminders, it’s because I am choosing to do so, not because I forgot!
2. Make it attractive: I really enjoy the lessons. If it was a complete drag, I would have given up long ago. The little characters are cute, and every so often your progress is rewarded by unlocking sweet little stories. If you were trying to up your steps, choose a route that takes in some nice scenery, instead of doing laps of the industrial estate
3. Make it Easy: Make it so easy it’s almost impossible to fail. Remove as much friction as you can. Phil and I want to try get into cycling, and the bikes are now serviced and accessible. If I had to wrestle garden furniture and lawnmowers out of my way every time I wanted to get on my bike it would NEVER happen. Similarly, I have plenty of training gear so I don’t have to skip my workout for the sake of a missing sock.
4. Make it Satisfying: With Doulingo this is actually built in. You want to keep going because you don’t want to lose your streak. Even though there are zero consequences for doing so. With other habits we have to get a bit more creative. I am currently training for Hyrox, so I have my training sessions all planned out and written up on the planner. I love getting to tick that sucker off when I have the workout done. It is literally all the reward I need. For bigger goals, like running my first Park Run next month I will come up with a more substantial reward for myself.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. If you break your goals down into bite size pieces, you will be amazed at how quickly they add up.

Be well and go crush those goals xxx

Whether you call it “Self Help,” or “Personal Development,” there is no denying that it is a booming industry. Every day hundreds of millions of us are consuming this type of content in one form or another. From books and podcasts to webinars and work shops, we don’t seem to be able get enough.

A quick glance at the New York Times Best Sellers List will tell you this is true. Current number 1, Atomic Habits by James Clear has been on there for over 130 weeks. To put that in context, it has been on there since BEFORE Covid. And it’s not alone, there are countless other titles racking up weeks, months and even years on the list.

This very week, I found myself using up a precious Audible credit on just such a title. (Manifest by Roxie Nafousi for those interested) and I began to wonder why. What drives us to spend our money, time and attention seeking out and consuming this type of content? What are we searching for?

It started to dawn on me that we are all probably looking for the same thing. Some sort of silver bullet to come along and “fix” us. Someone to tell us what to do, Someone to give us a list, even better. A blueprint to follow which will get us living our best lives.

As diverse as the topics self help books address seem to be, (depression, anxiety, addiction, productivity, etc.,) the vast majority of them promise the same thing. This book will “CHANGE YOUR LIFE.” I have spent some time lately wrapping my mind around what this actually means. What would it take to truly transform my life? More to the point, would I really want that?

The truth of it is, most of us live fairly privileged lives. Our basic needs are met. Just ask Maslow. We have a roof over our heads, food in fridge and are not in imminent physical danger. When we think about what we would wish for the future, it’s usually more of the same.

More money, more friends, more fun, more sex. Increased confidence, greater autonomy, deeper sense of self worth, and my personal favourite among the self helpers “abundance.” Yes, you’ve guessed it, that’s just a fancy way of saying more.

When I started to unpack this, I could see that far from transformational, all these aspirations would at best, make life a little bit better. I will give you an example. Since I found my love of fitness about a decade ago, I have wished for a little space at home to set up a small gym. Nothing elaborate, just a discrete area to store fitness equipment and be able to work out when the mood grabs me.

It was one of those dreams that was always in the back of my mind. When life got hectic, and I couldn’t make my gym classes, I would find myself saying “if only I had a little home gym.” If I had ever done a vision board, you can be damn sure it wold have been front and centre.

A few weeks ago, the dream became a reality. We had been saving for a holiday that we ultimately weren’t able to go on, and decided to repurpose the money. We had a shed built out the back, big enough to house the usual shed stuff and with enough space left over to use as a small gym.

I am absolutely delighted with it. It is everything I could have hoped for and more. It makes it so much easier for me to work towards my fitness goals, and I don’t have to share my living space with half of Rogue’s product offering. Amazing. Has it changed my life? Absolutely not!

In fact, there have been studies conducted which show that should you suffer a life changing injury, such as paralysis, or win the lottery, you would return to your base level of happiness within one year. That’s right, less than 12 months later, you would have adapted to your new circumstances completely.

It is difficult then to imagine that making your bed, not snoozing your alarm, journaling, practicing gratitude or any of the other virtues being extolled with really turn your world upside down in any meaningful way.

To be clear, I am not telling you not to invest in personal development. I am certainly going to continue to dip into what I find is a fascinating subject. You will get loads of advice and tips and some of it will likely resonate with you. You may even go so far as to implement some of the changes. I have done so myself.

Most recently I had a go at Mel Robbin’s 5 Second Rule. It’s a really simple principle. As soon as you get the urge to do something which will move you towards your goal, act on it within 5 seconds, before your brain has a chance to kill it. The beauty of this is in its simplicity, and it really does work. It helped me to reduce procrastination and align my actions with my goals.

This will undoubtedly make life a little easier and perhaps a little better. Will it change it? I don’t think so. But that’s okay. If you can make small improvements in your life which make you feel better, fantastic. If all of those small changes eventually add up to big, fat results, even better.

Here’s the thing though. Even if you follow the book’s guidance to a tee, implement every hack and dutifully execute every idea, and in a year, or ten years your life is noticeably different, the book still did not change your life. You changed your life, because only you can. Stop giving other people credit for your hard work. They may give you the tools, but at the end of the day it’s on you. They are not your f**king Gurus!

Be well xxx

I am going to go out on a limb and say that I am sure everyone reading this will have felt shame at some stage in their lives. Perhaps often. The white hot feeling, that presents like a mixture of dread and panic. Setting every cell in your body on edge. Making you want to run, to disappear.

I myself have experienced shame on many occasions. My earliest memory of real shame happened when I was very young. Five or six maybe. I had a friend who lived close by and was a little older. A little more streetwise, and naturally I looked up to her.

One day we were out rambling around our neighbourhood, when we found ourselves playing in the church grounds. We tried the door, and upon finding it open snuck inside like a couple of cat burglars. If you have ever experienced the feeling of being somewhere you are not supposed to be, you will relate when I say we were both thrilled and terrified. We tiptoed around, knowing we could be discovered any moment.

We hadn’t been there long when we noticed the “poor box.” Picking it up to examine it, we discovered what we thought was a £1 note inside. We were literally in for a penny in for a pound. So we decided to try to take. As the papery form slide out from the heavy wooden box, we realised our mistake. It wasn’t £1 it was £5.

That’s when panic really started to set in. It was the early 80’s and £5 was a hell of a lot of money. What on earth were we going to do with it? We set off to the local sweet shop, and try as we might we couldn’t spend even half of it (clearly we lacked imagination and guile.) Knowing we couldn’t bring the change home without being rumbled, we gave it to some older kids.

I will never forget what happened next. I went home and my mother was making dinner. Food was frying on the hob and a typical domestic scene was unfolding. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. My mother answered it, no doubt irritated by the interruption, to find one of the older kids. There to tell my parents about the money.

Time stood still. I knew the jig was up. I had no choice to come clean. No sooner had my mother extracted the truth from me, then she frog marched me, dinner long abandoned, over to the priest’s house to make my confession. It was a summer evening and I felt like the whole neighbourhood could see what was happening. I felt raw, exposed and utterly ashamed.

The reason I recount this story here is because we all have similar tales. Times when we have lied, cheated or deliberately hurt someone. And to be honest, at these times, we deserve to feel shame. The memory of the palpable sensation serving as a reminder, if we ever think of doing the same thing again.

It occurred to me lately, however, that a lot of the times we feel shame, we haven’t actually done anything wrong. We allow ourselves to experience this excruciating and low vibe emotion way more often than is warranted. Whether this is a hangover from strict parenting, religious beliefs or societal norms, I believe it is time we start trying to heal from this. Time to reparent ourselves.

To that end, I have started identifying a few instances when I have felt misplaced shame. I have made a promise to my inner Arwen to try to stop. Let’s see how many of these you have on your bingo card!

Sweating:

Sweating is 100% natural. It’s a function of a normal, healthy body, and yet, we dread it. We have been conditioned to try to prevent it, cover it up, and camouflage it. I started realising how nuts it is to be ashamed of sweating in the gym of all places.

I was doing a workout, working hard when I realised I had a big, sweaty bum. Not ideal I will grant you, but certainly not something I should have felt embarrassed about. But I did. I was practically walking sideways, praying nobody would notice and vowing never to wear light coloured leggings to the gym ever again.

It was only later when I copped on. Firstly nobody was looking at me and secondly, if they were, I doubt they would care. What exactly are they going to say? “Jesus there was a woman in the gym last night, and she was sweating! Would you credit it?!”

I no longer accept that I should feel ashamed of my body for producing sweat!

Causing Mild Inconvenience:

We have all had that experience. You get to the top of the que in the supermarket and something goes wrong. Your item won’t scan, your card won’t work, you spill your change trying to put it back into your purse and some minor delay is caused.

It’s agony! You feel the eyes rolling in the que behind you. You hear the tuts, real or imagined. You face gets hot, palms clammy and you just want Scotty to beam you up.

This is a universal human experience. Almost as much as sweating. I no longer accept that I should feel ashamed when these things happen.

Getting it wrong, with the best of intent:

We are not perfect. We are all flawed, learning and healing. None of us get it right all the time. We come up against unfamiliar situations, and sometimes we just make a balls of it.

I am an LGBTQ+ Ally in work and it is one of my greatest fears that I will say the wrong thing it this space. That in trying to help, I will inadvertently make matters worse. As an ally, and not someone in the community, I feel at risk of this happening, at least once in every meeting.

Here’s the thing. I am trying. I can’t promise to get it right every time. The landscape is changing and evolving quickly and maybe I will trip up. All I can do is own that when it happens, and be open to doing better when it is pointed out to me.

I will not let me fear of getting it wrong, and feeling shame, stop me from being an ally.

I could go on with this all evening, but I think I exposed myself enough for now.

My hope is that the next time you feel shame, and you will, that you ask yourself if it is justified or not. If you have genuinely done something wrong, try to fix it and don’t put your hand in the poor box again. If you haven’t done anything wrong try to acknowledge that this is a tiny unhealed part of yourself crying out, and give it some love.

Be well xxx