A Leap of Faith

somerandom

Good Afternoon I hope you've all had a good week.

I'm feeling a bit unmotivated at the moment. I think some of it is plain old coming back from holiday but I also think that my unmotivated mood is trying to tell me something. I'm not sure what it's telling me but I'm listening hard ! I'm coming up for a year of being self-employed (I left work at the end of September last year) so now seems a really good time to look back and review then make some plans for the future. I think it'd be a good idea for me get someone to help me with that. I'll have a think about who would be suitable and what would be a helpful structure.

So last week I was up Town for a couple of meetings and a workshop on Monday - it felt like a very long day but was productive. I really made the most of the sunny days and spent time chilling out in my garden in between coaching sessions. I was up in town all day yesterday socially too and I'm feeling very tired today - thankfully I've got a clear day today so I will do some catching up on life and work - my son is at his Dad's so i may also incorporate a "nap" into my day...

I'm still loving my "Science of Happiness Course" - in spite of my general lack of motivation - I feel massively energised by that . My Spanish Classes start next week. Also I haven't been suffering from headaches since i started taking my anti-histamine at night rather than in the morning.

Next week: I've got about 6 coaching sessions booked - there's a few people that have got MIA over the holidays who I need to pin down so that may end up being more (hopefully!!). I'm also meeting a Coach friend on Weds who I know will be a great person to speak to about my review & we will be going to an event together that afternoon. I'm really looking forward to that. It's a "Street Wisdom" event - I think I mentioned it before. You get to be inspired by your environment while pondering a question. Thinking about it - what a great start to my review process

Reading this post back - I realise I really need to take some action to step out of this "lull" - I've allowed it to go on long enough. So borrowing from a Coaching technique I use - I'm saying to that unmotivated part of myself "It's OK I've listened to you - I'm planning a review - now please let me get on with things..." - I'll let you know next week how that works for me.

Have a great week :):)

Clarey008

How have you got on this week? I would be interested to hear how you get on getting out of the "lull". I have felt really demotivated at work myself this week. So much to do, that I don't know where to start and a general feeling of "I can't actually be bothered to start!"

somerandom

Good Afternoon All – I hope you’ve had a good week.

I’ve made good Progress on shifting the “lull” - I feel a lot less stuck than I was this time last week. Still a little lower in energy than I’d like but a big improvement. Last week felt a bit like a “quest” and I really enjoyed it.

Clarey – sorry to hear you’re going through a similar thing - it’s horrible to feel like that isn’t it - like being stuck in mud or something!!! … I hope some of my findings over the past week might prove helpful. Feel free to PM me if you want to brainstorm ideas…

- initially it really helped me to stick with the feeling of discontent and listen to what it was telling me.. (more on that below)

- then, when I realised that it’d tipped into being a little self- indulgent - It really helped me to state the intention to change how I was feeling.

I found that talking to a range of people about it – mostly just thinking out-loud – helped me gain perspective – I walked more – it always grounds me and helps my thinking. It was also good to start something new – I started my Spanish Class .

So out of all this - I realised that a couple of things were simply natural rhythms ie the time of year – not wanting the summer to end & coming up to the end of the first year of business.

The big thing that stood out that I can do something about – is that after a year of trading – even though it’s gone better than I expected – I have drifted away from the “free-range dream” that I had - the vast majority of my coaching is done virtually from my living room. So my task now is to focus on how to move closer to the dream I started with. Also – and I’m always telling my clients to do this – I need to acknowledge my achievements over the past year – I would never have guessed it had gone so well yet I have glossed over it and just focussed on what's not so good. So I will be working on those over the next week.

So that’s my quest dealt with for now. Workwise – it’s got busier – I’ve had quite a few new referrals which is great. It dawns on me as I write this that haven’t done any group work since the end of July so I need to make a push on that front as it gives me a buzz and pays well . In fact when I was on my quest last week I came across a sign for a very reasonably priced space for hire in Central London – I’m wondering whether I should take a chance and hire it for a few months– (they want someone to hire it for a morning or afternoon every week) – then come up with things to experiment with. It really excites me thinking about doing that. I’m going to contact them on Monday to at least go look at the space !!

Next week : A fairly “bog standard” week – not too busy and nothing out of the ordinary planned – I guess it makes it a good week for reviewing, planning and sewing seeds…

I hope you all have a lovely week. :):)

Clarey008

Thanks Somerandom I find your posts really useful and I may well take up the offer to pm you at some stage and brainstorm. I am feeling a bit better as I had a course at work about Performance Management and Coaching. We practiced coaching on each other and it was really nice being coached and having someone focus their attention on you. I also realised a couple of the jobs I was worrying about at work were nearly done and I just needed a final push to finish them, which I have done this week.
How is the Spanish going?

somerandom

Clarey - so cool that you got so much from the Performance Management & Coaching Course. I got my first taste of Coaching that way & couldn't believe how effective it was. I remember we did a "silent coaching" exercise where the tutor literally just read questions out to the whole group - with no interaction other than that & it still got me to a different perspective on my issue. Its an amazing process.:)

Spanish - ermmmm not so good as I've been ill but recovered now so back on track from today. How's your German going?

somerandom

I'm ONE year old today !!! :T Or at least my thread is :rotfl:

I've been ill this week. Thankfully not too ill to work but ill enough that I've spent the time between clients resting. The negative side of that is that I've not been out or to the gym, didn't visit the venue I mentioned and I've got behind on my Spanish class already. The positive side is that its given me a good chunk of time for reflection. As part of my continuing review - I used that post as the basis for how well I've done this year.

So on 2nd October 2015 I wrote:

somerandom wrote: »

... with £8k of debt strapped to my back....:eek:

I’m newly self-employed - and when I say “newly” I mean brand spanking new! Yesterday was my first day of being fully self-employed! For over a year I’ve been partially self-employed alongside working part time in paid employment. I’ve been squirrelling away money so that I’ve got some savings to act as a buffer for the early months of this venture. (I raised a significant part of that through the MSE £10 a day challenge so thanks to all the folk on that thread who have been a great support.)

I have around £8,000 of debt - £3,000 on a 0% interest credit card which expires in in 22 months & the rest is a loan which has 3 years left to run. Both debts were taken out to pay for training courses etc. so that I could set up and develop my business – so an investment (I think this counts as “good debt”) - but still a debt!.) At the moment I only earn the equivalent of around a third of my previous take home salary through my self-employed work so I need to up my game sharpish (definitely in the next 6 months after which my buffer will be gone!).

What else do you need to know …? I’m the lone parent of a teenage son, I’m no spring-chicken. Oh & I’ve got an elderly boiler that is on the blink and is causing me much anxiety – it’ll seriously eat into my buffer if it breaks down…

So this is a diary about living frugally but well, working hard but smart, busting those debts (no matter how “good” they are) and most of all, about taking a leap of faith to follow my dreams ….

I’ve never done an online diary before; this is the sort of thing I’d normally journal about privately. But since I anticipate that my biggest challenge will be holding my nerve, I figure that I need to go public - so any support and tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You

So how did I do according to the criteria I set?:

Living frugally but well: I've been pretty frugal - I've lived within my means - haven't eaten into my financial buffer. By living well I had a vision in my head of having lots of free time to go to the gym (every day), buy veg from markets & cook from scratch, have a really well maintained / organised home, work from nice venues. :rotfl: There are just not enough ROTFL emoticons that I could put for that one !! It's been chaos !! I've been more disorganised than when I was working if anything, I spent a lot of the winter working from bed because I hated the cold .... There have been good times of course- I do go up to the South Bank a lot to work, I go out to lovely workshops & meet nice friends for lunch, I've been to Spain twice and I've even had brief periods of being more organised. This is the biggest potential "area for improvement" of all of them.

- working hard but smart : I have worked hard (most of the time) sometimes smart sometimes not. I've had plenty of rest time - but not always on the days / times I'd expect. Likewise I've worked on days I would have normally thought of as rest days (ie coaching someone at 9am this morning). I worked out my turnover for the year and it almost exactly corresponds to my gross pay in my old job - even taking into account the quieter Summer period.

-busting those debts - I can't say that I've "busted" them but simply by sticking to the regular monthly payments I've reduced them by 25% so I now have a debt liability of £6k rather than £8k. I haven't touched my financial buffer so in theory I could pay these off (& that would feel nice) but I looked into it and it would save me so little money £100 over 2 years - that for me it makes sense to maintain regular payments and have the psychological comfort of a larger financial buffer (& I really will have to replace the boiler this year).

- taking a leap of faith to follow my dreams …. Well yes, I did take that leap. At the beginning of this I felt like I was jumping off a cliff and couldn't see how far down the ground was. I remember feeling so scared & jittery for the first couple of weeks then making a conscious decision to shift my mindset from one of scarcity to abundance (or at least "enough"). That was the single most useful thing I did all year. It was like at that point I could feel my feet on the ground and I could just get on with things. There have things that haven't come off that I'd expected to, and other things that appeared out of the blue. I'm pleased that I have said "yes" to opportunities that scared me - working in a prison, being in a film, facilitating events that put me outside my comfort zone. Once I'd done them - they just became something I do...

Writing that review has made me feel really pleased with the way things have gone - but it took me way longer than I expected so I need to rush off & coach someone .... I will try to pop back on later today to finish off xxx

lynnejk

Hiya


Just popped in to wish you and your 'leap' a very happy birthday

:T ** :dance: ** :T

Gosh - it seems to have flown past from my point of view :rotfl:


Love your review above and am soo pleased things are still going well for you - apart from feeling ill and hope you're soon fully recovered

All the best going forward and I hope the next year is an even better one for you.
Lx

somerandom

Thanks Lynne - I really appreciate your support

Clarey008

Happy Birthday to your leap. German is going really well although I was actually dreading the lesson last Thursday. We had missed a week due to the teacher being off and I think I had built it up in my mind as being worse than it was. The lesson was good and although I'm at the lower end of the class in terms of language level, it is forcing me to do lots of work and try hard. It is also nice doing something different just for myself and meeting new people.

somerandom

That's great Clarey- I'm still struggling to get into a routine with my Spanish (well everything really) due to having not been well and the other course I'm doing taking up so much time. Thankfully there's no new material in the other course this week so it'll give me a chance to keep up. I will use you as inspiration