The elephant and the string

 

Elephants are still used in some parts of the world for forestry work. Their training starts when they are very small, tethered with a piece of string tied to a peg in the ground. They are unable to break the string and pull out the peg, so they stop trying. Even when they are full-grown adults they can still be tethered with the same string. These are some of the strings which have held me in my life. You probably have your own.

My First String

When I was little, before school age, my mother stayed at home to look after me as mums did in the 1950s. She ran an efficient household and organised my school-aged brothers, my father, working from home, and of course me. There were strict rules and routines, and I learned to follow them. I decided that always following the rules was a good idea, and challenging authority was a bad idea. Being compliant and not following my own ideas was my first piece of string, and my challenge was to break it by learning to accept the disapproval of others without allowing it to affect my decisions.

Strings at School

When I went to school, I played pick-up soccer with the other children. I was not very sporty and I was always chosen last. I made an early decision that if I was going to shine it would be in the classroom. If I couldn’t be quick I’d be smart. Believing I was physically inept made me avoid sports and activities throughout my life and has probably restricted my health and my social life. That was my second piece of string, and my challenge was to break it by enjoying being active and healthy and to value my body as much as my mind. This string is frayed but still in place!

An Adult String

In my twenties, I was afraid to be alone. I formed a major relationship which was safe but limited, and stayed in it too long. I became a schoolteacher, a profession which became safe but unfulfilling, and stayed in it too long. Staying safe was my third piece of string, and I had to break it by learning to accept uncertainty and aloneness.

 

What Will You Do?

Most of us are like elephants tethered by little bits of string which we could easily break, habits around food, or exercise, or relationships, or work. We are always trying to change. In Star Wars Yoda says Do or do not... there is no try. You can’t try to cut the string, you either cut it or not. Perhaps you are deciding that you will cut the string in the New Year. What do you think?

Technorati Tags: emotional intelligence,change,choices,personal development,new year,habits

Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy!

 

Attitude is a choice. I was choosing bread at the local Co-op when an old lady beside me said “I think the bread’s not very good nowadays.”

I made a polite noise and she went on to say “actually, nothing’s very good now is it?”

“Personally, I think life’s pretty good.”

“Well, I remember the good old days, I’m 91 you know, you wouldn’t remember,” and she stalked off to complete her shopping. I reflected that in the good old days before antibiotics, she’d probably have succumbed to pneumonia before she made 91.

Lots of people complain about the NHS. Three years ago the arthritis in my knee developed to a point where I could not walk without pain, and my mobility was severely restricted. An international team of experts replaced the joint and within a week I was walking again. After a month or two of physiotherapy I was moving s well as I had 20 years before. And I didn’t have to pay a penny for it! Isn’t that amazing?

I remember getting a new phone a couple of years ago and complaining about it, because the buttons were a bit small, and the controls were counter- intuitive. Then I thought back to being a teenager and queuing outside the phone box with small change. My mother wrote to her mother every week - on paper, in an envelope! If you were prosperous enough to have a telephone in your home it was ugly and had a dial which had to be turned. It had no memory or answering facility, and you had to write telephone number in a book. Mobile phones are actually quite amazing!

Listen to people describe their travel experiences. How often do they describe them as “a nightmare” or “the worst day of my life”? They are usually describing a delay of at most a few hours. You don’t hear them say, “Well, after a bit of queuing and bag-checking we sat in a seat in the aircraft and were served food and drink while we travelled six miles above the ground at about 700 miles an hour. When we arrived we were thousands of miles away at the end of a journey totally unavailable to previous generations. Isn’t that amazing?”

Much of our everyday life would be unimaginable to previous generations. Much of our communication and computing technology would have been science fiction to me as a child. As I watch my 88-year-old mother get her shopping online, receiving emailed photos from relatives, I feel so pleased that she is able to have that level of independence. I am equally delighted that I am able to sit in my dressing gown on Boxing Day at 8 am and share my thoughts with the world.

We have our challenges – limited resources, especially energy, environmental concerns, mental health, and the inequality which leads to conflict. But if you live in the UK or a similar affluent land, life is actually pretty amazing. I read and hear the term “broken Britain”. I don’t see the reality. I see a lot of change, and some people handle it better than others. How you see life is a choice. What do you think?

Technorati Tags: change,personal development,attitudes,choices,emotional intelligence,nostalgia

If you don’t ask, you can’t get

 

This all took place soon after I met my wife Grace.

“Anybody know anyone who can plaster? I need to finish off this fireplace. It’s on my list for this year.” Grace was speaking at the workshop group we both went to. As usual at these personal development groups I was the only man. Why look for competition?

“I can plaster a bit,” I said. “I’m not an expert, but what I do does the job.”

“OK, thanks” she said. “You want to come and look at it?”

The house was a typical Plymouth Victorian with two receptions and a long tenement at the back. The fireplace was in the front room; she had torn out the old grate and left a big dirty gaping hole with tattered edges.

“Linzi and I took a crowbar to it. I swore I wasn’t going to look at that fireplace another year.”

She was tiny, dark-haired and Irish, with pale skin, a deep voice and a cheeky look. I liked her, she was unusual and intriguing. She wasn’t one of the I’m looking for someone and you’ll do gang. You get a lot of that when you’re forty, divorced, employed and solvent. Not to mention handsome and a good cook.

“OK, I’ll come next week, Saturday OK again?”

“What’ll it cost?”

“Only about a fiver for a bag of plaster. I’ve got all the tools.”

“What about your time?”

“It’s no problem, I like to help.”

“OK, I’ll buy us a Chinese afterwards. That do?”

“Sure.” On the doorstep I said “What are you doing tonight? Fancy a drink?”

“I was planning to go to a party up the road.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to talk you out of any plans you have.”

She kind of twinkled at me and said”Why don’t you give it a try?”

“Try what?”

“To talk me out of my plans.”

So I did.

I did the fireplace, it was no big deal. A real plasterer could have done about six of them in a day, but I was happy to get a nice looking job for her. She was a single mum with three kids, two still at home, and a real plasterer would probably have stretched her budget too far.

At about six I went home to clean up and change and she followed on a little later with the Chinese food. We ate it with a glass of cold white wine, and the conversation was easy and warm. When I offered her a second glass she said:

“I’ve got the car, I’m driving home”

“Kids at home?”

“Sleeping over with friends”

“I guess you don’t have to go home if you want to have another glass”

She twinkled again. “Are you asking me to stay over?”

“It would appear so.”

So she did.

Technorati Tags: relationships,choices,meeting new partner,turning points

A Guilty Pleasure

 

You know those things you shouldn’t like but you do? Well I quite like a good romantic comedy, even though blokes are not supposed to like them. I also like children’s’ adventure films, shoot-‘em-up thrillers and detective stories. They appeal to different parts of me, and I’ve reached an age where I don’t mind indulging my inner child, romantic or tough guy, and I don’t mind owning up to it. I want to cheer the hero, boo the villain and so on. The analytical part of me sits back and notes that half the time our hero walks into trouble by making silly choices or not planning ahead, but then there wouldn’t be much of a story if he or she didn’t have a sticky situation to escape from!

Last night I re-watched Sliding Doors. It’s slick, clever, funny and romantic, and for those of you who have never seen it it’s based on the life of a girl who catches the tube home one day to catch her boyfriend in bed with his ex, then in a different scene misses the train and doesn’t catch him. The two stories play out in parallel, and in the one where she catches the boyfriend she leaves him and then falls in love with the sweet, funny new guy who picks up her dropped earring in the lift. In the other life she works two jobs, getting increasingly exhausted as her man two-times her with the wicked ex. I won’t spoil the end for you if you haven’t seen it. It’s a great film, not least because it’s the best illustration of the difficult concept of parallel universes that I’ve seen, so watch it for that if nothing else.

In the movie the two story lines are in existence, separated by the sliding doors incident. According to some theorists, there are many more worlds alongside each other, all in existence, all waiting for us to enter – or not. One of the worlds which exists for us all is the one we often see in chick flicks – where she believes the cheating boyfriend and gives him another chance, goes back, leaves him again and so on. I see it sometimes with clients who come to see me in a dilemma over a relationship – do I go or stay? Or it might be a job, a career choice or a friendship. Do I take a chance and move on, or do I stay safe? We need to make a decision, and step bravely into a new world, with all its possibilities, challenges and rewards – or we’ll never know how the story could have ended, will we?

Technorati Tags: change,movies,choices,personal development,parallel universes,consequences

Sliding Doors

What is Value?

 

Treasures- personal or public?

We all have personal treasures – a love letter, a personal gift, the photo we carry in our wallet or on our phone – and we don’t need to consider the value of such things. Their value is to us, and no other. There are  things in life where the agreement of others is important to be able to judge value. For example, a pound coin is only worth a pound because everyone in the country agrees that it’s worth a pound. Sometimes these agreements change – try selling your house in a recession and you’ll see what I mean!

The value of knowledge

I have had great insights about myself, my life, my work and the nature of our world, but they are personal and of little value to others unless I can make them relevant. You could study on your own until you’ve read every book ever written on a subject. Try using that knowledge to get a job where it says “graduates required”! That is why we have universities and exam boards, who oversee courses and set standards of learning. As a result, courses accredited by exam bodies are valued above those which are not. That’s why, when CSP Coaching decided to offer a new coaching course next year, we applied for it to carry University College Marjon’s accreditation to Higher Education level 5, which is an established national standard.

Have it both ways!

CSP are also offering a chance to get to know this course first hand. Steve Scott and I are partners in CSP and we will be running several taster days early in 2011. We started these very successfully in 2010 and found that the combination of a course which carried the guarantee of oversight by a Higher Education institution, plus a chance to get to know the tutors, structure and content of a course at first hand was a real motivator for people and helped them to make an informed choice. These taster days take place in Plymouth on January 15^th, where the theme will be Life by Design, February 12^th, (Boost Confidence and Self-esteem), March 5^th (Coaching in Practice) and March 26th, (Making a Contribution). There is no cost for these one-day workshops and previous attendees may come again (subject to space). Please contact alan@cspcoaching.com to reserve a space.

Technorati Tags: Life Coaching,Business coaching,Executive Coaching,Coaching Diploma,University College Marjon,courses,personal development

Independence Day

 

"Needy people are like newborns … If I wanted a kid I would have one. Until then, grow the hell up and stand on your own two feet”

Chase Brooks (US Author)

 

Needy or Emotionally Intelligent?

I see many intelligent people, even University professors, who have very limited Emotional Intelligence. When the Victorian philanthropists talked about the Needy, they meant poor people without physical resources to be independent. Nowadays we mean emotionally independent and successful relationships require independence and interdependence. This is the precursor to Emotional Intelligence and was an important lesson I learned after my divorce.

 

Breaking Free to Independence

Many animals can stand and run within a day of birth or they will not survive. Human children take many years to become independent, because they mature much more slowly. As children we spend all that time dependent on our parents for survival – shelter, food, care, education – and we need them to tell us regularly that we are doing OK. It’s a necessary part of our development to have that approval. It’s also an important life step to stop needing it, and that’s why teenagers are hard to get on with (unless you’re another teenager). Maturing and separating from our parents is natural and healthy. We need to develop healthy boundaries. Some of us don’t actually do it; we just replace our need for parental approval with approval from a partner. You may be lucky enough to find someone who is prepared to fill that need, but that luck won’t last long. Before too long the new “parent” will be either looking after you, or telling you what to do, or both. You’ll feel helpless – just like a child in fact!

 

Learning by Doing

You can only learn to be emotionally independent by doing it – you actually need to spend some time in a relationship with yourself, not with someone else. When my clients say “but I don’t want to be on my own forever”, I suggest that if they feel that they could be on their own forever, they won’t be, because paradoxically the independent person is very attractive! There is a natural progression from dependence, to independence, to interdependence. Independence is the starting line for a healthy relationship with yourself and others.

Technorati Tags: Relationships,personal development,independence,needy

What’s the matter with men?

Quote of the day:
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. - Thomas Sowell

Technorati Tags: Men,socail change,masculinity,personal development,relationships

The Greatest Challenge

In many years of working through problems alongside men, both as therapist and as life and business coach, I could see the same thing emerging. I’ve seen it in real tough guys – Royal Marines, Police Officers, Paras, men who have faced and dealt out deadly force – and in shy young men who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. It’s how to relate to other people. In a recent survey relationships came top of the list of male challenges, not just relating to women but with other men too. Why is this? Throughout most of human existence, men have been strong hunters and defenders, and women have been successful gatherers and nurturers. They were equal but different. Small cooperative tribes of humans have managed to cross deserts and glaciers, survive ice ages, colonise great jungles, fight fierce animals many times their size, learn to farm, to build cities, develop science and technology and eventually travel beyond the planet. So where did men go wrong?

 

Technology and Revolution

Changes in the way we operate as a society are quite recent – just the last few generations. A few hundred years ago, men farmed, hunted, baked bread or worked iron, and sometimes fought against other groups of men as archers or men at arms. These were clear roles, often passed from father to son. Change was fairly slow, and a boy had time to be apprenticed and to learn from his father at the plough or the forge, learning by example from other men also. The identity of a man was pretty clear. Within a few hundred years, and especially in the 20^th century, everything changed. Fighting, farming and forging metal all became high-tech activities for specialists to carry out with expensive equipment. Jobs appeared and disappeared within a generation – punched-card machine operators, anyone remember those? Bank clerks were replaced by ATMs, steel works and mines closed, ships were manned by foreign crews. Women fought justly for equal rights. Men felt guilty, and didn’t! But the biggest change was at home.

 

Men, Families and Change

The results of the explosion in separation and divorce, which started after World War 2 and accelerated with no-fault divorce in the 1970s, has meant that whole generations of boys grow up without adequate contact with their father, or another healthy father figure. The response to this by many boys is either a retreat into uncertainty and anxiety (whilst trying to look competent on the surface) or to develop a tough guy, hard man exterior, denying emotion and connection with others. My experience is that neither of these works very well – and then they have kids of their own! More failed marriages, more confused and uncertain sons…This doesn't have to be how it ends.  If you’re not happy with how your life is going, let me know if I can help.

Change and Choice

 

A million billion choices

What if every choice created a new world? Transition is, “teeming with big ideas and grand theories” (The Times). If you like a good tale which grabs your attention, mystifies, thrills and informs, then Iain Banks’ novel is for you. The story is based in a universe where our world appears an infinite number of times, with every choice by every person making a new, parallel world where everything is slightly different because of the choice. If you are a Banks fan, then like me you will delight in his mix of the familiar and the outright weird, and be prepared to be unprepared for the surprising outcomes. Great stories were passing on human experience, wisdom and imagination before literacy entered human history.

 

Science fact, not science fiction

This is not such a strange idea. Modern physics tells us that we live in a universe of uncertainty and infinite possibility, where possibilities become events only when we focus on them. Other theories suggest that there are indeed an infinite number of parallel universes which spring into existence every time you, or I or the man next door makes a choice. The old world of classical mechanics, where the universe ticked along like a gigantic clockwork toy, has now been recognised as nothing more than a convenient way of seeing the visible world, holding no real truth.

 

Don’t dream the life, live the dream!

What this means for us is that our every choice creates our personal experience. Do nothing or do something, it’s a choice. Do what works, do what doesn’t work, stay safe, they are all choices. What my clients tell me is that you can’t always tell what will work or won’t work, but if we don’t keep making choices which lead towards what we want, we can waste years. It appears likely that time isn’t all it appears to be, but at present, as far as we know, we are likely to get about 80 or 90 years of active life if we take good care of our bodies. Stay in a job you hate for ten years instead of two, seems like 8 years wasted to me. Spend 20 years with someone you don’t love because you are afraid of being alone is a waste of those years. Dream of a great life and die wondering if you could have lived it is a tragedy. Don’t dream and despair, dream and do it! Watch this blog for information to help you from The Change Arranger!

 

Transition

Technorati Tags: change,choice,personal development,quantum physics,coaching

The Power of Belief

Starting out

When I was first trained as a counsellor, I received my first clients with fear and trepidation. Real, live people were going to tell me their troubles! I focused hard, remembered what my tutors told me and listened like mad. I said as little as possible, in case I said something which wouldn’t help, and I shared my clients’ challenges and pain. As they grew through their difficulties and recovered their personal power and well-being, I learned to trust the process of counselling.

 

The Relationship Heals

Currently, in the worlds of the NHS and employer-supported counselling, CBT is the flavour of the month. Counselling is being offered to more and more people for less and less time – some of my referral agencies send client for only three sessions, rather than the 5 or 6 which I find most helpful. I always work integratively, which means that I use different counselling techniques to best match the needs of my clients. Research suggests that the methods used by different therapists are nearly all helpful as long as they are selected carefully and used in a context of a good supportive alliance between counsellor and client. My belief in the courage, dignity and determination of my clients was and is an important component of that relationship for me.
 

Counselling to coaching

As my experience grew I found that my clients wanted to go beyond feeling better; they wanted to move out of difficult situations and create better lives. Many agencies were suggesting a solution-focused approach, and I was using this with some success. I came to recognise this as coaching, which is a way of helping someone to move from where they are to where they want to be. My belief in the ability of people to achieve this and of my own ability to help is the cornerstone of my work. Time and again I have seen people who are stuck in what seems like a dead-end situation make real changes in their lives. Many people have limiting beliefs, like “I can’t change this”, or “that’s just what you have to put up with in life”. The key issue is to replace these with empowering beliefs, like “I can change what I don’t want”, and “I can plan how my life will be”. Once a person has gained these skills they have them for ever. Let me know if I can help.

Technorati Tags: Personal development,coaching,counselling