Leader Rising

Apparently there’s science to support taking cold showers. At least, I’ve been told that there’s science. I haven’t actually looked into it.

Instead, after I heard it was the bee’s knees, I decided just to try it.

And as unpleasant as it is, I like it.

It reminds me of that Mark Twain quote,

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

I feel that way about the cold showers. I don’t do it for the health benefits.

I do it to challenge myself.

And I give this as an example of something I can do to challenge myself, even as I’m scaling back on other things.

As many of you know, I burnt out last year.

Hard.

I burnt out so hard, I wrote a blogpost about it. I was re-reading it recently to admire my writing (don’t worry, I’m at least half joking) and I started to realize I was heading down the same path again.

Some of the thoughts that were going around in my mind were:

I can do this.

I should be able to do this.

This shouldn’t be that big a deal. I’ve done it before.

But I use those thoughts to push away the warning signs.

As CS Lewis says:

Indeed the safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

And if you don’t realize the road you’re heading down, it can hard be hard to walk back uphill.

But now, I want to take a step back.

That said - it’s hard to do. These things I want to take a step back from have become part of my identity.

It’s time for me to take a step off the path and figure out where I am, and where I’m going.

What path are you on? Where are you going?

Join us this week as we discuss this and more.

A little while ago, I had what started out as a particularly good Thursday.

First, there are two things you need to know about my Thursdays:

1. I’m not a lawyer on Thursday. I coach (and blog and podcast).

2. Thursday is the day Megan and I do weekly check-ins.

Now this Thursday, I was crushing it.

I had spoken to a new prospective client and things were going well. I had a real breakthrough coaching call with a different client, I picked up Ro from school and we had all eaten dinner together. Everything was coming up gold.

And just as Megan and I sat down for our check in, she got a phone call, and took it.

It wasn’t that long, maybe 10 minutes.

I started out annoyed. And then I got pissed. 😠😡

And I was sort of pacing around the house, spoiling for a fight. I was ready to start something.

Then she got off the phone and we got into it.

🎆😔

Then, about 15 minutes into this fight, I paused and told Megan about a book I was reading.

I know right? Paul doing Paul things.

But the book is called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.

Hendricks argues that we all have this inner thermostat that is set to the amount of love and success and happiness that we will allow ourselves to feel.

And so, he argues, when we’re below that, we do things to bring us up to that level on the thermostat, and when we’re above that, we do things to bring us down to that level.

So what I was really doing what a symptom of my upper limit problem.

I had a better Thursday than I was used to. And I was picking a fight to bring it back down to the level I was used to. I couldn’t even tell you what the fight was about now.

It’s a form of self-sabotage.

The first step is recognizing that this is what you’re doing. The next step is adjusting your thermostat to where you want it to be.

We discuss this and more on this week’s episode.

It’s okay to give up desserts, I wrote to myself. You don’t need to eat them because others do. Or because you used to, or because you love them.

If they’re not worth the cost, then they’re not worth the cost.

Computer games are desserts.

🍰

It was actually a really helpful (and not that cryptic (in context)) message. I’d played some computer games that day, and was struggling with how I felt sort of shitty that day - I think because of the computer games.

I liked playing them, on the other hand, I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

And the interesting thing is that I actually like my relationship with desserts right now - I eat them sometimes, usually in moderation, and some times not. I’m enjoying them without making it a big deal in my mind or to my body.

It gave me a direction to aim towards with computer games.

This is just one recent example of how journaling has helped me to show up in my life.

😊

And so when one of my clients wanted to learn how to journal but he needed direction, I thought about the You Rising Journaling Prompts that I created.

When he said that the main problem was that he was having trouble finding the time for it, I knew those prompts wouldn’t be ideal (they’re only about 5-8 mins per sitting, but still, it’s 5-8 mins per sitting).

So I created these Learn to Journal Prompts for him. These start easy and build (very slowly and gradually) through the month, to help you build the habit and demonstrate the value that journaling has in your life.

We discuss this and more on this episode.

LINKS:

Learn To Journal - https://leaderrising.com/learntojournal

You Rising Prompts (more advance) - https://leaderrising.com/you-rising-prompts

Even though I could tell at the time that it was sort of ridiculous, I couldn’t stop myself.

I had just missed a supervision call as part of my coaching certification and I was going to be charged around $200USD.

And I was just kicking the sh*t out of myself.

You should (not) have heard the self-talk going on. Or worse, the emotions underneath the talk. We can often argue with thoughts, but feelings are a whole other ballgame.

It wasn’t healthy.

🤷‍♂️

A friend recently asked “If your relationship with money was like a relationship with a person, what would it be?”

One woman said, “It’s a booty call, cause it’s great when it’s here, but it isn’t always around when I need it.”

Another person said, “It’s the thrill of the chase, the initial courtship stages where we’re trying to figure out what each of us wants.”

And I said, “Mine is like a broken marriage, because we’re always around each other, but we sort of hate each other.”

😠😡

Both stories illustrate the same point - I have had a bit of a messed up relationship with money.

I learned a lot from examining this story.

I was telling myself that money was a bit evil…

Because I wasn’t happy.

And I blamed not being happy on my job. And I did my job for money. So, in my mind, this need for money was causing me to be unhappy.

So I wasn’t the biggest fan of spending it, and it was torture to waste it. After all, if I wasted it, then I was wasting the suffering that I had endured to earn it.

Not a super healthy thought process, eh?

But it can be changed. I have changed it. And it’s made a big difference in my life to have changed it.

Everyone has their own story with money. What are you telling yourself about money that is influencing your decision making?

We discuss this and more on this week’s episode.

A while back, I decided that law wasn’t going to make me happy. So I thought long and hard about what I would do instead.

I came up with three options.

I decided that if I could do it all over again, I would be a therapist, or a writer, or I would own a retail store.

I remember saying to my coach, “Which one do I pick?”

And she said, “Does it matter?”

And in that instant, I realized that it didn’t matter which one I picked.

I was stuck. All that mattered is that I start moving.

Great, but that still doesn’t answer the question of what direction to move in.

So I turned to Clayton Christensen in How Will You Measure Your Life and realized I needed to test my assumptions.

My assumption was not that I would succeed. I believed I would succeed. It’s probably the same for you - we’ve got a history of setting goals and achieving them.

My assumption was that I would like it.

That doing these things would make me happy.

So I tested them. I picked one I love. And I started to build the life that would make me happy.

And then I burnt out. Hard.

What went wrong?

We discuss this and more on this week’s episode.

A week or two ago, I look at my calendar for the day, and I get excited. There's nothing in the evening. I've got time to get my work done during the day, and I'll be able to spend some time on my hobbies in the evening.

There's one thing in particular I really want to do. I really want to paint my models.

And then when the time rolled around, I cleaned the kitchen, because it needed to be cleaned. I tidied my workspace, because it was messy. I organized my email, because the overflowing inbox was stressing me.

And before I knew it, the evening was over. I didn't manage to make it to the one thing I wanted to do.

I was pissed. 😡😡 And disappointed.

😟😞😢

A few days ago, I see this clip of Steven Pressfield and he says:

“Put your ass where your heart wants to be.”

And I realized that this was part of my problem. I wasn't putting my ass where my heart wanted to be.

And this is more than just an imperative - it's also a compass. Because when I just listened to where my heart wanted to be, I took a totally new direction. I learned what I actually wanting to do.

So the last few days, I've given myself permission to do just that. I'm not painting, I'm trying to create a diarama. Why? Who the f### cares.

And I gotta tell ya - when you put your ass where your heart wants to be, it feels pretty good.

We chat about it on this week's podcast.