Locker Room Power

If it's okay to feel a bit shitty. The crazy thing is there's nothing wrong. Australia didn't go as well as we would have liked, and I've been pretty jet lagged all week yet done some really good work and life is still good. But even when life is good, we can’t always feel amazingly optimistic about everything and neither do we need to be totally positive all the time.

Life is a challenge, and we always have problems to solve. By and large I enjoy my life immensely, but I've not seen Joy, my wife since December 28 and won't be seeing her or my daughter, Roxanne, son in law, Efe and gorgeous grandkids for another six weeks and I do miss them. Naturally it is not like this is my first rodeo on the road for an extended period. However, I can’t pretend that everything is humming but at the same time everything is also okay. 

I just don't feel like I'm running on all mental cylinders. Physically I'm fine and have so much to be grateful for, but you know what, I'm not as motivated as I normally am and that's okay. How long is it going to last? I don't know. I could wake up tomorrow and be absolutely buzzing again. But just because I feel a bit shit doesn't mean that anything's wrong or that life is bad, or that there's any specific reason why I just don't feel amazing.

I used to think that I needed to just snap out of this feeling, that I was being stupid or ungrateful whereas now I think okay just relax and accept being slightly off. I'm never moody about it and nobody professionally will know unless they listen to this and equally, I’m not sad. I just feel a little shift emotionally. I think we need permission to sometimes feel a little shit, a little less motivated and take a bit more time and watch a movie or read a book or just chill and not feel pressured into feeling guilty because we are not being productive. I can't stand up and go hey, everything is absolutely amazing, so I give myself permission to have a day or a couple of days where I'm not gonna be pushing myself to be super happy or productive. 

I'm just okay and to be honest I haven’t really wanted to do a podcast this week, but that would be letting myself down and create a dangerous “feeling sorry for myself” emotion which is a slippery slope. When we start to let ourselves down and not do what say we will do then we begin to lose trust in ourselves and our level of responsibility drops. If we go very far down that road then we begin to affect our self-esteem.

I have promised myself I would create a nugget every week and that is what I will do until I no longer feel it is worthwhile. Feeling a bit shitty is no excuse to stop work completely or much at all. The remedy fits the feeling where I will do a little bit less and leave unimportant things on the back burner.

This has been a hard podcast because it is difficult to explain. What I can say is that when I feel this way it would be nice to know that this effort is appreciated. Anyway, I will update next Sunday with another nugget and see where I’m at after an extremely busy week at TeamBath, Bradfield College before jetting off to Germany.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So, after doing several of the Australian Open podcasts with a talking tennis, I'm now back with my regular podcast. And it's a nice segue into this podcast because what I'm going to talk about today is choice. One of the important things we can learn as adults is that nobody really can make us do anything, we need to choose to do it. But if you're in a situation where you don't have a choice, the one choice that you do have is how you react to it, and the attitude that you bring to whatever is happening. So as an example, Liam having lost such a disappointing match, at the Australian Open, now has a choice in how he's going to react to that loss. He can feel sorry for himself, he can feel devastated, he can feel any number of emotions. But that is a choice. And the choice comes after the emotion hits. In other words, of course, he's disappointed, maybe even a little devastated. But after a couple of hours, you need to start thinking about the future and by the next day, you have to have made your choice in how you're going to react to the disappointment. 

Everything in life that happens, cannot be controlled. The only thing you can control is how you're going to react to it. And that is not the initial reaction. 

It is irresponsible for anybody to say that you can control your emotions, what you can do is after the emotion has hit is then make different choices. Certainly, it seems like certain people can control their emotions, because they turn themselves around so often, that the emotions no longer hit us hard. In other words, Liam is a seasoned professional now. And whilst he cannot prevent the disappointment from hitting that disappointment is not as severe as he felt maybe the first time he lost in the Australian Open in the last round of qualifying. It is it is something that happens in the brain, that when you react positively, after the emotion is hit, that somehow the emotions don't grab you as severely, as previously. 

The best competitors in the world are able to turn around any emotion very quickly that's negative, into something that is much more optimistic for the future. And I think that's a key area is whatever happens in life, the next step is yours to choose. And how you going to think about that. And how you're going to feel about what has happened is a choice. And I think this is, you know, if you read the meaning of life by Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Holocaust, this was a very, very big part of surviving, where of course there's a lack of the draw there and he doesn't dispute that. But the attitude of those who did survive was one of realism. Understanding that they were in a very tough situation, but also one of optimism that at some point, they would be freed. And they chose to believe that at some point, they would be freed. And they chose to make the best of the living conditions that they had, which were absolutely terrible. And you know, others weren't able to make that choice. I think just like going to the gym and building muscles, learning to make optimistic choices, after disappointments, or after really bad news is like strengthening muscles. It takes practice. And the more practised you are, the quicker and easier you'll find the choices that you make to be positive. Easy, easier. Hope that helps. And I'd really like to hear from everybody. ping me on Twitter, on Instagram, LinkedIn, and let me know whether you enjoy the podcasts from the Australian Open, because there is a possibility that we do some of that more often. Certainly, at the Grand Slams, and maybe at the Masters 1000s. 

So let me know if you enjoyed them. And if it's something that you'd like to hear more of. Thank you and speak next week.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Merry Christmas to everybody. It's a fabulous time of the year especially if you have young kids or in my case, a young excited four year old and 16 month grandchildren.

It's also a time of year where I get some reflective opportunities and hope you can as well. My main reflection is to be more and more aware of how well people can solve their own problems and hope that my nuggets come across as suggestion’s and never prescriptive.

My suggestion is to find a groove that works for you. This groove will evolve as your needs change with age and self awareness but keep in mind that no one knows you better than yourself, so trust yourself to find your happiness. Listen, read and watch not to follow another person’s way of life but to see what can be added, subtracted or altered to enhance your groove. Ultimately we all know what’s best for us and then it is usually a case of having the discipline to do what we know is good for us. It can be the case that for some things in life there are no solutions just finding a way to accept and endure.

There is so much good information out there and a lot of bad information. I take exception to the growing number of books, podcasts, videos on YouTube and any medium where people tell you what to do, like they know for sure that their way or whatever path they are peddling is the right way. There is categorically no best way to live because each and every life and each person is unique so at best we can make suggestions that offers the gift of altering a perception which could alter a path in a positive way. There are no guarantees and what is good for some is not necessarily good for others. 

Sure there are common areas where it is clear that there is best practice and one way that works like driving on opposite sides of the road but as for living a life there is very little where we as humans can be totally confident that we have the answer and even if it we find a path, an answer for ourselves it is rarely the answer for other people.

So in conclusion, I think it's important to find your own groove, something that you're comfortable with. There's hardly a person I've ever met who feels that they are fully organised or that they would like to accomplish more with things in their life that they feel they could do a lot better.

The reality is we only have a certain amount of energy and when we focus that energy in certain areas other areas will suffer. This is just mathematics and as I get older it becomes all about making choices without worrying about what others think because if you try to do it all you get unstuck. The pressure to satisfy all the demands on your time and energy is unbearable if you feel like you are failing when you fall short trying the impossible. 

Choose your groove and be satisfied with it and when it no longer makes you happy alter your groove. The key is it being your groove!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices