What’s Wrong With Me

Why is it that the first place we go to when we’re upset, angry or ill is ‘what’s wrong with me’. I’ve had a few conversations over the bank holiday which went to the ‘wrong with me’ place. My friend was upset – ‘what’s wrong with me?’ You’re upset! There’s nothing ‘wrong’. I was angry – what’s wrong with me? Nothing. I was angry. I got over it! Another friend was feeling really exhausted – ‘what’s wrong with me?’ Nothing. She’s run down, tired and needs to chill out with a big bar of chocolate, a book and a bath. Once she’d done that over the weekend, the feeling of exhaustion went away.

As did the sense that something was ‘wrong’. What annoys me about this focus (and I do it too) is that it always puts us in the naughty chair. We’re angry, hurt, upset, feeling under the weather and we’re looking for ‘what’s wrong with me’. You know what? There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with you. You’re just human. Humans feel emotions. They feel hurt, jealousy, anger, embarrassment, sadness, tiredness. Humans (as a general rule) are not happy, skippy, bouncy every day. You know me, I’m a ‘joyful life’ coach – it’s all about enjoying your life for me.

But that doesn’t mean denying ‘negative’ emotions. That doesn’t mean putting yourself in the naughty corner for feeling how you feel. Ironically, living joyfully means living fully with your experience. It is very hard to be joyful when you have unacknowledged anger or sadness. It is difficult to be joyous when you are exhausted. But there is nothing ‘wrong’ with you when you get cross, when you are sad, when you are tired. You’re just cross, or sad, or tired. Not defective. So do me a favour and quit asking ‘what’s wrong with me’ because the truth is that you are beautiful, wonderful, fabulous, amazing, a unique, brightly shining star…and you’re allowed to be HUMAN!

Love

Donna.x

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Working for the Dark Side

Do you work on the side of light or on the side of Dark? The light side looks for what’s good, what’s working, what’s enjoyable, what’s fun, what’s right with life. The Dark side does the opposite – it looks for what’s bad, what’s broken, what’s terrible, what’s upsetting, what’s wrong with life. The news largely works for the Dark side – using inflated, exaggerated disaster stories to create a ‘good’ story. And many of us, without realising, work for the Dark side.

We look at what we’ve done wrong, wallow in the painful, irritating and hurtful stuff (talking about how hard done by we are), zero in on the flaws in our life (and in the mirror), see all the things we failed at through a magnifying glass and offer up our shortcomings as if they are all important. I do it too. Much less than I used to, but it’s a default position for many of us, influenced by ‘what everyone else does’ and the media, we become cynical, negative and largely unhappy.

The good news is that it is fairly easy to turn to the side of light. Look at what you did right, wallow in the fun, joyful, enjoyable moments of life (talk about how grateful you are), see all the things you’ve succeeded at through a magnifying glass and offer up your gifts and talents as if they are all important. Your choice. I can tell you though, that working for the Light side is WAY more fun!

Love

Donna.x

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When I’m On Good Form

When I am on good form, I am a business GENIUS! When I am on good form I am creative, productive, focused, I have a lot of fun and life is easy. When I am on good form I enjoy life more. When I am on good form I don’t take the bullshit so seriously. When I am on good form I am confident in my own skin. When I am in good form I am joyful, fun and energetic.

When I am on good form, I am the real me – magnificent, unique and have a great sense of humour and a lust for life.

So the only question I need to answer is: what can I do daily to get me on top form?

And the question I want to ask YOU is: who are you when you are on top form? And what can you do daily to get you on top form?

Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Love

Donna.x

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Unstick Your Stuck Pooh Stick

Remember Pooh-sticks? The game Winnie the Pooh and friends played where they drop a stick into the water on one side of the bridge, and the first stick to reach the other side wins. Now, imagine that life is like a game of Pooh sticks…and you are the stick. The stick is happily floating downstream in the river of life…until it gets stuck. Maybe it’s wedged in with a bunch of other sticks, maybe it’s caught in a little eddy, going round and round and round.

Does this sound like your life? Is your stick stuck? Does it help your stick to complain about being stuck to all the other sticks? Does it help to moan that your stick is too fat, too stupid, too stuck? No. Your stick is still stuck. The stick isn’t a bad stick for getting stuck – it just got stuck. It happens in the river of life. Some sticks float down the river without ever getting stuck (although I’ve not once met one!), but most get stuck sometimes.

Now imagine that all you have to do is get your stick unstuck…that’s your only task. See the thing about getting stuck is that you don’t have to stay stuck. Sometimes you will need to move a load of other sticks around you to be able to move, sometimes it’s just a matter of pointing the stick back downstream, and sometimes you have to throw a rock at the stick to get it moving.

Again, the stick isn’t bad…no matter what it takes to get it moving again, the stick is just stuck. No more, no less. Are you getting the relevance of this metaphor to your life? Maybe you are not stuck right now…if not, great! Remember to enjoy the flow of life, and notice what is going on around you. Maybe you can avoid getting stuck for a while. When (if) you do get stuck, and if you are stuck now, your only task is to get unstuck.

My stick gets stuck on a regular basis – it might be a business challenge, or relationships, or outside influences, or health trouble, or writing, or any other ‘obstacle’ in life. I don’t mind getting stuck anymore, because I know lots of tools that will help me move my stick – coaching, journalling, gratitude, vision, friends, colleagues, clients, the list is endless. A few years ago the only way I knew was to throw a rock at the stick!

I want you to know that you don’t have to throw a rock at the stick – life change doesn’t have to be shocking and hard, and totally disorientating. You can let it be easy. As long as you are working on getting your stick back into the flow of life, it’s all good. And where is the flow going? Well, Nirvana of course. The joyful life. It’s not that far away…you just might get stuck a time or two. But your only job is to keep your stick unstuck and flowing.

I wish you this weekend a flowing, wonderful, joyous ride on the river of life!

Love

Donna.x

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Video: When You Are Not Being Your Best Self

Your best self is that part of you that is joyful, fun, laid back, generous, loving, happy, cheerful, peaceful. When we feel bad, it is usually because we are not being our best self. It is not what is done to us that makes us feel bad, but what we are being in reaction to it. Take a look at your life – when you feel bad, are you being your best self?

www.youtube.com/donnaonthebeach

Love

Donna.x

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Video: Rushing the River

Life will happen in its own sweet time (divine timing), so why waste energy rushing the river. You can absolutely get into the fastest flowing current (the fun, joyful, high energy place), but when we try to push and force, it actually holds us back. Lie back in your inflatable dinghy and enjoy the ride.

www.youtube.com/donnaonthebeach

Love

Donna.x

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OnTheBeach – Are Your Good Habits Wrecking Your Life?

I have written a lot about self-care over the last few years (for my free ebook on self-care, click here), and the basic idea of self-care is doing things that care for you – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I am often intrigued by how people (including myself) do the opposite of self-care, they self-hurt. Not necessarily by cutting themselves or in any obvious way ‘self-harming’, but by not noticing when the little things that make up a life detract from their enjoyment. And sometimes it is the so-called good habits that turn toxic.

One of the reasons I was so grateful to be sick last week was that it forced me to cut out so many things that I normally do…and to notice when I was doing something that actually made me feel worse. For example, I have a series of ‘daily practices’ that help me make my life amazing, like meditations, yoga, gratitude, journalling, channelling, affirmations. But I had made them into a chore by trying to do 15 things every day – whether I wanted to or not.

The irony is that I do these to make myself feel better, but I spent half the day avoiding the chore and berating myself for not doing them. (oh how I laughed when I realised what I was doing!) So they didn’t make me feel better! Each process, each item, done in its right time does help me – whether physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually…but that doesn’t mean I have to gorge on them!

Awareness is the key to making sure that something or someone who once enhanced your life and made it better STILL does. It’s amazing how often we continue with a so-called ‘good’ habit long after it stops serving us. Let me be clear here: to my mind, something serves you and enhances your life if you get joy from it. So running for 5 miles a day does not count if you hate it. If you love to run, then that’s something that serves you and enhances your life.

If we really believed in our inherent worth, we would never tolerate habits, or anything that did not serve us. Imagine believing so much in your divine magnificence that you nurtured yourself, cared for yourself, put your joy before your ‘should’s, gave yourself the tender, loving, gentle, total love and respect. Imagine if every ‘good’ habit you had added to your joy, instead of being a chore and wrecking your life!

Something to play with
Check your ‘good’ habits. Do the things that you do to make your life better make you feel fabulous? If not, maybe it’s time to swap a tired old habit for a new shiny, joyful one?

Leave me a comment with your thoughts below.

Joy be with you.

Love

Donna.x

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OnTheBeach – In It For The Long Haul

So how are things going in your one and only life? Everything going perfectly to plan? Every goal you’ve ever had achieved? Still as optimistic and positive as you were when you were 19? No? Welcome to the Human Race! Only it is not a race…there are no prizes for getting to the finish line early, and it’s one of those sneaky courses that deceive you – just when you think you’re getting there, you turn the corner and there is ANOTHER home strait in front of you, stretching as far as the eye can see.

It’s liberating to realise that life is not a race and there is no finish line, because it frees you from the shackles of having to be at a certain point at a certain time. It also encourages us to change our expectations and our strategy slightly. You see, if it’s not a race, there is no need to wear ourselves out…and if the journey is never-ending, stamina is more important than speed. Remember the tale of the hare and the tortoise? While the hare dashed hither and thither and was distracted by a thousand things, the tortoise plodded steadily on and reached the finish line.

How do you approach your goals? Do you set a bright and shiny goal to earn £250squillion more this year, set off at a run, not achieve it in the first 30 seconds so get completely discouraged, stop and give up? Or do you set a goal you believe you can reach and head towards it, steadily and persistently, knowing that when you reach this goal, there will be another to head for and enjoying the journey is more important than hitting the milestones.

For years, I tried the first approach. I would start the year with high expectations, spend 2 or 3 days making plans and getting excited, take a little action then hit a hurdle and give up, defeated. The end of the year would roll around and I would mutter to myself ‘another year wasted’ and be negative and pessimistic, scoffing at the very idea of a joyful life. Luckily I made a discovery which has saved me from this pattern of accelerate hard, brake even harder, reverse to beginning.

Persistence. I was always stubborn, and when I realised that I could turn stubborn-ness (a supposed fault) into tenacity and persistence (strengths) and use it to move my life inexorably forward, my life changed. Life is a journey – with good health and a little luck, a long journey, and if you set off at a run, you will wear yourself out quickly. But if you take one fun step, then another, and another, and another, before you know it you will be closer to your goals, and have enjoyed yourself along the way. And it won’t matter that you’re not ‘there’ yet because you know that you will never be finished anyway, and it’s worth being in it for the long haul to create the life of your dreams.

Something to play with
Think of something you really want in your life. What have you done in the last 7 days to create this? What do you think would happen if you took one step a day towards what you want for 365 days? Set that stubborn streak of yours to good use and keep moving towards what you want – consistently and persistently.

Want to share your thoughts on this article? Leave me a comment below.

A note from Donna
This topic has been a hot one this week – I have mentioned the persistent, step by step approach to every one of my clients, and when I now look at my very very nearly finished ebook, I am reminded that without this persistence and tenacity, I would NEVER finish this project. A few times I have become discouraged, even bored of it but now I have almost finished the latest draft and it just needs a little final polishing for the final draft. This project started as a seed of an idea back in late 2007 – good job I was in for the long haul eh?

PS There’s only a few days left to take advantage of my January e-mail coaching offer – If you haven’t seen it yet, go to my special offers page. If you’re interested in taking me up on it, you need to ACT NOW!

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Enjoying the Win

Last week, I was at a client’s offices and in the meeting room they had a picture titled “Face each problem with a will to win” with a picture of athletes in agony (marathon runners by the look of them). I admire the sentiment. Determination, tenacity and will gets you far.

BUT.

It’s the agony bit that bothers me! yes, ok, winning is all good…but in business these days it is all too often at the expense of your physical, mental and emotional health…and I can’t see that as good no matter which way up I look at it!

How about “Face each problem with a joyful smile and a determination to enjoy finding a solution”? With a picture of smiling, happy people?

Or am I just TOO mad for thinking this???

Love

Donna.x

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