Blog – Page 10 – Tahmid Chowdhury

A tale of three cities – my travels through India

I’m currently in Mumbai, on the third and final leg of my tour of India.

The reason I came to India is to take part in The Ultimate Experience, India tomorrow. The event will be extremely impactful and I don’t doubt I’ll talk far more about it next week. However, I also wanted to experience different parts of India since I was coming all this way.

My choice of places to visit was quite haphazard in some senses. Delhi is not a place people tend to recommend visiting especially. Mumbai is an economic centre (and a beautiful one at that). Whilst Jaipur is a beautiful city to visit, I did not really venture out of the cities. I also chose not to see key sites like the Taj Mahal, for want of not cramming too much in.

Yet these three cities actually have given a really vivid and different set of experiences. In Delhi, I saw the political capital. Sprawling cities with urban disarray. The streets were crammed, and once you get out of the embassy quarters, there is a crazed sprawl of cars and junctions. On my tight budget, I stayed out more towards the messier areas. It allowed me to have the experience of walking through crammed but humble neighbourhood shops in my search of a padlock, a sim-card top up and a phone charger.

I had an incredible Tuesday which started with me heading to the Lotus Temple – a beautiful structure with a piercing quietness within. It gave me space to reflect on a number of things happening within my life. I then headed to a stakeholder workshop as part of my job which happened to be taking place in Delhi, and I learnt about the different climate actors in India.

It’s impressive to see the amount of work taking place in India and the growing conscientiousness towards climate issues. Here you can see the issues of population growth, urban sprawl and pollution right up in front of you. Yet there is also an evident need for greater development and increasing people’s economic welfare, which brings its own tensions.

In Jaipur, I visited the Amer Fort and City Palace. I did not know that Jaipur actually had its own royal family. The city is known as the Pink City for its vivid colours around the town, and there are beautiful historic structures to be found around the town.

My most poignant moment was going into the slums. Through a chance interaction I spoke to a tuk-tuk driver who ended up taking me into his home. He was a music teacher, and so spent his time teaching kids how to play music. He did this along with his father. I posted on my social media feeds a video of them playing ‘Just the Way You Are’ by Bruno Mars.

Jaipur was also notable in the intensity of its people. The Indian people are masters at the art of selling, and nowhere did I see this more than in Jaipur – perhaps due to it being less in the economic spotlight compared to Delhi or Mumbai. I got caught up accidentally suggesting I wanted to purchase a 500 euro rug, which I had to escape out of!

I also had my palm read by a gold-medalist astrologer. In the past I would have scoffed at such things but I found them genuinely insightful and a lot lined up with what has come up in my coaching. If you’re interested to know what he said, drop me a message.

Mumbai was notable in how much stronger urban planning existed. The streets were cleaner, and the roads made far more sense. The difference in economic strength was also really evident. Going to the nicer part of town had beautiful monuments along the sea. It’s no wonder that a lot of the Bollywood stars live out here.

From a personal perspective, this trip to India has shown how apparently fearless I am. Although I’ve been grappling with this idea of ‘lacking courage’, this is certainly more internal than external. Travelling alone is no mean feat, even if it hasn’t felt like the biggest deal for me. On my way from Jaipur airport to my hostel, I ended up hitching a ride on a motorbike.

The complication being that I had a big suitcase and a backpack. So if you can picture the scene – a guy sitting at the front, a big suitcase between us (that I was holding) and driving down the winding freeways. At one point he wasn’t sure where to go, so I ended up pulling out my phone and navigating. It’s good I didn’t get injured, as I’m not sure my travel insurance would have been too impressed!

Yet there is something coming out consistently throughout this trip. I would benefit with getting clearer with myself and sharing my gifts more explicitly. Although I’ve achieved a lot in my life, I’ve heard this sort of message repeatedly from the coaches I’ve met along the way going to the same event, my own coach and even the astrologer. My ill ease even came up during my quiet contemplation at the Lotus Temple.

I’ll no doubt have bolder commitments after the event tomorrow, so I will hold off for now. This event, The Ultimate Experience, took place last year in London. There I committed to finishing my book by November, which is something I actually achieved. So it will be fun to see what I commit to this time.

Are you travelling to escape the reality of your life?

Post author By tahmidchowdhury
Post date February 17, 2023

We often spend a lot of time fantasising about our next great escape. But what does that say about how we are feeling right now?

I’m travelling to India for ten days. In fact, I’m writing this on my layover in Istanbul Airport. I’ll arrive in Delhi in about 9 hours.

I felt called to go to India to attend The Ultimate Experience in Mumbai next weekend. I got so much out of being at the event in London last year, I knew this would be a really powerful and life changing experience. I also wanted to make the trip worthwhile, so I am spending some time travelling across a few cities first.

I’m certain I am going to enjoy my trip. And yet, I’ve spent very little amount of time beforehand dreaming about the wonderful adventures I’m going to have.

Part of this is a part of being a seasoned traveler – a lot of people would feel stressed about a solo trip around a few cities on the other side of the world. But for me, I have done solo travel before and have worked on my inner being (it’s one of the reasons I’m going out there!) – I trust myself to know how to deal with any situation that comes my way.

Aside from booking travel and accommodation, I’ve done little day-to-day planning, giving myself the creative space to enjoy the sights in front of me. Perhaps it’s also an understanding that I am travelling to a world that works in a different way – you don’t need long forward planning to do certain activities as you may do in the West.

A few days ago I started wondering whether I ‘should’ be feeling more excited about my trip. After all, isn’t the excitement part of the fun part. In the midst of my active life, was I missing something?

We’ve all had friends reminisce about amazing journeys, quickly moving onto the next exciting adventure that they want to go on. It’s inspiring and it can be a great motivator to go out and see the world.

And yet, when we look a bit deeper, I also have seen a sense of escapism seeping through this whole mentality. What often follows this grand tale is a sigh, and a resignation of returning back to ‘reality’. Are the places we travel to also not reality?

The underlying message within this is that the grind of our current life/job/relationship/place is not ‘enough’. We learn to simply exist until we get the next opportunity to escape for a few weeks.

Part of the reason I haven’t spent much time thinking about my experience in India is because I know I’ll have a great time when I am there anyway. By being present to the moments before the travel, I could fully experience those activities – work, calls and social catch-ups. I had all of those in the days running up to my flight. I was fully present with them, even though I knew I was travelling soon.

Ironically, by being more present to my day-to-day experience, I am strengthening the muscle which will allow me to enjoy my travels more fully. Many of us escape to exotic destinations for a sense of respite, only to find our minds are still stuck on our emails and meetings.

My travel to Delhi so far has been some of the smoothest I think I’ve ever had. With the absence of stress and overthink, I’ve hit a very happy medium of enough planning (getting my visa, flights and medicine) with relaxing the mind to the motion of taking in new stimulus. I probably had the best four hour flight watching some coaching videos. I’ll have another 7 hours later today which I think will also be great.

I choose to go on this adventure because I want to, not because I need an escape. This difference in intention means I will enjoy it far more. When I get to the final day, rather than panic about returning, I can simply accept this experience for what it is.

Many people are looking for a quick fix to the issues around them. Unfortunately, they do not see that the solution is rarely to jump on a plane to get away. When we are unhappy and look to change our location, we often find that the unhappiness travels with us. It’s because the thing we are unhappy with isn’t our job or spouse, but ourselves.

So the moment we can learn to love ourselves truly is the moment we no longer need a cool-sounding trip to fill a void. The inner work of finding contentment is a priceless gift. It also means that when we do get the opportunity to do it, it’s a nice bonus, rather than a requirement.

Live your life fully. Whether you’re at the beach or in the office, you can be equally happy.

What are you escaping from?

The tale of overdoing it (on personal development)

This week I’ve experienced a haze of uncertainty in my own sense of self. This has had knock-on effects in how assured I’ve been in how I operate.

A beautiful thing about self-development is that it questions what we think we know. This allows us to shift from old, outdated beliefs that no longer serve us, and sometimes gives us the challenge we need. It’s a healthy way to keep on evolving.

But the last few weeks I’ve been pushing myself *a lot*. I had a beautiful, but emotionally intense visit to my hometown of Bath. This included walking past my childhood home and through my old school. It was a lot of mental processing and emotional healing that I’ve still not quite fully completed.

I’ve also been working on my Being, and looking in particular at the disparity between how I am showing up in the world, versus the powerful, intelligent human I want to be. The gap in Being was pointed out to me by my coach, which was quite a sobering moment. It was a moment for me to reflect on the areas in which I had space to grow. In particular, I wasn’t aware until now that my aversion to sounding arrogant has been holding me back.

I do a lot of open, vulnerable commentary about where I’ve found things difficult and how I’ve learnt from them. But I rarely talk about my own greatness and how I can really help people through my writing and coaching. This is a case of me underselling myself. And besides, who would want a coach that didn’t really believe in themselves?

I’ve also been reexamining my own sense of self and my connection to my body and sensuality. I realise that in my quest for knowledge and use of my brain, I often times disconnect from my body. Whilst yoga has helped in the last few months, I’ve also been keen to find ways in which I can build a greater connection with the simple pleasures of warmth and touch.

The next few weeks have a number of things lined up – I am going to India for 10 days on a solo trip, culminating in attending The Ultimate Experience in India, which will bring together people from around the world on Being. It’ll be an extremely powerful and lifechanging event. It will also be intense. I then have a weekend coaching intensive in early March, which is another deeper way to examine myself.

This whole story is to say that I am doing a lot. And I have felt quite overwhelmed by it. I’ve really noticed it when I’ve had a reticence to read books or watch videos that I usually would jump to do.

So in response, I’ve looked to cut down my actual commitments of ‘when’ I will do things. I’ve realised I can give myself a lot more breathing space around my writing and coaching. India will also be a fabulous experience just to enjoy a completely different world – every time I travel I find it extremely energising. So it’s important that I take the time to actually enjoy it.

One of my issues recently has been getting good quality sleep. Sometimes trying to incrementally shift things can be slow and tedious. For example, All conventional wisdom therefore would say that staying to a house party last night till 4am would be a terrible idea.

And yet today I woke up feeling fresher than I have done in a long time. The connection with people, along with the reminder that I actually have a lot more of my life together really helped me relax. Today I’ve felt a lot more at peace than I have in a long time.

I know I’m not the only one who sometimes goes too hard in the things we usually enjoy doing. Sometimes that’s how the schedule lines up and can’t be helped, though often its us committing to a lot without realising. When we are in search of growth, it’s part of the game to push ourselves to greater limits. But the key is also to find a healthy edge so that it does not become too much at once.

The great thing about overcommitment is that we can choose to slow down and reassess. Very few things are genuinely urgent. So when we choose to prioritise and focus, we actually learn far more about ourselves than we would do by ploughing through without stopping to reflect.

So if you’re feeling overcommitted, remember that you can renegotiate your commitments. People would prefer to know that you need more time rather than seeing you burn out, or deliver substandard work.

You have far more agency in your life than you may think.

Where in your life might you be overdoing it?

Why I returned back to my hometown after five years

the word got around, they said, “This kid is insane, man

Took up a collection just to send him to the mainland

“Get your education, don’t forget from whence you came, and

The world's gonna know your name. What’s your name, man?”

- 'Alexander Hamilton', from the Broadway musical, Hamilton

Last weekend I traveled to Bath. This was the first time I had visited since the pandemic. Although I did come in 2018, it was a fairly fleeting visit as a tourist. This time, I made a point to revisit the places that had shaped me as I grew up.

I was born and raised in Bath. Although my family moved to Bangladesh when I was between the ages of 7-9, the rest of the time I lived there. at 18 I went to study in Sheffield, but like most students returned home for holidays over the next few years.

Like many graduates in the UK, I then ended up moving to London for work. There wasn’t really an official point I ‘left’ Bath, but when my parents also moved to London, I had far less reason to return. So I naturally just stopped coming.

Fast forward to January 2023, there wasn’t any particular reason for me to go to Bath. Nonetheless, I felt there was something important for me to explore about my own upbringing. The personal development journey can lead us to different places. Recently, I had felt a calling to return (much like I had done when I went to visit Paris a few months ago).

Back in the day, I used to work in the Roman Baths Museum. I would return to this jobs between my studies and the way I kept my bank balance afloat throughout university. I would work there most holidays for about four or five years.

I had reconnected with some old colleagues over the last few months. One thing leading to another, we managed to arrange a mini reunion of sorts.

Some of us were still based in Bath, others had moved outside the town or to London, but there were a good 10 or so people that I saw. I also managed to blag myself a free entry into the Roman Baths too for a nostalgic walk around. It was a bit jarring to be back, but also great to see how people had since developed over the last 6-7 years.

Whilst in Bath, I took some time for myself. I walked past the house I first grew up in for the first decade or so of my life. Since we had moved to a different house on the other side of town, I hadn’t passed by since then. So this walk was the first time I had seen this house in around fifteen years.

When I have dreams where something dangerous is happening, I often dream about being in this house. I remember one dream I was inside during a zombie apocalypse. This home felt like a safe house, free of the dangers – perceived or real from the external world.

I had a really nice conversation with a lady who saw me wandering around this cul-de-sac. She lived in the house across the road and asked whether I was lost. I had a very nice conversation reminiscing about how we would used to play with our bikes outside the house. Although I didn’t go inside, I could remember the different areas of the house, and how we would keep a lot of toys in the garage for us to play with.

I also took the time to walk through my school. I had forgotten how nice it was, and how fortunate I was to have such a privileged upbringing. My parents had the means to pay for a top-quality education. I had not appreciated what that offered me, but having since seen what else is in the world, I now could appreciate the gifts I had been given.

Before this weekend, I had a relatively negative view of Bath. I would often describe it as a boring place to grow up, and that it was difficult to fit in considering the majority-white background of the people here. Whilst this was not untrue, what I was also missing was the great things that I did get from growing up in an international, humble, historic-yet-modern city.

I felt genuinely welcomed when I came back. Perhaps mentally I had the idea that people would be resentful that I had gone off to live my life, but the opposite was true.

There is a relaxed acceptance that the young will want to move out and experience the world. After all, the lifeblood of the city is linked to the millions of tourists coming to visit. The resident population itself is also filled with people who have embarked on their own world journeys and later settled in the city, perhaps for retirement.

When walking down the road, I heard some younger folk chatting. I don’t recall what they said, but the slow and warm melody of southern English speech was something I hadn’t heard in a long time. I had forgotten how much I had missed it.

I couldn’t help but remark that my recent work on myself has been on how I can be more loving and understanding in the way I speak. The irony is that this was what I had grown up with, and it’s only since moving away to London and beyond that I had forgotten the slowed down, warmth in my voice. This was not something I had to learn, but merely remember about myself.

I returned to Brussels on Monday. It’s probably the first time I felt genuinely homesick when leaving the UK in many years.

Telling ourselves negative stories of the past also serves as a defense mechanism for those of us who leave. But it also deprives us of the pride and gratitude of the place we grew up in.

I still am readjusting to this new shift around my past. The memories of looking back to the past I realise don’t have to be so negative. I don’t have to gloss over where I’ve come from, as if it was something I’m embarrassed by.

Somehow my life journey makes far more sense, and I feel clearer of who I am and where I came from.

This journey isn’t always pleasant. There are things that I’ve seen about my past and about myself that I’ve not liked seeing. But facing these things allows us to genuinely let go of anything that doesn’t serve us. It also allows us to better connect with who we are.

I know that it’s no coincidence that my instinct told me to come back to Bath. There was some healing for me to do on the path of living into my own greatness.

Where does your healing journey take you?

—

In November 2022, I released my book, Make Diversity Matter to You. This is to help you understand diversity better for yourself and make a meaningful impact. To purchase a copy, check this link here: https://linktr.ee/tahmidchowdhury

I am a coach and I work with individuals to have awesome and fulfilling lives by shifting their thinking. If you would like to explore what that could look like for you, message me on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected]. I am also open to queries on talks, webinars and podcasts

How to be truly consistent in your life

Early in my career, I worried about being a ‘streaky’ character. I would often ask myself – can I really be consistent over longer periods of time in the workplace? After all, I had done several internships of shorter timeframes ranging from 2 to 6 months.

At this point in my life, I was regularly getting into a state of mind where I was thinking about my next opportunity, so when I got my first actual permanent job, the idea of staying for several years felt overwhelming.

What I’ve since learnt from experience is that consistency is a characteristic we choose to be, rather than one that we are born with.

In fact, this article is actually a particular achievement for me. It marks a year since I last missed writing an article for a week in this newsletter. In other words, I’m on a 53 week streak. It’s crazy to think that I’ve managed to keep up this level of consistency for such a long time.

Ironically, for most of the last year, I didn’t even realise that I was being so consistent. I just felt a natural urge to write, so I did. There were times (particularly this December) where I didn’t feel like writing anything. But I did it anyway, because I chose to commit to my writing.

Some tactics help – I give myself leeway on when exactly I publish my articles. Recently I’ve slipped to doing them on the weekends rather than the weekdays. I also tend to keep notes of things that have come up and reflections that I want to make – it makes the writing process easier when an idea has been brewing in the back of my mind.

But I also don’t pre-bake articles either. I do not have a ‘bank’ of spare articles in case I don’t feel inspired. I have no judgement for those who do this, but I prefer to keep my writing fresh rather than batching blogs.

The consistency worked because it worked for me. It is a personal thing after all. But equally, the way that I am being has shifted to naturally be more consistent.

The way I see and act in the world is very different to when I first started publishing articles. Before, I felt like I had to find something to say, now I feel like I harness the energy of the things I notice around me and the words flow out. It feels a lot more effortless.

There’s a phrase that has really been guiding me through the last few weeks in particular – the way you do anything is the way you do everything. Commitment isn’t just tied to a single thing. When I realise I am not really living into the way I want to show up in the world, I take a step back and readjust.

Consistency flows from me being my word. If I say I am going to do something, I tend to do it. This includes even when I’m not feeling like it. Generally when I make an offer, or schedule something, I want to keep to my word. I’m not perfect, but I’m certainly stronger at this than I was a few years ago.

A large part of the shift to keeping my commitments is shifting into the drivers seat of life. No longer do I let the excuse of being a victim of circumstance push me off course so easily. I don’t tend to use the reasoning of ‘oh I would love to do that but I’m too tired after work’. Suddenly I’m seeing my friendships blossom, and my trust in myself increase as a result, as well as numerous other things.

This has been a journey. There is no magic fix to becoming more consistent. It’s simply working on yourself and seeing where you can live by your word more often.

The good news is that you are far more consistent already than you realise. Some people live with the believe (as I did) that it wasn’t in my nature to be consistent. The reality is that you do many things already – you brush your teeth, make breakfast each day, turn up to work and do numerous other things regularly without fail. This is consistency in action, so you know you are capable of it.

The magic is seeing how you can bring that to a wider set of things in your life. Look at how consistent you are being with your partner, your work and your friends. Then slowly adjust to being more consistent with them.

Small actions like turning up late are the things you can adjust without actually that much effort. Quickly these actions build into a dramatic shift in how you’re living your life.

So if you want to be more consistent, practice consistency. You can start right now.

—

Feeling ‘very busy’ is a changeable state – no matter our workload

Over the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time working with people with increasing workloads. I can probably hear the word ‘busy’ being used at least 10 times each week.

This week I read something that really struck me this week – that being busy isn’t actually linked to how much work you are doing. Instead, it’s a state of mind.

Now I’ll be honest – such statements can get people’s backs up – ‘how dare you say I’m not busy, after all look how many tasks I have to do over the next 3 days?!’

I am not looking to deny people’s reality, nor annoy people with my babble around mindset. However, the idea about being busy can quickly become self-fulfilling when we use it to constantly describe ourselves. The more we say we are busy, the more we feel stressed and under pressure. So seeing this statement gave me a moment to reflect.

What if you didn’t have to feel busy right now, no matter how much you’re doing?

Let’s take a step back. In our lives, we have approximately 70,000-100,000 thoughts each day. According to different sources, we take 35,000 decisions each day. If we were to count all of these things, or put these all down on a to-do-list, unsurprisingly we would find our days incredibly hectic. But most of us do these things without even thinking, so actually despite taking this many decisions, we do not actually find they make us busy.

Let me take you through my morning – I get up, pick clothes to wear, brush my teeth, take a shower, maybe put on some contact lenses (maybe not) use the different hygiene products. I then go downstairs, see what I have in the fridge, choose what I’ll have for breakfast (or whether I will eat anything), choose where I’m going to sit. Within that, that’s at least 10-20 decisions, and they have all come before I’ve even started my day.

Now, I don’t say I am busy because I have taken all these actions. They are automatic (supposedly around 98% of our decisions are taken without us thinking). So despite taking probably so many decisions, I feel like I have taken none at all.

However, if I started my day with a giant to-do-list, it would feel differently:

wake up
turn off alarm
take shower
choose clothes
get dressed
brush teeth
use moisturizer
choose whether to put on contact lenses
[if I choose to put on contacts] put on contact lenses
go downstairs
check mail
choose breakfast

and so on…

Suddenly, these tasks take a lot of conscious effort because I am making them into a process where I have to activate my mind and follow instructions.

So when I say that being busy is not about actions, what I’m really saying that it’s about how many actions we are trying to juggle into our conscious minds. This is as opposed to letting our unconscious mind complete them without thinking.

We can do lots of things to minimise the amount of mental energy we spend on tasks. The great news is that everyone knows how to, because we already are doing it. I don’t know anyone who walks around with a mental memory of all their calendar appointments – most have it on their online calendar (some even in a physical one). It means we don’t have to worry about what we are doing in three saturday’s time off the top of our heads. Without having to worry about that, we can move on with life.

Likewise, we can do many things to optimise the amount of mental energy we put on tasks. One of the greatest efficiency tactics I have is keeping a pretty much always clear inbox. I respond to emails when I get them, or archive. That way it is done. Often, people read an email and don’t know what to do. So they leave it there, only to return to it and re-read the contents a second or third time. This is draining you of your mental energy and is one of the reasons you are feeling fatigued. This is on top of the sense of overwhelm having an inbox filled with thousands of messages gives you.

The more we can ‘automate’ our lives the more we can simply glide through it doing a whole bunch of really cool things without thinking. I book my yoga classes so that when I know it’s time to go, I go. I’ve changed my relationship with commitments so when I said I will do something I generally do it, avoiding the uhmming and ahhhing around it or whether I should flake.

There are countless other examples that we can do which make our lives simpler and easier. the beautiful thing is that the more we do this, the more space we have to enjoy life and create what we want from it. The creative energy of freedom is one of the greatest things we can create for ourselves.

I understand that not all of us can simply eradicate certain responsibilities – work expectations, childcare arrangements or needing to respond to things as they come. And yet, I see so many people not look into this direction of how they can make their lives easier.

When I work with clients during my coaching, we often spend time exploring these patterns. This is often in workplaces, but also in their private life. By creating a space to reflect, it usually becomes pretty evident that there are ways to make life a lot simpler. For example, the way we can shift hte relationship with our colleagues at work so that we set expectations early, or how we can schedule date nights with our partners to not have the burden of needing to carve time away for them. Many of us don’t take the space to reflect on how we are doing things, and the coaching space is an excellent place to do that.

So if you are finding yourself in this space of feeling constantly busy, it may be a sign that you are running the treadmill of life without stopping to reflect how things can be different or optimised.

My offering to you is that you book yourself some time to reflect on how you can do things differently.

In fact, If you’ve found this article useful and you want to explore this further, drop me a message and I am happy to book that time to talk with you at how we can optimise your life. It will leave you feeling freer and happier.

Our anxiety is stopping us from making positive change

Through my professional and personal life, I’ve come across many extraordinary, driven individuals who want to make a positive impact in the world.

When I worked in government, the majority of the people I worked with were driven by the idea of serving the public. Working in the civil service attracted them as they saw it as a way to make tangible change whilst pursuing their personal interests.

Now I work around people driven to tackle sustainability and climate issues. I’ve come across a wider set of organisations – NGOs, think tanks and sustainability professionals in business. It’s a real pleasure to see people genuinely striving to tackle the biggest challenges we face today.

Unfortunately, what I also see is a lot of stress, anxiety and overwhelm. There is an increase in the amount of burnout which is negatively affecting people’s personal sense of wellbeing. This is sad in of itself – everyone deserves to live a happy, fulfilling life.

But also, when we are stressed or burnt out, we are also becoming far less effective in making the change we want to see in the world. This means the positive change is severely limited.

Many who are driven to make a change can be very focussed on the external. Whilst it is good to be conscientious about the wider world, it also means many in this space neglect taking care of themselves.

Worse still, the ongoing connection with work and media leads to the constant flow of negative news. I learnt a new word this week – ‘polycrisis’, which is meant to encapsulate all the crises happening right now.

I don’t judge people getting stressed over these things – after all, I was one of them. I used to come home from work after working on Brexit without the ability to disconnect. Unsurprisingly this was the period I was unhappy – I gained weight, was regularly stressed and had poor sleep.

But the great news is that we can change our outlook. One of the big revelations for me was recognising that the barrier to my own performance was the way I treated myself. Once I realised that feeling constantly on edge was making me far less effective, it meant I could no longer conveniently ignore my ‘personal life’ in favour of focussing the ‘work life’.

One of the reasons I love the coaching space is because I can see the tangible impact it can make on people’s lives, which subsequently helps them perform better in all facets of their life. A lot of the work I do with clients is shifting this view of negativity by highlighting the fact that this view this is actually a choice, rather than a determined fact.

You may be thinking ‘how can this view be a choice – isn’t it a fact there are wars going on, a massive climate crisis etc.?’

Yes, bad things are happening in the world. I am not looking to deny reality. But what is also happening is amazing, great things – advancements of technology, increasing freedoms, better healthcare, tangible progress to societal and climate challenges. We see whatever we choose to look at. If we want to find bad things happening, we will find many. But if we want to see good things, we can also find plenty too.

One of the biggest differences I could see in successful leaders people wanted to be around compared to those who seemed stuck in a rut was their demeanour. In government, I saw some leaders under intense pressure handling things with a smile and calming manner. I saw other managers seemingly on a constant treadmill of stress and tiredness. The positive people tended to do very well, the less positive people did less so.

The big difference was mindset. We can choose to see things positively, and we will feel happier and do better in our jobs. Or we can let ourselves fall into negativity and find ourselves less happy and less effective. When it’s set out like this, the answer is a no-brainer. Unfortunately many people do not realise this is a choice.

So how do we choose to see things positively? Well firstly, we prioritise ourselves and our own wellbeing. When we are fit and healthy, we are in a position to tackle any challenge. This means taking holiday, sick leave and breaks. It also means connecting with friends and prioritising hobbies. People who have hobbies tend to do better in their jobs because their sense of self-worth is not solely based upon their day at the office.

We are the summation of the people and things we surround ourselves with. If we are spending a lot of time with negative people, it makes it trickier to feel positive. Be ruthless with your life, you only have one of them. Help where you can, but cut people out if you need to. There’s nearly 8 billion people in the world, if you don’t have the friends you want, there’s plenty out there. But remember, this is far easier when you have done the work on yourself – if you bring positive energy through your being then you will attract positive energy to you.

Likewise, if you are constantly consuming negative media, you will probably feel worse. If you are getting alerts to your phone about how terrible things are happening across the world, learn to take control of your media consumption. The media cycle works by selling fear. We do not need to know every single latest piece of news as soon as it happens. When you look at it honestly, once a day usually suffices fine.

The world needs you as the talented, driven person you are. But it also needs you to be happy and healthy to be able to share your gifts with the world.

P.S. if you would like to understand how you can make these shifts better, drop me a message. I’m happy to have a conversation with you to help.

The Life and Times of an ‘Author’

Post author By tahmidchowdhury
Post date January 8, 2023
Categories In Diversity and Inclusion, Personal Development

One of life’s great achievements is to write a book. But what happens when you achieve it?

I started my book, Make Diversity Matter to You in 2020. After the events of Black Lives Matter, I wanted to do more to make a positive change in the world. I had previously worked in Diversity and Inclusion in the UK government. My experience demonstrated that the way in which diversity was polarised made it inaccessible to many people who would care.

In my role, I actually had access to far more senior leaders. For them, they didn’t know how to actually address diversity issues. They found the topic frustrating. But I learnt that spending time with them and helping them understand it for themselves led to magnificent shifts. One senior leader went from being very reticent to speak about the subject to one of the biggest champions when Black Lives Matter happened.

With a flurry of ideas, I wrote 20,000 words within the space of a month. It was great, until I didn’t know what else to say. So, I shelved the project and focussed on other areas of my life.

2022 was a year of exponential growth for me as a person. I have done lots of work around shifting my relationship with my thoughts. I’ve experienced some real dramatic changes in how I see and act in the world. This gave me the information I wanted to take the book to the deeper level that I wanted to go.

So writing a book, what an amazing achievement right!? In fact, when I told people they frequently told me how I should be extremely proud.

Except, I wasn’t.

Now that I had a book out in the world, the next step was to tell people I had written a book. This was a new level of fear. What would people think? How comfortable am I to share my message? It would be easier just to let the book sit on a webpage for nobody to see. Now I am doing that, and I’ve grown to stand by the power that this book has – I will say to you right now that if you read this book and apply the insights you gain from it you will experience a powerful change.

But more fundamentally, writing a book was just not that big a deal for me. One of the reasons I wanted to finish this book was because I wanted to start another one.

The thing that brought me greater satisfaction is who I’ve become through this whole process. I know that I can commit myself to do something and make an impact. I’m also hopeful that I can make real change in the world through my words.

You see, when we see the individual task as the great achievement, accomplishing the task itself is rather anticlimactic. I’ve published a book, now what?

We can see this in all sorts of things – a new job, house or relationship. If the goal is just to ‘get’ these things, it doesn’t really give us the deeper satisfaction that we think it would.

The achievement is me. But the achievement is also you. You have done so many magnificent, impressive things in your life, but you may not have thought about it till now.

So if my tale imparts anything, let it be this. You have already achieved incredible things in your life which have led you to the point of where you are right now. It’s not been the individual achievements, but the amazing and powerful person you have become.

You can choose to live into your greatness. It is your choice. I have chosen to live in mine, and I can see wondrous shifts in my life. The power is in your hands.

P.S. If you’re intrigued and want to know what ‘living into your greatness’ means, we can explore that together. Drop me a message and we can chat about it. To be clear there is absolutely zero obligation to commit to anything or secret sales trap awaiting. I want to do what I can to serve you.

I thought 2022 would be less remarkable than 2020-21. I was wrong.

I’ve found this holiday period a good moment to slow down and reflect on the year – and what better day to do a reflective article than on 31 December?

I’ve firstly noticed how much residual fatigue I’ve been building up, particularly in the last few months. I got hit by an illness for the first two weeks of December, and since then I’ve felt myself battling to return to my previous routines of productivity. Of course, this isn’t a real battle, instead it’s one being waged within my mind.

I inadvertently put a whole lot of commitments for myself over this Xmas period, to the point where it just wasn’t really feasible. I wanted to record an audio version of my book, read the Ultimate Coach in Spanish, tidy my house, do some recreational reading, take some time for myself all whilst taking minimum annual leave from my job. I also wanted to keep up with my yoga and intermittent fasting through December as well.

At first, I found the fact I was hit by illness a nuisance. But when I reframed this as my body giving me the signals of needing to slow down, it started making far more sense. All these deadlines I had set on myself didn’t actually have any real life consequences. It taught me the importance of overcommitment and not getting too caught up in the doing.

Looking further back through 2022, I thought this year would be a period of stability and foundation-level building. After 2020 and 2021, years which felt like a period of survival (and physical upheaval for me moving to Belgium) I was hoping for something a little more solid but a bit less remarkable.

Spoiler alert – 2022 felt very different to what I thought it would – it certainly was more remarkable than I expected. This year I invested far deeper into my own personal development than I ever had done. I looked at myself in ways that were deeper than I ever have. Some of this was about reframing the way I think – spending less time lingering on my thoughts and more in genuinely living life.

But some of this was taking a more uncomfortable, deeper look at myself. How am I showing up with my friends and family – am I really being the person I say I am being? I’ve had some painful realisations around how I can fall into people pleasing tendencies, how I could shut off from family and how I could disconnect myself from my body and emotions by bunkering myself into my mind.

The person I was at the beginning of the year was very different to the person I am now. For some people, this has strained relationships, some of which have been long-standing ones. Some people have not really accepted or approved of the changes I’ve gone through. They might not understand this spiritual mumbo-jumbo I write about. Others have simply drifted away from my life as my priorities have changed.

But for all the discomfort, the rewards are that I am showing up in my life more fully and freely than ever before. I have made some really deep connections with new people over the last year, and I’ve really enjoyed rekindling dormant friendships too. I probably am more sociable than I ever was in the past.

The way I’m showing up is a more loving, kind person in my life. I’m clearer on the person I want to be, and I’m more committed to acting in that way on a day to day basis. I’ve had this remarkable shift where people want to spend far more time with me than they would previously, and I’ve had more friends reaching out to catch-up than I’ve had before. I’ve also started noticing the small pleasures more – the autumn leaves falling and enjoying being with nature. I feel more grateful for life than I did before.

The changes that I’ve had internally have also reflected in my achievements. This year, I moved to a bigger apartment, which has given me the physical space for a more expansive way of living. At work, I chaired an event in the European Parliament, with an MEP and a European Commission official either side of me, as well as a whole host of other speakers. The report we launched ended up being one of the most successful we’ve had.

I’ve also been dedicating myself more to my own endeavours – I’ve been taking a deeper dedication to my coaching clients, and have been growing my business in a healthy and sustainable way. I’ve learnt so much about the way I work and about business.

My social media presence has grown – both in reach but more importantly in my own confidence and vulnerability. I hit the 100th article I’ve written on these newsletters, and it’s really gratifying to see the improvement in my writing ability compared to my earlier articles.

In November, I published my book, Make Diversity Matter to You. I’ve been working on the book for the last two years, and it’s satisfying to get it off my hard drive and into the world. I see this as a positive achievement, but not a particularly big one. This surprises quite a lot of people – after all, isn’t writing a book meant to be a massive moment?

For me, I see it as part of this bigger picture in the sifts of the person I’ve become, and how I’ve learnt to commit myself to the goals I make for myself. The book is nice, but honestly, it’ll probably be one of perhaps a dozen I’ll end up writing in my lifetime anyway.

Considering how different 2022 was to what I thought it might be, I’m cautious about getting too caught up in my expectations on 2023. What I do know is that I’m on the right path with my own development, so my focus is to stay on the path.

I think some wonderful and exciting things will happen for me in 2023, but I cannot say what they will be.

But if I knew, where would be the fun in that?

How much have you been overcommitting?

As we head towards the end of 2022, I found myself in a race against time to complete the commitments I had made myself – I wanted to finish a number of things before the end of the month.

But who am I really racing?

I’ve been hit by a cough doing the rounds, meaning I’ve generally felt more tired and lethargic. I’ve really noticed the difference between my flow state of doing a whole bunch of different things effortlessly compared to one where I’m feeling like everything is draining my limited energy.

Without realising it, I had committed myself to a whole bunch of smaller things which were not really realistic when put together as a whole. I had done this without really thinking, so here is my list: I wanted to start recording an audio version of my book, Make Diversity Matter to You. I wanted to sell 100 copies (I’ve sold around 70). I wanted to read the book, The Ultimate Coach in Spanish. I wanted to continue my yoga practice and intermittent fasting through the holiday period. I thought it would also be a good opportunity to start creating a video version of the book through an online course, as well as put together the building blocks for an online programme for 2023.

Somewhere within all these self-imposed commitments I had also forgotten that I wanted to use this time to do some tidying and refurnishing of my apartment, catch up on some broader reading, and at some point rest. It’s also worth saying that I’m not actually taking any annual leave this year around this period either, so most days I will also be working. It’s now 23rd December and I don’t think I’m going to get these things done!

I notice that I have a habit of creating smaller commitments for myself that when put together with all the other things I want to do become a gargantuan task. It’s also interesting at how I put a very short deadline. On the one hand these smaller goals feel more targeted than ones in the distant future. Yet they also give little flexibility – most of these commitments I had made to myself in the last few weeks, essentially giving myself little space to take a break. In hindsight, I gave myself little room for manoeuvre in case life hit (for example, with me getting ill).

Commitments are incredibly powerful. I had a clear commitment to finish my book by 20 November, so I did. But this commitment gave me a space of around half a year, which gave me more space to be flexible to the flow of life. There’s a middle ground between making commitments that feel like a noncommital pledge in the distant future, and those that are incredibly tight and stressful. Somewhere in the middle there is a sweet spot around having a fun challenge which gives a sufficient amount of time which also gives space for breaks. It’s this timeframe where the real magic happens.

Perhaps drunk on the power of commitment, I’ve set myself too many, and given myself too short a deadline for them. This has made me feel like I’m fighting against the passage of time. Implicitly, I am getting frustrated at my body for not ‘hurrying up’, and I’m also feeling stressed at not meeting the things I wanted to do.

The irony is that I don’t really care so much for new year’s resolutions. Dates don’t really mean a whole lot – they are social constructs. The world doesn’t suddenly change when the clock strikes midnight and we are in 2023. Despite this, I have fell into the trap of getting things ‘done’ by the end of the year. All the things I’ve listed that I wanted to do could wait till January. Hell, they could wait till January 2024 if I really wanted to.

The moment I realised that the pressure of these commitments was my own creation was the moment I realised I could let them go. I can chalk this up as a learning experience – I had overbalanced on wanting to do too many things, too soon. And that’s okay, this is part of my own learning.

I share my own experience because I recognise I am not the only one in this predicament. There are a whole lot of people feeling the pressure of Christmas shopping, final deadlines and things they wanted to do by the end of the year. My experience is that the additional stress we are putting on ourselves are not helping us. The world will go on even if we don’t do everything we wanted. Better yet, we can use this as a learning experience on how we make our commitments in future in a more kind and flexible way for ourselves.

My other observation is how little time we give ourselves to rest. I seemingly have given myself no time to do that this year, even though my body is crying out for it. The moment I pushed back my commitments was the moment I could finally breathe. I actually started feeling better almost immediately – the tension lifted.

Life is our own marathon, and we get to set the pace. We can choose to spend our time sprinting around in a state of exhaustion, or we can set ourselves a healthy pace with regular breaks. We don’t need to beat ourselves up if we overdo it, we can just learn from the experience and do it all a bit better next time.