Why a £2000 cheque doesn’t make you as happy as you think it would

Photo by PiggyBank on Unsplash

Yesterday, I was running around a little frantically between meetings. I take my lunch breaks seriously, but I also try and cook a proper lunch within them when I can.

I saw an ominous letter on the table. It was from HMRC, the UK’s tax authority. It had been redirected from my old flat in London. Cue internal fear as to whether I had broken the law in some way, or owed a lot of money to someone, despite not having even seen the letter contents.

The reality was the opposite – I had overpayed tax in the UK over the last year. As I had left my job mid-year, the amount I was taxed was higher than it ought to have been.

in my lap sat a cool cheque for a £2000 tax rebate. Happy days. I looked at my bank and thought about how nice the numbers would be in the account (it would take away a few minuses anyway!). I then mused whether this was karma for all my good deeds, or I had manifested some money coming into my life. Either way, I created some level of fantasy to tell myself I deserved this break.

After lunch, I went back to my daily work. I had a bunch of calls and a few reporting documents to write. These can be a bit tedious, and the calls turned out to be a little tense. Truthfully, It didn’t take me long to completely forget about the happy moment of receiving the money.

I had a late call which meant I needed to rush to the cinema to get there on time. I managed to catch the bus by jogging to the stop. So as I sat down on the seat somewhat out of breath, I had a moment to reflect on my day.

Remarkably, I spent a lot of time thinking about the calls I had and the work I was doing. I had basically forgotten about this magical sum of money that had appeared on my lap. Wow – that didn’t take long.

I moved on from the positives of receiving money very quickly, instead the small negative niggles were the first thing that came to my mind. Remarkable how our mind works?

A technique I could use would be to return to my gratitude around the situation I found myself in, and relativise the negative feelings I had about the meetings – after all I had a broadly ‘good’ day of work where I got a lot done. And this would help. It would give me perspective.

Yet the fundamental point is that by relying on my day to be dictated by the events within it, I was holding myself hostage to my happiness being set by the events of the day. As demonstrated here, the human mind has a tendency to move on from the positives rather quickly, instead focusing on the negatives more intensely.

So instead of basing my sense of contentment that happened during the day of whether I got some money, or whether I had a good (or bad) day, I can reframe this to understand that I can choose to be happy either way. By shifting my mindset to see that I can be happy no matter what life throws at me, it leaves me feeling lighter and happier.

This means, when I get something like a nice cheque of £2000, it’s an added bonus, rather than relying on that to make my day. Likewise, a bad meeting or an unproductive day at work doesn’t really have to make me feel worse, because ultimately my work doesn’t derive my happiness – I do.

Happiness is something that is in our natural state of being. When we stop all the other things – the planning, the stress and the worries – we can return to it. We don’t need to do anything to ‘become’ happy, rather it’s about dropping the things that are drawing our mind away from our natural state of wellbeing. From my experience, the stillness of the mind results in a general feeling of satisfaction and happiness.

So I’d invite you to reflect on when you last felt stillness. If you’d like, I’d love if you could share when it was, and what the situation was as well. You can either drop a comment below, or message me directly if you want to learn more about the natural state of happiness.

Life lessons from my neighbour’s cat

I’ve never had the pleasure of owning a cat. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) I now have my neighbour’s cat, Sugar in my life. Sugar, seeing the weakness in my heart now knows she can wonder into our house as if she owns the place.

The last few days have been incredibly hot, so we’ve tended to keep the backdoor open, allowing easy entry. It usually doesn’t take long for Sugar to stroll in and start curling up in different places around the house, watching the day go by.

I once walked into my own office to find her sitting there at 8am on my sofa. She stared at me as if to say ‘what the hell are you doing here?’. Another day I turned around at the end of the work day after a couple of Teams calls to find her just sitting there, and probably had been for a few hours. I hadn’t even noticed her presence.

Sugar can be rather demanding when she wants strokes. yesterday she wondered in and started pushing against my hand when she wanted to be petted. It wasn’t particularly ideal as I was holding a Playstation controller on a game without a pause button. But chops to her, she knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t afraid to ask for it. Repeatedly.

There is something around the way that animals live that is far more straightforward to our lives. They are willing to just do the things that they want to. Cats especially. When Sugar is bored, she’ll start brushing up against humans for attention. When she wants space, she will wonder into another room to claim her new spot. She also sometimes just decides to scratch things (to the point where we wondered whether it’s worth getting a scratch pad, though we’re not particularly sure of the ethics of getting toys for someone else’s cat).

There is a directness and shamelessness of her actions that is honestly rather impressive. In a world where we send emails filled with fluff and formalities which take an age to get to the point, a cat will just go do what it wants, damned be what other people think.

The funny thing is that the sheer persistence is what gets them what they want. I used to be cautious in how long we let Sugar in the house, but the amount of meowing when we leave the backdoor closed that we would hear meant that now I’ve given up. I let her in without questioning it anymore. When we didn’t let her stay inside during the evenings she would meow outside the door for over an hour. It was relentless. We realised she wonders out when it gets dark anyway, so no harm done.

The simplistic way that a cat lives can be incredibly insightful in how we can live our lives. Sometimes we overcomplicate how to get something done or do something we want. We learn that we need to be polite, and so spend so much time tip-toeing around a subject that people have lost what we’re even trying to say. How many of us have sat in front of a desk carefully crafting an email, to the point we’ve taken an age to write what was in reality a pretty simple request?

By making our lives simpler by cutting out a lot of the noise and self-consciousness of how to request things, the more time we have for everything else. The amount of time we spend agonising around what to do isn’t helping anyone.

Persistence is also key. We often ask for something once and expect it to magically happen. When we get the answer we don’t want, the polite response is to accept that at face value then go off and pout about it, or complain to our friends at the injustice of it all. Now Sugar doesn’t take no for an answer. If she wants to be pet, she will make it happen. Even if that means getting hair all over your sofa to get your attention.

Most of our achievements have a level of persistence behind them. If we stopped after our first failure, we wouldn’t get very far with anything. But we lose this message when we become very sensitive to people’s opinions or our own self-consciousness. We learn to start doubting ourselves, which ultimately hinders us.

Lots of the things we learn through societal standards and our upbringing takes us away from a simplicity in our lives. If you feel like your life is very complicated, that might just be the amount of noise that surrounds your life and the decisions you make. For me, I found the moment I stripped back a lot of the things like expectation, rationalisations and over-thinking was the moment my life became a lot simpler.

With a simpler life, it is much easier to be happier. I do more of the things I want, and less of the things I don’t want. I spend less time worrying what other people think, or whether a decision is the ‘right’ one. Instead I trust my instinct in the moment.

How could you make your life more simple?

Why people use personal coaches for development

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Who uses a ‘coach’, and what are they exactly?

The word ‘coach’ comes from the idea of an old coach carriage, which could take you from one place to another. A coach does the same thing, only rather on a development journey rather than a physical one.

I first got into coaching as I wanted to expand my repertoire as a manager. Whilst I found that I enjoyed learning more about leadership, I was curious on how a less-directive approach could be another way to motivate people. In the world of work where our success is based upon our people, I figured it would be a helpful skill to have.

Yet coaching can be far more than a simple motivational tool. It can help genuinely develop people in a way that courses and books cannot as it takes a far more individual approach to personal development. When I received coaching, I never realised how much certain implicit beliefs I had built up were holding me back. For example, I had this subconscious view that to be successful in my career I had to be unhappy. My logic was that being happy was for those who wanted the easy life, whereas me as an ambitious person was doomed to take greater responsibility and suffer for it.

But it took a coach to examine this misguided notion of masochism to pull it apart. I no longer believe this story I told myself. In fact, I now believe the opposite – the happier I am, the more I achieve the things I want to do. I find myself rarely using words like ‘ambition’ and ‘motivation’ either, instead pursuing things because I want to.

Without this weight on my shoulders, it’s been far easier to live a more fulfilled life. In my personal life, I have kindled more friendships and gotten into hobbies such as yoga and language learning. In my professional life, I had a dynamic career in the UK Government moving up the ranks fairly rapidly, which more recently has shifted to living a dream where I’ve moved abroad to Brussels to work on influencing EU sustainability policy.

So I understand the transformative effect coaching can have, particularly when we reexamine how we are living our lives. When I hold coaching conversations with others, I enjoy delving into these areas. This goes deep – questioning fundamental assumptions that people have about life and the world. I do this because I can see the transformative effect it can have on people, which can then lead them to have far happier lives whilst also getting much further in the career path or new venture they want to take.

A recent conversation I’ve had is around the idea of anxiety. I’ve spoken to a lot of different people who believe that their worries are what make them successful – the stress and panic is what keeps them from failing at their job. Without the worry, they believe that they would have nothing to spur them on to do the things they need to.

However, this can be reframed to realising that people can do the things they want to without needing anxiety. From this position, people can let go of this negative shroud, which allows them to go on and enjoy life. And the funny thing about life is that from this place of stillness, we are at our most creative and do our best work. What often follows is an increase in traditional metrics like ‘productivity’ because people are no longer spending so much time dreading failure.

Another area I like to examine with people is how much we make things seem incredibly important, which only serves to put pressure on ourselves. This week I chaired an event in the European Parliament sitting next to an MEP. On the one hand it was a milestone for our whole project which could define our project’s success. On the other, it was one of thousands of events happening that very same day, of which I would probably not even remember on my death bed. I figured that even if it didn’t go particularly well, the world would go on and there would be other opportunities to do something well later. From this space, I was calm and collected, which allowed me to do the things to make the event go well. In the end it went incredibly well.

Nonetheless, this transformation is not a simple task that happens magically without any effort put in. The real power in coaching is that ultimately you are the one doing the work. Nobody is telling you how to live your life, it is for you to go out and make the changes. A coach can serve to push, encourage, challenge and guide you. They’ve probably gone through a related journey themselves. It will enable you to get where you want to go much faster than what you would have done otherwise.

So coaching can be incredibly powerful. There is a great power in examining these fundamental views that we hold. It can lead to incredible personal change which enhances both professional and personal satisfaction.

If you’re curious to understand more about these conversations, you can drop me a message.

What experiences have you had around coaching?

What’s in a birthday anyway?

Photo by Ali Kokab on Unsplash

How much does a birthday really matter?

I had my birthday this week. I was visiting the UK and in the end stayed for a bunch of work meetings for the day, including for a conference on concrete – which is a slightly different thing to do, but unique nonetheless.

I’ve had a bit of cake and a few nice cards from colleagues and family. I’ve also had people wishing me well. I’m rather behind responding to messages, but I’ll get around to it. Apologies!

I actually spent the day staying at my parents house. My mother bought a giant cake, then realised it would be too much of a faff to open it when I was about to travel. So instead I packed a Sainsbury’s chocolate cake and took it to Brussels the next day. Supplemented with my annual tradition of buying a Colin the Caterpillar cake (a British institution for my international friends), I am in no lack of sickly chocolate cake for the next three weeks.

It’s quite funny looking at the relaxed way I spent my birthday. These days I see things very differently to how I saw something like a birthday compared to before. I used to get quite wound up about the fact my birthday was during my summer, and that I couldn’t have some big party.

I would look enviously at others who could have a moment for themselves to celebrate, and wondered why it didn’t really happen when it was my turn. It got to the point that I’d count how many people wished me happy birthday on my Facebook wall vs other people. This was my way of quantifying how much I was appreciated compared to other people.

It’s a little crazy to look back at it. It used to be a day filled with dread as I had expectations which weren’t met, leaving me feel worse than other days. But birthdays, like New Years is just a day in the calendar. If we didn’t live our lives based upon a calendar which governs our days I wouldn’t even realise that the day was any different to another.

Wouldn’t it be a novel way to see things if we didn’t base our lives on the calendar? We wouldn’t know the difference between a Monday and a Saturday, nor craving the holiday months in July quite in the same way as we do. Perhaps life would be a bit freer.

This is the way I’ve started thinking. It’s actually pretty liberating. I enjoy what I want to, living life as I would want to anyway – enjoying each day as it comes, and making it as fulfilling as possible. Anything further I receive like the cake, cards and well wishes are a bonus. I don’t need people to say happy birthday to feel happy. But it’s a nice opportunity to reconnect with people all the same. From a place of no expectations, life is a lot more fun.

The moment we shift our relationship with the comparison of others, or ‘important’ dates which actually are man-made, the moment we release ourselves from needing anything from anyone. From there, we can just enjoy what we receive, no matter the amount.

I’m not saying to not do parties or anything exciting. Quite the contrary – it’s the idea that we can do things like parties, but not putting undue expectations on it, nor relying on it to demonstrate how many people love us. The more pressure on it, the less enjoyable it is.

So I’d love to hear your reflections on what I’ve said. I’ve found that we can get very caught up on how we expect celebrations of things like birthdays, which ultimately tends to make us more unhappy.

How do you celebrate your birthday?

The importance of cultivating a healthy network around you

Photo by Nastya Dulhiier on Unsplash

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?

If a worker does an amazing piece of work, but sits in a siloed team where nobody talks to each other, did they really do an amazing piece of work?

***

Since the world has opened up post-pandemic, I’ve been a lot more intentional in reaching out to others. Rather than seeing friendships and connections as a by-product of the rest of my life, I’ve looked at is as something that needs love and attention to foster. I’ve become a lot more conscious about what I’ve been doing, particularly as I’ve been reading the book ‘Never Eat Alone’ by Keith Ferrazzi, which I’d certainly recommend.

I’ve been making more of an effort to go out and speak to people. Sometimes these are people I’ve never met before – attending events or starting new hobbies and striking up conversations (sites like Meetup are great for this). But more often it’s been about connecting with people I’ve known for a long time but haven’t spoken to. Dropping a message on the fly or arranging a coffee chat or call. It doesn’t need to be anything particularly complicated. I’m off to London this weekend and have arranged quite a few meet-ups with different people. (which by teh way if you happen to be around I’d be happy to meet up – though my diary is a little tight at the moment!)

I do understand it’s quite easy to fall into the trap of becoming passive in relationships. After all, it’s what I was doing. Having gone to university, ways to meet people were practically served to me on a plate – university societies, house parties and a range of different classes each term. Going out to the ‘real world’ though, there are far less prompts to connect with others without making an extra effort.

So I assumed I would passively meet people and connect with them over time. However, fast forward a few years, I found myself being in a cycle of connecting with people once every few months and being late replying to texts to anyone I knew. Once I’d hit a rough patch, I’d then want to speak to someone to have a moan, only to then go into a cycle of panic that I didn’t have friends, not realising that I’d put little effort in keeping the relationship alive. I didn’t necessarily stop to think that having a friendship with someone who doesn’t reply and only comes when things are going badly is probably not the most friendship to have.

When we often need something, like help with a job application or career advice, one of the most crucial sources of wisdom is our network. We may know someone who can help us with whatever it is we need, and be kind enough to give some time to impart key advice.

Yet often what we do is wait until we need something before we reach out to people. How many of us have experienced the feeling that people only contact us because they want something? Well inadvertently that’s what we might be doing ourselves.

It’s only in recent times that I’ve realised the importance of going out in the world to cultivate relationships, which in turn creates a stronger network around me. I realised that nobody was waiting for me, nor was anyone going to suddenly recognise my brilliance and shoot me into some sort of stardom where people were crawling at my feet to speak to me.

In the book, Keith Ferrazzi highlights the importance of building healthy, authentic relationships without necessarily ‘needing’ something from the other person. Maybe one day they might be able to help you, but that’s not the outright goal. Likewise, maybe you can help them. Everyone benefits.

And aside from all the corporate speak about networking (business development targets, career success or social media vanity metrics), connecting with people can be extremely fun. I find it enriching to learn from other people about what they do, and it expands my horizons about the possibilities in the world. It’s why travel can be so great – to see and hear how other people do things differently to us. But the people next door can also have incredibly interesting stories, or just be very nice people to spend time with.

So if you want to be happier and more successful – whatever your definition of success might be – it would likely pay to cultivate stronger relationships with people. In our modern age, we have the choice of whether we want to connect virtually, physically or a mixture of both – what a blessing!

If you’d like to take an action, look at how you might be able to speak with someone new this week. Also think about dropping a message to one or two people you’ve not talked to recently and restart the conversation. You may find it’s rather nice to speak!

In fact, if you’re looking for a first step to start a conversation with someone, just drop me a message about how you found this article. I’d love to hear from you.

Are you awake or asleep at the wheel?

Photo by Abbie Bernet on Unsplash

Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Are you living life or is life living you?

I spent some time in London last week. It was interesting experiencing it as something close to normal for the first time since the pandemic had started.

But seeing London ‘normal’ was strange. I come back a changed person to the one that used to live here. When I was here, I followed the rhythm that I thought people were supposed to do – going to work and chasing more money to pay for a nicer room (due to the exorbitant rent prices), without even noticing the negative impact my obsession on my work life had on happiness or health. I’d come home shattered after spending so much time and energy on things that now I can’t even remember.

In the last two years we’ve had a global pandemic and a war. Yet the everyday grind has returned with a vengeance. Perhaps it never left us, or perhaps it actually got worse when we were all locked up in our houses. But now it is back for all to see.

I found it quite shocking to see the things that were always there, but that I had previously chose to ignore – people commuting long distances to a job they didn’t actually like to spend time with colleagues they didn’t really know to live a life they didn’t want to live.

These people weren’t doing terribly. They were just quietly miserable, unaware that the way they were living their life was causing them unhappiness. Life was packing into a tube like sardines for the morning, squeezing out energy like a lemon during worktime and crashing into an evening of scrolling on a phone and background TV.

These people knew something needed to change. However, the solution was usually to find a new job, or take a holiday to somewhere exotic-sounding. Sometimes it worked, at least for a while. Unfortunately that doesn’t prevent the feeling of unhappiness from returning.

I found it quite tricky to connect back with people when I was in town. Some suggested to meet up without really meaning it. Some were too busy. Some wanted to meet but were too tired. Some have gone off the grid never to be seen again. I’m not judging, only observing. After all, I was also like this. It does make life feel very complicated though.

That’s not to say everyone is miserable in London. Some people are happy. Some people build a life in which they can do the things they want. Some even appreciate the amazing things that London has to offer – the museums, culture, diversity to name but a few. They even do these things outside of when they tag along with friends who are visiting.

I can’t really know for sure what the difference was between the people who were living their lives in misery compared to those who seemed happy, present and in control. But if I had a guess I would say it was those seemed awake. They are awake to the fact that life is not all about achieving success, making others happy or just following the way everyone else seemed to be living. Rather than seeing happiness as either a byproduct of achievement or an inconvenient afterthought, they saw it as something that is kindled like a sacred candle. They give it time, effort and devotion. Even when external pressures come, they keep perspective on what is actually important.

The paradox of London is that it’s both one of the most liberating, freeing places and one of the most oppressive, scary places at the same time. Having lived in South London before and now staying in the leafy suburbs, perhaps that’s to do with what bit of the city you live. Or maybe it’s about what you choose to see, no matter wherever you live.

London is just one city out of a whole wide world. What makes it striking is that this contrast of misery and happiness is so visible on a day to day basis. However, this phenomenon happens everywhere. Misery and Happiness often sit next to each other on a bus.

Fortunately, if we’re miserable, we can choose to change. We can be happy. We can wake up. Though only if we want to.

This shift doesn’t happen automatically. It happens to those willing to reevaluate. It’s about asking the fundamental questions like – ‘what makes me happy?’ and be willing to muddle through even if we don’t know the answer. That was certainly the case for me.

Perhaps you’re already happy. In which case I am delighted for you. May you continue your life and be content with it, whatever path it may take.

But perhaps you’re not happy. Perhaps you want something different but have never really thought about it.

Perhaps this is the wake up call that you’ve been waiting for.

A Day in the life of Overthinking Man

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Overthinking Man goes about his day. He wakes up, and his first thoughts are about work. He first thinks about all the different meetings he has in the day. He thinks about all the deadlines he has to meet, and the terrible consequences if he does not meet them. He then thinks about how it’s also his turn to take out the bin. Overthinking Man sighs.

Once Overthinking Man has finished thinking about all the things that will make his day miserable, he treats himself to getting out of bed. Preoccupied by his thoughts, he jumps into the shower but puts shampoo on his body and shower gel in his hair, cuts himself whilst shaving and pours coffee into his cereal.

Overthinking Man cries in anguish. Why is everything out to get him today, what had he done to deserve it? Overthinking Man realises he is late and rushes for his train. Overthinking Man rushes past, neither noticing the free giveaways being handed out in the street nor the homeless beggar that he has passed every day for the last 3 years.

On arriving to work, overthinking man is greeted by a flood of emails about a lack of plastic cups for a client event taking place in 3 weeks time. Panic ensues. Overthinking Man must go for a meeting with his boss, where surely he will be picked up on this oversight.

Overthinking Man ends up attending the meeting three times – first by going through all the different things that might come up in his head beforehand; second by attending the meeting itself where he forgot about all the things he had thought about before; then a final third time after the meeting is over where he spends the rest of his day being annoyed at an off-the-cuff remark from his boss about the need for more A4 folders in the office.

This comment greatly annoys Overthinking Man. He has spent years complaining about the lack of places to leave his pieces of paper, yet no one paid him any attention. Overthinking Man spends the rest of his day telling all his co-worker at how he’s annoyed by this comment. In return they reciprocate with all their complaints from the last year.

Overthinking Man’s colleague, Underpaid Receptionist always wins this game, as her gripes hark back to things she mentioned in 1986 but still were never addressed.

After a long hard day in which Overthinking Man has spent 80% of his time thinking about something he either needs to do or something that has annoyed him, it is time for Overthinking Man to go home. Nonetheless, Overthinking Man stays an extra 30 minutes to get a few final emails done, even though they could have waited until the morning. This has the added bonus that on the way home Overthinking Man can think about how underappreciated he is despite all the hard work he does.

When Overthinking Man gets home, he sighs in relief. He no longer needs to be Overthinking Man, and can finally enjoy life as he wants to. Except that he finds he has no energy to do anything else, so ends up sitting and thinking anyway. Lacking any willpower, Overthinking Man finds he does not want to cook. Instead, he decides to order a takeaway. Unfortunately he cannot decide what he wants, so ends up scrolling on his phone for 30 minutes. Once he finally chooses, he then finds himself stuck in thinking about what he should watch, which takes another 30 minutes.

Finally, when all pleasures of the evening are done, Overthinking Man can spend the last few hours lying in bed thinking about all the things that annoyed him during the day. He lays awake for another hour or two. Just as he is about to fall asleep, he remembers that he forgot to take the bins out.

—

Many of us fall into the trap of Overthinking Man – we spend so much time thinking about an action we must take, or about things that might take place in the future. We leave ourselves no time to enjoy the here and now. We are less present, energetic and happy. However, if we can change the relationship we have with thoughts – that they do not need to be something that govern our lives – we can slow down, and start seeing the beauty in life.

How much do you relate to Overthinking Man?

Life as a divine dream beyond time, space and matter

How much of our reality is based upon our thoughts?

This week I’ve spent time on a retreat in a lovely farm in Kent. I’ve enjoyed getting away from the hustle-and-bustle of my daily routines. This has given me some space to focus on routines and wellbeing.

I’ve been with a group of 10 other coaches for the last four days, all of whom are doing incredible things. It’s been a awesome space to explore the different experiences and challenges that each person has had, whilst also looking at how we can grow as individuals. For me, I’ve learnt a lot from the wide variety of backgrounds people, their different perspectives and some in-depth discussions on how we frame our lives.

We spoke about a fellow called Sydney Banks, a man who had a spontaneous enlightenment. In his own words, ‘life is a divine dream suspended beyond time, space and matter.’ He framed these beliefs into what is referred to as the ‘three principles’ – mind, consciousness and thought. Thought allows us to experience our life. Consciousness is the awareness of our own being and life. Mind is the connection of a wider intelligence and source of all life.

These concepts are perhaps not the easiest to understand. Nonetheless, one of the key messages I take is that thought is the lens in which we see our lives. What I see isn’t necessarily reality, but it is how I see reality. In other words, the experience of life is less about what is happening around me, and more about how I interpret these situations in my head, which in turn fuels how I feel about them.

Let’s say I have a report due next week, and for argument’s sake, let’s also say this report is an unchangeable fact that I must complete. If we follow our emotions around this, we may be feeling worry, dread or some form of anxiety – what will our boss think of our work? How am I going to find the time to do it? Is what I’m writing any good? It’s easy to fall into a pattern of thinking where we feel that our thoughts are the fault of our report (or our boss!), so we take the report as the source of our worries.

However, if we separate the concept of this report governing how I feel, it becomes a lot easier to question the reality I am creating. So, if I can accept that my thoughts about the report are what are really causing the anxiety rather than the report itself, I can understand that I can change the way I can feel about the situation, rather than needing to change the situation itself. In practical terms, this means that rather than delaying, delegating or dithering with the report because I feel queasy about it, I can accept – and ultimately let pass – the emotions I feel around it. Once these have passed, I can just get on and do it without all the noise in my head.

This realisation is extremely profound. I have no doubt you reading this has some sort of issue or frustration in your life. Often, the typical answer we arrive to is that we need to change the problem source. If we are unhappy with our relationship, the answer is to find a new partner. If we are unhappy with our job, the answer is to find a new one at a different company. If we are unhappy with our lives, the answer is to go travelling.

These solutions might help, but they aren’t always practical, nor do they actually always solve the problem. For example, a new partner is not going to solve our issues of commitment. Looking for a new solution instead creates a tendency of chasing new answers from the outside world, rather than looking at ourselves.

So instead, if we can change how we are feeling about a situation, the problem in front of us melts away. The report, relationship or job is no longer the problem, as we no longer are paralysed by the emotions that we feel from these things.

You may be thinking that this is some sort of privileged thinking for those who have the life luxuries to worry about banal things like careers. What about genuine trauma, abuse or poverty within the world?

Framing things through these three principles can have profound impacts on people even with the most traumatic issues. It’s a different take in psychology which is saying that rather than trying to ‘fix’ the problem within you, you can change your relationship to thought, which means negative feelings do not need to govern your life.

Thoughts and feelings – positive or negative – can float through like a leaf blowing in the wind. We do not need to hold on to them. From this, we can have a feeling of liberation, where we can enjoy life as we want.

I would love to invite you to reflect on a situation where you have been feeling upset, angry or any other negative emotion. In this instance, would you be open to the idea that your reaction to the situation is causing you additional unhappiness?

If so, you may want to look at how you can change your relationship to thought. By this I mean being willing to question things like things you must do, or things that are impossible, or other words that constrain us. Reframing how we see the world doesn’t necessarily happen overnight, so it will take time. But if you can embrace the idea that your thoughts do not govern your life, the positive impact it would have on you would be incredible.

I would love to hear what you got from this article. If you’d like to speak more about these ideas, drop me a message or email, I’d love to speak.

Travel fatigue and the concept of Hygge

This week I travelled to Copenhagen, the first bit of business travel I’ve done in a number of years.

I didn’t feel particularly energised about travelling. The news of potential queues at airports, fatigue from moving house and lethargy of how to travel (i.e. remembering what to pack and how long to come back to the airport) as well as going to a conference full of new people which still feels weird left me feeling underwhelmed. I also have quite an intense trip coming up next week where I’ll be around the UK for two weeks in several different cities, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t feel tired before I started that.

There were two big obvious ironies here. The first one is that I’ve done plenty of learning around self-development. I have come to the conclusion that we can make our own realities based upon whether we decide the situation will be good or not before it even happens. Yet, I was making a trip to Copenhagen feel tiring due to my general negative thinking around it. So I needed to think about more about the positives – that I’m getting a free trip to a very cool city, get to meet new people and experiencing a new culture.

The second irony is that my trip to the UK next week is packed with seeing friends and family. I will have more social interaction with them in two weeks than I would have otherwise done in about 6 months when I lived in London. Sometimes we need a reason to make things happen – and my time-limited travel was just that prompt. The idea of being ‘tired’ no longer is quite the same barrier when I am decisive about making the most of my time.

In the midst of this internal battling I came across the Danish concept of Hygge. Hygge roughly translates to ‘cosiness’, but is further than that – the appreciation of a fireplace burning curled up in a blanket with a hot drink whilst a storm is going outside.

A lot about Hygge is about building enjoyable social interactions with others – usually a small group – where you enjoy each others company without necessarily needing too many outside stimuli. An egalitarian space of sharing a Pot Luck dinner, playing board games, and getting wrapped up in comfy blankets with lots of candles on can make for a far more pleasant evening than a TV blaring at me all evening.

This made me reflect on the intentionality in my actions. I’ve found myself recently feeling like I’m being dictated to by my schedules, rather than being in control of my own life. I slouch in front of the sofa because I’m tired after work, rather than being in control of what I am doing because I want to. I find it hard to rest because my mind is too active, rather than being in control of my own thoughts and feelings which would allow me to be active when I need to, and rest when I don’t.

So I’ve committed to re-evaluate my daily routine and how I am showing up in the world. I can decide what I do without succumbing to my temporal emotions such as being too tired to socialise, or too ‘awake’ to fall asleep.

By doing so, I can do far more of the things I want to do, meaning I can feel fulfilled. And after all, isn’t that what life is ultimately about?

How do you act when nobody is watching?

Photo by Kevin Lee on Unsplash

Yesterday was a bank holiday in Belgium so I flicked on a show on Netflix called ‘Insiders’ – a reality TV show which brings together contestants who think they are in the final round of a casting call for a show. What they don’t know is that the camera is already rolling and they are actually already on the show.

Honestly, the show is problematic in many ways. Nonetheless, it prompted me to think about how differently people behave when they think no one is looking. What is fascinating is that as individuals the people on the show build narratives about their personalities – invincible, brave, caring, loving – and yet when the cameras are ‘off’ (or in this case still on) the behaviour that comes out is completely different.

Now we can sit at home and point at such contestants and judge. After all, it also makes us feel better that other people are flawed human beings. In reality, many of us would fall foul to the exact same behaviour as the people on this show.

The reason we behave differently when no one is watching is because we are no longer behaving to impress or please others. We are not looking to prove anything to anyone, meaning there is usually a very different set of behaviour, depending on how much of it was originally put on with a people-pleasing mindset on. The person who talked about being fearless ends up breaking down due to the stress of the situation. The person who talked about being a nice person complains about how they hate other people.

Some people were consistent to what they said their personalities were like in terms of how they acted ‘off camera’. One of the first people to be removed this season said he was a nice person, and broadly acted as such despite the psychological stress put on them all. This not making good TV was the reason he was removed.

Now for the rest of us, we are not in the midst of an intense reality TV show demonstrating our character flaws. And yet, the way we act when the curtains are drawn still has an impact in how we are being as a human being. A few years ago we saw Ellen Degeneres apologising for bullying her staff, which demonstrated how the way she behaved off-air was completely different to the persona she had whilst on TV. The things we think people don’t see often are far more visible than we think.

I do not think the solution is to ‘always be on guard’. If our value comes from the judgment of others, we are forever putting up a front as to how we think we should behave to make others happy. There is no way we can keep this up forever, and it is actually this act which causes such a fragmentation between people’s public image and the way they behave behind closed doors.

Instead, I believe people can decide how they want to be. People can decide this for themselves, rather than for others. If you want to be ambitious, creative or anything else, you can be. Once you’ve set your frame of how you want to behave, it is then about embodying those values at any time, including those that no one sees you.

Few musicians or artists who ‘make it’ are successful simply due to a drive for the fame and glory. Instead, they embody a passion and love for their craft. They practice in their own time, when nobody is watching, and strive to get better. This requires a far deeper, intrinsic motivation than anything that you will get by making people like you.

The way we want to be can also embody basic human traits. We can decide to be considerate, caring and loving as part of our being. We can then strive to embody this throughout the moments in our life, particularly so when we are challenged. Whilst most of us would consider ourselves as loving individuals, many of us do not examine how we have acted and whether this is really in accordance with what we say about ourselves. I know I certainly haven’t in my life.

I find it hard to accept this idea of a person being a horrible boss or person at work but a loving parent and spouse when they get home. How you act in one area of life is how you act in everything. The old adage goes that if you want to get to know somebody, look at how they treat the waiter in the restaurant.

You might be thinking that simply ‘deciding’ to be a certain way is a gross simplification. After all, what about our personality traits and born characteristics? Whilst I do not deny that such things exist, I also believe that we can often let these labels define us. I’m sure we’ve all heard someone saying at some point that ‘that’s just the way I am’, yet I’ve seen so many examples of people fundamentally changing themselves as they were willing to question what they are able to achieve.

The reason this self-examination can be so powerful is because it can make us understand far more about ourselves. It can reveal to us our blind spots, which may be negatively affecting our relationships, performance and happiness. It can also allow us to just be better human beings, making a greater impact whilst also being more loving at the same time. I find that people who are in congruence with who they want to be tend to be happier, and in the long run more successful in the endeavours they pursue.

The way I put this into practice is shifting my mindset from long term goals to how I act on a day-to-day basis. Rather than building lofy ambitions of where I want to be in 5 years, I can look at what I am doing now, and how I can be a better human being based upon the areas that I’d like to put more energy towards. For me, this has been a massive shift which has made me more at peace with my own existence, and find a more accessible way to achieve my own aims.

So I invite you to ask yourself how you behave when people aren’t watching – this may be more indicative of how you actually feel about yourself. And if you want to, you may want to decide how you want to act based upon how you want to be. From there, it’s a case of living by these ideals in the difficult moments, even if it can be challenging to do so.

I’d love to hear from you what you got from this article. Drop a comment or mail.