Massive Breakthrough

I just had the most amazing coaching session with my peer coach, Jennifer.  

We started out by following up on some stuff from last week, and then she asked me what I wanted to talk about today.  Really, I didn't have anything pressing (or so I thought) that I wanted to talk about.  We started talking about how I'm going out of town on vacation for a week starting this Sunday, so I didn't really know if I was going to keep my commitment to thirty minutes a day of coursework during that time.  She asked me what it would be like to just give myself a break from my coursework for that week.  What?!?  What kind of craziness is that? 

All joking aside, I started wondering out loud whether I would actually be able to really give myself that break.  I mean obviously, I could say that I was giving myself the break.  But would my brain let me?  Would I be able to let go of the shoulds and really take a break?

This led into a conversation about blogging, and how (as I've mentioned before) I'm not sure that the five days a week thing is working for me.  There are aspects of blogging that I love, for sure.  I love knowing that there's an audience out there who wants to read what I have to say!  I feel important, and I feel connected.  And with the "have to" aspect in place (I made a commitment to five days a week, and I will honor my commitment), I don't really get to figure out whether I actually want to blog, and if so, how often!

From there we started talking about how ever since 2002, which was the last time I was employed by someone else, I've had all this guilt about my life.  The message has always been more or less the same...I should be doing more.  Whether I was in school (I should be studying more or doing more with my time), or whether I was running FitnessWave (I should be doing more marketing or I should be growing the business more), or whether I was trying to figure out what to do with my life (I should be figuring this out faster or being more productive with my time), or now in my coach training program (I should be doing more coursework).  Always the same message.  Never enough...should, should, should.

Who is imposing all these shoulds on me?  Who can I blame for always feeling like there is something hanging over my head?  I want to beat this person up!!!  Oh wait...it's ME.  I'm doing this to myself.  Again and again and again.  Regardless of my circumstances.  ME!

And why this is particularly interesting to me is that I can see that I'm already doing it to myself with coaching.  Sliding down the same slippery slope.  I should be getting more clients.  I should be getting speaking engagements.  I should be putting out a newsletter.  I should, I should, I should.

I do not want this life full of shoulds.  Jennifer asked me if I'm willing to take a look at this and see what it would take to break down the shoulds.  HELL YES I AM WILLING!!!!

This is huge. 

My whole life is run by shoulds.  Most, if not all of them imposed by me.  What will be available to me in my life when every time a should comes into my head, I ask myself "Do I want to?"  We could be looking at a whole new me, people.  And a whole new life created by that whole new me.

I'll give you a moment to digest that.

So, what's the first step?  I present to you...two experiments! 

Experiment number one we will call the Blog Experiment.  Starting this week and until otherwise notified, I am modifying my commitment to blogging.  I am committing to a minimum of two blog posts per week.  Unless I want to write more.  Additionally, I am taking the week of 3/4 to 3/11 off of blogging completely.  Unless I want to write.

Experiment number two we will call the Coursework Experiment.  For the week of 3/4 to 3/11, I am committing to doing no coursework outside of my coaching calls and teleseminar.  Unless I want to do some.

And now, the key to these experiments.  When the shoulds come up (and they will come up!), I get to ask myself, "Do I want to?"  If the answer is yes, awesome!  I will do whatever that thing is that I want to do.  If the answer is no, then I get to tell the should to go f#!@ itself, and in celebration give myself a knowing smile.

I am committed to stop should-ing myself to death!!!  Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!  :)

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