As a coach, whether it is for life coaching, business coaching or sports performance coaching, I coach people that want to make changes to their lives. I want to share what I see as the ‘WD40 of change’.
From Resentment…
Often we can have resentment towards a situation if it is not how we want it to be. Or resist negative feelings as we don’t want to be feeling them. This resistance and resentment can lead to unhelpful behaviours or distraction which ultimately prevents us from moving on and creating the life we want.
…to acceptance…
However accepting it is difficult does not mean you are accepting defeat – far from it. Accepting the reality of any situation is key to creating something new. When running a marathon the runner can feel pain and discomfort, but it doesn’t mean they are giving up.
Accepting reality is part of the creating process. You cannot create anything without first accepting where you are now. When we try and ignore the pain and pretend things are different perhaps we are often kidding ourselves. Positive affirmations can be a thin veneer of well-being.
Many years ago now when I was at a low point in life, we were experiencing infertility and I felt disillusioned about life. I felt angry and fearful about never being happy. My job was well paid and convenient but I didn’t really enjoy but it. It wasn’t ‘me’. I was ignoring the disillusionment about my job and if I am honest other things in my life including our relationship.
Keeping my head in the sand kept me from doing anything about it. It was familiar. I had worked in the same company all my working life and I was scared of changing; what happens if I move and the new job is worse? As I began exploring this, accepting my feelings, it enabled me to begin the process of creating something differing and finding something I love doing. It enabled me to take action, like getting myself a coach, and begin to take the steps in creating a life that inspired me.
…to allowance.
Allow whatever shows up to show up. What if you didn’t need to be scared of any experience? It is never what we are feeling that is the problem, it’s our judgement/thinking/feeling about our experience that causes the problem and locks us in to that space rather than letting it flow through, allowing a new experience to come in.
Allowance is the WD40 of change. Once you allow what is to be you can begin to move on from it.
With love
Russell
