Why I don't mind that today is a stressful, rubbish day...

Ever have a day where everything goes wrong, or nothing goes wrong, but you are just in a foul mood? That's today for me. Don't show me positive quotes, don't tell me to re-frame or any other helpful techniques I teach my leadership and therapy clients, it won't work, not today. And you know what? That's just fine.

It's okay to have rubbish days and it's okay to accept that life isn't all sunshine and roses, and that sometimes for no reason we just feel a bit rubbish. Whether it's hormones, relationships, lack of sleep or, well, anything else I can blame that means I can pretend to have no responsibility, it actually doesn't matter. It will pass. 

In fact, whilst I'd (obviously) prefer to have a happy day, part of me appreciates today because it reminds me of how far I have come. There used to be A LOT of these rubbish days and now they are almost non-existent. Often my business leadership clients come and say they have had a bad day and see this as a setback, I tell them it’s actually a really positive sign of the change we have made in their mindset, their coping mechanisms, and their lives through their coaching sessions.  Then I draw this diagram above…

Let’s say that when you start to work with me your stress levels are around an 8 or 9 out of 10 (old stress level), so when you get an extra stressful or rubbish day it just blips (see blip)! You don’t notice it as your stress levels are so high already. Then you start coaching with me and we create that cool, calm, core where you have internal peace, and your levels drop down to a nice level 3, your friends are noticing and people keep mistaking that smile on your face for… well, other things than you just being really happy – we save 0 for zen for spa days and the like! All is good.

However, life is real and that can mean stressful moments if you are in a high-level c-suite business leadership role like a lot of my clients, then stress can remain fairly high in general, (it’s not the stress that’s the problem, it’s what you do with it that is the issue). Anyway, back to my beautiful picture.

You are living it up at level 3 and enjoying the ‘new’ you when suddenly, bang, level 9 (newly experienced stress) walks in the door, it’s a massive shock, you thought 9 had gone for good, you’d burnt all 9’s letters and played ‘I will survive’ for hours on end. All the sessions have been for nothing, the world is still a terrible place!

In fact, 9’s return is excellent. Because what is happening is that your brain and body are used to 3 now, they like 3, 3 gives you a massage every night and lets you do what you want. So, when 9 pops back then it actually registers with you, unlike before when it was just a blip. The fact it registers is very good (bear with me) because what it is evidencing to you is that most of the time you now live at level 3 (well done you for all your hard work!) It also means that you can work out what brought 9 back and redress the balance very quickly – ‘go on now go, walk out the door, just turn around now because you’re not welcome anymore’ 9. Something you would not have done before as who can bother about blips when they are running at a level 8 anyway?

The beauty of this is although those first few visits from 9 (newly experienced stress) are uncomfortable and maybe even painful. You learn what you need to do to stop 9 returning and how to get back to 3 very quickly. This means that instead of you letting 9 get comfortable, you recognise the stress and solve your problem in one thought. So you might think, 'Hmm I'm feeling stressed about this project, it's not working because... what I need to do to make it work is this...' So your unconscious has recognised the problem, solved it, and then given it to you as one continuous thought, the more you train it to do so, the more it will do this automatically. Hence the ‘internal peace = stress being managed ASAP’ and back you go to equilibrium restored. This is a skill that my clients learn naturally as they work through my leadership programme. I want them to have a mini self-coach so that they can manage any situation, anytime.  

There are so many people including coaches and therapists who'll post blogs and quotes about getting you to love every day of your life; well, that's unrealistic: you won't.

Some days will be rubbish.

I want to get my clients to where I am.

That most days are brilliant, and some days are stressful, but you’ll manage them really well and feel positive, you are okay, you will survive.