Dear 2010

Good to have you here.  Sorry for any mess left behind by 2009, who was particularly unruly and seems to have left the place in a right mess.  Seriously, I blame the parents.  Tsk.

Anyway, thanks for reading this letter and there are a couple of things I’d like to talk about.

Before I do that, thanks so much for everything in 2009, particularly for encouraging my sense of humour and finding lots of things for me to laugh at and laugh with.  You might have heard how important laughter is to me, so it would be great if we can keep that going.  Cheers.  I also met a bunch of good people, and you know how much that means to me.  Awesome.

Right, first off I need some help with this coaching thing and the blog.  As things have got busier and my health has worsened, I’ve had less and less energy to spend here and I’ve found it hard to figure out exactly what to do with my coaching business.  The reason I freelance is primarily because it pays well, and secondly because I get to work with some really good people (thanks again).  I want to up my game and take the confidence coaching to a whole other league, but it has to offer me those same things and balance well with my health.

I get such a buzz from seeing people’s confidence grow and their lives grow as a result – it totally rocks and I count myself lucky to be able to do that.  But I want – I need – to do more of it, and in different ways.  What I need is a little clarity and some motivation to get it moving and some sparks of inspiration to look at how I can work together with other people and have bucket loads of fun.  I feel a little stuck with it right now, so if you can help to un-jimmy it that would be grand. Thanks.

Next, I want to fall in love with someone again.  Yeah, I know how that sounds, but in my head it’s all wistful and whimsical like an episode of Ally McBeal.  Look, there’s the Biscuit, walking around in bare feet, summoning the spirit of Barry White.  Leaving Ally to one side, I worked with the awesome Hiro Boga recently and one comment she made is that she had the sense I was “born with a broken heart”.  That kinda rings true.  I’ve been in love three times and each time it was the most exhilarating, painful, awkward, amazing and exciting thing I could imagine.  I want to get the shit kicked out of me by love again, so it would be kinda cool if you could help me to do that, to go beyond flirting to the place where I’m just plain terrified and enjoying every moment.  If they look like Uma Thurman or Brandon Routh that’s even better.

Lastly, and this is the big one, can I have my health back please?

It was last seen early on in 2008 I think, and you can’t really miss it.  Big, bright and bouncy with blue eyes and dimples.  Yeah, that’s it.  If I’m honest I never really knew that I had it, but I’ve really missed it over the last few months.  I’m a little tired of feeling exhausted, the dizzy spells and nausea aren’t my favourite, and having my body ache all the time is certainly something I can do without.  If you can help to get this fixed it’ll be much appreciated.  I’ll tell everyone I know how nice you are, honest I will.

I know you’ll be busy clearing the place up after 2009 left (sheesh) and I’m willing to step up and do my bit, but if you can spare me some time to help me out on these things that would be so cool.  I’ll give you a big hug and bake you a cake to say thanks.

Thanks
Steve

I’ve written many times about how goals and New Years Resolutions don’t work and how setting goals is missing the point.

I’m nothing if not inquisitive, so in the face of other coaches continuing with a goal-focused approach and some folks saying I’m wrong, I decided to take another look.

Turns out, I was right all along.  Well, kind of.

The fact remains that the vast majority of goals and New Year’s resolutions fail, but before I tell you the fool-proof way to use them I want to explain the problems with them.

The problem with goals

1. The very nature of goals make you look forwards at what’s next, never at what you’ve got right now. They instantly create a gap between where you are and where you want to be, and that makes it easy for a part of you to conclude that where you are right now is a place you don’t want to be, and that you must somehow be “less than” because otherwise you’d already have that goal nailed.
2. All too often goals are based on what people think they should want, or what they want to want.  This is a sure-fire way of heading down the wrong road or giving yourself more ammo to beat yourself up with.
3. Goals too-often lack a foundation of meaning and personal relevance.  You’re taking something that doesn’t really mean anything to you and trying to make it happen; sure, you might get an initial burst of motivation that gets you started, but that never lasts.
4. Goals make you too future-focused and take you out of where you are right now.  Goals put your vision squarely on the future and it’s all to easy to get sucked into planning for what might be rather than noticing what is.
5. There’s no link between reaching a goal or resolution and happiness. It’s been proven that people who achieve a goal are NO happier than those who don’t set goals or who don’t reach them.
6. Goal setting can be a handy way for people to maintain the illusion of control.  If you feel like you’re able to plan and control things by setting goals then life’s uncertainties won’t be able to interfere or knock you off track.  Of course, the reality is that there’s little we can actually control and exerting effort in that direction is the definition of struggling.

What’s Needed Instead

1. Create a mechanism where the perceived gap between you and an end point / goal / objective doesn’t matter.
2. Have a system that strips away all of the ‘shoulds’, ‘oughts’ and half-hearted ‘wants’.
3. Use an approach that makes it easy to find what really matters so that everything you do is aligned around the things that have a personal relevance.
4. Find a way to de-future-fy goals; making sure that where you are right now – this very moment – is the most important thing.
5. Understand that your happiness is not dependent on getting what you want but that the real gold and real value is in the experience, NOT in the end result.
6. A way of moving forwards that doesn’t involve struggling or suffering.

So with those needs established I come back to the approach I’ve been using for the last few years.

Games.

The entire, entire point of playing a game is that you get into the game and play it to your best ability. That need and want you have to play a game is something that comes from the inside, something that’s based on what’s important and what matters to you.

And of course you can’t hope to win a game unless you want to play it.  If you win, fantastic, but if you don’t win you learn more about the game and simply become a better player.

You have to get into the flow of playing the game right now, engage with every moment of it, and make a decision to play.  And that’s the level of relevance, meaning, engagement and unstuckness that goals and resolutions simply don’t have.

Here’s a diagram for ya.

Looking at the middle box (the one with brand new PurpleArrow^TM technology), right at the top is the game you want to play.   If you don’t like the word “game”, use theme or intention instead.

Game
Your game is where you jump in with both feet with what I call inspired participation.  This has to excite you, it has to look, sound, taste and smell amazing to you.  It has to be something you can’t wait to start.  The example I’ve used here is being the world’s best tennis player, but it could be having a $250,000 business, travelling the world, being in the best damn relationship you can imagine or anything else that gets your heart thumping with excitement.

Strategies
Once you have your game you can look at the strategies you can employ to bring your game to life.  This is about creating a roadmap towards winning your game, broad strokes for the kinds of activity that will make you the best player you can be.  In the tennis example it’s nailing your serve, but outside of tennis this could be something like having a social media strategy, building your dating confidence or mastering the inner game.

Objectives & Goals
Underneath that is where the goals or objective fit in.  Once you have your game and strategies sorted you’ll need some specific targets to hit, measurable targets that will stretch you and deliver something concrete.  In the tennis example the objective is to add 10mph to your serve, and why not set an additional objective to hit 95% of serves on target – you can include anything that will help to deliver on one of your strategies.  Create a new, mid-range product for your target customer, go on 1 date per week or master your fear of meeting new people, for example.

Actions
At the bottom level is employing tactics and taking action.  These are the specific things you can do to make that objective or goal happen.  This is about execution; it’s where you actually play the game.  Again, in the tennis example it’s committing to strength training 4 times per week, but this needs to be a specific, achievable action point that you can take away and carry out.

While this might seem fairly rigid it’s actually damn flexible.  You don’t need to sit down and plot all of this out ahead of time, and you can tackle it from any position, as long as you keep in mind all four layers.

Another example
Let’s say that you’ve set a New Years Resolution to go to the gym 3 times per week.  Yawn.  Didn’t you try that last year too? Let me tell you right now, if that’s all you’ve got it won’t work.  This resolution is all about execution; it’s a specific action point for you take away and do and by itself you’ll never see it through.  What’s missing from it is the other 3 levels.

What’s the reason you want to hit the gym 3 times per week?  What’s that?  You want to loose a stone in weight and be able to run for 5 kilometers and still feel ready for more?  Okay, now we’re getting somewhere, you’ve identified a couple of goals and objectives for your action to fit into.

But where do those goals and objectives fit into the bigger picture?  What strategies are they a part of that add to something amazing?  Well, if you’ve lost that weight and can easily run for 5 kilometers you may well be in your best shape physically.  That’s a strategy right there – “get myself in prime physical shape”.

And then the big one.  What’s the reason you want to be in prime physical shape?  What does that contribute to?  What matters to you that would be helped by being in prime physical shape?  This could be something like running the New York marathon, walking the Inca trail, climbing Kilimanjaro for a charity that has a personal relevance or perhaps changing career to a sports coach.

See how it works?  You can start big or start small, just remember to visit the other layers too.  Also, to aid flexibility the two middle layers – strategies and goals – can be swapped around if it’s easier to work and think that way.  That means that you can define an objective (e.g. to add 10 mph to your serve, move to a company who understand your values, put together a fantastic seminar, etc.) and then figure out the strategies that you need to employ to bring about that objective.  Whichever way works for you is cool.

This is why goal setting is for dummies. Because if that’s all you’re doing you won’t succeed. I’ve run through this stuff pretty quickly because, frankly, I don’t wanna be all preachy and coachy at you.  This, without writing a whole book about it, is how you can get into a game that matters and bring it to life.  This really is how you can make amazing stuff happen in 2010.

Go to it, let me know how you get on and holler if you have any questions.

It’s more than likely that you’ve watched Susan Boyle belt out ‘I Dreamed a Dream‘ on Britain’s Got Talent.  Last time I looked that particular film had nearly 35 million views (equivalent to the entire population of Canada) and it’s estimated that Internet-wide the viewing figure is somewhere near 100 million.

I normally don’t watch those shows (honest) but I did happen to catch it on telly, and I’ve watched it on YouTube another 4 times.

There’s something incredibly attractive and affirming about it isn’t there?

Susan kept her amazing voice to herself for 47 years, and somehow decided that now was a good time to let the world see it.  Nobody could argue that she went out onto that stage and was herself, and that made her performance all the more special.

It’s possible that she didn’t have the confidence to do this before now.  It’s possible that she sat on her talent for 47 years simply because she thought she wasn’t good enough, couldn’t do it or that people would laugh.

It’s possible that she was only able to do this now because she’d reached a point in her life where she felt confident enough in herself to share her talent.

I don’t know the lady, so I can’t say.

But she’s made me think differently about something, and I’m not sure I’ve got it cracked yet.

I define a talent as a naturally occurring pattern of thought and behaviour that you can do without thinking.  It just comes to you, like a switch has been flicked to the on position, and it feels great.

Normally I’d say that it’s terrible to hide a talent out of fear of screwing up or a lack of confidence in it.  Hiding a talent is depriving your life and the world of one of the very best parts of yourself and is a sure-fire way to live a regretful life.

As the famous quote goes, “Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”

I honestly believe that everyone – you included – has a wealth of talents, and finding confidence in them is a truly amazing thing, as Susan Boyle amply demonstrated.

But what’s making me think is this – there’s no rush.  Finding success isn’t a race, you don’t have to sprint to the finishing line.

Susan found confidence to display her talent to the world at age 47, and perhaps it couldn’t have happened sooner.  Perhaps everything in her life led to this point, everything she’s done, everything she’s learned and everything she’s become.

Perhaps everything is perfectly in place now for her to do this, whereas 1, 5, 10, 20 or 30 years ago the component parts just didn’t exist or things just weren’t aligned in the right way.

I’d normally say that you should get to know your talents and use them.  I’d still say that you should get to know what they are, but I’m wondering if I’m wrong in saying that you should use them today.

I’m wondering whether it’s enough to trust that the talent is there, even if you have to wait 47 years for it to come to fruition.

Does it take away from her that she waited 47 years to do this?

No.

Susan will have no regrets about her voice and her talent, because it’s out there and she’s living it.

What do you think?

Happy New year to you.

Over at Lifehack I just wrote how New Years Resolutions don’t work.

(A big smile and a start-of-2009 “Hi” to you if you’ve just arrived from over there, by the way).

I meant every word in that article, but want to go one step further to tell you how New Years Resolutions are for wimps.

Here’s why.

It’s a cop out.

It’s a way of convincing yourself that you’ve tried to do something positive, when you know full well that you a. don’t want to do it, and b. won’t need to follow through.

It’s an easy way out, and taking the easy way out is what wimps do.  You won’t see Chuck Norris or Jack Bauer taking the easy road.  No siree.  Chuck or Jack wouldn’t just decide to give up smoking, they’d drive a jeep to the Philip Morris factory, infiltrate it stealthily, hit a bad man in the face and blow the whole thing sky-high.

You don’t have to go to those extremes (and I’d never even suggest there are bad men at Philip Morris), but take the easy road and it WILL have an impact on your self-confidence and self-esteem, because it means you avoid 3 things:

-          Stretching yourself and giving your confidence muscle a chance to grow.

-          Thinking about what you really want and what really matters to you.

-          The chance of failing or succeeding.

Taking the easy route means that you don’t grow or learn, but it also ensures that you’re safe – free from the risks of failing and succeeding.

Taking the easy route keeps you exactly where you are.

There’s nothing wrong with that as long as where you are is giving you the kind of experience you want and is based on who you are and what truly matters to you.  But if, like a lot of people, you feel like there’s more out there for you or that you have more to offer, then taking the easy route is like running a race for the White House by painting the houses in your Monopoly set with white-out and deciding to be the hat.

So what’s the alternative?

Forget all about New Years Resolutions, and instead play games.

Play a game that matters to you.

Resolutions and goals are things external to you that you strive for and will prove fruitless unless they’re part of a larger, personally relevant context.  Games are things you can engage with on an ongoing basis simply because you love playing and stand a chance of winning.

Games have gold woven into them – threads of who you are, what matters to you and what you love to be involved in.

Trust me, playing a game that matters is whole different kettle of fish than aiming for a goal or working on a resolution.  It’s a different beast entirely – a kettle of antelope or eagles, if you will (although I’d strongly advise not filling a kettle with antelope or eagles, they make a rubbish cuppa).

The key is this – games are meant to be played, and it’s fun playing.  You can jump in, have a go, learn and become a better player.

That’s truly confident living.

And that’s the only way to truly win.

I’ve been ill since July, and the novelty’s now worn off.

So this isn’t a post about being more confident, it’s a post about how crappy I’m feeling.

Having gone to the Docs several times he shrugged his shoulders and told me I had post viral fatigue and that it’ll sort itself out eventually.

A 40 year medical career and I get a shrug of the shoulders.  Brilliant.

Not willing to leave it at that I went to a nutritionist, who told me I’ve also got adrenal fatigue.  I eat healthily anyway (other than my love of cheese, without which I fear I’d perish), so all she suggested was taking 8 different supplement pills each day and spitting into four vials before sending them away to a boffin in a lab coat.

What this means is that since July I’ve had zero energy and catch every cold and flu bug under the sun.  Today, again, I woke up and felt the tell tale sign of aches, pains and dizziness, my head has that familiar full-of-porridge feeling and I can’t stop napping.

Brilliant.  I never even got over the last cold.

I know this is something I have to put up with until it goes and that there are folks out there with real problems, but I just hate how it’s been getting in the way of me enjoying my life — particularly Christmas, which is my absolute favourite time of year.  I’m not used to not being able to be on top form, and it feels like an age ago when I was last firing on all cylinders.

What troubles me more is that over the last week I’ve noticed there’s a bit more negativity creeping into my outlook, which really sucks.  I’ve been down on stuff, snappish and moody.  This isn’t the Steve I’m used to at Christmas.

I can’t control what my body does, but having spotted this creeping-negativity happening I have a big say in what my head does.

I know I can do things to turn that negativity around and I can focus on the simple things.

So I’m gonna take it easy this Christmas.  Not so much booze, not so much partying and plenty of early nights.  I should have cleaned the house and done a bunch of writing today, but I took this afternoon to lounge in my chair, watch ‘Superman Returns‘ and have a nap.

It was lovely.

With a bit of luck and a lot of patience (never one of my strong points), I’ll be back into the Christmas spirit and will have this thing beat before I can say “Shove your pills right up your a**e“.

“Just relax and let me take your stresses and strains away”, “Come and stay in my luxury villa – it’s right on the beach” and “Would you like cheque for an this extraordinarily large amount of money?” are 3 questions I’d strongly advise answering with an impassioned “Yes”, but that’s a bit of a no brainer.

There are 3 other questions that determine whether you’ll get what you want in life. 3 questions that you might be asking yourself every day, without even being aware of it. 3 questions that, if you answer “No” to any one of them, will make you less confident and stop you from getting what you want.

Want to know what they are?

Okay, I’ll tell you.

1. Is it possible for me?
   The first question makes you look at what you want to have, do or be and ask yourself this – do I honestly believe it’s possible for me to have it?

   If you want a job that works for you, do you believe it’s possible for you to have it?

   If you want a relationship that gives you what you need, do you believe it’s possible for you to have it?

   If you want to feel great about yourself and have all the confidence in the world, do you believe it’s possible for you to have it?

   Dig deep and be honest with yourself.

   There’s a balance between what’s possible and what’s realistic – don’t get the 2 confused. If you decide that you want to pull in $250k next year that’s all well and good, but if all you’re taking home this year is $30k then it’s probably not realistic. If you’ve decided that you want to get hitched to your dream man in the next 6 months and you’ve only been on 1 date in the last year, then you might want to think again. These things aren’t impossible, but they’re not entirely realistic either.

   Much better to start with a figure of £50k or to make decisions about how you can get more of the right kinds of dates first, and then build from there.

   The key is to honestly think about whether it’s realistically possible for you to have what you want. If you answer no, challenge yourself. Is it actually not possible, or do you just believe that it isn’t possible? There’s a world of difference.

2. Do I have the ability?
   This second question makes you look at what you want to have, do or be and ask yourself – do I have the ability to get what I want?

   This question forces you to look at whether you have the ability or capability to make something happen, but don’t confuse that with thinking you need to have all the answers right now. You don’t.

   If you don’t currently have the ability – and that could because you lack a key skill, because you need to work on something or because there’s a piece of experience you don’t have – ask yourself whether you have the ability to learn it.

   This question is all about how much confidence you have in how capable you are. If you don’t feel like you’re good enough or if you don’t trust your ability to see something happen you’ll find it tough to answer ‘Yes’ to this one.

3. Do I deserve it?
   This last question is a tricky one, and often reveals how you really feel about yourself. This is about your self-esteem and self-worth, so ask yourself if you believe that you deserve to have, do or be what you want, and be brutally honest with yourself.

   The answer to this question has nothing to do with having ‘paid your dues’ or ‘put in the hours’. While sometimes you have to work hard to get what you want those factors are irrelevant in terms of whether you feel personally worthy of getting what you want.

   This is simply about whether you feel that you deserve an outstanding life, whether your self-worth is equal to or greater than the value you’ve placed on what you’re looking for.

   Answer ‘No’ to this one and you’ll need to do some serious work to get your self-worth and self-esteem up to the point where you truly feel like you deserve to have what you want.

Possible? Able? Worthy?. Just 3 simple questions.

Whether it’s a fantastic new job, a big boost in your self- confidence, a special someone to share your life with or a new pair of shoes, if you can answer ‘Yes’ to each one of these questions you’ll have the foundations in place for achieving whatever you want.

I’ve just got back from a few days in Sweden (congratulations again on your wedding Ralphie and Helen!), where I strolled around and explored the city of Stockholm. For a vibrant capital city it’s amazingly laid back. I expected a noisy hub like London – constant din, hustle and people jostling you out of their way. It wasn’t like that at all, and I was amazed at how serene the city was.

Walking around, if I closed my eyes I could be in my sleepy home town of Tunbridge Wells such is the volume level, even in the busiest of areas. Cars stop politely at crossings; people in stores, restaurants and café’s wear smiles and will gladly go the extra mile; it’s one of the safest cities in the world and the population seems to be perfectly content in their beautiful city.

Which brings me to the point. What struck me about the Swedish is how happy they are to be right where they are, something that’s most certainly represented in the laid back nature of the city and the people.

In London, New York and other major cities, people are rushing from one place to the next, never waiting long before wanting to move onto the next thing. The next intersection, the next meeting, the next task, the next social function, the next job. I’m as guilty as the next guy for falling into the ‘gotta get going’ habit.

Using the 80/20 rule, the Swedish are happy right where they are 80% of the time and looking to move forwards 20% of the time, the rest of us are happy for 20% of the time and restless for the remaining 80%.

This difference struck me very clearly, and it’s also indicative of why goals – which in places like London and New York have been pushed down our necks by the self-help industry for at least the last 20 years – don’t work.

The very nature of goals make you look forwards at what’s next, never at what you’ve got right now. Goals have the tendency to make you feel less-than, because there’s something you don’t have now that you aspire to have in the future. Goals introduce a gap between where you are and where you’d like to be, which instantly makes part of where you are right now a place you don’t want to be.

Once you reach a goal, what’s next? Gotta have another goal. Then another, then another. When do you get to stop and just enjoy life right where you are?

Show me a goal-hungry person and I’ll show you someone who’s always wanting something better to come along, someone who’s convinced – albeit perhaps not consciously – that reaching their goals will lead to their happiness. Even if that person reaches a goal I’ll bet that it lacks meaning and personal relevance, and so the hunt for meaning, relevance and happiness goes on.

This is how the very nature of having goals can hurt your self-confidence and self-esteem, and is exactly why I stopped coaching people on goals a couple of years ago and came up with a method of coaching people that works much better.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned in coaching and in my personal life (and my trip to Stockholm was a timely reminder) is to recognise where you are right now and to enjoy it.

Goals don’t matter a jot unless you have that first.

You know what, I love doing nothing. I’m actually pretty good at it, and when I’ve been busy it’s just great to sit back, do nothing and relax for a while. I’m a great schlepper, and I’ve come to see that schlepping is a key piece of what makes me productive.

When I started freelancing alongside my coaching I thought I’d make use of my commuting time to write, and that if I took my laptop to work with me I could sit in a coffee shop at lunch time and take care of emails. I tried to squeeze more time out of my day, all of which added to my stress levels and didn’t get me any further ahead.

I was stressed out, waking up in the middle of the night worrying that things aren’t getting done and that the world will fall apart if I don’t’ do them.

I felt bad that things were getting on top of me and that I wasn’t able to do everything. I started seeing myself as failing to get things done, that somehow I was less than because even though I was on the go for 16 hours a day I wasn’t delivering what I wanted to deliver.

Recognise this?

Many of my clients sure do – this is one of the many confidence-impacting problems that I deal with every week. The bottom line is that if you keep on going full steam ahead, trying to do everything with the notion that you ought to be able to do it all, you’ll burn out. You’ll lose yourself in the middle of everything you’re doing, and you’ll find your focus and sense of what you’re about slipping.

Let that ride and your self-confidence will suffer as you focus more and more on what you’re not doing and where you’re not seeing things happen as you’d like them to.

The belief that you need to deliver consistently without ever stopping is a deeply flawed one. It WILL get in the way of what you’re working on, and it WILL impact how you see yourself and your level of confidence.

So stop it.

I want to spell out to you that it’s okay to not do things. It’s okay to slow down, take a break and nourish yourself. More than that, it’s dangerous not to.

One quick distinction to make – don’t think for a second that slowing down is the same as procrastinating. Far from it. This funny little film shows you precisely what procrastinating is.

Procrastinating is busying yourself with all kinds of other things so that you don’t have to ‘get your stuff done’. Slowing down is making a deliberate and positive choice to take a break and nourish yourself.

As I’ve come to see. slowing down can be an amazing strategy for being more productive.

Tell me – Do you have problems slowing down or feel bad that you’re not getting everything done? How do you refuel, recharge and nourish yourself?

Hi Steve!
I am struggling to define my life in general. In my head I have all these visions of myself, how I’d like to be, to look, to dress, yet I am constantly just surviving, and feel I am not achieving anything.

I’m stuck and don’t know how to move forward. Is it just one thing that I’m struggling with? Is it me? Are there others that feel the same? How do they cope? I feel as if I don’t cope….

- Katharina in London

There’s so much in your email that it’s pretty much impossible to give you answers. You’re certainly in a big ol’ rut, and I think there are 2 main themes here.

1. You’ve become disconnected from your life and what matters to you. They say that no man’s an island, and you can’t exist in a vacuum without connecting with your life and the world around you. The more separate you become from what you’re feeling and what’s important the more disconnected and out of place you feel.

   It’s through your connections with yourself and the world around you that you can move beyond merely existing and stand a chance of leading a rich and rewarding life, so figure out what you’re disconnected from then flip it around to look at what the connection is. If you feel disconnected from your sense of fun, then the connection is about having fun. If you feel distant from what you’re doing at work, then the connection is about doing work that you can connect with. If you feel disconnected from your relationships then the connection is about connecting with people at a deeper level.

   Feel free to start with small things, but start connecting with things that make you feel like Katharina.

2. I talk a lot about playing a game that matters, and I rarely coach people in goals these days. Look at it this way – if you want to play a game of tennis you can’t focus just on the result of the game. You have to make a choice to get onto the tennis court and play a great game of tennis. You have to work on your serve and backhand, you have to get the right tennis shoes and racket, you have to work on how you approach the game and how you think about it.
   
   In other words, if you want to play a game of tennis you have to fully engage with it on an ongoing basis. Not because all you want to do is win, but because you love the game and it matters to you. Approach a game with that attitude and you’ll stand a far, far higher chance of winning than blindly pursuing the win itself.

   The same goes with your life. You need to figure out what’s important to you, you need to figure out what game you want to play, and then you need to get in the game. This is why your bursts of energy don’t seem to last, because you’re not making a choice from that deep place that wants to play a game that matters – it’s just coming from what you think you should be doing.

Playing a game that matters is where the best stuff in life happens, which is why I’ve made this the focus of how I coach now. You’ve proved that you’re capable. You’ve proved that you’ve had fun and that you’ve pursued what’s important to you. You’ve just got a bit lost recently.

As to your last question, yes, many people feel just like you.

Really, it does. To illustrate, it’s a gorgeous, warm, sunny Saturday evening and I’m at home writing articles. It’s not a sudden thing, this has kinda crept up on me.

My friends are coupled up, settling down, having families and I’m simply not seeing much of them any more. My social life with old friends is shrinking fast, and it’s left a bit of a hole. Normally people meet friends through work, but even though I’m a sociable animal at heart and having fun is incredibly important to me, it seems that I’ve made this a little more complicated for myself.

Coaching by it’s nature is a solitary profession. I have a session with a client and after 45 minutes the session ends and we both get moving again. I’m lucky enough to have friends who are ex-clients and, but these individuals are rare. By necessity, the focus of coaching is uni-directional, so the opportunity of building a friendship doesn’t come along very often. I also have some friends who are coaches, but with some very notable exceptions I often find other coaches to be a little too ‘Stepford Wives’ for my liking.

That’s exactly why I do my freelance project management work – because it puts me in a room with other people who I have to work closely with to deliver something. Other than earning some good money, my main aim from the freelancing is to socialise. I meet all kinds of good people, I go for drinks after work and when I move on I keep in touch with those who I’ve connected with.

The problem is that I’ve had to become so disciplined that I haven’t realised how disciplined I’ve become. My freelancing takes up a lot of time and energy during the week, on top of which I write at least 4 articles a week and hold client sessions during evenings and weekends.

That means I have to be ultra-organised, and ultra-focused on what I’m doing and what’s next. I make a hundred decisions a day as a project manager and am pretty much tuckered out by the end of the week, but I can’t be on bad form for my clients. I need to do what I need to so that I’m firing on all cylinders to be able to conduct a good session and give my all to it.

Consequently I pile a lot of pressure on myself, and make decisions that mean I don’t go out because I know I have to be on top of my game.

That kinda sucks, because as Jack Nicholson famously said, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

As I said, this has kinda crept up on me, but what to do about it? I could jack in the freelancing which would give me much more time. While I wouldn’t miss the Big Messy Project, I’d miss the people I work with and I know that I get bored working from home by myself for long periods. I could cut back on the writing and coaching. But I know how important that it to me and that I need to do it.

So what I’m going to do is this. I’m gonna take some risks. I’m gonna say ”What the Hell’ more often. I’m gonna let relationships develop rather than managing or controlling them so that I can be ‘on top form’. I’m gonna live a little more instead of managing my life.