The Wit and Wisdom Newsletter
The newsletter that puts the glide back in your slide
The  Real Coaching Co.
 
Sip A Seasonal Tonic
No 70

Bless you for opening this email from me.
Welcome to new and old subscribers to my Wit and Wisdom newsletter - the martini for the mind, the smoothie for the soul and the cup of tea of life that you just like to dip your chocolate digestive of curiosity into now and again. 
It takes just 2 minutes of your time to read but its long-lasting effects may have lifetime results.

Greetings!
With daddy long legs doing the Lambada around the light fittings and spiders as big as Cheryl Cole's eyelashes battling it out with the plug hole, are you greeting the new season with a hopeful heart?
 
Did Summer work its magic; all sun-kissed noses, salad-honed limbs and renewed energy?
 
Nah, me neither.  In fact I get a sort of weird holiday head syndrome each year where great plans to get fitter, read more and do all the creating and developing of great ideas for my businesses, I imagine only come by sitting surf-side in style, are dashed by the waves of seasonal inertia.
It's like the opposite of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) that people suffer with during the bleak mid-winter.  But something instead I call CLOD - Creative Loafing Overdrive Decline - where I find myself seeking the solace of sun loungers and, once prone, am only fit to make the agonizing choice between a good book or staring into the mid-distance dribbling.
 
by the seaIf only a glass of white wine didn't seem like the only cure.

Sorry if you expected more from this seasoned coach but heck, as you found out from the last newsletter (more of which later) I am only human (on a good day and with my back to the light) - ahem.
 
As we all are.  Yes, even you with a taste for alfalfa on toast and the ra-ra skirt on.  This is something we sometimes forget along with showing ourselves compassion, humanity, the ability to enjoy the "now" and to truly give ourselves a break that doesn't mean endless queues at the check-in desk. You know what I mean. 

Perfectionism, the Comparison Trap and the Flitter Bug
Perhaps how you like to be in-human is to seek perfectionism.  Any perfectionists reading this?  Am I talking your language?
 
Nothing is quite good enough.  If you're not plumping cushions, you're endlessly fussing with a piece of work you should have let go of days ago and life would be great if only you didn't see the glaring errors in everything and everyone.
 
Your medicine?  Try this - what would it mean to aim for good enough?  What is the fear behind life not being perfect?  What would really happen if you let go more often?
 
Another way to give yourself a good thrashing is to start to compare yourself to others.  Ever done that?   You were doing OK with life until you saw X get that promotion/bigger house/better qualification/slimmer figure/better looking partner - now you feel reduced.  Suddenly what you have is not enough.  It's a way of instantly minimizing yourself and your achievements without the aid of Weight Watchers.
 
Your medicine - Take this as often as you can remember - repeat regularly - "I am enough. Who I am is MORE than enough - I have everything I need within me to have the life I desire"
 
Feeling any better?
 
Choice some would say is a good thing.  But for many it's a sort of psychic Superglue sticking them to the spot.  Too many choices, just one life and whatever direction you look in the grass is always greener.
 
Should you backpack to the Galapagos Isles and re-habilitate the much misunderstood Komodo dragons in a 12 step programme, finish your PhD, aim for the next step on the corporate career ladder or start your own business? Why do you have to choose when you want to do it all? Oh and you also want have a baby, run the marathon and get your own home and cram it all in before you're 32. 
 
Stuck in analysis paralysis you want to do it all but when, what and how?  What if you make the wrong choice and it wasn't what you wanted anyway?
 
Pink wigHere's a little map - Start small and have a plan.  Don't try and do everything at once.  Ask yourself what you might be running away from and aim to make responsibility a goal.  Remember you can be an adult but you don't have to be a grown up.
 
New season, new beginnings.  I embrace September as a time when I get slimmer and richer. I am able to devote some "me" time to do my daily runs and I'm not peeling off tenners every day for my hungry chicks; all this is possible when my children return to school. I can devote myself to helping others achieve the lives they'd always dreamed for themselves and really do the things I thought I would do all summer if hedonism, sheer idleness and relaxation hadn't got in the way.
 
What are you planning to do with your life this month?
Jump
 
Why not book a 30 minute free coaching session on me?
Email me now on caroleann@realcoachingco.com
Other news

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the scores of readers, clients and long lost friends who contacted me in response to my last newsletter on my depression. The response  was unprecedented.
 
I was deeply moved by your kind, thoughtful and empathetic comments and for sharing with me your own experiences of the "black dog".
 
I have printed off all the responses and pasted them in a special book which I will turn to whenever the blues and blahs return. 
 
For all of you who are still in the bitter embrace of depression I share with you just some of the many emails of support. The most important thing I have learned is that I, and you, are not alone and there is no shame attached to the time when life loses its meaning temporarily. The colour will return, your heart will de-frost and the anxiety and pain will subside.  And often as the tide goes out there is a rare a special gift left for you.
 
Please take heart as I did.

"Just wanted to say 'good for you' for writing this newsletter. It's refreshing to read a note so honest about a subject many of us have experienced and will be a comfort to those 'in it'"

 

"I really admire you for being so honest in your newsletter about your recent bout of depression.

There's such a taboo about depression that it's really refreshing to read something so honest, heartfelt and personal."

 

"I think so many of us go through these periods alone that it really helps to hear that in fact we are not. Also it is the fact that you see all colours of the rainbow including blue that makes you such a wonderful coach."

 

"Thank you for being so open and sharing with us the difficult time you have had recently.  Your e-mail resonated with me in so many ways, and thank you for reminding me we are all human, even coaches!
I wish you all the very best."

 

"I LOVED this week's newsletter - mentioned it at my networking group last night when we were talking about how we're all human and can't be 100% happy all of the time. Very powerful of you to share your vulnerability the way you did... really respect that."

 

"Congratulations on your honesty Carole Ann. Everyone gets the blues, it's how they handle it that makes the difference. Life has a nasty habit of coming up to bite when you least expect. But by sharing your feelings I know you will have enabled your readers to be more honest with themselves and/or others which can only be a good thing. Hope your journey back to technicolor will continue..."

 

"Reading your newsletter makes me realise that we're all fragile - even the 'leaders' among us like yourself! Happiness is so precious and shouldn't be taken for granted. And if you could bottle happiness, and confidence, we'd be billionaires!"


I am truly blessed. Thank you all again from the bottom of my much lifted heart.

Quote of the Week

"...people who do not get into scrapes are a great deal less interesting than those who do" - Murasaki Shikibu (974?-1031)

ChaplinPictures by Louisa Walsh  www.artbylaw.co.uk
Reach for the stars but keep your feet on the ground.
Have a powerful month.

Love and best wishes
 
Your coach 

Carole Ann
 
 Follow me on Twitter
Contents
A post summer tonic
Do you suffer from CLOD too?
Perfectionism, the Comparison Trap and Choice-ism
A Big Thank You
Quote of the Month
Quick Links

Carole Ann

sitting on the fence in life can be painful

Carole Ann is an award winning journalist, media consultant and high profile coach, with over 6 years' coaching experience with private clients and major organisations such as the London School of Economics and Play England. 
 

Find Your Dream Job

Find Your Dream Job

 Buy Now from Amazon

Follow me on Twitter

 

Were you forwarded this newsletter?
To ensure you always get a copy....
 
 Join Our Mailing List