Today I woke up and felt like a failure. A total, utter, all-encompassing failure. My mind was entrenched in the evidence of my looser-ship, my emotions were heavy, and I was proper grumpy. And here's the delicious, hilarious irony: just yesterday I spent 7 hours with business owners helping them to transform their own mindset and emotional blocks, get clarity on their vision, and understand the obstacles to their goals.

Well, what a difference 12 hours make!

This morning I spent at least an hour thinking I was a failure, 30 seconds trying to feel my emotions before pushing them away, and another hour or so after that feeling like a grumpy loser again.

It wasn't until I was driving my daughter over to her grandma's that the space woke me up to who I was being, and I apologised to my daughter for being in a bad mood. I then chose to shift gear (internally and on the gears) and asked her if we could sing a prayer together before listing 10 things each that we're grateful for.

I started off with a couple but wasn't truly feeling it. Then my daughter (4) - who is a master of gratitude - said 'I am grateful for my eyes'.

WOW, boom! Suddenly I was filled with gratitude for my eyes - I could SEE. I had eyes. This incredible thing I had taken for granted all morning - but that my little daughter was wise enough to be aware of.

I was grateful that I could see! That I could see this beautiful world we live in. That I could see my daughter's face. That I could see the road, that I was able to drive - because I had eyes!

How miraculous! How marvellous!

Instantly, my mind, my emotions, my whole being and perspective on the world shifted. I was rich! I started off that morning in poverty, and now I was the richest woman in the world.

And the beauty of it? If I'd have not felt like crap this morning I wouldn't have received the gift of being present to the majesty of my eyes! I would have missed it!

So, why was I feeling so crappy this morning? Well, that's well worth investigating too - if we're going for gifts, let's just keep at it. What was I thinking about? What was I doing? How had I slept? What had happened the day before? Was I keeping up with the practices I know support my growth, or had I skipped them (I had skipped them btw)? If so, why? What can new goals can I put in place to support my growth? How can I make sure that I return to feeling good enough whether I learn anything or not?

If you ever find yourself feeling like a failure (it may comfort you to know that every successful, smart person I've worked with feels that way sometimes/ a lot), look for the gifts, and then look for the wisdom - what can you learn? How can you use this a stepping stone for your growth?

Even the darkest thoughts and emotions carry wisdom. Our job - our bounty - is to see it.

'No-one likes you'.

Oh, that old chestnut again 🙄 This phrase is a common whispering of my ego, one that I've become more aware of lately.

It popped up just a couple of days ago when I was on a call with a group of very powerful, accomplished women. One of them (an articulate, courageous Dr.) messaged me in the chat me saying 'Hi Elisa! So good to see you. X (an investor and author) were talking yesterday about how we'd love to meet up with you more regularly.'

My first reaction was surprise: 'She wants to be friends with me? But no-one likes me'.
Clearly, this is an untrue and very limiting belief. Nevertheless, it is present, just like so many other limiting beliefs we carry.

For me, this belief stems from childhood, from years of merciless bullying at the hands of certain girls, a couple of judgemental adults, and even my friends who liked to put me down on occasion.
In my childhood mind, I internalised other people's behaviour as 'no-one likes me'. It was a great strategy of my ego - if I believed it, it would stop me reaching out, stop me connecting deeply with people, and keep me small - it would stop me getting hurt.

The problem, however, is it's not true. And it has stopped me from creating powerful connections with people. It's cost me goodness knows how many years of my life in playing small.

But that's all cool. Because it's in the past, and as Byron Katie says 'all thoughts of fear come from an imagined past or an imagined future'. In the present, I know it to be true that people do like me. I like people. I love them, actually.

If you're not where you want to be in your life, career, finances, family, etc, I encourage you to become aware of what the voice in your head is whispering to you. I encourage you - with all the love in the world - to take action to bringing awareness to those beliefs and letting them go.

You were born noble. An incredible human being. Capable of untold majesty and greatness. Listen to THAT prompting. And take action.

(Warning: taking action on this stuff will feel scary. Scary is good. It's where the jewels lie).

Be loved, loving you.

Something that often comes up in group coaching calls with my coach, Barbara Huson, is anger - and the need for women to release it. My default position on this subject for so long was that anger didn't apply to me. As far as I was concerned, I'd never been an 'angry person'.

It wasn't until Barbara relayed a story from her own therapist that I began to question my 'not an angry person' belief. She talked about a time she'd had couple's therapy and her then husband had complained in the session that Barbara was 'an angry woman'. To this, the therapist replied: 'Show me a woman who isn't'.

Women, explained Barbara, have been muzzled for so long, of course they're angry.

Well, shit, I suddenly began to question myself. I knew the feeling of being 'muzzled' very, very well. Not least because I'd spent four years in a highly abusive relationship having every word from my lips shut down, belittled and judged. I'd been muzzled - so why wasn't I angry?

If anger was an emotion that all women had, and I didn't feel it, I wanted to know why. This might sound strange - why on earth would you want to feel angry if you don't?

It's not about wanting to feel angry. It's about exploring whether or not I was suppressing anger. As a psycho-somatic therapist, I know there's little more toxic than suppressed emotion. Anger, like all other emotions, carries valuable information. If there was anger in me, I wanted it out - and I wanted to learn from it.

Of course, the first thing Barbara did - like any good coach - was to remind me that there's no such thing as 'an angry person'. Boom. There it was. Insight number one: for years, I had carried the unconscious belief that some people are angry and some people aren't - in other words, it's a part (or not) of a person's identity. This was the first place to call bullshit. My true belief is that people are, in reality, spiritual beings, created noble. Anger is not identity. Anger is an emotion.

I got more curious: was it really that I didn't feel anger, or did I have a block about feeling anger, or admitting that I felt it? Immediately a memory flashed into my mind: I had felt anger before. Real anger. It happened when I was 11 and I'd confronted a girl who'd been bullying me at school. I was so angry - enraged - by something she'd done that something snapped inside. I was angry. And I was did something about it. I also used to get angry about injustice. Really angry. But this anger was often accompanied by a sense of helplessness - what could I do, as a young adult, about all of the injustice in the world? It was a daunting task.

The evidence was in. I had felt anger. So when, and why, did I switch it off?

Then it hit me: women aren't supposed to be angry. Women are supposed to be nice, good girls, pleasing and sweet. They're supposed to be all sorts of things. But not angry.

When I felt angry as a young girl, I'd channelled it into a healthy expression of standing up for myself and setting boundaries. But at some point, my ego took over. Its strategy for belonging was to be the nice girl. And nice girls don't get angry.

Women and anger aren't often talked about in the same sentence. Yet so many of my clients have some anger or rage within them. Anger is a normal emotion. It needs to be expressed in a healthy way, but it's still an emotion. It's something that gives us valuable information. It lets us know that something is not right and needs to be addressed.

If we look at the women of Iran right now, they are angry. Really angry. Their anger towards a brutal regime is being channelled into courageous acts of defiance and freedom. This is useful anger. It is being used to bring justice.

Women need justice. Maybe we need to get angry, to allow ourselves to be angry.

And then channeling that anger into positive acts that bring about growth - for women and all people.

I

This is one of my all time best pieces of advice - which I've learned the hard way (multiple times!) - for life and business. 

Learn to trust yourself when it's time to pivot, and do it quickly. 

I bet, right now, you can recall relationships, jobs, and other life experiences where you knew something was off for you, but you stayed. 

You didn't listen.

I certainly know that I bloody well did (errr... four years in an abusive relationship...whaaat?). 

Truth is, not pivoting, not listening to myself, has cost me so much - literally time, energy, love, my success, myself in many cases. I bet you could say the same. 

What did it cost you? How many years of your life did you waste? How much money did you lose? How much of your self-esteem went down the pan?

Why do we do it to ourselves? Why don't we pivot?

Two reasons:

1) We don't trust ourselves.

2) We don't know ourselves.

And I'm going to give you a cold, hard truth here. When we don't trust ourselves, it's because we're not honest. We're not living with true integrity. We do things like make commitments and forget about them (or back down), we say things we don't mean to get out of stuff, we people-please and tell people what we think they want to hear, not what is actually truthful.

This erodes our self-trust. 

To build it up, we have to start getting honest. 

The delightful thing is, I've found that being honest - with myself and others - pays dividends. Life is incredible on the side of honesty. It's powerful. It creates real connections. You feel unstoppable. 

The second point: we don't know ourselves. In order to trust the voice inside, you have to know that it's yours. You have to know who you are, what is and isn't okay with you (your boundaries), what your values are. Knowing these things left right and centre will guide you every step. 

I can't tell you the number of times I've failed to listen to my inner wisdom. It takes courage. A hearing ear and courage. 

Now I am so much more in touch with who I am, what I stand for, what my values are, and am honest with myself (and I know the signs to look out for in my body). Like everything, becoming your most powerful self is a process. Love yourself through it. Learn. And pivot.

My question to you: what's going on in your life or business, that your little voice inside is saying 'noooooooo!!!' but you're just not listening? 

My advice: listen. 

In the Western world, people don't talk about death. And it's killing us.

How?

Because we don't live our lives.

If we contemplated our demise on a regular basis, it would remind us to live more.

Because one day, you will leave this earthly plane. That's not a maybe, it's a will happen. And do you want to leave it knowing that you never played full out?

On my life, no way!

I recently had the pleasure of working with author and former CEO of multiple NYSE and NASDAQ companies, Will Keiper. One of his most recent books, titled 'The Well-Being Bucket List' (a book co-authored with the Godfather of coaching, Steve Chandler), I will admit that I only really read in order to understand the writer whom I would be working with. Being only 40 at the time, I didn't think the book applied to me.

I was wrong.

What I learned very quickly - and I am ever grateful to Will and Steve for the reminder - is that life is really bloody short. And because it's so short, the most sensible thing to do is to just go for it. To live life full out. And not only in terms of things to do, but things to feel and to be.

What's beautiful about The Well-Being Bucket list is that it's not about a list of 'must go to places' before you die, or 'the top 10 activities you have to do otherwise you haven't lived'. Instead, it's about how to live your life being the greatest person you can be, to form the best relationships, to love so hard that your heart is full of joy at every turn, to be so present that it doesn't matter what's going on on the outside because you're grateful and inspired and in awe of the magnificence of life as it is.

True life - the breath of life - lives within all of us. It just needs to be seen, to be recognised, to be acknowledged.

So, think about your death. Be grateful that you're alive right now and have the chance to create whatever you want right now.

It's a blessing.

"The days pass swiftly as the twinkle of a star. Make your mark now, at this crucial turning point of a juncture, the like of which shall never return. Make that mark in deeds that will ensure for you celestial blessings..."

- The Universal House of Justice

You can find out more about Will here and Steve here. The Well-Being Bucket list is available here.

Procrastination.

Procrastination.

Procrastination.

One might look at the above three words and think that I am procrastinating on writing this blog post. I'm not (or am I? Always worth questioning!). I'm labouring the point that procrastination is a big fat waste of time. It's frustrating and annoying.

But you already know that. That's why you're here.

Procrastination happens because of one thing: fear.

You're scared to move forward. You're fearful of doing the tasks you know you need to (and actually really WANT) to do. You lose sight of what you're doing and why. Your small mind (the one based in primitive ego) goes off in a million different directions to keep you from moving forward: check instagram, watch a little Netflix, get another drink, pay that bill you've just remembered you had, ahhh, hungry now....

Your small mind may begin to whisper softly in your ear...

'You don't know what you're doing'.

'You can't do this.'

'Who are you to...'

'This is too hard'

'Maybe you should do something else'

'This is never going to work'

But if you question those thoughts, you'll find that they are rarely - if ever - true.

You do know what you're doing. Even when you don't know the answer to something specific, you know that you can find out the answer or ask for help.

You can do this. Who says you can't? Where's the proof?

This isn't too hard. Other people do it all the time. What makes you so special that you can't?

You can do this. Because you want to.

This will work. Where's the proof that it won't?

So, my greatest tip for beating procrastination (besides questioning the thoughts running through your mind, which is another bonus tip - you're welcome!) is to do this:

Write down your vision and your mission / purpose and look at it every single morning before you start work. Make sure it's the thing that REALLY, truly fires you up. That you're connected to on a deep level. That if you died and you'd contributed to this vision, you'd be happy and know that you lived life full out.

This will orient you in the right direction. It will remind you why you're doing what you're doing. It will give you energy. It will make the scary stuff seem less scary. It will push you to do things you'd otherwise... procrastinate on. It will get you to pick up the phone, connect with people, work on the stuff that matters.

I will often look at my vision and mission statements multiple times a day.

I can't guarantee that it'll be better than Disney+ (there's a rerun of the Golden Girls at the moment. I know!). But only in the moment. In the end - even at the end of the day - it'll be worth it.

Keep going world-changer!