It’s Okay To Change Your Mind

If saying no when you’ve already said yes makes you feel guilty, embarrassed or flaky, then nobody has told you this:

Saying yes is like flipping a coin.

The point isn’t to lock yourself into a decision, but to reveal your true desire.

Often, saying yes is the only way to find out you’re actually a no.

So buy the item and return it.
Get engaged and call it off.
Sign up and drop out.

Allow yourself to say yes, then say no.

The earlier you find out what you really want, the better.

But even if you don’t discover you’re a no until the last semester of your five-year law degree, or until you’re standing at the alter in front of your entire extended family, or until you’ve already signed all the paperwork and there’s a costly exit fee – don’t stay a yes if you’re a no.

Commitment doesn’t mean sticking to a decision forever.

It means being all in until you’re all out.

It’s okay to change your mind. Even when it’s already done.

Uncommitting is a highly underrated, powerful act.

It’s not the mark of an unreliable person, it’s the sign of an honest one.

Accepting this truth will free you, and make all your decisions feel a thousand times easier.

“Your brain can play tricks, your heart can be blind, but your gut is always right.”

– Rachel Wolchin

What if we showed up like every day was the last day?

What if we showed up for our July Goals like every day was the last day of July?

That’s 31 opportunities to make bold, gutsy, last-minute moves.

31 chances to try our crazy “it’s-a-long-shot-but-it-might-just-work” plans.

31 openings to sprint through airport security for a first kiss, or make a risky phone call, or ask a favour from a friend’s sister’s old roommate.

Because if it doesn’t work, all hope is not lost.

We’ve got time on our side. We can try a long shot again tomorrow.

But only if we act like it’s the final moment before it really is the final moment.

It crossed my mind today: what if July 2021 has already happened – and we didn’t hit our goals – and the time lords are gifting us a do-over?

That means every morning this month it’s our job to wake up and decide “Today is the day.”

And then take ridiculous, wild action that only a main character in a romcom would be fearless enough to try.

We’ve been given 31 last chances to hit our July goals.

LFG.

You've Got Everything You Need to Hit Your Goal

No matter how impossible your goal seems, you’ve already done all of the things before. 

You’ve talked to people.

You’ve asked for things.

You’ve come up with solutions.

You’ve made money.

You’ve spent money.

You’ve been uncomfortable.

You’ve written stuff.

You’ve learned new things.

You’ve overcome obstacles.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re applying for Harvard (you’ve filled out forms before), or learning to walk (you’ve moved your legs before) or building a rocket (you’ve stuck stuff together before).

Every goal you’ve ever achieved was built on a bunch of other actions you already knew how to do.

So telling yourself “I’ve never done it before” is only kind of true.

You’ve never done it THIS way before.

But you’ve already got all of the pieces.

They just need rearranging.

(You’ve rearranged stuff before.)

Show Up for the Superfans

Don't create for the person who might critique you. 

Create for the person who thinks you're a genius.

The people who don’t like what you’ve got aren’t your people. And that’s okay! 

Spend zero time thinking about them.

Just send them a big hug and let them unfollow, unsubscribe or walk away.

Because when you create from a place of “what will the neighbours think?” you curb your creativity.

Don’t create for them. Create for the superfan that loves ANYTHING you make.

Create for the people that NEED your brilliance.

Your work might not seem special to you. But to someone else, it’s life changing.

And every time you shy away out of fear of rejection, someone misses out on the magic you’ve got.

Your job is to show up for the people who adore you – even if you don’t know who or where they are.

I promise they’re here. Quietly watching.

They’re checking daily to see if you’ve put more of your goodness into the world.

They’re impacted by everything you do.

You’re the X to their “What would X do?”

YOU ARE IMPACTFUL.

Especially when you show up for the right person.

How I Healed My Chronic Shoulder and Back Pain

For the last 18 months, I’ve been suffering from what I thought was a shoulder/neck/back injury.

It turns out, it was something entirely different.

In early 2020, I injured my shoulder doing my 100 push ups challenge.  Essentially, I just pushed myself too hard in one of my training sessions and spent a week in a lot of pain. I took time off my work to heal and thought it would be over after a couple of weeks of healing.

However, nearly every day since then, I’ve had pain in my shoulder. After about 6 months, it started spreading to my neck and back too.

I stopped doing anything that could aggravate it. Dancing, swimming, rock climbing, lifting things, using my laptop (switched to a desktop), sleeping on my side, even chopping up hard food with a knife.

I saw four different physiotherapists and two doctors. Everyone said it was my posture and work-from-home working conditions.

So I bought a fancy electric sitting/standing desk, and a specially-formulated chair. I had a physiotherapist come to my house to measure my body and create the perfect ergonomic working conditions.

One slightly uncomfortable movement could have me lying on my back in pain for hours, and there were certain activities (sitting, sleeping, and working on my computer) that tended to induce pain.

Fast forward to May 2021. I got an Xray (about 15 different photos) and a shoulder ultrasound, to check if there was anything going on.

Not only did the results come back normal – the physiotherapist told me they were some of the best scans she’d ever seen.

And yet I was in chronic pain that had me lying on the floor in between all of my coaching calls.

Then someone mentioned the words “Dr. Sarno and the mind-body connection.”

I listened to the audiobook version of his book Healing Back Pain, and watched his documentary, All The Rage.

Within days, without doing anything other than consuming knowledge, my pain was reduced to about 20% of what it was before.

Just from learning.

And now I have barely any shoulder, neck or back pain at all.

The book and documentary explain the theory that the mind instructs the brain to create real physical pain in order to distract the person from facing the emotional pain they are truly facing.

At first, I thought “but I’m not in any emotional pain.” Well, yes, that’s the point. Because my brain had been using physical pain to cover up my emotional pain.

It turns out, that at the beginning of 2020 when I injured myself doing push ups, the actual injury healed quickly. What remained, was a conditioned pathway of pain, a convenient place for my brain to target as a distraction from my emotional pain.

When I started doing physiotherapy and my shoulder started feeling better, my back and neck started to cause me incredible pain, for seemingly no reason.

Because the pain wasn’t related to something physical. It was my brain finding places to create pain, in order to avoid dealing with the true emotional pain I was feeling.

“Patients often report pain in a new location as the old one gets better. It is as though the brain is unwilling to give up this convenient strategy for diverting attention away from the realm of the emotions.”
― John E. Sarno, Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection

Just to be clear, the pain I was experiencing was totally real. It wasn’t “in my head”. The only thing that is different about TMS is that the pain wasn’t being triggered by something physical like an injury, it was being triggered by my mental/emotional experience.

“Chronic physical pain can sometimes be the result of emotional tension. We can feel measurable, quantifiable pain throughout our bodies, he writes, in response not to injury but to emotional distress. And our minds create this pain (often by depriving certain body parts of oxygen) in order to distract ourselves from these “unacceptable” emotions, such as anxiety, anger, and fear. When unaddressed or repressed, he says, these emotions can essentially be churned subconsciously through the body to emerge elsewhere as physical pain. Unaddressed rage, for instance, can become back pain (or neck pain, or pain anywhere). “Unconsciously,” he writes, “we would rather have a physical pain than acknowledge any kind of emotional turmoil.”

One of the clearest examples I have is my friend Emily’s birthday. We all met at a nature reserve, walked around, sat in the cafe, and I had no pain at all the entire day. The moment I got home and turned on my computer, I remembered I had a task to do that was going to be incredibly emotionally uncomfortable to deal with.

BAM. Instant tension headache and back pain.

I had to spend the next hour in bed with a hot water bottle and painkillers. It came on so suddenly, and because I had just read Dr. Sarno’s book, it was abundantly clear what had happened: my brain created physical pain to avoid dealing with the emotional pain.

And it worked.

So you might be wondering, were the unconscious emotions I was repressing?

Anxiety, stress, and grief.

While I won’t go into too much detail, currently (and for the past few years) I have a loved one who is very unwell and is getting progressively sicker. I have also been working non-stop without a vacation or holiday for almost two years (I LOVE my work as a coach and that’s why it never even really realized I wasn’t taking breaks. Plus, as we all know, the pandemic kind of put a stop to vacations). I also had a terrifying experience with an earthquake a few years ago, that gets reignited every time I feel another small quake.

My mind has been holding onto a LOT of emotion, and clearly didn’t feel it was safe for me to process it.

So instead, it induced chronic pain.

That’s TMS.

The beautiful thing about TMS, is that once you diagnose it, it’s a quick path to recovery.

I AM SO GRATEFUL!

The Points System (aka: How to Think About Selling)

When I was at University, I participated in a lot of street activism for the environment.

I had to sell an idea.

But for every dozen people I spoke to, maybe one of them would truly seem like they were going to make a change.

I felt extremely discouraged and like the planet was doomed – until the event organizer told me about The Points System.

The Points System is the concept that as a person goes about their daily life, they accumulate “points”.

Zero points = They don’t care about the environment at all.

100 points = They make a drastic change to their life (stop buying fast fashion/cut out animal products/start biking to work).

Maybe they saw a Netflix documentary last year about the damage in our oceans, and that gave them 20 points.

Maybe they saw trash lying on the beach and it added 15 points.

Maybe they had a conversation with me at the event, and it added another 10 points.

Usually, the person would leave our event, seemingly unchanged on the outside.

But inside, the points were adding up.

I realised it wasn’t my job to give them 100 points in a single conversation.

I just had to offer them as many extra points as I could.

It’s the same with selling as a creative, artist, or entrepreneur.

It’s rare to sell something in a single conversation or social media post.

Your audience needs to connect with you over and over again to rack up 100 points.

Each time you talk with someone, you’re adding points.

Each time you make an offer, you’re adding points.

Each time you show up to add value, you’re adding points.

Entrepreneurs sometimes tell me:

• “I went to one networking event and no one was interested.”

• “I spoke on clubhouse for 10 minutes and no one even followed me.”

• “I made an offer on Instagram and all I heard was crickets!”

And they stop connecting with people and selling.

Because what's the use if no one is buying?

But someone could be on 99 points right now.

They could be ONE offer away, ONE conversation away, ONE point away from hiring you.

If you truly believed that someone was just ONE action away, how would you show up today?

You Actually Sell Croissants

Whether you’re a web designer, a coach, a consultant, a social media manager or any other service provider – you’re actually in the business of selling croissants.

People love croissants. They want to buy them.

They just don’t want the baker to turn up unannounced on their doorstep at 4 o’clock in the morning to force feed them one.

It’s the wrong place, wrong time.

And when we cold-message strangers offering our services, no matter how good they are, that’s what we’re essentially doing.

Stuffing a croissant into a surprised face.

How could they not love it?! It’s a croissant! 

Not a compulsory croissant in the middle of the night.

No matter what your business is, remember that you’re in the business of selling croissants.

People want to buy what you’re selling.

At the right place, right time.

Let them come to YOU.

Connect with croissant lovers in Facebook groups and networking events and supermarkets. Invite them to check out your space: your Instagram account, your email list, your bakery. Offer them a croissant.

And whether they decide to buy one today or not, says nothing about their desire for croissants.

Maybe they just ate.

Maybe they’ll come back later.

Maybe they’re just deciding how many to get.

You sell croissants. People want to buy them.

What if you believed everyone truly wants what you have to offer?

How would that change where you showed up to market your business?