Reinvent Me

So by now you have made a plan and planted your seed. Well done, that is awesome! But to make that plan happen, to nourish that seed, you need to take action. And what better time to do that than NOW!

NOW is such an important concept and word – and so vital to reinventing yourself – not only because you need to make changes NOW rather than putting them off for a while, but because NOW will also remind you to be present in the moment. When you are not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, when you are mindful of the present, you will listen to your intuition, make better decisions, become less fearful of what might happen and really live through and learn from your journey of change.

Like so many people you may be ‘thinking of making changes’. When I hear this, I often wonder when that will change from ‘I’m thinking of’ to ‘I’m going to’. The fascinating process we go through before we commit to change goes like this: I’m thinking of it, I’m ready, I’m going to do it, I’m doing it now and then, of course, I’ve done it! That’s not to say that an idea can’t marinate before it flourishes, but we must give it the attention it needs to develop. It may not happen right this moment, but at least you are taking the appropriate action toward your goal.

If I had to take a guess at what was holding you back from turning your innovative plan into action, I’d guess that it’s fear. Am I right? So many people become paralyzed by fear: fear of failing, fear of not being good enough, not clever enough, fear of not having enough money. This is very common – it’s part and parcel of being human. But let me ask you this: what about the fear of not living your life to its fullest potential? Why are you not fearful of that? Surely we are all obliged to do the best we can with the precious life we have been given? The exercises in this chapter will help you address and get into perspective those fears that may be holding you back.

Another way people avoid the now is by telling themselves, ‘I haven’t got time. I’ll deal with it later’. The problem is things get put off again and again and then you end up resenting that you didn’t take action when you had the opportunity. Being ‘too busy’ can easily become an excuse for not doing it NOW, so schedule in time to work on your reinvention.

Choose something from your plan, nourish that seed – it won’t grow unless you feed it. You’ll feel so much better when you take action than when you avoid it. It’s just like when you put off a phone call because it’s going to be a little uncomfortable. Then once you make the call you find it isn’t that bad; afterward you feel relieved and wonder why you’d put it off for so long. Sound familiar?!

Sometimes it takes major events like a relationship break-up or other types of loss, illnesses or accidents for us to wake up and make changes. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Change can be much more positive and proactive: don’t wait for life to happen, instead choose to make time for whatever changes you want to make and all the goals you would like to achieve. Listen to that all-important intuition and you will know when the time is right for you.

When you are making changes, whether professionally or personally, it’s so important to stay in the now. If you think about many years ahead – for example, try to map out in your head a complete career change or the next five years – it can be stressful and overwhelming. You’re quite likely to give up there and then. If you stay in the now – and think about what you can control in this moment, rather than worrying about those things you can’t predict – you can allow yourself to take it one step at a time and really tune in to your intuition. Through tools such as meditation and other mindfulness techniques that you will learn throughout this programme, you can learn to live in the moment.

‘Taking steps of action
is like planting lots
of seeds. Eventually
you will have a
beautiful garden.’

For a while I have been wearing a watch that says ‘NOW’ instead of showing the time. So when I look at it, I am always reminded to be present in the moment – this has really helped me. I used to feel quite challenged by the idea that we only had now, until I accepted that the past has gone and the future is still to unfold so we had better just make the most of this moment!

By being mindful – by living more in the now – you will also live a fuller, richer life. You will live the experience of making changes, both the good parts and the bad, and you will come out stronger on the other side. Looking back, I realize that I ran through my life, especially through my twenties, far too quickly. I was so fearful of not achieving my goals, and so busy thinking about a future goal, that I completely forgot to be present, to enjoy my journey. One day one of my dancing coaches reminded me to start enjoying each moment and to treasure all the little goals along the way to the big one because the victory is short-lived, and then all you have are the memories of the journey. This advice totally changed my outlook and it’s something that has stayed with me ever since.

I have clients who come to me so stressed. When we start to talk and I get to the bottom of their concerns, I often find they are worrying about the future, about what will happen five years from now when their children have left home, when their partner has retired or if their relationship doesn’t work out. These are all things they can’t possibly know about or predict, yet they ruin so much of the now by worrying about those things. They forget to enjoy the present moment with their partner or the kids who are living with them now and instead worry about what it would feel like when they are gone. Learning to live in the now can help us in so many ways in life – as we become more present, we start to trust the process of life and we are less anxious because we are not worrying about things that may or may not happen in the future. Instead we enjoy the being, the planning and the learning in the now.

Even now, I can be at a social event and find myself thinking about a workshop I need to prepare for later in the week. Before I know it, I’m worrying and planning and missing valuable time with family and friends. I have to remind myself to let it go and bring myself back to the moment. Do you ever go to a party or a family gathering and spend time on your phone wishing you were somewhere else or worrying about the work you have to do? Well, this is a classic situation of not being in the now. Like all the techniques I’m going to share with you in this book, being mindful – being present to the here and now – is something you have to constantly work on, but I hope, like I have, you find that it enhances your life.

Each time I’ve made big life changes I’ve felt fearful, but I decided a long time ago that greater than any of these fears would be to die without having tried in every way I could to reinvent myself personally and professionally. Dying without having tried became my motivation to get on and do it now rather than waiting for the perfect moment.

To overcome fear of the unknown, it helps to have an emergency plan in place. When I left Denmark for the UK, I told myself I could go back to my job as an estate agent if it didn’t work out. When I moved to California to be a Life Coach, I told myself

I could always go back to dancing. My mum always told me not to burn bridges, so I kept that in mind and it has been a very helpful tool. I found that once I had addressed my fear and made an emergency plan, I could move forward knowing that I would never want to use the emergency plan but that it was there – in the same way we know where the emergency exit is on a plane, but we hope we will never need to use it.

Now is all about making the most of opportunities. Once I knew I wanted to be a motivational speaker, I’d listen to other speakers, such as Marianne Williamson, Oprah Winfrey and Anthony Robbins, and imagine one day what it would feel like to be up there, like them, in front of an audience. Then one day a friend rang me up out of the blue and asked if I fancied doing a motivational speech for her staff. The thought of speaking in front of an audience for 30–45 minutes scared me a lot, but I still said yes. I thought now is as good a time as any to get started and

I will work out how to structure my talk once I have committed. It would have been so easy to turn down this opportunity and say I wasn’t ready. I could have waited for the ‘perfect time’, but when would that have been? I started structuring my speech by starting with something I knew – I jotted down a few motivational tips I was certain had helped me in my career and that I knew would be helpful to people. I wasn’t Anthony Robbins yet but it was personal to me, and this is one thing I realized back then – always put your personal twist on it. When we are truly authentic it shines through – so rather than trying to be someone else, always use your uniqueness. I got the audience up on their feet to dance for a few seconds because that made me feel at ease and broke the ice.

The first time I led a group meditation I felt nervous to the point of thinking, ‘I can’t do this’. I had done meditations for years, but only with one client at the time. It took a couple of classes before I completely relaxed and allowed myself to enjoy it, and I quickly felt as if I had come home. It’s now one of my favourite things in the world. I’m so happy that I faced the fear and took the opportunity when it came my way; I knew it was time.

When I was so focused on my goals and not present in the moment, my judgement would be clouded on certain things and instead of having clarity I’d feel confused, fearful and stressed. I would go over a situation again and again in my head. I would let a rude email ruin my mood or, even worse, reply before having thought it through. These days it’s not that I don’t get annoyed or have a day of feeling off, but I have tools up my sleeve, tools like the ones throughout this book, that bring me back to where I’m happy to be. It’s a bit like walking down the middle of a road – sometimes the wind blows us off to the side or people pull us off, but with practice and mindful tools we know how to get ourselves back to the middle again.

This exercise is designed to help you face some of your fears so that they no longer become barriers standing in your way of change.

Write down the worst thing that could happen if your reinvention plan doesn’t work out?

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Now you’ve written down your worst fear, does it seem irrational? Perhaps it’s not as bad as you imagined. By facing up to the worst that can happen, we know exactly what’s at stake and realize that this scenario may not be so far off the situation we are already in. Because often by the time we take action, we have hit rock-bottom emotionally and we know something has to change. If you have children, you will, of course, have to consider how the changes will affect your family as a whole. Most of us have friends who would put a roof over our heads or help us out in other ways at challenging times. Consider what you will do if things don’t work out.

2. Write down your emergency back-up plan

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3. Write down the pros and cons of making changes now. Use a separate piece of paper to write them in two columns.

4. When you are considering whether now is a good time to start, ask yourself these questions:

What would happen if I succeed at my reinvention?

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What would happen if I don’t succeed at my reinvention?

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What would happen if I start taking action today?

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What would happen if I don’t take action now?

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What wouldn’t happen if I take action now?

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Be guided by your answers. Having answered the questions, does making changes seem less of a big step? Can you now see a way of changing your situation? Let’s say you are bored and stuck in your life, seeking adventure. If you stay in the situation exactly how it is now without changing anything, nothing is going to change is it? Changing a few things could help you become unstuck.

The other day a friend told me she has decided to move to Australia. She is not going for eight months, but by making the decision something has shifted within her. She feels excited about planning the move – it’s like a light has been switched on within her. Whether she goes or not, she has started opening up to new possibilities – making a plan, taking action toward something that excites her. This in itself will start to attract different things into her life. She is already being introduced to people who know people in Australia. Who knows where it will lead eventually but she has done something to make a change.

Let’s get to it and bust that fear box right open!

Take a piece of paper and pencil. Ask yourself:
1. What are my fears?

2. What are my doubts?

Write them down.

Doubts can be feelings such as frustration, lack of confidence, low self-esteem. Take a good look at the paper. Are those fears and doubts facts or just your perception of yourself or someone else’s opinion of you? When were they created? Has something happened earlier in your life to create them? Could you consider that these are not facts and this is not happening now? Once you’re aware of fears and doubts, you can let go of them and instead create a new way of looking at your reinvention without the doubts and fears.

Do you want to let got of those fears and doubts? Rip up the paper and let’s reframe it:

Take a new piece of paper and write down
My ideal situation for achieving my goal

Write words and sentences like: I’m confident, I feel supported, I believe in myself, I know I can do it, I’m excited, happy, fun, patience, proud of myself.

Now how do you feel? Writing down your thoughts and feelings will help you here.

Try this quick yet powerful exercise to help you let go of your doubts and fears:

1. Sit somewhere where you can fully relax.

2. Close your eyes and imagine you are holding onto a string that is attached to a rather large balloon – make it any colour you like!

3. Now imagine sticking all of your fears and doubts onto that balloon. How does that look and feel to you? Imagine all of those words now attached to the balloon. Take a deep breath and then as you next exhale, let go of the string and let go of those emotions. Allow the balloon to float far, far away up into the sky – until it’s so tiny that you can no longer see it and then suddenly it’s completely gone.

4. As you take another breath, you know you have let it go and that you can open your eyes and notice a newfound clarity and focus.

How do you feel? Has a weight of worry been lifted from your shoulders? Write down your thoughts and feelings if you wish.

To learn to be present in the moment and connect with your intuition, try this short 3–5 minute meditation. Tie in the words below to the rhythm of your breath. It works like a positive affirmation meditation.

Breathe in: ‘I’

Breathe out: ‘Am’

Breathe in: ‘Here’

Breathe out: ‘Now’

Repeat this for a few minutes and then switch with the words ‘I am connected to my intuition’, again just using one word per breath in and one per breath out.

By doing this daily, you will start to notice when you are not present and a quick breath with the words ‘I am here now’ can bring you back to the present.

I gave up running my thriving PR company, and the wealth and success that came with it, to become a jewellery designer, but my reinvention was about much more than a career change. Looking back I realize I had started my reinvention on a personal level a while before I started it professionally. I had been attending Reiki and self-help weekend courses for some years and meditation had become a constant in my life. One day I suddenly woke up to the feeling of let’s get my life and work in harmony. Let’s take back the control of my life NOW.

I’d been aware of the voice within me getting louder and louder and it got more and more difficult to ignore. However, for quite some time I didn’t listen – I wasn’t present! My intuition was trying to tell me I was feeling disconnected in life and that my job was not fulfilling me on a creative or personal level – in fact, it felt soul-destroying. I guess a turning point was when I mentioned to my parents that I thought it would be cool to do something completely different, such as become a yoga instructor or an art teacher, or even explore acting which I’d always wanted to do. They felt I would be wasting my university degree and that I’d be crazy to walk away from all I’d achieved, but I thought, ‘Yes, but I’d be happy!’ That’s when I started thinking about taking designing more seriously and the idea to become a jewellery designer was planted. My goal was to design pieces that were mindful and that would have a deep meaning for me and for the person wearing them.

Somehow, with perseverance and the belief that this was also my personal journey, it slowly came together. I started to feel more connected and in tune with myself and my jewellery company was born, but by no means flying just yet. There was a long road ahead, and if I had really known what it would take to succeed I probably wouldn’t have started it. Holding the finished product in my hand was a very special moment, but it did not happen lightly. I had to make huge sacrifices, including moving in with my parents and couch-surfing with friends for two years. At times this felt extremely frustrating and I would have moments of huge self-pity and thoughts like ‘I used to have this and now I don’t.’ I’d feel envious and worried, and wonder if I had made the right decision.

There was something unsettling about not having my own base, but it taught me a lot. When you are physically no longer in a place of security, your home where you feel safe, you have to go within yourself to find that safe and calm place. Meditation throughout all of this has been my guidance, my calm and my rock.

I worry about the future all the time. What can I do to overcome this anxiety?

Writing down exactly what is worrying you will help you rationalize it and calm your confused and stressed feelings. Look at the things you have written down and decide one by one, on a logical level, if you can take action to solve any of these concerns now. Then find a few minutes to do the ‘Be present’ meditation on pages 82–3 and the Letting Go exercise on pages 81–2. Once you have finished, you will find you are less likely to worry about the things in the future that you can’t deal with now and instead focus on what you can change in this present moment.

I’m unhappy in my relationship, but I’m scared of leaving because I don’t want to be alone. What should I do?

Many people have to face feeling alone at some point in their lives. It was a huge fear for me too when I left a long-term relationship, but then I accepted that we are always alone in some sense, we just have different people walking along the path with us through life. When we get comfortable about being alone, we start making different decisions – our decisions aren’t made from a place of fear, but from a place of abundance, where we can create and get excited about all the possibilities in our lives. I hope the exercises in this book will help you overcome your fears and help you reach a decision that is right for you.

‘I reach my goal because I am
committed. I take action every
day, step by step, task by task.
I am doing it!’

‘I make things happen by taking
action every day and I’m proud
of myself.’