Have you ever considered a big career move – like switching industries or starting your own business? Or perhaps you'd like to change direction in your current business?

RIGHT NOW is actually the perfect opportunity to consider your future career or business.

As the coronavirus situation continues, and a likely recession is about to happen, some people may be determined to carry on in a job they don’t enjoy, purely to have ‘any job at all.’ While there is a certain logic to this, there’s also logic in exploring some alternatives...

Are you in the place that you want to be, doing the things you really want to do? If the world is going to change anyway, you may as well take charge of the change!

Our work life will change – as we adapt to a post-corona world, some things will have changed forever – there’ll be more online working opportunities, a greater flexibility to work from home, and in many industries, redundancies may be likely. For lots of people, the thought of losing their job is a terrifying one, but it can also provide a great opportunity for those of us who were considering a change anyway!

Here's some things that may have changed for you:

• Your job tasks, or way of working may have changed for the better and now fits better with your lifestyle – great! Continue working in this new way where possible – don’t rush to return to ‘how things were before’ if ‘how things are now’ suit you better
• You may no longer get from your job some things that were important to you (team working, social contact) or the tasks may have changed to something that you don’t enjoy (more spreadsheets, conference calls rather than face to face interaction etc)
• You may have discovered that working from home suits you and you’re not looking forward to going back to the office
• You may have discovered that working from home really doesn’t suit you at all, but now your company are encouraging it to continue. You’d rather be out of the house for your job (once lockdown allows)

 
As things change, it also brings some opportunities – here are just some of the ones I’ve thought about:             

• As more services are being provided online, you now have access to a global market of customers that you may not have considered before
• The importance of Mental Health has really come to the forefront during the crisis, increasing the need for health and wellbeing providers, initially online, but this will soon be allowed to resume face to face.
• In absence of physical contact, there’s a big focus on sending small, locally made gifts to loved ones – perfect for crafty, arty businesses.
• There’s been a big surge in supporting local businesses, both locally-made products and local service providers that will likely continue after things move to a ‘new normal.’
• Redundancies are likely to happen – some will be forced, others may ask for voluntary redundancy – could this be an opportunity to get paid to leave the job you don’t enjoy and finally make the jump into what you really want to do? Sometimes all we need a little push in the right direction.

 
If you’ve ever considered changing career, swapping industry, or starting your own business, or shifting your business focus, now is the perfect time to give it some thought.

To help anyone who is in this position, I’m offering free 45-minute EXPLORE calls, where you can chat to someone neutral about your ideas (family and friends will often have their own agenda for what they think you should do!) and receive some free coaching to help you move your thinking forwards.
 
These calls are absolutely free, with no pressure or expectation to continue with coaching beyond the call. It’s a great opportunity to find out what coaching is and how it can help, without any risk. 

​When we put our mind to a goal, even one we’re really passionate about, there’s normally one of three barriers that might stop us.

We have to overcome these barriers to achieve our goal fully. I wanted to share my experience of facing resistance via one of these barriers recently.

The 3 barriers are Possibility, Ability and Worthiness – read more about them below….

Possibility
Firstly, to achieve any goal, we have to believe it is possible. Initially, we need to believe it is possible, in the world, for someone, anyone, to achieve it.

Secondly, we need to believe, therefore, in some way, that it is possible for us.

In the months that followed, many athletes also broke through the 4-minute mile barrier.  It is now the standard time for top level athletes to achieve.

When Roger Bannister finally achieved the sub-4-minute mile, it proved that it was Possible, thus breaking down the first mental barrier for many other athletes to achieve the same thing.
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If it is possible in the world, then it’s possible for me, if only I discover the ‘how.’

Ability
The next mental barrier we need to break through is to believe that we, ourselves, can do it. This could be a case of learning how to do something, or persevering through failed attempts to keep trying until we succeed.
There is a solution to every problem.

Thomas Edison is a great example of this, with his invention of the lightbulb.

While other inventors had previously produced electric lights, these bulbs had very short lifespan and were extremely extensive to produce, and were therefore not commercially viable.

​For over a year, Edison worked on creating a long-lasting light bulb, with many failed attempts – he tested over 3000 different filaments to find one that worked as he wanted. For each attempt, he simply looked at it as a learning process, of discovering another way that it wouldn’t work, and taking what feedback he could to improve the process for the next attempt.

There’s no failure, only feedback.
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By believing that we can do it, by persevering, and continually adapting our habits and learning new skills, success becomes highly likely. 

Worthiness
Once we have broken through the first two barriers, there’s just one tough nut to crack, and this seems to be the most common, deep-seated resistance for most of my coaching clients.

“I deserve it”

I experienced this barrier myself last year. Since running Wellbeing retreats with Lindsey, who introduced me to the joy of yoga, I have now taken up regular yoga at a studio, and decided to invest in a month’s pass at a yoga studio to enable me to do as many classes as I liked.
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This came at a time when money was tight – I had just separated from my partner, so my mortgage and bills had doubled as I was now living along, and it was the end of a long winter season with little winter work due to the lack of snow, before the more prosperous summer season starts. 

​My first yoga class at the studio was a Yin Yoga class – a very calm type of yoga involving gentle stretching, relaxing and releasing into each pose, rather than pushing yourself to find an edge as you do in other types of yoga. Part of the process of yin yoga can also be that it releases emotions, and I found myself in tears throughout the entire hour-long class.

Investing in myself and my own wellbeing after a difficult emotional period of separation felt really overwhelming. The little voices in my head kept trying to tell me that it was too much money to spend on something that wasn’t a necessity, that maybe I should just go out for a run as that’s free (realistically, that’s never going to happen!), that I’m not very good at yoga and was trying to be something I’m not.

In fact, what all these little voices were really trying to say were “I don’t deserve it…..”

I don’t have all the answers on how to get over this barrier. Even the most confident, wonderful people I know seem to be deafened by the same little voice in their head from time to time. Even many top CEOs are documented to suffer from Imposter Syndrome – the feeling that they don’t deserve to be where they are, that they aren’t good enough and that they will get ‘found out.’

So what did I do?

I took the ‘fake it til you make it’ approach - I acted as though I did feel I deserved it.

I became a person who deserved to own an expensive yoga pass. I went to the studio as often as I could, often doing two classes a day to make the most of the investment I’d made.

I got up at 6.30am to make a 7am Sunrise Yoga class (for those of you that know me, you’ll appreciate what a huge change this is from my 10.30am natural wake-up time!) I gently encouraged myself to progress, on my own journey, and not compare myself to those around me who were bending into each pose in what seemed like an impossible manner for me.

And little by little, I saw improvement - from not being able to touch my toes a month before, I could now put my hands flat on the floor without bending my knees. My wellbeing improved – both physically through exercise, and mentally, through the meditative practices within yoga. Through getting up much earlier and doing exercise first thing, I found an extra 2 hours in my day, even after doing an hour of exercise and used this time both to work on my business, and also to do things I enjoyed, like playing the piano.

In short, I proved to myself that I deserved to spend money on something that made me feel good, that made me feel worthy. The very act of investing in myself boosted me to become more worthy.

It’s an upward spiral that can start anywhere – invest in yourself because you deserve it......deserve it because you invest in yourself.

So, I invite you to think…….what can you do to invest in yourself today that will made you feel good?

By feeling good, you will feel more deserving and therefore invest in yourself some more. It doesn’t need to be monetary…..investment can be taking an opportunity, taking time for yourself, doing something you’ve always wanted to do, learning new skills….sometimes even doing nothing at all.

Think of a goal, something you’d like to achieve or do…….

It’s Possible, You Can Do It, You Deserve It!

​If you'd like to invest in yourself and make that goal happen - check out the retreats I run as www.reachthepeak.co.uk

My life has changed beyond all recognition in the past 2 years: from a stressful corporate job to running a business I love, escaping to the mountains on a regular basis and getting paid for it!

The start of my story will be familiar to many people. I was working in London, a high-flier in a bank, working increasingly long hours, feeling under pressure to prove myself and gain continually better results despite an increased workload and lower budget. I hated London; I hated the tube travel, I hated the office environment and I hated the contagious feeling of stress that radiated throughout the team I worked in.

My escape was to the mountains. Every weekend, I would drive 6 hours to the Lake District or Snowdonia to live out my passion. Walking, climbing, scrambling….even sitting out bad weather in a tea shop… was my saviour.

There were 2 main turning points for me….

The first was when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. After several months of strong medication, where I was only just capable of dragging myself into work every day and spent my weekends recovering in bed, I decided to once more escape to the mountains.

​Not well enough to summit anything, I instead wandered into a beautiful, remote valley. Surrounded by stunning mountain ridges, I sat perched on a rock overlooking a stream and experienced an overwhelming sense of wellbeing – better than I had felt for months. 

This was an epiphany moment!

1) I felt so much better – I needed more of this in my life! The fresh air, the mountains, the breeze blowing away cobwebs, the views… I’d previously said I didn’t want to spoil my hobby by making it my job, but I now realised I should spend as much time as possible in the places I loved.

2) If the mountains had this magical healing effect on me, wouldn’t it wonderful to share this with other people?

Within a couple of months, I’d transferred up to Edinburgh, closer to the Scottish Highlands and had started to plan out a business I could run in the mountains.

However, something was holding me back…..perhaps the golden handcuffs of corporate life, with my nice salary, annual bonus, flexible benefits, company car allowance, colleague mortgage etc…..

Perhaps it was just a lack of self-confidence?

Then came the second turning point – after a couple of years of passing interest in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) from various articles I’d read, I finally signed up to an NLP Practitioner course. This was initially just for personal interest, and it completely captivated me. Through the training, as well as learning how to coach others, I also went on my own personal journey.

This process was hugely powerful and helped me gain some significant clarity on what I wanted to do with my life. Through the coaching activities, I discovered how I could combine my 2 main passions: the mountains and helping people; into a feasible business.

Through coaching, I also found the confidence, motivation and courage I needed to quit my job and actually get started.

And so, here I am. I now own a business called Reach the Peak, running retreats combining hill-walking and NLP coaching. My clients are women in career transition: facing redundancy, going for a big promotion, wanting to start their own business, or undertake a radical change in career or industry, or perhaps returning from maternity leave and wanting to find a new work/life balance.

I find the walking element in particular, with its stunning scenery, the challenge it presents and the resulting sense of achievement, really helps my clients to find a different perspective. There are many metaphors to be taken from a journey through the mountains: resilience, just putting one foot in front of the other, knowing a general direction but just concentrating on the next few steps you can see… these transfer into everyday life, and particularly into problem solving.

I love my job now! It doesn’t feel like work at all really. I love watching people change their lives for the better, following their dreams and developing their passion. I love knowing I’ve had some small part to play in getting them started.

FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS, THEY KNOW THE WAY….

If you could follow your dreams, where would they lead you?

What things are you really passionate about?

What would it get you if you had more of these things in your life?

Start dreaming……
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For more information on NLP coaching and the retreats I run for women in career transition, please visit www.reachthepeak.co.uk/transformational-trek.

I’ve been supervising a lot of Duke of Edinburgh expeditions recently. Some have been blessed with wall to wall sunshine, while others have been subjected to torrential downpours and waterlogged campsites (see my earlier post about the watery death of my phone and the resulting break from technology)

What has struck me with surprise is the way that groups have reacted to bad weather – they often perform better, both individually and as a team!
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When everything is sunny, groups walk slowly. They take long breaks in the sunshine, and often seem to use this time to complain about how hard it is, how their feet hurt, how their rucksack is bruising their shoulders. With multiple and frequent rests, the day drags on and can feel really long.

Compare this to groups walking in bad weather. I often observe a kind of heads-down, grim determination, a dogged aim to get to the finish at all costs. Breaks are far less frequent – taken only when necessary to eat, drink or adjust clothing. The team often support each other better, encouraging each other and helping each other in the interests of the whole team completing quicker.

This made me reflect on how this is true in other parts of life. Could it be true that when things are feeling really tough for you, that perhaps this will enable you to perform better? That a bit of discomfort can, in fact, trigger determination and commitment to reach an outcome quickly? That when you are needing to do a task that outwardly seems pretty rubbish, that this will in fact encourage you to do it in the quickest, most efficient way possible?

Maybe one to think about next time you’ve got to face your accounts, or sitting down to write blog posts (my nemesis) or cleaning the house……

Resilience can only be built by testing yourself, by pushing yourself out of your comfort zone into something more challenging, be that bad weather, or something you’ve not done before, or something that scares you. Each time you do this, you expand your comfort zone a tiny bit, so that next time you do a similar thing, it doesn’t feel so bad - you can cope better.

​If you’re working towards a goal, or want to stretch your comfort zone or get out of a period of discomfort and need some help in finding the way (whether you want to take the long sunny route, or the short rainy route) – contact me for more information about coaching. You can email me on cat@reachthepeak.co.uk, phone me on 07757 542956, or find more information at www.reachthepeak.co.uk/individual-coaching
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​What Impact Does Your Phone Have On You?

This week, my phone died a sad, watery death while out on a Duke of Edinburgh expedition. It turns out that while the waterproofing on the outside of my coat is somewhat diminished, once the water gets into the pockets, they are very much still waterproof, and fill up with water quite nicely! Not good when you are storing your mobile in there….
 
This resulted in an enforced 2 days without mobile communication, which already followed 6 days out on expedition with very limited signal. In between frustrated trips to visit the bag of rice in my airing cupboard that my phone was now submerged in a desperate attempt to dry it out, I tried to take this time to reflect on the impact that that small piece of metal and plastic has on my life.

1. Time. Firstly, I found I had more time. Normally, when I wake up in the morning, I spend at least 30 minutes looking at Facebook and BBC news, catching up on what has been happening in the world. This is repeated at several times throughout the day, between clients, on the bus, even on the loo (don’t judge, you know you do it too!)

Without my phone surgically attached to my hand, I found I had a least a couple of hours spare in my day, to do other, more productive things. While keeping up with the news of both the country, and family and friends is important, its maybe not necessary to do this multiple times a day, when in fact, all you end up with is watching old talent show auditions and clips of Michael Macintyre that are doing the rounds on Facebook.

Lesson: Allocate one time of day to spend on Facebook and BBC (unless there’s a big news story like the election going on) and limit this time to 30 minutes. Important news will stick around for at least 24 hours.

2. Distraction. I hadn’t noticed how often I look at my phone until it wasn’t there. (I was still looking at it a fair amount with hourly trips to the bag of rice to see if it was working yet!) After 6 days out in the rain, I rewarded myself with a day of catching up on the Britain’s Got Talent semi-final’s and final. Every 10 minutes or so, I would find myself looking around for my phone to check if I had any notifications, before remembering it wasn’t working. Gone are the days where I concentrate on anything fully. As I got used to the fact that my phone wasn’t on the sofa arm next to me, I was actually able to more fully engage with what I had chosen to do with my time (fair enough, BGT doesn’t take much brain power to understand, but I do the same in other situations too, like when I’m working, trying to write blogs, reading a book…..pretty much anything.)

Lesson: Switch off notifications, or put your phone on silent and in a different room when you want to concentrate on something. The world (almost definitely) won’t end in the next 1.5 hours and you’ll be much more efficient at the task in hand.  

3. Mobile phones are completely ingrained in our lives and processes. Even when claiming for my phone disaster online, it asked me for a phone number in case they needed me to contact me about my claim…… After screaming a few expletives at the screen at the ridiculousness of this request from a company that deal with mobile phone insurance claims, it made me realise that I am living without access to a landline (or partners) phone for the first time ever. This initially created a feeling of panic that I was now pretty much uncontactable. Even communication apps like Whatsapp can’t be set up on your laptop without first verifying it’s you, with, you guessed it, your mobile phone.

Lesson: Thank god for email, Skype and Facebook messenger!

4. People expect instantaneous contact. I had several clients coming that day. One was mildly annoyed when she arrived as she’d text me a question about 15 minutes previously and I hadn’t replied (I’m normally pretty quick at these, so this is partly the expectation that is set.) Another client had wanted to change her appointment to earlier in the day, but I didn’t reply to her text and she commented that this was strange. While both were perfectly happy when I explained what had happened, it made me reflect on the instantaneous nature of the society we live it – we want everything right now. A couple of clients also text me to say they were running late, which again, I couldn’t receive. My reflection on this is that, as a society, we are less committed and more unreliable than we used to be. In the past, if you set a time to meet someone, you pretty much had to honour it, as there was no quick way to get in contact with them unless they were sat by their landline. Now, people are happy to cancel a meeting less than 15 minutes before, or turn up late with a quick text to say so, leaving the other person hanging around.

Is this increased flexibility? Or a decreased amount of respect for other people and their time? I am occasionally frustrated by clients who I have waited in all day to see, who then cancel at the last minute for a spurious reason, leaving me annoyed that I could have been doing something better with my day.

Lesson: I already highly value any commitments I make,  to do what I say I will, particularly with being on time. I already appreciate that this isn’t the case for everyone else. I think my lesson from this is to only see clients at a time that suits me, particularly those that I know are prone to being late or cancelling. That way, if I am let down, I haven’t turned down another opportunity of something I would rather be doing.

So, its clear to most people how ingrained in our lives mobile phones have become. They are a truly wondrous invention, with a whole world of information at our finger tips and the opportunity to be instantaneously contacted wherever we are. On the flip side of this, there is increased evidence showing how they impact our lives, with research showing links between depression and Facebook addiction, or between the blue light phones emit and problems sleeping, and many more.

My own short period without my mobile has made me reflect on how much time it wastes, but also how lonely life is without one! While I wouldn’t like to live without my mobile indefinitely, it certainly made a nice break for a short while, with more time and more focus for other things.

​If you’d like to experience this feeling of disconnect in order to reconnect with yourself and what’s really important to you, you can join us on one of our Wellbeing Retreats. We have a no technology policy for all shared spaces (and the signal isn’t very good in your own room anyway) so it gives you a real opportunity to focus on the twice-daily yoga, beautiful countryside walks and coaching that we do. You can find out more and book a place at www.reachthepeak.co.uk/wellbeing-retreat. 

On the 20th September, I set myself a goal to do 10 sun salutations a day for 30 days. This week, I completed 30th consecutive day of downdogs , cobras, and forwards folds, and I wanted to share my journey and inspirations with you.

(I have done 6 more days, but then missed a day out on a lazy Sunday and something in me wanted the days to be consecutive!)

This was an unusual goal for me to pick – I only do yoga occasionally, on the Wellbeing Retreats that I run alongside business partner, and friend, Lindsey, who is a yoga instructor. I lead the walking and NLP coaching that we do, and she leads the twice daily yoga sessions, which is really the only yoga I’ve done.  A couple of times in these sessions, she’s led us through a traditional routine of yoga poses called sun salutations, or Surya Namaskara in its Sanskrit name, normally only for 2-3 rounds.  I always found I had a real resistance to doing these, that bubbled up as soon as she announced it and continued throughout the routine. 

On reflection, this was probably because I was finding it hard as my body wasn’t used to it. Voicing this resistance over lunch on retreat one day (backed by another retreat participant who felt similar,) Lindsey decided in that evening’s yoga session that we would do a round of 10 sun salutations to break through our resistance……

It didn’t. By the end, I still hated doing them, and hated myself even more for how unfit and inflexible I was.

The thing that changed was the next morning, at 7am. Again, Lindsey suggested that we do a round of 10 sun salutations, met with load groans from the both of us. However, Lindsey then suggested that we do them outside, on the grass, facing the sunrise.
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Wow……that’s all I can say! Being outside made a world of difference. Instead of feeling unfit and sweaty in the yoga studio, the gentle breeze meant it was good to be moving as it warmed you up in the early morning freshness. Instead of watching Lindsey leading the moves in front of me (and comparing myself unfavourably) I could watch the glow of warmth as the sunlight spread across green fields and caught the colours of autumn on the trees. And just as we reached sun salutation number 8, the sun itself burst above the skyline, rising from behind the mountain side with majestic splendour. This was truly something I could salute; a magical start to the day that made me feel grateful to be alive and inspired by the wonders of the natural beauty all around me. 10 rounds went by with no sign of resistance……even Lindsey’s suggestion of an 11th round to dedicate to someone in need was done willingly.

In that moment, I finally ‘got’ what yoga was all about. I understood how people could fall in love with it, and dedicate themselves to a practice every day. And, egged on my retreat mates, I decided to challenge myself to doing 10 sun salutations a day for 30 days.

Now, having completed 30 consecutive days (36 day in total), here’s something things I have learnt:

1. I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t challenged myself – there’s been a few occasions where I made it through to bed time without doing them, and could have easily just fallen into bed, but the yoga mat was staring accusingly at me. Particularly once I decided that I wanted to do it as 30 consecutive days, the self-pressure increased day-by-day not to throw away X many days previously.

Learning: Setting a clear goal, and being disciplined about achieving it, really helps your motivation and chances of success.

2. My flexibility has improved quite considerably in just 30 days. At the beginning of the challenge, there were some movements (coming out of downward dog into my forward fold for example)  were I had to help my leg into the correct position with my hands. Now, I can do a full 10 rounds without needing to adjust my position with my hands.

Learning: Doing something consistently for a relatively short amount of time, allows incremental improvements that can only be noticed over time.

3. Your left and right side can be quite different from each other. In the above example, my left leg progressed to unaided movement after about a week, whereas my right leg took over two weeks to get to the same point. I have no idea why, and channelling one of Lindsey’s yoga mantras to just accept where you’re at, I just accepted each side for what it was each day.

Learning: Accept where you are at each day. It may be different from yesterday, it may be different from other people and it may be different from where you want to be, but it’s where you are.

4. My strength has improved. Part of the sequence is to do a plank, lowering it towards the floor. At the beginning, I had to drop to my knees as my arms were not strong enough to support me (i.e. could not even hold up my weight when stationary, let alone when trying to do a slow controlled lower towards the floor.) Now, I can hold the plank for some time (and sometimes hold it for a count of 10 before continuing the sequence) and can just about make it to the floor in a controlled manner without using my knees or face-planting into the mat. There’s still a way to go until I could do a press-up, but this is still significant progress in just 30 days.

Learning: Doing something and making just a small improvement is better than doing nothing at all.

5. I’m overall fitter. I used to get really out of breath doing a round of 10. I am now just slightly out of breath at the end. Not a huge change, but definitely a noticeable one, and one I didn’t expect from doing yoga. I always associate this type of fitness with things like running and cycling and hadn’t considered how a dynamic yoga routine could have the same effect.

Learning: Sometimes, positive consequences come in ways you don’t expect when you set about making a change.

6. You can do sun salutations at any time. Although traditionally done at sunrise, I am not traditionally a ‘morning person.’ On occasion, my busy schedule for the day meant that first thing in the morning was the most sensible time to fit them in, but on these occasions, I found my body felt extra stiff and I found myself frustrated that my flexibility was not as good as the previous day. Throughout the 30 days, I have done them at varying times of day, from first thing, to after being up for a few hours in my PJs, just before a shower, in the afternoon, in the evening before dinner, and sometimes at midnight before bed when I’ve forgotten. I have found my flexibility is at its best mid-afternoon.

Learning: It doesn’t matter when you do something, as long as you do it. Doing a little something every day towards goal keeps momentum going.

7. You can do sun salutations anywhere. Through the course of my work, I have spent several nights camping or away staying in bunkhouses, and have done them in the middle of the campsite, on the floor of a campsite toilet block (when it was raining really hard to prevent me being outside), sandwiched between 2 twin beds in a bunkhouse in a space literally just wide enough for my mat, and also on a beautiful pebble beach at St. Mary’s Loch on a stunningly still day, overlooking the reflections of the mountains. While the location looked great, I quickly discovered that pebbles were not the most comfortable thing to have under my mat!

Learning: Stop making excuses about not having enough time or enough space, or the right environment. Make time and make space.

Here's some pictures of places I've done my sun salutations. 

8. Sun Salutations have a calming, meditative effect on me. It’s not surprising really – you’re concentrating on your movements and your breathing all the way through the routine. While I struggle to find time (or motivation) for 10 minutes of stationary, seated meditation, you can actually be mindful and meditative while doing Surya Namaskara.

Learning: Find the way that works for you. Just because there’s a ‘traditional’ or ‘accepted’ way, it doesn’t mean it’s the only way.

9. I have favourite numbers. Getting to number 4 always prompts a reaction of ‘ooh, good, I’m at number 4 – nearly half way.’ Number 7 also feels good – I’ve broken the back of the routine and know I’m going to finish. Numbers 9 and 10 always seem to go really quickly. On occasion, I’ve probably done a number 11 due to losing count part way through and doing an extra one just to make sure.

Learning: Breaking a hard task into small pieces and celebrating achievements part way through helps keep motivation to get to the end. Give yourself some credit!

So these are just some of the things that I’ve learnt from doing 30 days of sun salutations. Sometimes the things we find the hardest are the things with the biggest benefit. The next time you feel yourself having a resistance to something, don’t ask yourself why. Find a way to break through that resistance!

So, just a one week update this week – spurred on by my need to write 30 blog posts before 3rd November and I’ve still got 5 to do……

This week has been relatively quiet – my busy months of working every weekend and during the week have come to an end, so I’m now being more office-based and working to build up my business for next year.

I send some letters this week – my cousin moved house, so I sent her a welcome card. My friend Fiona has recently had a baby and is trying to sing to him regularly, and had left some music books at my house about 4 years ago, so I posted them back to her. And my inspiring friend Sarah Maliphant has just moved into her dream farmhouse in Wales, so I sent her a congratulatory card. Sarah was my first inspiration to start my own business doing coaching in the mountains, and I’m so proud of her for following her dreams, paving the way and continuing to inspire me.
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The weekend saw a munro-bagging trip with the Jacobites Mountaineering Club. I was lucky enough to have a few lost souls in need of a mountain to climb, so got to choose the not-obvious choices for the 2 days to tick off my last 2 munros of that area. I now have just 50 munros left to complete the whole set of 282, but I’m still 10 away from the 30 I wanted to get this year, mainly due to a hectic summer of weekend working and a weather-foiled trip to Glen Shiel a few weeks ago. Still, Beinn nan Aighenan and Beinn a Cleibh are now added to the list, bring it to 20 new munros climbed. 

​While away with the Jacobites, we spent part of the evening brainstorming 30 different languages in which we could say hello (or good day) and thankyou. Between the 14 of us, we managed (with a bit of help from google) to complete the list. I tried to include lots of places that I have previously visited, as I always try to make an effort to learn at least these 2 words in each place I go. The list included: English, Welsh, Gaelic, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Berber, Malaysian, Arabic, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Maori, Korean, Vietnamese, Cornish, Sri Lankan, Ethiopian, Swazi, Nepalese, Swaheli, Bulgarian, Romanian, Portuguese, Slovenian, Icelandic, Gujurati, and Italian. The only places within that list where I haven’t been (or somewhere that language is predominantly spoken) are: China, Japan, Denmark, Korean, Romania and Portugal. I am going to Finland, to the Arctic Circle in the new year. I would write out all the words for each language as well, but the spell-checking and accent-finding in Word are too much for me to handle today. Here’s a picture instead. 

Tuesday also saw me complete 30 days of doing 10 sun salutations, although I missed out the first Sunday after starting this challenge, so its not 30 consecutive days. Although I’m counting this challenge as completed, I’m going to keep going until next Tuesday (and hopefully beyond) to get 30 consecutive days. 

​2 things I learnt this week:
1. I’m an optimist, particularly with the mountain weather and also with a selective memory. While in the pub last night at the Jacobites social evening, I was asked how my weekend was and commented that the weather hadn’t been as bad as predicted and how it was mostly dry, not too windy and we’d had the odd patch of sunshine. This is apparently contrary to how most of the other people on the same walks remembered the weekend – it was apparently rainy on both afternoons, we arrived back at the car wet both days and the ‘sunny spells’ I remember were apparently just times when it wasn’t actually raining and the cloud cover was a lighter shade of grey, rather than sunny. Still, my thoughts are that it’s better to look back and remember all that was good, rather than all that was bad.
2. The collective knowledge of 14 people (and some of their contacts) (and with a small bit of help from Google) is pretty impressive

So, again, the weeks have run away with me, and I’ve also been struck with a strong denial that there’s only 3 week’s left in the challenge and I still have a lot to do. I am now starting to embrace the NLP manta of ‘There is no failure, only feedback’ and that the challenges I’ve not completed will say just as much about me and what I enjoy as those that I do complete.
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So, the 5 weeks have been fairly busy with work. This saw me complete my 30 nights under canvass, with a few nights spare too…..this was a challenge I thought was going to be really difficult to complete when I started! The nights were on another 2 DofE expeditions, and a training expedition in the Peak district for the Arctic treks that I’m leading next year. I now also have 4 nights in hand, covering some of the slightly dubious camping I did in Sri Lanka…..in a ‘tent’ but with a proper bed, table, bedside lamp etc. Through my work, I have also been walking at least 30 minutes a week (sometimes a lot more!) which is another one of my challenge items. 

​During this time, I ran a Wellbeing retreat with my good friend and business partner Lindsey. She teaches yoga on retreat, and I run coaching and walking sessions. During this retreat, we were lucky enough to have some fantastic weather, and the sun rise was just at the time of our morning yoga, so we would embrace the chilly air and the dew and go outside to do a round of 10 sun salutations. In the past, sun salutations are something I’ve been extremely resistant too – mainly because I am unfit and I found them hard. Doing it in front of the sunrise, surrounded by stunning views of mountains and the sounds of nature was really inspiring, and so I decided I wanted to continue the practice. As I am unlikely to finish some of my 30 things of 30, I thought I could do a new one – do 30 days of 10 sun salutations. They don’t always have to be at sunrise (I like my sleep) but have to be at some point during the day. As I write, I’m currently on Day 26 of doing 10, and I can already see and feel an improvement. I have also done them in some interesting places, due to my work and personal travels, from behind my tent trying to hide from clients, to loch-side beaches, to toilet blocks on campsites to get out of the pissing rain. 

​After a busy work period in September, I had planned in a week of personal mountaineering, in an effort to up my munro count. My friend Tom travelled up from Hertfordshire to join me. Unfortunately, the Scottish weather had other ideas…….with 80mph winds and torrential rain forecast for the whole 2 weeks, we managed 2 single munros over 2 days, before escaping to come home and dry off. That now brings my new munro count this year to a rather depressing 18. 

I managed a 2 further networking sessions, completing 30 networking events or meetings. One was another Mastermind session, which I started last month to help me focus on where to grow my business next. The other one was a Coaching Mastery course, with Sue Knight, focussing on the topic of Provocative coaching. Here, I met a real range people, some of whom I have follow-up session booked in the diary, and some of whom, through the exercises we did, I also managed to fulfil some ‘free’ coaching sessions, some of which were great fun, trying out my new provocative coaching skills.
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I also completed 2 colouring pictures in this time, and read some books, including the slightly weird Beside Myself, about twins swapping places and then one twin refusing to swap back, the delightfully cheerful ‘The Blue Day Book’ and the funny ‘The Ladybird Book of Mindfulness.’

​My mum and her husband Peter came to stay, which saw a flurry of cooking. I made Murgh Kari (a type of curry) a Nigella ‘thyme rump steak’, unusually marinated after cooking, also Nigella’s potato and mushroom gratin, and finally Jamie Oliver’s baked camembert pasta (basically, bake a camembert and gloop it over some pasta and wilted spinach. I also managed 2 soups (which they didn’t get to eat as they were out and about too much) – one was sweet potato and pear soup, and the other was the old favourite of ‘What’s Going Off in the Fridge’ soup, which turned out to be Roasted Veg of courgette, pepper and butternut squash soup. At some point, I also made another recipe of Cajun chicken, with sweet potato and pepper mash, bringing my total up to 21 recipes tried. 

​With Mum and Peter being here, we also went to see Billy Elliot the musical (extremely good) and Bridget Jones’ Baby (also very good.) These were both occasions for a new hairstyle. 

This week, instead of my usual things I’ve learned, I’ve got some requests for help:

1. Anyone got any suggestions for some really good, thrilling, page turning books as I’ve got 2 left to go?
2. Anyone for badminton or table tennis or another sport? I’ve got 2 more types of exercise to include.
3. Anyone up for a mammoth munro bagging expedition before November 3rd…?