Coaching yourself

I have been reading a book called "Coach Yourself to Success". If I had seen the book on the shelf, I would never have bought it because the title seems too, too obvious and cheap. But a friend of mine in Vienna was reading it in German, and in that language the title is "Coach dich selbst, sonst coacht dich keiner", or "Coach yourself because nobody else will do it for you". That's a title that means something for me.

The basic concept behind her book is that we put up with so many things in our lives and those things cause stress. The stress creates a loss of energy, and that loss of energy means we have no chance to focus solidly on the things we really want, because we have to deal with so many things we don't want (but that we put up with) in our daily lives.

One suggestion she makes at the beginning is to make a list of all the things that you put up with. This might be anything as diverse as a missing button from a shirt, through to a relationship we are unhappy in - and everything inbetween.

My own list consisted of clothes on the floor in my bedroom, pictures not put up, light fittings missing, untidy computer table, unneeded exercise machine in my spare room, being overweight, not contacting friends and family enough, an annoying colleague at work, bad sleep... I ended up with around 55 things that bothered me and that I accept in my life.

I immediately started to sort out the small stuff on the list - she suggested that you get the big stuff written down, but not worry about it to begin with because you need energy to deal with the big stuff. That will come from the small things being out of the way, making way for more energy. Within a weekend, I got rid of around 15 items on the list. Some have re-surfaced again (my computer table is a mess) but I will keep this process going over and over.

Well, I am only on chapter 11 of the 101 good ideas there are in the book. I will share more ideas from it later, and can highly recommend it to anybody who wants to make a change in their life.