Grant Donnelly

How to Have the Worst Day Ever: A Guide to Negative Self-Talk

5 Guaranteed Ways to Ruin Your Day (Without Leaving the House)

And What you can say to fight back

Ever had one of those days where nothing seems to go the way you want? And your mind turns into a battleground between your inner wolf and your inner sheepdog? Where the negative self-talk becomes overwhelming, sabotaging your self-worth, hindering your progress, and contributing to feelings of stress and anxiety.

I’m having one of those days.

I’ve been building out a strategy and systems for a client to help them escape the overwhelm and burnout and get their life back and go from 80 plus hours a week running on hope and adrenalin to 32 or less. And it was going well until it wasn’t.

Now these things happen, particularly in the early stages of building new systems or forming new routines and behaviours. Under pressure, we revert to old habits. It's never plain sailing, but when it happens, we course correct and get back on track.

Only this time it's gone all Mary Celeste.

Despite being beyond my control my wolf has been fighting hard and winning hitting me hard with a 4, 5 combo.

Step 1 – Recognise it happening
Step 2 – Fight back

Sometimes it's as easy as changing the words we say to ourselves, bringing in our inner sheepdog to fight the wolf.

On other days like today, it takes a massive dose of self-compassion and wee bit of writing it out to gain a new perspective.

1. Instead of "I can't do anything right": "I will keep bouncing back and go the distance.

2. Instead of "I'm a loser": "I am capable and deserving of success."

3. Instead of "I'm always making mistakes": "Everyone makes mistakes, what do I need to do differently next time"

4. Instead of "I'm not good enough": " I’m the inspiration. Living my life on my terms. Not someone else’s."

5. Instead of "I'm a failure": " Life an experiment, adopt adapt or abandon but I will keep moving forward

Don't misunderstand me. Overcoming negative self-talk and defeating that wolf takes more than a wee bit of self-love and positivity.

It takes time, patience, and consistent effort. But it all begins by recognizing the patterns and replacing them with something a bit healthier.
I
t's just one step but a step in the right direction and it's way better than continually beating yourself up.

Grant “sheepdog” Donnelly

No wonder our kids are stressed.

Some things were just WAY easier in the 80’s.

You had Adidas kick, Mamba or Samba
That was pretty much it.

You had black with white stripes and white with black stripes.
Maybe I’m romanticising the past a little, but I don’t think there were too many other options available.
Maybe some blue and white as the 80s went on.

But definitely not at the wee sports shop on Wishaw main street anyway.
Maybe in Glasgow, there was.
But that was a bus and a train ride away and half my money for the trainers would have been gone by then.

Jump in your DeLorean and fast forward to today.
Thanks to social media and the ever-increasing pressure to be “different” or express your “individuality”

You have 100s of colours and a dozen plus styles of Samba alone. I

It's enough to give any decent Gen x er a heart attack.

How many boxes of Samba could you fit in a DeLorean I wonder?

Back then though I couldn’t afford Sambas
But my own pride wouldn’t let me buy Kicks.
So, I plunked for the middle of the road Mambas.
The ten quid difference was a deal breaker for this kid in the 80’s making a quid for 5 hours' worth of work selling potatoes and eggs door to door.

With limited choices, it's easier to make a decision.
If I were jumping on this bandwagon now, I think I’d be like a deer in headlights, paralysed by choice and end up leaving the store in a cold sweat with nothing to wear.
My perfectionism kicks in causing me to be like
”No way I can make the right choice”

So that’s the paradox
We think we want more choices.
But what we actually need is fewer choices.
Bombarded with so many choices we stall in making a choice because we think there is something better.

The solution
Keep it stupidly simple
Limit the number of choices you have
Get it down to 3-5 max
If it isn’t a hell yeah then it's an easy No.

In our worlds spiralling out of control with unlimited choices and busyness we need to take a step back and slow down.

Ths Significance of Freezing Your Bo****ks Off

My fingers feel like blocks of ice.

My pants are soaked through, both the Canadian and Scottish versions

I have a burning, tingly sensation in my thighs from being cold and wet.

I’m hu***ng stuff back on forth or a rock ledge that’s less than 24” wide.

Not quite high enough up that if I slipped and fell off, I would kill myself.

Just break something by the time I stopped rolling.

To top it all off it started snowing again.

No, it's not some selection process for the latest series of, SAS who dares wins.

It’s a new episode in G’s adventures in landscaping.

This time planting ornamental grasses along a retaining wall.

Why?

Because I want my ransom money back.

That’s why.

Okay, it's not really ransom money.

It’s more of a deposit.

Nothing like a massive dose of loss aversion to keep you in line and get s**t done.

When you have three kids, who all compete at one level or another in sports.

Weekends tend to fill up pretty quickly.

So this kind of thing gets slotted in where I can.

Woopy fu***ng do, this weekend was it.

Everyone has a to-do list, some have a honey-do list.

Even, a hell no I don’t want-to-do list, but s**t it still needs to get done list.

As leaders, entrepreneurs, and parents, we are bombarded daily with an endless stream of urgent and important where everything can feel like it’s a priority.

Thing is priority is a singular term.

In good old Connor MacLeod Highlander fashion,

” There can be only one”

If you’re struggling with the ever-increasing to-do list.

Unsure what to tackle next, say yes too or say no too.

Ask yourself.

Is this significant to me?

If the answer is YES.

Then your clear on what your priority is. Or needs to be.

Everything else falls in a poor second and has to be slotted in around what’s significant.

Yip that’s why I was freezing my bo****ks off on a Saturday afternoon in early April planting ornamental grasses on the edge of a retaining wall.

It wasn’t urgent, or important, it was just one of those s**t jobs that just needed to get done.

Because for the next few months there are a lot of things that are significant to me.

Using significance is just one of the protocols I use to help me prioritise tasks and as I endeavour to live a life that’s fun, yeah even the gardening stuff, where I’m creating a legacy, making an impact with those closest to me and following my purpose as I commit to my mission on a journey to living an Unbeatable life.

If you want to know more about the kind of tools, strategies, and protocols I have designed and use on a day to day basis.

Drop me a line

You know where to find me

Golf Delta 69 Out

Which one do you like best?

Not too worry.
I didn't get up early just to take these photos

We had an early morning swim practice.
Noticed the moon reflecting on the lake on the drive back so stopped to grab a couple of pics

The first one I snapped was night sight on.
It seemed really bright and I was curious to see what it would look like with just a normal snap.

Normally it's really crappy and quite grainy.

See being curious is so attached to looking at everything ad an experiment. Some days it's works. Some days. You just have to hit the delete button.

Principle #6- Get insanely curious about everything.

All I wanted was breakfast and a cup of coffee.

I’d been running around like a blue arsed fly since 4.30 am ferrying kids too and from early morning swim meets and practice sessions.

I knew though,
“I’ve got an idea honey” meant that might not be happening.

It had been building for a wee while, today something snapped.
Overload had been achieved, kids not putting stuff away, leaving things lying around or just occupying any clear space they could with their stuff.

30 mins into the rearrangement discussion, tensions were building all around.

There was a lot of finger-pointing and he did it, she did it, it wasn’t me going on.

I could feel my frustrations building.
Before I blew a gasket, I extracted myself from the situation and headed off to make breakfast.
I knew just the thing for a Saturday morning.
Breakfast burritos.
They go together quickly, they are reasonably nutritious, they’re tasty and everyone eats them.

Lost in the cooking the tide of frustration began to subside and the ideas started to flow.

I’ve always been good at visualisation.
When presented with an issue, I can map out the steps, see potential obstacles and gaps, move things around in my head and play with the pieces till they fit together.

Right after breakfast, we get back to it.
Stuff gets dismantled, moved around, repositioned, reassembled.
Everyone has their own wee space now.

For school work and artwork, a place for laptops, Cricut machines and drawing tablets.

I would walk by the mess every day as I headed to my home office.
With three kids and two of them into arts and crafts, there is always a trail of creativity.
I got used to it, ignoring it as best I could, dismissing it, putting it off for another day.

Sometimes you have to reach the breakpoint before you’re motivated to change.
When you can no longer hide from it,
you have a choice, keep suffering or do something about it.

When you decide something needs to get done.
Ask yourself, get really curious,
why didn’t I do it before, what was holding me back, why was I avoiding it.
The better you can understand what’s stopping you, the better you’re able to move forward.

Somedays you just have to chill and take it easy.

Find your moments

Are you problem-focused or solution orientated?

We all encounter problems every day.



Some we might have anticipated others just blindside us out of nowhere.

Prepared for them or not, we have a choice.

We can either run away and hope they sort themselves out.

Or we can tackle them head-on.