Moresapien - Life Coaching

Little Acts of Bravery.

We're conditioned to think of bravery as large, heroic acts. But bravery can come in small but profound steps towards where we want to go, and often these small steps are more important than the biggest leaps.

Little acts of bravery

Showing up - Sometimes, simply showing up is all it takes to make a step towards where you want to go.
Being honest - Opening yourself up, expressing how you feel or what you want to achieve.
Doing 1 thing - Taking one, small steps towards where you want to go is an act of bravery.
Being realistic - Fantasising is a form a denial as it stops you having to do anything. Being realistic with yourself is an act of bravery.
Facing criticism - Doing something means you’re opening yourself up to criticism. That in itself is an act of bravery.

Why little acts of bravery matter
In all research on habit formation and achievement - small, but regular steps have a bigger impact than huge gestures that then fizzle out.
Taking small steps can actually feel harder than grand gestures because you’re psychologically admitting you’re on a long journey rather than waving a magic wand.
Little acts of bravery come in all shapes and sizes, and that’s the point. They’re your acts of bravery, not what others expect of you.

Coaching questions
What thing you want to achieve is scarring you are the moment?
What small act of bravery could you commit to today that would help?
What’s the worst that could happen?
How would you feel if you took this small act of courage?
If your future self could see you now, what would they tell you?

How much of human life is lost in waiting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

We all have to deal with change at points in our life. Sometimes it’s forced on us, other times we know we need to do something different for our physical, mental or emotional well-being. Most of us are hard-wired to prefer the status-quo, even if it’s uncomfortable or forces us into unhealthy situations. But making changes in our life is often the only way to break out of unhelpful, repetitive cycles and find more joy in the life you lead.

What's the cost of doing nothing?
Every decision costs us something, even doing nothing. If you stay where you are, what’s the cost to you and those around you? Is the cost of doing nothing worth paying?

If you felt no fear, what would you do?
Imagine you felt no fear or self-doubt. How would that change what you do? How much is the fear of changing preventing you from making the next step?

What would you tell a trusted friend to do?
We can find it easier to give others advice than to take it ourselves, so if it was a trusted friend in the same position what would you tell them? What kind of advice would you give them about their choices?

What unproven assumptions are limiting your ability to change?
Can you hear that little voice in your head telling you not to? It’s telling you to make a range of assumptions about what might happen. All of them unproven because the change hasn’t happened yet. You subconscious is making inferences and second guessing based on past experience or the fear of change. Call out the unproven assumptions the voice in your head is making.

What life can you imagine if you do it?
Imagine for a moment that you do make the change. Give yourself permission to imagine what that life might look like. How would it differ from today? What would a normal day look like? Is that something worth taking the first step towards?

We all have to deal with change at points in our life. Sometimes it’s forced on us, other times we know we need to do something different for our physical, mental or emotional well-being. Most of us are hard-wired to prefer the status-quo, even if it’s uncomfortable, but making changes in our life is often the only way to break out of unhelpful, repetitive cycles and find more joy in the life you lead.

What's the cost of doing nothing?
Every decision costs us something, even doing nothing. If you stay where you are, what’s the cost to you and those around you? Is the cost of doing nothing worth paying?

Coaching can help people recognise the unhelpful dialogue and beliefs that cause imposter syndrome. Around 70% of adults experience some level of imposter syndrome.

Impostor syndrome is the internal experience of believing that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be, as if you are a fraud. It forms a consistent doubt about your abilities and competence.

Types of Imposter
The Perfectionist - A belief that, unless you are absolutely perfect in everything you do, you are somehow failing.
The Expert - Believing that, unless you know everything these is to know about a topic, you will be found out and treated as a fraud.
The Natural Genius - A belief that, because you are not naturally gifted at certain things, you are less than capable.
The Soloist - Unless you can achieve everything on your own, with no help, you have failed. Seeking help is seen as a failure in itself.
The Superperson - Believing that, unless you are the hardest working or anyways at the top, you are failing.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
Carl Yung

Life isn’t always easy, and situations can often challenge us. Finding the resilience to carry on can be challenging but we’re often capable of remarkable feats of perseverance. Resilience is our ability to stay the course, and continue onwards, despite the adversity.

What’s an example of where you’ve found your courage?
Think back to the last time you faced difficulty. Where did you find the courage to continue on? What was it that helped you through and what can you learn from it?

What do you need to hear right now?
If you’re facing adversity it might be you need to hear something. Perhaps it’s that you’re doing the best that you can, or that whatever it is will pass. Sit with that thought for a while and repeat it to yourself.

How would your most resilient self act?
When we’re going through tough times we can often make things worse by being critical of how we’re coping. Instead, focus on the actions or behaviours that are making you proud, or reflect your best self. Ask what that person would do and how they’d behave.

In 5 years, how might you look back on this?
We all have inner strength in different ways. What are the strengths you have that help you through difficult times? What are the ways you cope with hard situations and keep going. Define the things that make you strong.

What can you draw on to help you through?
Human beings are remarkably resilient and able to find a deep inner strength when faced with difficult situations. Perhaps you don’t think of yourself as a strong person, but look a little deeper and you may find you are stronger than you realise. Strength comes in many forms. In fact, compassion, love and vulnerability of some of the deepest strengths we can display in difficult times.

Ego Types

An approach to exploring ego states - it looks at softening the ego’s hold over us, understanding how it’s been developed and gentle reducing its hold over our behaviour. It identifies 4 ego types.

Life is incredibly short. We all know this but to fully realise it is another thing. Most of our lives are designed to stop us thinking about it, and can be easy to feel pessimistic and fearful about it. But it’s also possible to see the huge opportunity to use these days and weeks in a way that brings us fulfilment, joy and makes the world a little better than when we found it. When we stop acting like our life will last forever we also start appreciating what we can do with the time we have. Each one of these days is a chance to live fully and openly - whatever you decide that looks like. Death will always come at the end, but we do get a say in what happens before that.

26,517 days
The average lifespan in the Western world is 26,517 days, or around 72 years.
That’s all most of us will get on this earth. 3,788 weeks.
What would you like to do with it?

Cognitive bias are a fascinating glimpse into the way our minds can distort reality and shape it to fit our in-built perceptions, prejudices and assumptions. They are a perfectly natural part of our psyche but are also worth understanding as they help us to recognise when our judgements might be flawed.

Self-serving bias
We imagine our failures as situational but our successes are our responsibility.

Sunday reflections, this week on Weaponised hopelessness
The idea that it is already too late to do anything so why start now. Equally linked to the idea that there’s little point doing anything as you are only
one person.