I thought my weight was just gradually going up because...age...and not exercising...and...wine...and...a $10/day Jamon Serrano habit. 

All valid contenders. 

However recently I've got a new fit watch. I resisted all kinds of fit bits for a long time but this one earns me shopping vouchers and flight discounts, so...IN. 

Turns out, unless it's broken, that since I work mostly from home I only average about 3000 steps per day. Even when I do my resistance training (that's new the past couple of weeks).

Today I've been at home filming so at 2pm on this Saturday I'm up to a mere 599 steps.

That's not burning much energy, is it?!

The very first step to creating change is self-awareness. What can be measured can be managed, and now that I know this information, I can't un-know it. 

I'm going for a walk. 

PS. Since I have this watch, any steps taken without it on seem like a total waste, and my husband...

When we decide to pivot and carve out our own path there’s a period of adjustment as we say to people whose opinions matter to us: I’m not going to be the person you thought I was. I’m not going to take the path you hoped I would take.

In choosing freedom, we are choosing anxiety, because we can't see the pathway, we can't predict the outcome.

Feeling some anxiety is normal, but not comfortable.

There are periods where we bravely take action and cast our work out into the world. Then we have the anxious wait about how people will react to it, whether they will react to it at all, and how we'll react to their reaction.

We create things worth sharing, and then doubt their value, and experience the resistance of putting it out there. 

We wake in the wee hours worrying about how much money is going out, and whether enough will come back in. 

When it all gets too uncomfortable we dip back into safety. To remove...

When we're looking for answers on how to do business, marketing, audience building, parenting or lifing in general, we think we're looking for the best way, the fastest way, or the most effective way.  

Logically we know there is no one best way.

What we're trying to figure out is OUR way.

We won't listen to the person who tells us the best way to build an audience is blogging if we've no interest in writing.

We won't listen to the person who tells us the best way to make money is to sell laxative tea for weight loss if it's not in line with our values.  

We're looking for the best way to use our own strengths, skills, interests and values even if we're not yet able to name what they are. 

The reality is that we're going to do business in a way that no-one else does.

To do that we're going to try a lot of different things, we're going to collage together a lot of different advice and training, we're...

When we're trying to create a significant change in our lives, our level of motivation to make the change happen is likely to be impacted upon by our hope story - our level of hope that this desired change is actually possible.

So what impacts on our hope story?

Someone who has been trying to give up smoking/drinking/excessive shopping/overeating may have tried unsuccessfully to give up these habits loads of times before - without success. Every time they don't succeed, their level of hope is eroded a little more.

People who are trying to build their business or their side hustle and have had several failed launches, or are stuck in that cycle where they seem to be taking two steps forward and three steps back, are likely to have their hope story eroded over time. 

Someone who has been trying to have a baby without success for 5 years and then had 3 IVF attempts that haven't worked - well, you can imagine how difficult it is to have hope that...

Not everything that we choose to do is because we want to do it, need to do it or are expected to do it. 

Hosting a party for a loved one is rarely very enjoyable at the time. It takes vulnerability, planning, effort, commitment and hard work. It may have a negative effect on your financial state, or your ability to engage in other projects. 

Caring for a dying relative is rarely enjoyable at the time. The work can be heavy, uncomfortable, demoralising. It takes sacrifice and may have an impact on every other relationship and possibility in your life. 

Making the best man speech at a wedding when you're petrified of public speaking is mortifying on the day. The anxiety of being seen can be crippling and the consequences of getting it wrong feel significant. The commitment, investment and endurance of months of wedding planning - it's huge and consuming. 

Yet millions of us take on these roles every day.

Why?

...

Today I was told by a service I use multiple times per week for the last 5 years:

"When we have more numbers, and they are gradually going up, we'll be able to provide the consistency you're looking for."

"I'm one of your most consistent and long-term current 'numbers', and I'm feeling very undervalued. Right now I'm ready to run."

If you wait until you're ready, you might not have a business. Regardless of your current numbers, the most effective way to increase them is to take those you do have (I like to call them 'people'), give them the best POSSIBLE service you can provide, and then provide some more.

The biggest reason we get stuck or overwhelmed is fear. 

But that's not what we say to ourselves. We don't say "I'm stuck, where is my fear and what can I do about it?" (Ewww, hard!)

In fact, we probably don't say anything beyond "Hmmm. That's hard...

...I wonder who's on Instagram Stories today?"

But once we've procrastinated through Celeste Barber's latest hilarious and inspiring offering (hello, how amazing has her Tom Ford stuff been?) we often seek out a different form of procrastination, hiding, staying stuck and staying small. We tell ourselves we need more information, more knowledge, more qualifications, more strategies, more expert advice or another free podcast, blog post or download before we can move forward. 

When we're stuck, our fear uses logic to persuade us to stay safe. We tell ourselves that all we need are strategies. Steps. A direct path from A --> B. That level of clarity is enticing, but not always effective in getting us unstuck. 

Clarity...

Knowledge doesn't create change.

If knowledge were enough to create change no-one would be smoking, drinking in excess, overeating or over-indulging in the many of the wonderful things that we love but are 'bad' for our health. We know it's 'bad', but we do it anyway. Knowledge alone does not create behaviour change. 

Action alone, also doesn't create change. 

*insert audible gasp and outrage from the entrepreneurial coaches out there screaming 'action' and 'hustle' and 'no plan b' from the rooftops. 

So many of the courses and coaching programs I come across online are delivering (and even harping on) about action-oriented programs, when a large segment of their audience and/or client-base are not yet prepared for action, and will not be well served by action-oriented approaches. 

People who are not yet prepared for action are often seen as procrastinators, lacking in motivation or conviction, and even ambivalent to...

When I decided to become an Occupational Therapist, I didn’t decide I wanted to make money first and then do the training. That’s absurd. I did the training, then I used my training to make money.

When you start out in business though, you seem to think there are different rules. You tell yourself things like “I can’t pay for training, my business isn’t making any money yet…”

When we (my husband and I) realised this was an absurd mindset, our business started to take off. We realised that the skills we needed to get us here, weren't going to cut it to get us over there, to where we wanted to be. 

In fact, a lot of what we had learned at school and in our previous jobs, needed to be unlearned if we were going to make it in business!

We paid for training, so we could become the people capable of having a successful business. The investment wasn't always in business training, it was in our own...

Why?

Because it’s not my job.

Every time we use language like “Can you please help me unpack the dishwasher?” “Can you give me a hand to hang out the washing?” or "Can you do x, y, or z for me?" we’re sending a message that it’s our job, but it would be ever so kind of you to help us get it done.

It’s not my job to manage the house. It’s our collective job.

Whenever my 5-year old says “I don’t want to unpack the dishwasher.” I say “Neither do I. But it’s one of the jobs that our team has to do so we have clean plates to eat off.” If there’s still resistance (come on, of course, there is) there is the reminder that he can choose not to, but there might be things later that I choose not to do, that may affect him.

It goes something like this:

“Dad and I don’t always WANT to spend our Saturday at a 5-year-old friend’s birthday party. We don’t always WANT to make...