And What Else?
Welcome to 'And What Else?', your source for thoughtful and meaningful conversations about personal and professional growth. Host Wendy O'Beirne is an internationally recognised coach and consultant with a passion for exploring the layers of topics surrounding self-development. Together, we'll dig beneath the surface of subjects, stories, and possible solutions to uncover new perspectives we may not have seen before. With curiosity and open minds, let's embark on an adventure of self-discovery and uncover the possibilities of 'and what else'. Stay Curious!
And What Else?
Your Practices Are Your Power: Why Square One Is Just an Illusion
Square one doesn't really exist when we're aware and intentional about our actions, but it can feel very real when we're coasting through life unintentionally. Our daily practices don't create perfection but provide valuable data about our current state, allowing us to make decisions aligned with our capacity and intentions.
• The holiday travel analogy: focusing on the difficult parts makes us miss the present moment
• Square one only exists when we're unaware and unintentional
• Practices create awareness, not perfection
• Awareness of our state gives us better data for decision-making
• Intentional actions lead to intentional outcomes
• When we drop our practices, our strongest unresolved conditioning takes over
• Emotional and cognitive agility come from consistent practice
• Self-regulation happens through intention and awareness
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Welcome to, and what Else, the podcast with me, wendy O'Byrne, also known as the Completion Coach, and we're going to talk today about an analogy I thought of when I was at the hairdressers recently, listening in to the woman next to me who was raving about her holiday how stunning it was, how much fun it was, how glorious it was and how awful the travel there and back is. It was a long distance holiday, it took time, she did not enjoy that length of journey and she had spent the last few days of her holiday dreading the return leg. She missed out on the last couple of days by really worrying and stressing and getting in her head about that return leg coming back. And it made me smile because I thought well, that's a perfect analogy for so much of life. Right? We don't want the steps and the length of time or journey to get somewhere, we just want the highlight reel part. Everything else that isn't fun, isn't freedom, isn't glossy. All of that feels like it's delaying us in some way or holding us back or making things hard.
Speaker 1:And it brings me back to what I want to talk about today, which is this idea of square one. I'm back at square one, I hear it all the time Together with all or nothing behavior, and you'll know that that's my favorite subject, so this really just ties into that. If you've been around here for a while, you will know that I don't believe square one exists. I had a discussion with my partner and we're going to decide that square one does exist, but only when you're unaware, and that's the caveat I'm going to give it. I don't think square one can exist when you are aware, when you are giving intention to everything that you are doing, and when you are in practice with yourself. I will delve into that. And I think square one does exist when you are coasting, unintentional and just winging it. And the reason why I'm going to say those two things matter is because when you are intentional, when you have awareness, when you are in practice with what keeps you in the best possible state, then what happens is, even when things feel like a setback, when things feel problematic, when things are ultimately not working, you're not back where you started. You're not back where you started Because the version of you here has far more insight, information, awareness and experience, and with that you will continue to make your moves. When there is no intention, no awareness, no real consideration for your state, for your practices, then it will feel awful and it will feel like failure and it will feel like a kick in the teeth and it will feel like why did this happen? I'm useless, I'm a mess. The world's not fair, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:When I talk about your state, I don't mean 100% regulated. I am talking about the practices that you have established for yourself that increase your capacity for living a life that you wish to live, increase your capacity for agility so that you can move through all of the emotions. You can have emotional agility, you can have cognitive agility. You're not fixed in your thinking. You are really flexible. So, basically, your practices are to give you the most flexibility and when you think about that, you might think about a yoga practice, and the flexible people in yoga Bring it on. That's a great example of it. The more you practice stretching yoga anything else the easier it's going to be eventually to stretch. The more flexible you are likely to become, the more you will find your natural state of balance.
Speaker 1:But it's a practice and it's a frustrating practice and sometimes that practice means that you will wobble and fall over. Even though this isn't your first rodeo, sometimes the practice will be difficult and really show you that you are stuck in your head or there's a lot going on, and sometimes the practice will be divine and none of it means anything other than the data is giving you about what's going on and what you need. And that's exactly what's going on in everything else that we do, if we have practices to be in our best possible state, which doesn't mean regulated, happy and positive, but actually means I'm really aware of where I'm at, I'm really aware of what's going on inside of me, I'm really aware of what I need and I'm really aware of what's going on inside of me. I'm really aware of what I need and I'm really aware of what and how I can handle things at the moment With that awareness, which is what your practices give you. That's all they give you. By the way, there is no magic pill, no magic wand. They do not simply transform you into an unshakable human overnight. They give you great data.
Speaker 1:Your practices show you where you're at and once you know when you're at, you've got some self-responsibility. Then, to avoid big decisions, delay big conversations or taking into account that state, which might be in a really good place, might be the time to make a big leap, make a big decision, have a big conversation. The feedback we're getting tells us where our capacity for things are at and the more we work in line with that capacity, with this practice, the more awareness we have, the more we can take intentional action and that intention is being set. The more intentional we are about who we are, the more intentional we are about the outcomes we do want. The more intentional we are about our behavior, the more we find things go that way.
Speaker 1:When our intention is very sneakily to look for proof that everybody hates us or that we're rubbish or that this won't work for us, you will find that evidence. So we have to be really careful about what we're setting our intention for and that we are on board. We are on board with that outcome, which is about our capacity, and sometimes that's our mental capacity, sometimes that's our nervous system capacity. Quite often that's the lead. If your body is rejecting it with protective behaviors and your mind is rejecting it with protective thoughts, then you're really going to struggle to have the intention that you want and it will show you that your practices are not being practiced because when they are, you will find that that capacity of the nervous system and the mind comes with you, your data on you, you know your intention and with that intention and with that capacity data, you're making decisions off the back of that. Because when you're not, when there is no practice, then you are reactive, coasting and consistently waiting for something outside of you to change something, to give you proof, somebody else to do something. And that's why the awareness through practice is so key to your life.
Speaker 1:No-transcript. The practice isn't specific to a goal. The practice is about you and what you need to do to get where you're going, and that's it. And so when people ask me about clients who are making long lasting change, I will say they are the people practicing straight away, with no idea of what they want to do or how they want to do it. They just start practicing and in that practice which I will explain, is just finding the tools daily that help you to manage your state. And by committing to those practices and getting that data, that feedback, that information from yourself, you are making progress, even when you don't know what the progress is. You will start to become intentional and through that intention, your external world will start to reflect or at least put opportunities in your way for you to move towards what you want.
Speaker 1:So I say these practices aren't glamorous.
Speaker 1:They're not.
Speaker 1:Look at this huge win I had overnight.
Speaker 1:Look at this success I achieved in 40 days, whatever it is people are pushing as a sales technique. Look at my unshakable confidence. Look at how I love myself every single day. To me, that's certainly not the point of the work. The point of the work is that you will practice, no matter what, and in those practices you will see your down days and you won't take action from them. And you will see your brilliant days and you will take some of your bigger leaps in those periods and you will know that both are constantly changing and evolving and that none of your states need to stay and that your state can shift the more that you have awareness about where you are. What this does is it expands your capacity, your capacity for emotional agility, which you could also class as your nervous system agility, and for your cognitive agility, your ability to be a flexible thinker and to get out of rigidity.
Speaker 1:And what I'd also say is, if anything is then taking over which is a pattern from the past that feels like you're being sucked into old situations, then the likelihood is people have put their tools and practices down. And when the practice gets put down, what will happen is the strongest unresolved conditioning will take the wheel. The strongest unresolved conditioning will pull you back into your default patterns, not because you failed, not because you're back to square one, but because those patterns are wired to feel safe and your body and mind are geared to try to keep you in the best protective state. So if you ever catch yourself saying I'm back at square one, I would love you to ask yourself am I doing the practices that were keeping me in the best possible state? And so, in every default pattern, the tendency to retreat, the overthinking, the lashing out, the people pleasing, the checking out, the going, all in doing all of the things, the feeling exhausted and doing nothing.
Speaker 1:Were any of the actions intentional? Were you engaged? Were you intentional? Were you doing it with awareness or was it automatic? And if it's boring, if it's delayed, if there is resistance, what do you do then?
Speaker 1:Because the more intentional and aware you are, the more you stick to your practices, the daily things that help you really keep on top of your state, your internal state, that gives you the data to know where your state is to see if it's movable or if actually this is. Gives you the data to know where your state is to see if it's movable or if actually this is something you've got to sit with before you make any action. You can become really intentional and really aware and then doing that, in doing that, you are actually soothing your nervous system. It is a form of self-regulation. So I would ask you today, in anything that you're doing, what is your intention for it? Are you in it for the way it looks? Are you in it to prove it won't work for you?
Speaker 1:Is your intention to do it when you've got time? Is it your intention to get to that when you've got a new job? Is it your intention to do that when, when, when? Or is your intention to show up because this is who you believe you are now? Is it your intention to be in it for the long game? Is it your intention to have these changes in your life? And if so, I would ask you what are your daily practices to support that? I'll leave you with those questions. As always, you can send me a DM on Instagram at thecompletioncoach, or pop me an email wendy at the completion coach dot co dot. Uk. If you think this would be helpful to somebody else, please pop it on, forward it, share it. Whatever you have to do, and if you want to leave a review, that's always welcome. Thank you.