Be Still To Move Forward

Like I say about living life lit, it's finding those moments of joy within your day and figuring out how you can make them the norm rather than the exception. It isn't about waiting for this magical thing to happen, this goal to be achieved, and at that point, your life will suddenly change and your life will become lit. Your life can be lit now. But if we're always waiting, if we're always doing things to keep us busy, to push ourselves forward and delaying that opportunity to be happy, to live lit, then what are we doing? Because when you achieve, you know this. When you achieve that thing, that isn't what makes you happy. You're listening to the Circle C Project. Foreign welcome to the Triple CE Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live lifeless. I'm your host, Ryan Spence, the big lord, dropout, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop, and big, hairy, audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now with friends, I invite you to grab a drink. Take a seat. Allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. Hey. Hey. Welcome to episode 85 of the Triple C Project. Before we dive into this week's episode, I have a favor to ask of you. So, 85 episodes, this podcast has been going for quite a long time. And whether this is the first time you've listened or you've been listening from the start, I really value you being here. And I want to grow a community around this. I want to get more people like you together so you can build these habits, we can build these sustainable habits together, and we can build our clarity, confidence and courage so we can live life lit. In order to do that, more people need to hear about the show. And you can do that by simply talking to your friends, sharing when an episode speaks to you and you feel would speak to somebody else. And I really value when you do that. But another way which is super helpful to me, to the show, and to those who might be out there looking for a show like this is to rate the show and leave a review. And I've made it super easy for you to do this. You don't have to go to many convoluted apps. You can just head to ratethispodcast.com Triple C. The link will also be in the show description. Click the link and just go ahead Rate the show. I'm not going to tell you how many stars to rate or what to write. This is an honest review. I just want you to be honest about what you feel about the show. And when you rate, if you could just leave, even if it's one sentence about what you think about the show, what you get from the show, why you listen to the show, why someone else should listen to the show, that would be amazing. It'd be really amazing in terms of getting more people to hear about the show. But we also really helpful for me to know what you're driving with and what else I can talk about what else you would like to hear and just to kind of know, you know that this is working for you because this is as much your show as it is my show. Thank you for listening to my ask. At the beginning of the show, I always work with my clients. One of the things that I find is that asking for help is something that they really struggle with and thankfully it's something which over time I've got better at. I don't care. I'm asking and so I'm asking you for your help here to just write this podcast. So head to rate this podcast.com/C Rate and review the triple C project. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, let's get to it. So one of the things, and actually before I get to the topic of today's show, I've been really fortunate recently because a lot of the clients, the coaching clients that I work with tend to be overseas because I was based in Singapore for a long time and it's just the way that it's worked out. And even though I have recently worked with a few clients in London, I don't live in London even though I'm in the uk so it's rare that I ever get to catch up with clients in person. And I'd be fortunate to be able to do that. Recently I met with one coachee a couple of weeks ago. They actually came to the glorious city of Sheffield, which never happens. And that was fantastic. And the day after tomorrow as I'm recording this, I'm actually heading down to London to catch up with another client who I know from my time in Singapore, but who now lives in Europe. And so I'm just really excited about that and I just thought I would share share that. I really like having those one to one connections and meeting clients on a social level as well and just kind of away from the coaching. Although inevitably sometimes it falls into coaching as well, which is Great, because I love it and they're thankful for the support. But yeah, after the world of pandemics and Covid and us all living behind our screens, which in many ways suited me, I'm pushing myself out. I talk about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and trying to venture more out into the real world and build these real life connections. And so actually meeting people who I already know, particularly clients, is, is really good way of doing that and really energizes me and makes me want to continue doing the work that I do. So that's what's going on with me. So super excited about that. And I have a really, I have something, an idea that I've been pondering for, for a while, which I'm looking forward to kind of running by, by my client when I meet them tomorrow. So see how that goes. And maybe it's something to look forward to in 2024. Because yes, we are almost there already. We're in October, we're in that final quarter of the year. And when you're in the, when you're in the, in the corporate world, when you're in big law, this is a really busy time. I mean, it's kind of feels silly saying that because part of the problem is, is that there's always a busy time. With the exception of maybe the summer, it's always a busy time. But this time of year, as you're coming to Q4, as they talk about it, is always a busy time. And it's busy because you, you've got Thanksgiving in the U.S. coming up, you've got Christmas coming up and then the new year. You generally got end of financial years coming up and people wanting to hit quotas, hit target. You've got people wanting to close deals before the end of the year. If you've heard my Bali story, the turning point in my life, then you'll, you'll know how, how that panned out for me as well. So it tends to be even more stressful and full on than usual. And what this means is that you feel just overwhelmed, just really, really heavy with all the things that are going on. It can be very hard to think about or for yourself. It's kind of like you're on this hamster wheel that is already going pretty fast, but seems to speed up as it gets to that Q4 and as it gets closer and closer to the end of the year that you barely have time to catch your breath. You know, I remember times when you basically be getting to Christmas Eve and you still hadn't done any Christmas shopping because you just hadn't had time because you'd be stuck in the office. And I know people that that would really stress them out and really upset them because they wanted to get nice things for their families, for their loved ones and they just didn't feel that they that they had the time. End of the year is also the time that people start to think about is this really what I want? And want to start thinking about what they want to do differently in the new year. But they don't feel they have the time to do that because it's this never ending submission to other people's demands, to other people's fake urgent deadlines that just keep them on this hamster wheel with no time and no space to do what it is that they want to do. Now, I talked in previous episode about finding your anchor and that's one way which you can start to feel like you're gaining some semblance of control amidst all of the chaos that's going on. And I wanted to talk a bit about a way that you can do that. One of the practices that I found really helpful to me, and this is meditation, but it's a slightly different practice, particularly for those of you who have never tried meditation or who by meditation seems really daunting. At the end of this, I'm going to share a practice which you can take away and start just try see how that works for you amidst this crazy end of year push for more money, more deals, whatever it may be. First, I'm going to start with a question. Because when you're in the midst of everything and you keep running and running and pushing and pushing, it can be very hard to notice anything else. So the question I have for you is this. What did your last breath feel like? Now we all breathe. I mean literally, we have to breathe to stay alive. But when was the last time you focused on your breath? When was the last time you noticed what your breath felt like? Now you're probably saying, why does that matter? I mean, a breath is a breath. There's literally nothing to it. You breathe in, you breathe out. It just happens automatically. And that's true. But when you take the time to notice your breath, you will notice that every breath isn't necessarily the same. So when I ask, what did your last breath feel like? Things to think about are this. Was your breath a long one? Was it a deep inhale and exhale? Or was it short? Were you breathing from the chest rather than the belly? What did the air Feel like as you breathing in, as that inhale and that air is coming into your body and as the air flows over through your nose and through your nostrils, what did that feel like? Was it cool? Was it warm? And when you exhale that second stage of breathing, what was the temperature like as that breath came down and just grazed, just kiss the top of your lip came out through your nose? Probably don't remember, right? But what about the breath after that? What did you notice in your body? So when you're breathing in, do you feel relaxed? Are your shoulders bunched up against your ears? Are you tense? Are you anxious? Or are you kind of laid back, Feeling quite soft and relaxed? No signs of tension anywhere in your body, just feeling quite content? That's your body. What about your heartbeat? So is your heartbeat, is it a nice steady, just rhythm, you know, like a nice, competent, experienced drummer, just tapping out a nice regular beat that makes you just feel in flow, or is it beating really hard? So you know, when you go for a run or you do any form of exercise and you're really exerting yourself and it literally feels like your heart is going to pound out of your chest, does it feel like that? And what about as you're just listening to this podcast, what were your, what was your breath like as you were listening to those last few minutes, did you even notice that you were breathing? And it sounds like a silly question, right? But because we just breathe almost on autopilot, it's often we don't notice, we don't think about it. Maybe you were listening to this podcast while you were doing something else. Maybe you were driving your car, maybe you were sat on the train, maybe you were doing some housework, maybe you were trying to read through a document that is really doing your head and you thought, I know, let me stick on the podcast to entertain me while I do that. And in doing that and in thinking about the other things that are going on as you look listening the other things on your to do list, maybe you didn't think about your breath. Maybe it was all just a haze and that overwhelm was still there because you were trying to carry multiple things at the same time in your mind, do multiple things at the same time. You know, the whole multitasking con that we've been led to believe is possible, whatever it is, there's no, I'm not judging you here at all. These are all questions for awareness because it's easily done, that we just continue running on this hamster wheel without thinking about our breath without thinking about ourselves at all. And the thing about the breath is the breath is powerful. It's magical because we don't have to remember to breathe. It just happens until it doesn't. That's a whole other story and a whole other podcast. Thankfully, we're not there yet. But breathing just happens naturally. There is no effort, there is no thinking about it. You don't even have to be intentional about it. It will just happen. It will just keep us alive in the background. And we ignore it. We ignore it as we pursue the next thing that is we must have, we must do the next thing on our to do list. The next phone call that comes in, the next knock on the door from a partner asking us to do something, the next email that pings into our inbox. All while we're in that spiral, in that chaos, the breath just keeps going in and out without thought, without trying. But I want you to think about that for a moment. Think about your life. Think about your day today or maybe yesterday. Think about times when you're just rushing through one thing to get that thing done so you can hit your goal. You're rushing through your day just to get shit done to hit goals so you can be successful without taking the time to think about the very thing that's keeping you alive, your breath. Without taking time to think about what success means to you. And the thing about the breath is it literally is so powerful, it can alter our mood and our physical state depending on how we do it. I trained as a breathwork teacher, and the various ways that breathing can calm you down can energize you, can relax, you can balance out your nervous system just through breathing. It's wild. So, so wild, but yet we ignore it. And I choose the breath because it is such a simple but powerful thing. But the thing is, if we're ignoring our breath, it's not just our breath that we're ignoring. We're ignoring our entire lives. I love. I don't know if you've ever seen there's a the classic 80s movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And in it, their main character, Ferris is. He wants a day off school. And he plans this amazing day where they bunk off school and do all these awesome things. And there's a famous line from the movie that he says, and it's this, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. And that's so true. It's such an apt line. And I'd like To take a moment now to think. Do you stop to look around once in a while? Or are you, like many of us, guilty of just wishing your life away, of always moving on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, all always doing, but rarely being? Are you guilty of focusing on that future goal at the expense of looking around and being present, enjoying the moment? Are you guilty of waiting for a specific event or a specific achievement and then you will be happy instead of recognizing where you can be happy now, where you can find happiness now? Like I say about living life lit, it's finding those moments of joy within your day and figuring out how you can make them the norm rather than the exception. It isn't about waiting for this magical thing to happen, this goal to be achieved, and at that point your life will suddenly change and your life will become lit. Your life can be lit now. But if we're always waiting, if we're always doing things to keep us busy, to push ourselves forward and delaying that opportunity to be happy, to live lit, then what are we doing? Because when you achieve, you know this, when you achieve that thing, that isn't what makes you happy, because you're then onto the next thing. It's the process. It's the trust, it's the enjoyment in the process. That's what keeps us alive. We place too much weight on the next promotion. I'll be happy when I get promoted. I'll be happy when I get that bonus. I'll be happy when I get that watch, that handbag, that car, that house. But what about what we have now? What about what we have right in front of us? As if you fail to notice the small things that happen each day, the things that bring you joy, the things that light you up. You are wishing your life away. You are putting so much weight on this future thing at the expense of living right now, of being present right now. And I've been there. We've all been there. You know, when I left Big Law, I was so excited to be free. I remember walking out of the building just for the last time and just thinking, that's it, I'm done. I'm out. Never going back. And I was so excited to start to create this or make real even this vision of the life that I wanted to live, that I had built in my mind then. I know with hindsight that I sometimes neglected what I had and what was right in front of me. Because I was throwing myself so hard into building this future life, into creating this vision that I was forgetting to take the time to enjoy and appreciate the present. I was. You know, I was. I was working all the time. It didn't feel like work, but I was literally just focused on making shit happen. And there's nothing wrong with that, but there wasn't this appreciation. There wasn't this taking the time to focus on the present as much as I should have been doing, as much as I needed to be doing. So what happened was that I'd hit milestones, I'd reach goals, I'd been excited to set the goal, I'd reached the goal. And then I'd be like, okay, that's done. Tick that off, Move on to the next thing. I'd fail to take the time to celebrate and to reflect on how far I'd come on what I'd achieved. I talked a bit about that in a previous episode. Small shifts and celebrating your wins. I wouldn't celebrate my wins, not because I didn't feel they were worthy, but because I was just focused on the next thing to achieve. And this is a common trait amongst clients that I work with. It's a common trait amongst high achievers, amongst people who have built successful, in the. In the sort of external sense, lives and careers for themselves. Because what happens is you spend your life setting and pursuing and achieving bigger and bigger and bigger goals and working harder and harder to fulfill expectations that have been placed on you by other people, by social conditioning that you've grown up within, that you never take the time to really be present. You never take the time to enjoy the process, and you never take the time to ask yourself, are these goals really mine? Are these expectations, do they really mean anything to me? Or am I just doing them because somebody else wants me to? And then what happens is that you just feel like you're always running, like I talked about, because you're never doing things for yourself. You're always on this wheel trying to get the next thing, and the one thing arrives and it passes on to the next thing. And there's never an end point. And more importantly, there's never really a joy point. There's never that point where you're like, yeah, I did that. I achieved that. I made that happen despite all the obstacles in my way. I really did this because you're too focused on the next thing, on keeping busy. There's this epidemic of being busy in law firms. When someone asks how you are, the only real acceptable response is busy. Everybody's busy. Everybody wants to be busy or wants to be seen to be busy. Because that's seen as being a badge of honor. But it's not. We all have lots of things to do. We can all say that we're busy, but busyness isn't a badge of honor. Because if we're constantly moving, constantly doing, then where's the time to think? Where's the time to allow ideas to form, to allow creativity to permeate our brain, our very pause. But look, life doesn't have to continue to fly by in a blur as you try to achieve the next thing, as you try to reach the next goal that somebody else has set for you. It just. It doesn't. It doesn't have to be that way. What I found is that you can decide to create a life where you thrive rather than merely survive, but it starts with taking the time to be present. And you've heard all of this before. I know, and you probably just think, but I don't have time for this nonsense. But if you're listening to this podcast, I know that you're at least a little bit interested, a little bit curious about how you can change things for yourself. And from my experience and from experience of clients that I've worked with, being present is a really good way to get started. Taking the time to slow down and to reflect and to appreciate how much you've already achieved, how far you've already come, how much you already have. Taking time out to sit in stillness without judgment or agenda, without thinking. I'm being lazy, I'm being idle. I should be doing something now, not just sitting here. What is that going to do for me? That's not going to help. Stillness is just as important as action, because in that stillness, you will gain clarity. Clarity on where you're heading, why you want to get there. Sitting in that stillness will give you the clarity to allow you to move forward from a place of intention, not reaction, of making decisions that serve you, that serve the greater plan, mission, idea that you have. Not in a way that is simply reacting to the demands of external factors that don't serve you doesn't mean you're not going to have to do things you don't want to do. But what it means is that you're going to do them from a place of intention because you're going to look at how they can serve you and how they fit into the life that you have. And if they don't, you're going to find a way to get out of that, to extricate yourself from that situation. Specs being present. The great thing is that being present doesn't have to be this big convoluted thing. It's something that you can start training yourself to do today. And you do have to train yourself because you're building a new habit. This means you have to create new neural pathways. And you can do that. The brain is amazing that you can rewrite the old way you have done things by starting a new thing and continuing to do it until it just becomes what you do. So if you've been listening to this, nodding along your head, multitasking away, but thinking, this speaks to me. I think I want to find more space, more time, more clarity. I want to build a new habit. I want to be present. Then here's a simple exercise I want to share with you. It's simple, but it's not easy. You know, it doesn't have to take a huge amount of your time. So here's what I'm going to share with you. Here's what you can do to get to know your breath and get to know yourself. Okay? The first thing I invite you to do is to set a reminder on your phone. So you can call the reminder whatever you want. Call it me time, call it self checking. The important thing is that you call it something which sounds fun, which sounds pleasurable, which doesn't make sense. This feel like a chore. For some people, just the word meditation conjures up images that don't feel good to them. So don't call it that. Call it something that feels fun, okay? In fact, you can do this now while you're listening to this episode. So set the reminder. And that should be a recurring reminder which takes me to the second point. Set the reminder to pop up at various points throughout the day. So a good starting point, I find to set yourself up right, is to have this reminder pop up when you wake up in the morning. So set it as your alarm, and then you can set it for intervals throughout the day. So every hour throughout the day can work well. But that might feel too much in the beginning. So start with what feels easy. The important thing here is here to. To create as little friction as possible. So if you want to start with three times a day, so you set it for when you wake up. Maybe you set it for lunchtime, maybe you set it again for just before you leave the office or just before you go to bed, that's cool as well. Whatever works for you. But multiple times throughout the day because you want to build this habit over a period of time. Okay? So create the reminder. Create a Recurring reminder and set the reminder to pop up at various points throughout the day. Okay, now this point, this next point is important. Don't skip this point, don't overthink this point. Don't think about doing anything else. Just do this. When the reminder pings on your phone, stop. Don't think about stopping. Don't argue with your brain about, well, I can't stop now, I've got this to do or that to do, stop. Providing it's safe to do so, of course. If you're driving, please don't do that. If you're operating heavy machinery, please don't do that. But you know, I mean, if whatever, whatever else you're doing, stop. Okay, if you're in the middle of a phone call or middle of a conversation, it might be a little bit weird, but if you can try to factor in that this alarm's going to go off, you know when it's going to go off because you've set it. And see if you can arrange for your call to finish just before that goes off. And if you can't, if your call runs over, then immediately after the call, stop. Take this time. But it's important that you stop and you check in with your mind, your body and your breath and make a note of how you feel. So you're going to want to keep a journal for this exercise. Reasons will become apparent as I continue. So check in. What do you feel? Write it down, as much or as little as you like. Okay, next set and start a 60 second timer. And what I want you to do when that timer starts running is for 60 seconds, just simply notice your breath. I don't want you to play with your breath. I don't want you to do breathing exercises or anything like that. Just notice your breath. And if it's helpful, ask yourself some questions. Questions like the question I asked at the top of this episode. What did your last breath feel like? And maybe you do that with each breath through the 60 seconds and notice if there's any difference between one breath or another. Ask yourself about the air. What it felt like the breath was long or short, what the temperature was like as your breath kissed your upper lip. What you noticed in your body as your breath flowed in and out. It doesn't matter. But you're just trying whatever it takes to get yourself to just focus on your breath and notice your breath. And as you become more accustomed to this practice, you may come up with your own questions. That's fine, it's your practice, but you just want to Notice your breath, 60 seconds, and then check in again. So once those 60 seconds are up, check in with yourself again. And a good practice here is to just restart that timer for another 60 seconds. And while you're doing that check in, take those 60 seconds to write down how you feel now and compare how you feel now compared to how you felt at the start. And when you're checking in with yourself and writing down how you feel, it may be one word, maybe something like calm, for example, or it might be an entire page about shifts that occurred in that moment of stillness. It doesn't really matter. All that matters that you take the time to check in, notice what's going on, and then write down what comes to mind. That's it. And you build that habit. And what's good about this exercise is that if you try it, maybe if you try it for a month or so, as long as you keep writing these thoughts down, each time that you do the exercise, you may start to see some patterns, some things that occur. You may start to see, well, at this particular time of the day, I feel quite anxious. So then you can explore what's going on around that time to cause that anxiety. Maybe another top part of the day, you feel quite calm, quite relaxed, quite contented, and again, explore what's going on and how can you get more of that. And as you're looking through this month's worth, or however long you do this, of notes about how you feel and the insights that came up for you, maybe ask yourself questions like, what's missing here? What feeling isn't coming up? What do I need more of? What do I need or want less of? This is all just a process of inquiry. You're getting to know yourself, how you react to things, how you feel about things, but you're also bringing yourself back to the present throughout the day. And the more that you bring yourself back to the present, the more you're going to develop self awareness, the more you're going to create space, the more you're going to feel in control and the less you're going to feel that overwhelm, that hamster wheel exertion that you've been feeling. And this is the paradox, I guess, is that by being still, you're actually moving yourself forward. You're moving yourself forward far quicker than you were doing when you were continuously in this mode of action in on this hamster wheel, because in that stillness you allow the brain to rest. You allow those thoughts to just run freely without getting attached to them. You watch them Almost like a movie. And in watching them, sometimes that's where the ideas come from. That's where the clarity occurs. Because when you're in the midst of something, it's very hard to see outside of that. It's like that whole phrase, not being able to see the forest amidst the trees. All you can see is what is immediately surrounding you. And that can feel quite oppressive, quite heavy. But when you stop, step off the hamster wheel for a moment, maybe you just sit and watch the wheel run round and round. But just the process of stopping, of being in that stillness, can bring you so much clarity. It can bring you so much joy. So my ask for you or my invitation for you is try this, try this for a month or so. And in trying it, think about this statement, this thing that I'd like you to do is don't let the next breath pass without noticing. That was a line I heard in the meditation garden meditation I had recently. And it really struck me because that's really what we're trying to do. It talks about the breath. Don't let the next breath pass without noticing. But really what you, what you want to try not to do is not let your life pass by without noticing. Without noticing what's going on right in front of you, without noticing the amazing things that are occurring, without noticing the joy, the happiness, without being grateful or finding gratitude for the things around you, for what you have. That's it for me this week. I really hope that you find this exercise useful and if you do, I would love if you could drop me a line and let me know what you took away and what came up for you, what insights arose. You can drop me an email@heyamarianspence.com or shoot me a message over on Instagram at I am Underscore Ryan spence or on LinkedIn. Just find me Ryan Spence and send me a connection request. Be good to connect with you too. And if you would like to support the show, obviously leave a review, that would be amazing. And you can also buy me a coffee. I love my, my coffee. I'm a very, very discerning coffee drinker, I would say. So you can head to coffee.com that's ko-fi.com Ryan Spence. I believe the link is in the description as well. And you can buy me a coffee, show your support, leave a message. It'd be really, really good to hear from you. But whatever you do, try the practice, Share the practice with a friend and talk about yourselves. See how it changes things for you. See if you do feel you have more control, more space, more clarity in your life and see if it helps you to start moving from a life of lethargy towards living life. Thanks for tuning in to the Triple C project. In the spirit of the Triple C, here's three things that you can do to support the show. Head to ratethispodcast.com Triple C or over to your favorite podcast app and leave a review. Reviews really help people checking out shows to see what they can expect and and how this show can help them. Second thing you can do Share Share this episode Share a previous episode with a friend. Someone who you feel could benefit from what I'm throwing down on this here show. And number three head to iamryspence.com get on the main list. I'll be sharing news about the show, news about what I'm up to. My new book Start writing soon. So to be the first to be in the know you need to get yourself on the list. Really appreciate you being here. And until next week, stop living a life of lethargy. Start living life lit.