Project Life Blog
Living Above The Line
Most people come to a Life Coach looking for happiness in some form. They might need to overcome a challenge, or change a destructive behaviour, or heal a relationship, improve their health, or enliven their career. Perhaps they are already relatively happy, but want to take their life to the next level.
The pursuit of happiness through coaching can raise two common challenges for any coach: scepticism around the validity and effectiveness of coaching as a profession, and the expectation of prospective clients that coaching will in some way ‘fix’ them, or that the coach will provide answers to all their questions for them.
What Life Coaching Isn’t
Life coaching is not targeted at psychological illnesses. It is not a therapy, a diagnosis nor a consultation. Coaching will not focus on your past nor presuppose anything needs fixing. A Life Coach will not tell you what is wrong with you, nor give you the answers to your questions or tell you what to do. Most importantly, a Life Coach is not responsible for the results, or lack of results, a client experiences through the coaching process. That responsibility lies 100% with the client.
Living Above The Line
One of the key foundation principles of coaching is the law of ’cause and effect’. This is sometimes described as ‘above the line vs. below the line thinking’ and what is meant by this is that we, and only we, are accountable and responsible 100% for our thoughts, emotions, actions and results. This can be a challenging concept for those who choose to live their life ‘at effect’ i.e. in a self-created culture of blame, pointing the finger for their problems everywhere except within themselves.
Choosing to live our lives ‘at cause’, or above the line, is perhaps the single most empowering decision we can make in our lives. When we recognise that how we experience everything in our life is a choice, we move into an unprecedented space of personal power that positions us for the most fulfilled and compelling future imaginable.
People who live at cause, above the line, commit fully to their families, their occupations, and their lives. They put their best into everything they do. They embody self-reliance and accept total responsibility for their actions. They find a way to get the job done. They are a bright and attractive energy to be around.
Below the line people just get by. They constantly look to others for solutions to their problems. They have a profound sense of entitlement. Someone always owes them something. They are quick to blame. Conflict and drama follow them from job to job, from relationship to relationship. They always have a story for why they don’t get results and it never involves them. They create a dark and negative energy.
What Coaching Is
In order to fully understand any concept, and to allow us to develop a fully-formed opinion of a subject, we must experience it firsthand for ourselves. It is for this reason that many coaches will offer a complimentary session to prospective clients: also to establish if the coach/client relationship is going to be a good fit. Every Life Coach has a unique style and approach to their coaching practice and this adds depth and character to the industry, however there are common themes, concepts and techniques embraced by all coaches.
The ICF (International Coach Federation) is the leading global organization dedicated to advancing the coaching profession by setting high standards, providing independent certification, and building a worldwide network of credentialed coaches. The ICF defines coaching as follows:
“Coaching is an ongoing professional relationship that helps people produce extraordinary results in their lives, careers, businesses or organizations.
Through the process of coaching, clients deepen their learning, improve their performance, and enhance their quality of life.
In each meeting, the client chooses the focus of conversation, while the coach listens and contributes observations and questions. This interaction creates clarity and moves the client into action.
Coaching accelerates the client’s progress by providing greater focus and awareness of choice.
Coaching concentrates on where clients are now and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be in the future, recognizing that results are a matter of the client’s intentions, choices and actions, supported by the coach’s efforts and application of the coaching process”.
That’s a concise and accurate description of what Life Coaching delivers. What it doesn’t encapsulate however, is the sheer power, emotive force, life-altering results and irreversible personal growth that come from working with a great coach. I know this not because I am a coach but because I have had, and continue to have, life coaching myself, and I always will.
I spent the first 32 years of my life ‘at effect’, subsisting below the line, and it was a grey and miserable existence. My life isn’t perfect now, I’m not always happy, I make mistakes, I get angry, I sometimes eat entire tubs of ice cream in one sitting - but now, through coaching, the key difference is that I understand and embrace the fact that all of those behaviours are choices I make. The power of this knowledge is that at any given time, I can change my choice to do, feel or experience something completely different.
Observe yourself for a while: your thoughts, your actions, your emotions. Nothing has any meaning except the meaning we give it, and we create our reality through our choice of language and thoughts. Are you creating a reality that serves, supports, nurtures and challenges you? Or is your reality a darker place of blame and anger? Are you above the line, or are you below the line?
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Adrenal Fatigue - The Hidden Menace
INTRODUCTION
Existing in the 21st century can be an extraordinarily stress-filled experience. Our every waking hour is filled with a bombardment of stressors on our mind, body and spirit. Eventually, inevitably, this bombardment takes its toll on our health and wellbeing.
We tend to accept stress as just a part of modern life, but do we really understand exactly what it is, and what impact it’s having upon us?
Stress is defined as the body’s reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental or emotional adjustment or response. It takes a variety of forms; some obvious, some more subtle.
To fully understand what stress is, how we let it into our lives and the effect it has upon our minds and bodies, we need to take a holistic view.
STRESS CATEGORIES
The human body has 4 main control centres: digestive, immune, hormonal and detoxification. If one of these centres is not functioning efficiently due to the existence of stressors, this can have a knock on effect on the other 3 and ultimately a detrimental effect on our overall health.
Most hormonal problems are brought on by years of poor lifestyle choices combined with digestive or detoxification issues.
The 4 key categories of stressor are as follows:
1. Mental, Emotional and Spiritual
Including:
Anxiety
Depression
Fear
Anger
Guilt
Energy meridians
2. Dietary/Nutritional
Including:
Alcohol
Smoking
Lack of vitamins and minerals
Irregular meals
Trans fats
Sugars
Refined carbohydrates
3. Environmental
Including:
Work
Friends and Family
Noise
Pollution
4. Physical
Including:
Lack of sleep/rest and relaxation
Over exercising/Under exercising
EMF (electro magnetic fields)
Illness/Disease/Infection
Chemicals
STRESS REACTIONS
What exactly happens in the human body when exposed to stress?
The body reacts by mounting a stress response through the stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system. This is also called the “fight or flight” response as the body arms itself to face what it perceives as danger. When this happens, there are a series of biological and chemical reactions within the body - the most important of which is increased production of the anti-stress hormone cortisol within the adrenal cortex.
Cortisol also promotes the burning of fat, helps regulates emotions, interacts with the sex hormones, counters inflammation and allergies and regulate proper glucose metabolism and blood pressure.
Although stress isn’t the only reason that cortisol is secreted into the bloodstream, it has been termed “the stress hormone” because it’s also secreted in higher levels during the body’s response to stress, and is responsible for several stress-related changes in the body.
Small increases of cortisol have some positive effects:
• A quick burst of energy for survival reasons
• Heightened memory functions
• A burst of increased immunity
• Lower sensitivity to pain
• Helps maintain homeostasis in the body
However, higher or more prolonged levels of cortisol in the system have a negative impact on health.
Adrenal exhaustion eventually occurs when the adrenals are no longer able to keep up the increased demand for cortisol production and levels drop. This is a very common chain reaction in modern society.
SYMPTOMS OF ADRENAL FATIGUE
Symptoms of adrenal fatigue include:
• Constant fatigue/lethargy
• Exhaustion
• Trouble sleeping and getting up in the morning
• Depression and anxiety
• Sugar and salt cravings
• Weight gain and inability to lose weight
• Increased effort in carrying out everyday tasks
• Decreased sex drive
• Decreased ability to manage day to day stress
• Light-headedness on standing up
• Low body temperature
• Prone to colds and flu,
• Heart palpitations,
• Nervousness
• Poor memory
• Hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar levels)
• Allergies
• Low immune response
• Increased menstrual problems for women
• Consistently feeling unwell or difficulty recovering from infections
• Unexplained hair loss
• Nausea
• Alternating constipation and diarrhoea
• Unexplained pain in the upper back or neck
• High frequency of getting the flu and other respiratory diseases and taking longer to recover from them
Pretty much every one of us is going to recognise more than one of these symptoms. Modern life is an incredibly threatening place for the adrenal glands!
DEVELOPING YOUR RECOVERY PROGRAMME
Reducing stress is simply a matter of lifestyle modifications. There are a number of basic, simple steps anyone can start to take right now to reduce stress, adrenal fatigue and minimise the severity of the symptoms listed above - if not eradicate them altogether:
• Sleep for an optimal 9 hours a night
• Drink water with sea salt (preferably Celtic)
• Practice relaxation exercises e.g. breathing, meditation
• ALWAYS eat breakfast
• Include sources of natural vitamin C, E, B6, B3 and B12 in your daily diet, also magnesium and calcium
• Take supplements such as liquorice root, ginseng, ginger root, gingko, Ashwangandha root
• Reduce or eliminate sugars and refined carbohydrates
• Eat at least 5 serves of fruits and vegetables daily
• Exercise regularly, in moderation
For more information, or to arrange a personalised Stress Profile and Recovery Programme contact Project Life today
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We’ve been Nominated!
Project Life is honoured to have been nominated for a Women in Business 2009 award. We’re proud to support and contribute to the Central Coast businesswomen community and are so excited to have been nominated.
We’re also absolutely thrilled to be a part of Savvy Singles! Find Victoria in the ‘Guru’s section on www.savvysingles.com.au offering Life Coaching and Fitness Training to the fabulous Central Coast singles community. Also come meet us at the launch:
Come join the Party for the launch of Savvy Singles on the Coast - 14th Oct - 7pm
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Why Diets Fail
Most of us at one time or another in our lives will have experienced the pain of dieting, or the perceived need to diet. What few of us recognise is the stark fact that DIETS DON’T WORK. Diets are at best a temporary fix with the dieter regaining all weight lost once they return to a ‘normal’ eating pattern, or at worst consume the dieter’s every waking thought to the point that they are trapped in a constant state of hunger, pain and frustration.
DIET’S DON’T WORK. As a Personal Trainer and Weight Loss Coach, my key message to clients is to understand that health, fitness and weight are lifestyle issues. The mechanics of nutrition and exercise only make up about 10% of the equation: 90% is psychological and change must start with mindset.
Below are some of the key reasons diet’s fail:
1. As soon as you decide to restrict your food intake through dieting, you will find you begin focus all your attention on food and eating, which is what you actually want to minimise in your mind. Living in a perpetual state of self-denial is bad for body and soul and cannot be maintained.
2. Diets create stress and stress often creates the compulsion to eat. Emotional eating needs to be managed through the mind, not through the stomach.
3. Diets fail to address the real problems: your self-esteem and your reliance on food to change your emotions.
4. Dieting can result in mood swings and depression which make it harder to lose weight. Depression can often lead to weight gain.
5. Diets put you in “starvation mode”. When you severely restrict your food intake it signals your body that food is scarce. Your body is designed to protect you against the possibility starvation by storing fat when whenever food becomes unavailable.
6. Diets lower your metabolism. When you suddenly limit your caloric intake, your metabolism slows down and burns less calories. Dieting actually makes your body more efficient at conserving calories and storing them up as fat.
7. Diets judge their success by the number of pounds lost rather than by the true objectives: increased energy, feeling good about yourself, and looking good in your clothes again.
8. Diets are temporary. When you reach your goal weight on a diet you stop and return your normal eating habits so the weight eventually comes back.
9. Diet soft drinks increase your appetite. They contain phosphoric acid which increase your appetite and leaches calcium from your bones. They may also contain aspartame which drains your energy, your strength, and your stamina.
10. Diets change your short term eating habits without changing your long term mindset about food. Your thoughts create your actions, so if you still have the same thoughts and feelings about food eventually you will return to the same eating behaviours. To create long term, permanent changes in your body you must first start with changes in your thinking.
Some scary facts about dieting:
- Almost half of American children between first and third grades say they want to be thinner.
- Four out of five ten-year-old children are afraid of being fat.
- On any given day, one in four men is on a diet.
- Half of nine and ten-year-old girls surveyed about dieting say that being on a diet makes them feel better about themselves.
- More than one out of three “normal dieters” progress to pathological dieting. One fourth of those will suffer from partial or full syndrome eating disorders.
- Americans spend over forty billion dollars a year on dieting and diet related products.
- Between five and ten million women and girls in the United States struggle with eating disorders and borderline conditions.
- One million boys and men struggle with eating disorders and borderline conditions.
- The number of people with eating disorders and borderline conditions is triple the number of people living with AIDS (664,921 people are living with AIDS).
- Eating disorders affect at least three times as many people as schizophrenia does (2.2 million people are living with schizophrenia).
Don’t get trapped in the spiral of low self-esteem and endless denial.
For more information on how to master the weight loss mindset, contact Project Life to discuss the Thin Thinking Programme - a powerful combination of personal coaching, exercise programming and nutrition advice.
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Why Exercise Sucks!
Some people look forward to going to the gym. Some people VOLUNTARILY go more than once a day! Some people see exercise as the highlight of their day. SOME people even feel sexy in their workout gear! But these people are a minority.
MOST people dread and fear the gym and exercise in general. Most people buy a membership and go approximately 5 times before never setting foot over the threshold again. Most people look at exercise as a chore, something which makes them feel clumsy and inadequate, something painful. For most people, EXERCISE SUCKS.
I can speak on behalf of both these groups, having spent my entire adult life, prior to about 2 years ago, fat and unfit, yet now I love the feeling exercise gives me and have even changed my career from IT Professional to Personal Trainer and Life Coach.
So - what is the main difference between these two types of people? Is it fitness levels? Body shape? Background? Location? It’s actually none of these things. It comes down to something very simple: MINDSET. The way you perceive exercise is the way you will experience it. This is true throughout life in general. One of the major principles of Life Coaching is that “What you focus on is what you get, almost to the exclusion of everything else.”
Carl Jung believed that we can’t see anything outside of us that isn’t us - meaning that we don’t see things as they are, but as we are. We filter the external world through the lens of our personality. Two people can look upon the same world and see it completely differently, based on who they are, what they look for, what they believe and what they expect to find.
If we focus on something and it causes a reaction of fear within us, this prevents us being able to experience a different reaction - such as appreciation or excitement. The two emotions are processed in different parts of our brain.
What does this mean for you and your approach to exercise? It means the solution is to focus on your thinking and feeling - tap into what it is about exercise that you can enjoy and appreciate, and the fear will fade. Focus on the many and massive positive outcomes.
COMMON FEAR REACTIONS TO THE PROSPECT OF EXERCISE
1. Everyone at the gym is thin and fit
Those folk at the gym who actually are thin and fit, are thin and fit because they go to the gym. But actually the majority are somewhere along the way on their own personal fitness and/or weight loss journey - people of all shapes and sizes go to the gym, and all should be admired and respected equally for their efforts. We can’t know anyone’s story, in the same way that no one can know ours. We should withhold judgement as much for the thin and fit as we do for the overweight.
2. I’m not ready
How will you know when you’re ready? This is a masterful procrastination technique which in most cases prevents you ever moving forward because you will never feel ready. The only way to break this cycle is to take action: join the gym, or go to the gym you joined months ago and are throwing money away on by not going, or join a sports team, or start walking with a friend. Whatever you do, you’ll burn a lot more calories taking action than you do running the old self-talk patterns about not being ready.
3. People will laugh at me
No one will laugh at you. Everyone started somewhere. And besides, as a wise man once said: “what other people think of us is none of our business’. Worrying about the opinion of others is exhausting and self-defeating and what you really mean here is that you don’t think you are good enough. Low self-esteem is a huge component of most weight and fitness issues and needs to be addressed first, before worrying about the number on the scales. Ironically the more you exercise, the better your self-esteem gets…
4. I can’t exercise until I lose weight
Einstein’s definition of insanity was to continue doing the same thing but expecting a different result. Accept that weight loss is not going to happen unless you change your lifestyle and get moving. Every step you take, literally and metaphorically, becomes easier.
5. I’ll exercise tomorrow
I used this one for years. It was perfect! I could let myself off the hook because ‘I’m Going To Exercise Tomorrow’. Tomorrow will be a new start. Of course - tomorrow never comes, because tomorrow you will tell yourself the same thing. And the next day. And the next. This is called procrastination, and I was a master of it. As soon as you notice you are telling yourself the ‘tomorrow’ story - make the choice to stop the story and do something different. You will feel so amazing - not just from the post-exercise high, but because when you take control of your destiny in this way, you come away experiencing an awesome sensation of empowerment.
So why does exercise suck? The truth is - it doesn’t. Exercise is fabulous and the way we see it and feel about it is, as with everything in life, simply a state of mind that we choose.
To learn more about the weight loss mindset or for any general information about health and fitness, contact Victoria at thinthinking@projectlife.com.au.
Health and Happiness!
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What’s this all about?
This is about helping others overcome their personal demons and move forward into bright, compelling, healthy futures; because EVERYONE deserves happiness, and too many people simply don’t have it or believe they are worthy or capable of it.
One year ago, I was living in Auckland NZ. 32 years old. Miserable in my job. Miserable in myself. Miserable in New Zealand.
I felt I’d exhausted all my options for finding happiness: Back home in England, I’d done everything I was supposed to - got the all the right qualifications, bought a house, had a ‘good’ job, and yet at that time I was deeply, fundamentally, soul-crushingly unhappy. I was drinking a lot. And I mean - A LOT. I was smoking. I was fat. I was up to my eyeballs in debt. I had a catalogue of atrocious relationships trailing behind me. I’d been on and off a series of anti-depressants. I’d even spent a short time in a psychiatric institution. Nothing made any difference.
I reached the stage where I had to sell my flat to pay off all my debts, and decided to take what was left over and travel the world This was in 2003, and was initially intended to be a 3 month sabbatical: I haven’t returned since (except for funerals.)
Travelling was a fantastic, happy, challenging and fulfilling time for me but eventually the money and the visas ran out and it was decision time again. I’d absolutely adored my time in Australia at the end of my round the world journey, but couldn’t see a way to stay, and the only other country with a working visa option available to me was New Zealand. So there I went, thinking - new start! Happiness awaits! No one knows me! I can start afresh! Of course it doesn’t work that way - you see, the trouble with travelling to escape yourself and your woes is, everywhere you go - YOU’RE there! I landed in Auckland more lost and confused than ever, shortly after this I turned 30, and felt completely hopeless. How come I hadn’t figured out my life yet?! How come everyone else was so settled?! What’s WRONG with me?!
I thought I’d reached rock bottom in the UK - I was wrong. I got myself into circumstances in NZ that make me feel ill just sitting here writing about them. I’m lucky to be alive - lucky not to have been seriously hurt. I guess sometimes you really have to hit crisis point in order to gain clarity. Even though on the surface everything should have been fine in my NZ life: good job, good friends, good home, beautiful country - the demons within were hard at work. Chronically low self-esteem. Depression. Anxiety. Alcohol abuse. Binge eating. Dangerous relationships. I knew I’d been here before, and that something had to change.
I tried more counselling, I visited naturopaths, I tried to open up to friends, I went to meetings for alcoholics. Nothing changed.
And then my mother tragically and horrifically died from the damage she’d wrought on her body through decades of alcohol abuse and I knew without doubt that the same thing was going to happen to me if I didn’t learn from her life, and her death.
It was during a trip back to the UK (actually not for a funeral that time, for a wedding) that I had a moment of crystal clarity. I honestly can’t tell you where it came from or why, but I can describe exactly where I was and what I was doing! I was on a treadmill in Camden Town, London, staying with an old schoolfriend. I’d come via the States where I’d managed to put on an astonishing 5kgs in 3 weeks and was in the local Fitness First attempting to burn some of it off. It was on the treadmill where I suddenly knew without any doubt that I was going to move back to Australia and become a Personal Trainer and Life Coach. I announced this to several friends and family members over the coming days. They avoided eye contact and changed the subject. There’s simply no way Victoria Judge, fat, alcoholic, dysfunctional f*ck up could ever achieve such a turnaround.
Well, now I work at Fitness First as a Personal Trainer here on the spectacular Central Coast of Australia and also run my own business - Project Life - as a Life Coach.
Today I launch this site with great pride, knowing deep in my heart and my soul that the following are true:
- all people are fundamentally good and are doing the best that they can
- all people deserve happiness and love
- the knowledge and the power lies within each and every one of us to live our ideal lives
- those of us who are feeling lost and alone need to know that there is hope and help to guide you onto your right track
- there is no true fulfilment except through contribution to others
- there is no failure, only feedback
- anything is possible through the power of thoughts and beliefs
And if you are sitting reading this thinking ’she’s different, I couldn’t do that’ - no she isn’t, and yes you can. It’s simply that once you make a decision and commit to it, heart and soul, the universe conspires to help you get there.
I chose Personal Training because I have learned that you need a healthy body in order to have a truly healthy mind. I chose Life Coaching because I have learned that emotional happiness, health and fulfilment don’t come from giving yourself a label of illness, or having someone agree with you that you have a problem then talking about it for $hundreds an hour. They come from accepting yourself for who you are, shifting your focus, letting go of the past, and empowering yourself with the option of CHOICE when it comes to everything you feel and everything you do.
“Go confidentally in the direction of your dreams - live the life you have imagined.”
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