Transcript
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I’m Joanna Lindenbaum, a coach ritualist and all around transformation nerd who is obsessed with helping clients go deep to create more change.
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And results with their clients.
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I created the Coaching Revolution podcast to share with you coaching skills, tips and advice, as well as a deeper understanding of human behavior and.
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Yourself so that you can do even better client work and group work.
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Grow your business organically.
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And know that you’re making a real difference in the world.
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This is about creating a revolution in the transformational industry so that more practitioners feel amazing about what they do.
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And so that more of our clients experience life changing shifts, let’s get started.
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Welcome.
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I’m Joanna and I am so happy to share today’s quick but fun and powerful episode. Some of you may know that I’m a student of the seasons. It started over 20 years ago when I was in my mid 20s.
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And I absolutely fell in love with this idea of honoring The Four Seasons and what they each have to teach us. The seasons are so rich and potent, and have so many metaphoric pieces of wisdom.
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That we can apply to our lives.
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Spring equinox is coming up in just a few weeks here in the northern hemisphere where I live, and so I thought it was the perfect time for us to explore some of the themes of the spring season.
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And then I’m gonna share with you.
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A5 step coaching process for spring renewal after stagnation that you can use for yourself and with your clients.
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This is an eye opening process that you can apply to your business, your marketing strategies, your personal habits, your romantic relationships, your friendships, really anything in your life that has been feeling a little stagnant or like it’s kind of gone underground.
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In a certain way.
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This is definitely one of those episodes that you’re going to want to listen to more than once.
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And one of the times, at least, you’re going to want to have a journal and pen ready so that you can do some looking inward and strategizing.
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Because I’m gonna be asking you some coaching questions, but let’s start here.
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As you probably know, springtime is so much about a cycle starting over again.
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It is about new beginnings and planting new seeds.
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You might know that I’m Jewish and in the Jewish tradition, Passover is a springtime holiday and one of the symbols of Passover is the egg.
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Similar to Easter, which is another springtime holiday holiday.
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And the reason why the egg is one of the symbols of these springtime holidays is because we’re honoring the season of new life of birth and of exciting activation.
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Spring is also very much about renewal, getting creative and motivated and excited and curious about those things that have become stagnant during the winter seasons.
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Things that are ready for new life.
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And new attention.
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That’s why we have the phrase spring cleaning.
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It’s all about bringing in new energy after things have gotten kind of sleepy and dusty during the long, cold winter.
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When we go through a winter phase on a project or a strategy or a habit or a relationship.
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That thing can kind of slip through the cracks and gather cobwebs.
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And infusing that project or strategy or habit or relationship with some spring energy has the potential to revive it, to bring it back, and hopefully to bring it back even better than before.
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And as I said, in the Northern hemisphere, spring equinox is almost almost upon us. When I look out my window now and I’m recording this episode towards the end of February.
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I can see that things are starting to change just.
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Little bit.
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The spring equinox falls every year on March 20th.
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And it is the day on the wheel of the year where there is exactly as much daytime as there is night time.
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On the Equinox, day and night are equal.
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And the equinox is a wonderful marker of starting to cross this threshold from the darkness.
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Of winter into the suntime becoming more and more prominent.
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The days becoming longer and longer than the nights.
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And it’s also a moment to Mark Spring’s starting to do its thing.
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This is when we start to see the blossoms slowly appearing on the trees and from the ground.
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This is the time of year that the animals start coming out more and more from their winter hibernation.
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And we can also start to feel the energy shift a bit in the air around spring equinox. We want to be outside.
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A little.
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More our curiosity about the world maybe starts to get activated again.
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No.
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So as we move towards spring equinox and as we step into spring, you might be feeling it’s time for renewal after stagnation.
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Maybe one of your marketing strategies has gotten stagnant, like your social media or your newsletter.
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Or maybe one of your group programs needs a rebirth and a renewal.
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You’ve kind of let it go.
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Go for.
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Bit and you’re ready to come back.
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To it.
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Or maybe you’ve got a friendship that you haven’t been tending to, or it slipped into stagnation and you’re ready to renew it.
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That could maybe look like getting back in touch regularly with an old friend that you haven’t connected with.
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For a while.
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Or it could maybe look like spicing things up in your marriage, right?
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A kind of renewal.
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Or maybe you’ve got a habit.
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A personal.
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Like a workout habit or a hobby that just isn’t working anymore.
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Or that you’ve let slip away.
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Or that you’ve just become kind of.
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And blah about.
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Because let’s be honest.
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The projects, habits and relationships in our lives, even if they are important and dear to us, they can sometimes get a little dusty.
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There are times when maybe we neglect them because we’ve gotten frustrated with them.
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Or bored with them.
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Or there are times when we are simply overwhelmed or too busy.
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And so we let go important.
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For a bit.
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Sometimes the winter phase of a project or relationship or a habit is really obvious.
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We’ve not been in connection.
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At all with that thing.
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Maybe we’ve stopped sending out our newsletter altogether.
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Obvious.
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But other times the winter phase and the stagnation is maybe more subtle.
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Things have just kind of gotten a little boring.
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Or they don’t quite work anymore, but we still keep on showing up for them in the same ways anyway, and it’s time for a change.
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It’s also important to say that a lot of the time the winter phase is really necessary.
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We need breaks. We need rest.
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We need to put certain things down at certain moments, even if they are important things.
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This is all a part of life.
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Oh, but how sweet it is when you know it’s time to revive something when it truly is the right time to bring it out of stagnation.
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Clear out its cobwebs.
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And to bring it back to life.
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So in the spirit of renewal and bringing things back to life, here is a sweet little five step coaching process with a bonus six step.
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That you can use for yourself to self coach.
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Or you can use with your clients who have something that you’re working on together that is ready for new life and inspiration.
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You’re going to want to have a paper and pen out so that you can really take yourself through this process that I’m going to share.
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Going to want to journal on some of these questions.
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The journaling can often times be more powerful than just thinking about them in your head.
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And then when you write things down, you’re often more likely to follow up with them to take action.
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On them rather than them just slipping away because you’ve merely thought them.
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So here we go.
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Here’s step #1.
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That you wanna think about or you wanna ask your client.
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When you’re working on supporting them to bring something out of stagnation and into renewal, and this first step is very simple.
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Sometimes we just we have to start with the basics, right?
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The question is.
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What is something?
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Specific that has fallen into stagnation.
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Or into a winter phase.
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What’s something specific that’s fallen into stagnation or a winter phase and the coaching tip here in this question is to remember in your coaching questions.
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Be.
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Ask for specific answers.
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Specificity helps you focus.
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In on the issue at hand.
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And on change and on solutions.
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Every now and again, a general question that leads to a general answer can be helpful, but for the most part, general answers usually go no where.
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They feel too big or overwhelming, or they’re just kind of like blanket statements that don’t mean enough or don’t point to.
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Details that can be helpful.
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So here are some examples of specific things that may have fallen into stagnation or a winter phase for you.
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Some specific examples in business might be your newsletter.
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Or maybe your outreach to be a guest on different podcasts, maybe for a while you were sending out outreach to be on podcasts, and that’s just kind of falling by the wayside.
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Play.
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You feel ready to revive it again?
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Maybe for you your website you haven’t touched it in a long time and it’s kind of outdated at this point.
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Doesn’t really match how you’ve evolved.
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And you noticed that your website really hasn’t been doing anything for you lately, right?
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That is an example of a winter phase.
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Here’s one more example in business.
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Maybe lately your team meetings have been stagnant. If you have a team, maybe they’re not inspiring anymore.
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Or they’re not really very effective anymore.
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And here’s some examples from your personal life of things that maybe have fallen into stagnation or a winter phase. I’m sharing all of these examples to help you brainstorm and really get clear on.
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One specific.
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Thing that has become stagnant or gone into a winter phase. So some personal example.
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Maybe your journaling practice?
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You’ve either let it slip away or it’s just become.
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You’ve just started kind of making lists lately in your journal, but it’s not really doing anything for you.
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Or maybe your dinner menus have become kind of.
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You’re just cooking the same things every week over and over again for dinner. You’re feeling bored.
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Uninspired.
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And you’d like to get excited about dinner.
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Or maybe your meditation practice has fallen by the wayside.
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I’ll share one example from my own life on something that has become stagnant.
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And that is resistance.
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So I’m 49 years old.
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Be 50 in August.
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And I am definitely at that age and have been for a number of years now where it’s really important physiologically for me to not only do cardio workouts.
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But resistance training workouts, either weight training or yoga.
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Things that will really help my bones and help me build my muscles help me with my blood sugar.
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All of the things.
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And.
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I will be honest for a while now.
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I have just stopped my resistance training.
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I default to.
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I take lots of walks and.
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I maybe get to the gym and get on the elliptical or do a cardio workout on YouTube, but I have not been doing.
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Resistance training.
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And I would like to start doing it again.
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So there’s one other step here. In the first step of this process that we’re looking at.
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And that is whatever you’ve identified, whatever this specific thing is, that has become stagnant or gone into a winter phase that you would like to revive.
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The question is.
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Why do you want to revive this thing?
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Why do you want to revive?
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And I really encourage you to spend a couple of minutes, not just to write down a quick phrase, but really to spend a minute or two journaling on why this thing is important to you.
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My coaching tip around this question just to break down for you and and so you understand why this question is in the process here is that.
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Whenever we set a goal for ourselves, whenever we work with our clients for them to set a goal, understanding the motivation behind the goal is.
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Really important. That’s what the why question is about.
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Do you want to revive this right?
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What is the motivation here?
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Is this important and?
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And.
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The reason why you want to be aware of this as a coach, as a transformational practitioner.
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Is because sometimes our clients are going to set goals that actually aren’t aligned.
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They’re going to set goals that don’t really have a good Y WH Y behind it, right?
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Asking the why a question is going to help them see that.
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The other way that the motivation question can be really helpful when you’re coaching your clients is because when they name a goal that is important to them.
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That has a good reason for them to pursue it. Them getting clear on the why on the motivation behind it is going, and to articulate it to is going to help.
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Them feel more inspired to move forward with it with your help.
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And by the.
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You probably know this, but just to say, if you are following along with the podcast and doing your own inner work and journaling on these questions, feel free to pause the podcast.
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At any time so that you have the time to do the journaling.
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For now, I’m gonna move on to Step 2 of this coaching process to move from stagnation to renewal.
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And the question for Step 2 is this.
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Why has it fallen into stagnation?
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What is the reason that this thing?
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Has gone into a winter phase or has become.
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I want to invite you to Journal on this one for a little bit.
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Is it because you lost motivation for it?
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Or maybe you lost patience with this project because it wasn’t progressing the way that you wanted.
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Or it wasn’t feeling the way that you wanted.
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Maybe this thing slipped away because other things took precedence and priority during the time period.
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Did this thing, this relationship, this habit becomes stagnant because you got scared about it in some way.
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Or maybe you felt rejected in some way.
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I see this happen a lot with entrepreneurs.
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Start a marketing strategy.
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It doesn’t work right.
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And then they feel like they’ve been rejected. And so it just goes stagnant.
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Stop working on it.
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Or maybe whatever this thing is this project, this strategy, this relationship, this habit, maybe it dropped off because you were tired and you needed a rest.
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For a period of time you needed some hibernation.
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If we look at my personal example.
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With resistance training.
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For me, it fell into stagnation because I hated and I will repeat it.
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Hated the type of resistance training.
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That I was doing.
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So before COVID I was doing weights at the gym.
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And I really like that. I was working with a trainer and even though I didn’t love it.
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And you.
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I had that accountability. I worked hard.
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It worked for me.
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But then when COVID hit and I couldn’t go to the gym and work with a trainer, I started doing resistance training at home.
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I would put on high intens.
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Ity interval training workouts on YouTube and I would do them and high intensity interval trainings.
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Sometimes called hit.
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They’re a form of exercise that involves short, intense bursts of activity.
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And again, I did not like doing it in fact.
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Even though I would only do 15 minute videos, I would curse at the instructor on the screen every single time. I struggled through it.
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And this is the exact reason why I stopped resistance training.
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So.
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It’s important to acknowledge.
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Why something has fallen into stagnation. Why? And that’s why this is Step 2 of the process.
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So for me, acknowledging that I just really don’t like hit workout.
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In particular, and especially without the accountability, and have a trainer.
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Just by acknowledging this, this can help me move towards problem solving towards making tweaks and towards reviving resistance training for myself, but in better ways that work for me.
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Right. So when we coach, we want to ask questions that help our clients connect the dots.
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Matt, help our clients understand why something has happened.
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The why won’t necessarily solve the problem all on its own, but it will provide important insight that can lead to effective next steps.
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Understanding why something has become stagnant or fallen into a winter phase can also be really helpful because it can support your client.
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To have more self compassion and self love, right?
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Can help them see. Oh.
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That’s why I stopped doing.
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Or that’s why that hasn’t been.
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Or that’s what’s going on, right? Instead of just beating ourselves up like I suck because I’m not doing resistance training anymore.
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And self compassion and self love are an important key ingredient for motivation.
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All right, let’s move on to Step 3 of this little coaching process.
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And Step 3, the question here is.
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What would you need to believe?
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About the thing that you’d like to renew.
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So that you can really refresh it.
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And get it going again.
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What would you?
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What would you need to believe about the thing that you’d like to renew so that you can really refresh it and get it going again?
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And I’ll give you some examples here.
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Let’s say you wanna refresh renew your.
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Maybe for you the belief is, I believe my newsletter can be a source.
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Of immense value for whoever.
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Set.
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Or maybe for you the belief that you need around your newsletter is, I believe that my newsletter is important no matter if 10,000 people read it, or 20 people read it.
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Maybe if you would like to renew your dinner menu for each week, the new belief that’s gonna be really important for you is I believe that it doesn’t have to take me many, many hours a week.
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To come up with new dinner ideas and prepare that.
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If we keep on looking at my example with the resistance training, one new belief for me around it is I believe that I can find a form of resistance training that.
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Even if I don’t love it, I can like it well enough to show up for it regularly.
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And I’ll share with you another belief that’s going to be really important for me in order to start up resistance training again is to believe that I can make time for resistance training.
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During my week.
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And that it’s not gonna leave me scrambling to finish other tasks each day.
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I tend to go there like I just don’t have time for this.
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OK.
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So.
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The second part of Part 3, as we’re looking at new beliefs.
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Is to not just write down the new belief.
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It is good to identify a new belief.
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Cognitively, we want to do that.
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But we don’t wanna stop there.
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So.
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I wanna invite you to do next.
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Is to feel.
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The new belief.
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See if you can find.
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Where in your body?
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You really believe this new thing?
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Even if many other parts of you don’t believe it yet, right where in your body do you know this new belief to be true?
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Really take a moment with that.
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To feel the new belief inside of you.
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Give it space.
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Let it take hold.
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There are a couple of coaching.
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And human nature reasons.
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Why we want to feel the new belief?
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First of all, like I said earlier.
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Cognitive is great, but it’s not enough.
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It’s really important.
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To make new ideas and beliefs even more real by bringing a little bit of the somatic in by really holding and owning it in our bodies.
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The other reason?
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Why this part of the process is so important to feel the new belief?
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Is because it is really, really difficult to renew or revive a project.
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On stagnant feelings or beliefs, if you still have the same beliefs and the same feelings about this project or this habit or this relationship.
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That you had when it fell into stagnation. It’s gonna be really, really hard to revive it.
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And.
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We want to let new beliefs and new energy lead the way to strategy and to action and to inspiration.
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OK.
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Let’s keep on going here.
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We’ve got a couple more steps left in this process, so once we’ve identified what’s stagnant and we’ve identified why it’s important to revive it.
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And once we’ve really been clear on why it’s fallen into stagnation, and then what we need to believe.
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In order to move this thing forward, now we’re finally ready for Step 4, which is to identify the new vision for this project.
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This strategy.
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This.
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Habit this relationship.
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How do you want it to look?
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And I really encourage you to take a few minutes to get into the details of it.
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Do you want this to?
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In its springtime.
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Its new cycle.
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And it’s renewal and I really encourage you as you vision and as you get clear on what you want this thing to look like.
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To bring the springtime energy of curiosity and playfulness to it as you vision it.
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It will bring these energies in the curiosity.
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Playfulness will really help you vision.
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Strategize in ways that are helpful.
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And I’ll share with you just briefly for my resistance training. When I sat down on this step of the process to vision it.
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I got clear that for me, I really want to start going back to the gym and doing weight training and then also combining that some days with yoga.
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Those are things that I actually enjoy and that I.
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Really know I’ll make time.
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For.
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OK, moving on to our fifth staff in this process.
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Just like we do in spring.
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Plant.
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A seed.
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Plant a seed on this project. This relationship, this habit.
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So what that looks like practically in coaching?
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Is what is one specific baby step.
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You can take.
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To plant the seeds of your renewed project.
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Act.
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Well, it’s one.
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Specific baby step that you can take to plant the seeds of this renewed project.
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And for me, it has been about.
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Putting into my calendar my gym days.
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And I didn’t start. The baby step was not put it in the calendar for the rest of the year.
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The baby step was start with next week. When is it going into the calendar? Baby steps.
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Especially when things have been stagnant when we’ve turned away from them for a while, when we’ve let them rest for a while, we it’s harder to jump into the whole big.
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The full strategy and all the things.
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It’s going to feel overwhelming.
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Starting something new.
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We got to start with those baby steps.
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It’s like we’re learning to walk again, right?
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And then finally, here’s a little bonus stuff if you wanna take it a step further for yourself or your clients.
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The bonus step is whatever.
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The the specific baby action item that you identified.
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Make a commitment. A real commitment to it and find accountability.
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So there are so many ways to make commitments and find accountabilities. It might be about an accountability partner.
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With your client, it might be about them emailing you to let you know that they took the step.
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It might be something that they a promise that they make to themselves.
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For me, with my resistance training, not only did I put it in my calendar, but for accountability I set an alarm to go off.
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1/2 hour before the time so that I would start wrapping things up, getting my sneakers on and getting out the door to the gym.
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So in a moment I’m gonna review all 6 steps.
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I hope that you really learned a lot, not only for yourself. If you’ve been following along doing the inner work.
00:35:51
On this technique, but I also hope that you learn a lot about Co creating transformation with your clients and I hope you learned a lot about human behavior just through us looking.
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These steps.
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To go.
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From stagnation to.
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So again step one was get specific.
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What is the thing that has fallen into stagnation?
00:36:18
And then as a sub part of that step, why do you want to revive this thing, right?
00:36:25
The motivation?
00:36:27
Step 2.
00:36:28
Why has this thing fallen?
00:36:31
Into stagnation.
00:36:34
Get.
00:36:35
Connect the dots.
00:36:38
Step 3.
00:36:38
What would you need to believe about this thing that you’d like to renew so that you can really refresh it and get it going again, and then feel the new belief?
00:36:50
Just leave it at the cognitive.
00:36:52
Bring it to the body level.
00:36:54
Step 4.
00:36:56
What is the new vision?
00:36:59
How is this gonna look as you renew it and bring that springtime energy of curiosity and playfulness as you vision it?
00:37:09
Step 5 was plant a.
00:37:11
Get clear on that next specific baby step.
00:37:15
And then the bonus step 6.
00:37:19
Make a commitment. Find accountability.
00:37:23
I hope you enjoyed this episode A.
00:37:27
I hope you got inspired around the spring. We’re almost there for those of us in the northern hemisphere. If you loved this episode.
00:37:38
Please give it five stars and a really great review.
00:37:43
Please also share it with anyone who you know would get value and I’ll look forward to seeing you next time.
