How you do one thing…or how my life is like the oven tray

Have you ever heard the saying that coaches are overly fond of? ‘How you do one thing is how you do everything.’

I hate it.

One of my previous coaches used to use it all the frickin’ time and it drove me mad.

Probably because it showed me patterns of thought and behaviour I’d rather stay hidden, and pretend things just happened that way, that it all happened to me and I had no input at all.

Which is, of course, rubbish. We are the creators of our life, so looking at how you do one thing will tell you why your life is the way it is in all aspects of it.

For me, that was just too much. I couldn’t see how the fact that I didn’t finish the ironing and did the most of it but left a couple of tops because I’d had enough of that tedious chore would have any kind of impact on my health, wealth, business, relationships.

But why wouldn’t I do those last two or three tops?

Why wouldn’t I stay on a diet until I dropped all the excess weight instead of reverting to normal eating after losing most of it but not all?

Same with writing promotional material, or delivering new courses or well, everything.

Why did this come up today?

Because I was washing the baking trays from yesterday, they’d been soaking overnight because the vegetables had been burned a bit and the charcoal was hard to shift.

And this morning as I resoaked them in hot water, it was still proving really stubborn and even as I scrubbed with the steel wool I couldn’t get it shifted.

And I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’ll just dump it and buy a new one, no big deal.’

And that damn phrase popped into my head, ‘How you do one thing is how you do everything.’

And I’ve been guilty of giving up when things don’t go according to plan, usually right at the end when I’ve almost got it and just another small effort will make whatever it is happen for me, but no, in the face of further resistance I just think, nope, done enough, I’ve got to face facts and just move on.

‘Its too hard.’

I can’t do it.’

‘Its not for me’

‘I’ve fucked up and I’ll have to start again to make it perfect.’

‘Its not worth it.’

Substitute ‘I’m’ for ‘its’ and I think you’re got the base for that behaviour.

Why did I always do that? Why did I stop short? Why did I think it didn’t matter?

What didn’t matter? What are facts that didn’t matter?

For that matter, what are facts?

They’re simply something we’ve labelled reality but its not.

Do you know how little of reality we actually perceive?

I read this amazing fact recently which confirmed what I’ve always believed that we see and perceive so little of what the world is but we label the limited amount we see as ‘all there is.’

Science has discovered a startling limitation that most of us are totally unaware of; if the mass of the electromagnetic spectrum was laid out in a line, it would stretch the distance from New York to LA, almost 3,000 miles.

How much of that do we humans actually see with our own two eyes?

The length of your arm from shoulder to wrist!

And yet we say things like, ‘I can’t see the way out of my troubles,’ or ‘The way isn’t clear yet’ or some other such thing because we think the world is as we see it and we’re seeing this tiny, tiny fraction of it all. Substitute any sensory input for sight and its the same thing. We are aware of so little!

So of course, I never saw how close I was to being lean, fit and healthy or of having everything work out just as I wanted it because I was looking for it with my very limited perception.

So today when I was washing that oven tray and that thought of ‘how I do everything’ popped into my head, I thought, ‘Fuck you, I’m finishing this and its going to be perfect, going to be exactly how I want it to be.’

And I got a knife out of the drawer and started chipping away at the charred remains of carrots and brussel sprouts, and then I started scrubbing again with the steel wool and that pan looked like new. Well, new-ish! It was sparkling clean at any rate.

How I do one thing is how I do everything.

If I’m struggling with something, I’ll soak it in hot water, take a break and then grab a new tool to get the job done and the job will get done.

I’ve written before about how important it is we identify our patterns, otherwise we are going round and round in circles in this life and the change we want to make will never be made, because we don’t see the pattern.

But we often don’t want to identify where we do the same things over and over again: probably no issues more so than money or relationships. Money comes in one hand and leaves with the other, burns a hole in our pockets, slips through our fingers. Never enough and savings are something other people have.

Same with relationships and we see this so easily with other people rather than ourselves, someone attracts the same kind of partner over and over again, having a ‘type.’ Always have the same kind of roller coaster, rowing and makeup partnership even through we hate the drama and pain.

Identifying our patterns is the first step to changing them. But its hard to do by ourselves. So ask. Ask the people who love you and care about you where they see you making the same mistake time and time again. As I said, its always so easy to do this service for someone else than see ourselves clearly.

*caveat – ask people who are clear sighted and hopefully who have achieved what it is you’re seeking. Don’t ask your Uncle Mike who’s been divorced five times and never been faithful once – his advice on your ability to have a successful relationship isn’t worth tuppence!

We have a few days before the nonsense of New Year resolutions start. Instead of making a list of all the things you don’t like about yourself and want to change and yet know you won’t because its been on your list year after year. Look for one thing. Just one thing to change.

And put all your effort into making that change, in showing up differently in that one area of your life.

Why?

Because how you do one thing is how you do everything!

See how that works! 😉

Love and blessing, my dearest friend,

Cynthia xx

BTW, I’ve completely reworked my Change for Life program and its now Being the Best Me. A 12 week 1:1 highly personalised HypnoTherapyCoaching offer designed to take you from being unhappy, miserable and not sure of who you are anymore to being fully reconnected to the truth of your brilliance, magnificence and humanity.

Interested? Email or message me to find out more. Space are limited as I can only work with so many people at a time. Be one who truly makes their life different this year.