Making the most of the rest of this year

Pressing Pause ep 126 Making the most of the rest of the year

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Welcome to Pressing Pause, I’m your host, Gabrielle Treanor, a coach, writer, introvert and sensitive soul with an inclination to ponder over the stuff of life. Join me as I explore how we can create, find and feel more calm, ease and joy in our daily lives.

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In case you missed the episode last week, the first in quite a long time, I wanted to let you know that I have written a book! It’s called The 1% Wellness Experiment: Micro-gains to change your life in ten minutes a day. It’s a really practical book with actions you can take straight away to make a real difference to the quality of your life. Each action takes only 10 minutes – that’s 1% of your waking day – so it’s super quick and effective. And it’s an experiment because I’ve taken off the pressure of you having to do things a certain way to guarantee a result, which so often leads to disappointment and frustration. This book puts the power back in your hands because you get to choose how everything I share in the book will work best for you in your unique life. We explore establishing boundaries and saying no, overcoming comparison and handling anxiety, dealing with perfectionism and creating habits and much more.

So by the end of the experiment you’ll have created your own bespoke tried-and-tested toolkit packed with techniques to lower your stress, strengthen your self-confidence, nurture your connections, instil calm and increase joy.

The 1% Wellness Experiment is available to pre-order now and I have two special bonuses for everyone who pre-orders the book! You will receive my guide called 1 Minute Magic – 50 micro actions to calm and soothe, resource and regulate exclusive to those who pre-order The 1% Wellness Experiment. As it sounds, the guide has 50 small but mighty actions that take just 60 seconds or less to de-stress your mind and body. You just need to send me confirmation of your book pre-order and you’ll be emailed 1 Minute Magic on 21 December, the book publication day. This bonus guide is only available to those pre-ordering The 1% Wellness Experiment and it won’t be available once the book is published.

Plus, there’s more! Everyone who sends me confirmation of their book pre-order will be entered into a prize draw to win one of three 45minute one to one coaching sessions with me! You can find out more about the pre-order book bonuses as well as find links to online shops in the UK and around the world where you can pre-order The 1% Wellness Experiment at thewellnessexperiment.co.uk. And of course you can pre-order the book at your local high street book store too.

I’m so excited to bring you my book and to share the pre-order bonuses with you too.

Right then, let’s crack on with the episode, shall we?

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Welcome to episode 126. At the time of recording this episode there are less than three months left of the year. Where I am in the northern hemisphere we are most definitely in Autumn and Strictly Come Dancing is back on the TV which always feels like a countdown to Christmas!

Knowing that there are only a few months left of the year can feel like a pressure, whatever we said we’d do this year we’re running out of time to get done. Now, if that inspires and motivates you into action that’s great. But if it makes you feel stressed and overwhelmed and frozen by the enormity of the job that’s not good. And it’s unlikely you’ll feel excited to crack on because it all just feels too much in not enough time.

Maybe the things you said would happen this year, the targets, goals, the to do list don’t actually have to be accomplished by 31 December. Perhaps that was a date you just chose to give you some kind of parameters to work within. In which case you can change your parameters if you want to, if it’s feeling too overwhelming to try to meet that self-imposed deadline.

If you still really want to reach the goal or do the thing or make the change before the end of the year but it still feels like a huge stretch, we need to shift the thinking around it so that you can reignite the motivation and excitement you felt when you first decided this is what you wanted for yourself for this year.

So what was your reasoning? Why did you want to do this thing or make this change? What was your motivation? What will you gain from it, what will it give you, what difference will it make to you, and perhaps those around you?

For example, perhaps you wanted to change your job because you’re bored or feel stuck or the work schedule is making life difficult and stressful. Tapping back into why you wanted to change your job, what role you want to do or where you want to work, what positive impact that will have on your life as well as your loved ones, how much lighter, happier, more fulfilled you could be – that’s what’s going to get you taking steps towards making it happen.

Or maybe you wanted to get into the habit of meditating every morning but it’s been happening in fits and starts – you manage for a couple of weeks and then you forget or you don’t have the time and more weeks go by. Remind yourself of why you want to start your day meditating – does that still hold true? Has it been a struggle to keep up the ritual because you don’t really want to do it you just think you should? In which case maybe it’s time to try something else instead.

If you decide that yes, you really do want to keep going with meditating because you believe (and perhaps know from when you’ve had a run of it) that it helps you to feel calmer, more focused and you feel in a better headspace from starting your day with a meditation, hang on to that motivation. And at the same time take the pressure off. Perhaps instead of telling yourself you have to do it every day aim for three or four mornings a week. Maybe it’s playing around with when, where and for how long you meditate. Rather than make it a hard and fast rule that you must meditate daily and if you don’t you fail, hold this intention more lightly and take the pressure off. This kind of thinking and experimenting is what you’ll read a lot about in my book, The 1% Wellness Experiment.

If you chose a word for the year how is that working out for you? Perhaps you’ve forgotten about it but recalling it now could help to give you encouragement for the rest of the year. Or if you didn’t choose one, or it hasn’t felt that supportive so far, why not choose a word for the remainder of the year?

The word I chose for 2023 was Nourish and I’ve been liking it. The word has helped me pay more attention to the different ways I can and am nourishing myself, to recognise what I need and when I’m giving myself that nourishment. Only one aspect of it is the most obvious – the food I eat – and having read Ultra Processed People by Dr Chris van Tulleken I am paying a lot more attention to ingredients lists and making more myself to reduce my UPF consumption.

Having Nourish as my word is much more about how I feed myself emotionally, intellectually, socially and energetically. For example, on a Wednesday I often feel really tired by the end of the day and just want to lie on the couch, and that sometimes is nourishing. But, I’ve learned that getting myself out to do the pub quiz with our friends nourishes me as well because invariably we have a great chat and a giggle and that nourishes me in a different way. As someone who is quite far down the introvert end of the scale, and highly sensitive, managing my energy is important and it’s been interesting to notice when pushing myself a little to go out or do something or be with people has been nourishing even though it does deplete my energy.

And I certainly feel like I’ve nourished my mind a lot with all the uni studying and researching the book! I think it’s really stoked the fire of my curiosity and love of learning but I need to pace myself or else nourishment will turn into overfeeding!

As I write this the thought of ‘I wonder what my word for next year will be?’ popped into my head. But no, I’m not getting ahead of myself. Yes there are only a few months left of this year but also, there are still a few months left of this year! There’s time, it’s not about to run out, let’s not get sucked into scarcity and pressure.

So, with all the weeks that are still ahead of us this year, what do you want to do? How do you want to feel? How do you want to be? I want to enjoy my work, get absorbed in my studies, shout about my book from the rooftops and win the pub quiz a few more times. I want to be open to whatever lies ahead, to be focused and I want to feel calm, centred and energised.

How about you? What or who can help you to do what you want, to feel how you want? Everything I’ve listed above isn’t going to happen on its own, I’ll be getting support with all of it and you don’t have to figure out how you do what you want, how to make the changes you need, how to feel the way you want to feel all on your own either. You may already know who you can turn to for support and if not you can always talk to me, there are a variety of ways I can support you to in what you want to do and feel. Just drop me an email to [email protected].

Crikey, I think this is another long episode!

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Thank you for listening to Pressing Pause, you can find the show notes at gabrielletreanor.com/podcast.

If you enjoyed this podcast it would be incredibly helpful and lovely of you to leave a rating or review on iTunes. Reviews make a big difference to how podcasts are found and it would be wonderful if more people could find and listen to this podcast.

There are lots more resources to help you to create, find and feel more calm, ease and joy in your life, including free guides, blog posts, online courses and one to one coaching, at gabrielletreanor.com. Make sure you’re getting my regular emails too, they’re designed to soothe, inspire and delight. And you can pre-order my book, The 1% Wellness Experiment too

I always love to hear from you, what you take from the episodes and what you’d like me to talk about, so feel free to drop me a line at [email protected].

Thanks again for listening, until next time.