Is it time to kiss the frog?

Today I’m writing to you from a train, thankfully it’s not so busy and I have a lovely cup of peppermint tea that keeps wafting under my nose! Even now it seems a little weird like wearing a pair of shoes I haven’t worn for a while, knowing that at one time they were comfortable and maybe they will be again in the future.

As I sat down my mind wandered about how as humans we don’t like doing things that make us feel uncomfortable and how often when we put things off, they appear to us to be even more uncomfortable than before. It reminded me of the book ‘Eat that Frog’ by Brian Tracy, I confess I have never read it, but it’s a phrase that is so often quoted when we have something that we are just putting off, that’s making us uncomfortable, we just have to ‘eat the frog’. In my mind it was a funny expression, whilst I don’t mind frogs at all, in fact they can be rather cute, the thought of eating one just seemed a little step too far, I mean why would you? It certainly didn’t encourage me to get on a do the thing I needed to do.

However, what I have always found curious is how often, after I have done the thing that I found so uncomfortable beforehand, I always felt so much better, lighter even, like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. So often I would even say to myself ‘what was all that about, that wasn’t bad at all!’ It’s interesting isn’t it? When I share this with clients they too feel the same, it’s like we have noticed this, but we don’t really pay attention to this part as the next time we have that ‘feeling’ about something, our minds turn to how awful the feeling is, rather than focusing on remembering how good we are going to feel when it is done.

So what if the frog wasn’t a frog at all? What if we have been misunderstanding that feeling all along? What if that feeling wasn’t intended to prevent us from doing whatever it was we needed to do, but was in fact more of an intelligent internal nudge to get it done because when we do we will feel better? I have played with this interpretation for a number of years now, after I first had the insight that perhaps I too had innocently been misinterpreting the feeling.

I began to see that when I get a nudge to do something, it feels like a knowing that I need to do something, but when I ignore it the nudge gets bigger and more uncomfortable to live with until it feels like it’s weighing on me and is something I can’t ignore! However when we start to see that this is part of our own intelligence, a part of our mind that is reminding us that this is what we need to do, like a giant highlighter on our to do list, bringing it to our attention so that we can’t miss it, it becomes more of a welcome feeling. It’s telling us something helpful, that when it’s done we will feel better, lighter, that it’s the right next step, not as we often fear that it is something awful, that we need to overcome, or that it’s going to be hard or difficult.

So perhaps we have innocently misunderstood that feeling, and that with more understanding we see it’s helpfulness rather than it’s hindrance, so that it becomes less of a frog that we need to eat but rather one we’d rather kiss!

with love,

Andrea x

p.s if you would like to learn more about how understanding your state of mind can impact the success of your professional career or business, let’s have a chat. To find a time to suit you?click here .

Andrea Morrison is a Transformational Business Coach, Tedx Speaker, Writer and Columnist for The Yorkshire Post. Find out more about her forthcoming events and programmes on her website:?www.andreamorrison.co.uk