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M THISGIRLISONFIRE.COM 2 STAGE 2: LEARN

Congratulations! Well done on completing Stage 1 of this course, and taking a huge step away from feeling stuck, scared, and like you’re just existing rather than truly living.

Now that you are in Stage 2 I know you’re feeling nervously excited, ready to change, committed, engaged and really believing that you CAN change. I am so fired up, knowing what’s in store for you over the next few parts! You are going to be making HUGE strides towards breaking the fear that is holding you back, learning to understand it, control it and shut down that inner voice that tells you “you can’t”. I’m here to show you that YOU CAN!

Once again… take your time with this, don’t rush through it, ticking things off and diving on to the next thing. You’re going to be working through some uncomfortable things here, so take as long as you need to, there is no time scale and this will always be here for you. This is the part where you let it go to grow.

By the time you finish this SECOND STAGE of the course, you will have learned how to:

Cope with fear when it happens - because it WILL happen. Deal with “What’s the worst that could happen? Figure out if your fears are real, or if your brain is simply gossiping with you and freaking you out. Keep your emotions appropriate to your situation, and not blow them out of control. See things as they really are not as you see them. Choose to think differently. Learn from problems, not get swamped by them. Live up to your eulogy. Reframe your ‘failures’

M THISGIRLISONFIRE.COM 3 STAGE 2: LEARN

Now you are ready to start this, remember to go to your profile and change your Stage from LIVE to LEARN. That way you will easily see and connect with other members who are at the same stage as you, share your experiences and support each other. For more inspiring tunes to help get you in the mood, head to our FREE PLAYLIST on Spotify and head to LEARN.

DDeep down, we know that fear stops us from doing certain things. Geenerally, that’s a good thing because otherwise we’d be leaping off cliffsfs and believing we can jump over speeding cars. Fear is in our brain to protectr us – either from ourselves and our own stupidity or from the dangers of the world in which we live.

One thing you need to realise is that you’re going to get it wrong many, many times.

NNo one gets what they want in life – at work, at home or wherever – without falling flat on their face, looking and feeling stupid, and having to pick themselves up, brush themselves down, and start all over again.

TheThe ttimesimes yyouou ggetet tthingshings wwrongrong aaren’tren’t ffailures,ailures, tthey’rehey’re jjustust aattttempts.empts. TheyThey tteacheach yyouou ssomethingomething bbecauseecause tthehe nnextext ttimeime yyouou ttry,ry, yyou’llou’ll ddoo iitt ddifferently.ifferently.

Next time, you’ll do it another way. And if that fails, you’ll try it another way and another and another until it finally works.

Remember, Einstein didn’t wake up one morning, discover the theory of relativity before lunch and then receive the Nobel Prize for Physics by teatime. Success in any form takes time and effort.

BBesides,esides, iiff yyouou ddon’ton’t ggetet tthingshings wwrong,rong, hhowow wwillill yyouou kknownow wwhenhen yyou’reou’re rright?ight?

M THISGIRLISONFIRE.COM 4 THE FEAR FACTOR... Part

1. You are afraid of disappointing those you love and who love you

WhoW is it that you are afraid of disappointing? Dig deep here and be honest.ho Is it your partner, your friends, colleagues, yourself or your parents?n Why is this? Was there a time when you did something that was not mmet with approval and it both stung and stuck with you? Is that what you are revisiting every time you think of trying?

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2: You want to avoid feeling scared

A lot of the time we’re doing whatever we can to avoid feeling scared. That’s completely understandable, but consider this: if fear is stopping you from living the life you really want, you’re just waiting for it all to end. You’re not thriving, let alone loving your life. What a waste!

Can you think of a time when you have skirted around trying to do something, just because you knew it would frighten you, and you didn’t want to feel that feeling of fear? Why? Really unpick this; where has this fear come from? What can you practically do to overcome it?

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3. You don’t think you deserve to succeed.

Somewhere along the way, it’s been dripped into us that we don’t deserve to do well. Whether that’s come from a parent, a teacher at school, a spouse, a friend, at some point it’s clicked into our brain and stayed there: You don’t deserve this. Get back into your box and stay quiet. You’re not smart enough. You’re not pretty enough. You’re not capable enough. Stop showing off.

Whatever the voice is saying, it all comes down to the same thing: you don’t deserve it. Somehow, we’ve taken that voice and swapped the ‘you’ for ‘I’. This difference is really important to understand. You didn’t start off in life thinking that you couldn’t do something or that you didn’t deserve it, or that maybe you shouldn’t try because someone else might not like it. That came later.

This is a difficult part of our psyche to overcome, and it won’t happen just because you jot a few things down today. But it will make you see that just because you have been told it, doesn’t mean it’s true.

Write down times in your life where someone has said these things to you, and made you feel unworthy, incompetent or undeserving. Who were they? Why do you think they said these things to you; what was the benefit to them? Seeing it written down is a big step towards separating the emotional pull of how awful it has made you feel, and seeing the reasoning behind their actions.

MakingMaking yyouou ffeeleel ssmallmall iiss a wwayay ooff mmakingaking tthemhem ffeeleel mmoreore iinn ccontrol,ontrol, mmoreore ppowerful.owerful. IItt iiss aaboutbout tthem,hem, iitt iiss nnotot aaboutbout YYOOUU..

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Well done for writing that down. It isn’t easy, and I hope it has helped you in some way to let the pain of those experiences go.

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To balance things out a little, now do this exercise: Write down a list of times where you have done something that has exceeded what you, or anyone else thought you were capable of. When did you surprise yourself by knocking it out the park, doing a great job, being brave? It doesn’t matter what it was; it can be as small as ringing to complain about something when you hate confrontation, or doing a project at work that had kept you up at night with fear but actually went really well. Anything!

How great does it feel to see that you have already done the thing that you are most afraid of? Screw what they say! You are: “Braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.” So says Winnie The Pooh.

YouYou aarere aalsolso ddeservingeserving ooff iitt aall,ll, yyouou jjustust hhaven’taven’t hhadad tthehe rightright peoplepeople ttellingelling yyouou sso…o…

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4. You are scared of failing

What’s failure? What’s success? Only you know the answer. You’re the one who sets your limitations, as well as your goals, no one else.

It’s said that success is failure turned inside out, and it is, but it’s also much more than that. It’s also about perspective. We all need to learn how to cope with fear when it happens – because it WILL happen.

If your fear is of failure, try to see each attempt at something as an opportunity to do it differently. If it doesn’t work you can of course have your emotional reaction first – cry, scream, shout, sulk, or whatever your go‐to response is – but then sit down and draw up a plan for how you’re going to try again. That’s the difference between people who fail and those who succeed: people who succeed, fail way more often than those who don’t, because they keep trying until they get to where they want to be.

Recognise that some fear is normal, rational, or to be expected, and keep your emotions to the level demanded by the situation. Don’t make it into something it’s not.

RRememberemember tthathat tthingshings aarere nneverever aass ttheyhey sseemeem – tthey’rehey’re aass wwee sseeee them.them. CChoosehoose ttoo sseeee tthingshings ddifferently.ifferently.

Think of a time when you have failed at something you tried, really toe-curlingly bombed. Horrible, wasn’t it? And yet, here you are. The world didn’t end, it just felt really, really bad for a while. And I bet you won’t do it that way again! So, you LEARNED from it. Write down what happened, how you felt, and how you feel now looking back on it. What would you do differently?

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The key thing to remember here is most of the time we aren’t actually afraid of failing. We are afraid of EMBARRASSING OURSELVES. The two are not the same thing at all, and the sooner you stop worrying about being embarrassed, you will learn to embrace failure for the learning lesson that it is.

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5. You’re worried about what everyone else thinks

There are two things at play here: one is being liked, which is something we all want, and the other, which is a little darker, is that we don’t realise that if we spend our life wanting other people’s approval for simply being who and what we are, we’re handing ourselves over to them. They’re in control of our happiness. Not us.

Isn’t that crazy? Surely we should all be in control of our own emotions – not some random stranger on Instagram, or even a partner or friend who constantly tells us we need to wear different trousers because ours don’t suit us. Those strangers, those friends, they OWN your ass! Take it back. Take ownership of it.

ItIt doesn’tdoesn’t mattermatter wwhoho wwee aare,re, wwhathat aagege wwee aarere oorr wwhathat wwe’ree’re ddoioinng,g, asas JackJack CanfieldCanfield ffamoamouslyusly ssaid:aid: ‘‘EverythingEverything yyouou wwantant iiss oonn tthehe otherther sideside ooff ffear.’ear.’

Who is it that you are afraid of:

Strangers? Who aren’t brave enough to attempt HALF of what you would, yet will sit in the shadows and slag you off? Why would you care about them?

Your friends? Real friends will applaud you when it goes right and pull you up when it goes wrong. The rest aren’t real friends.

Your peers? If they are threatened by you then they may make life uncomfortable for you, but that isn’t a reason to stop trying for your dreams, just to make people who don’t like you happy.

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Write down who you are afraid of and why. Really unpick this; where has this fear come from? What can you practically do to overcome it?

We’reWe’re aallll sscaredcared – bbutut iisn’tsn’t iitt a ggreatreat ffeelingeeling wwhenhen yyouou ggoo aaheheaad,d, trytry youryour hhardestardest aandnd ddoo iitt aanyway?nyway?

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Well done! You have completed Part 1. This was a tough section, and there will be a lot here that you will probably go back over and revisit as things pop into your mind. It wasn’t easy, but you did it. Can I hope you are feeling very proud of yourself?

In the next section, you will be finding out the difference between what you think is happening, and what is actually happening, when we look into the commotion caused by our gossiping brains…

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When you’re worried about or scared of something, have you ever stopped to really think about it and consider whether it’s true or whether you’re just gossiping inside your own head? I stop myself short sometimes and ask this question. Your brain is an incredible thing, but it’s also a hopeless gossip – worse than any of your friends and way worse than any of your frenemies. It’ll gossip about you to your face, sending you into a tailspin of self‐doubt, fear and stress.

So when you next find yourself going round and round in circles, stop, and ask yourself: Is this actually true? Or is my brain just gossiping? No prizes for guessing what the answer usually is. Think of a time when you have gone round and round in circles fretting about something:

Maybe a friend didn’t reply to a message you sent them, that you felt was really personal and important.

Maybe you saw two people at work exchanging glances when you spoke.

These are things that have happened to all of us at some time or another, and once our gossiping brain latches on to them, well, it becomes the stuff of Soap Opera legend, the scenarios it comes up with! So next time you are in the shower, going over and over that text, that look and coming up with a million reasons why, remind yourself, that NONE OF THEM ARE BASED ON FACT.

Your brain is gossiping with you.

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Write down the times when this has happened, and you have gone off on a downward spiral of horrible thoughts about what may have been happening. Then write down what the actual truth was. How far apart was it? I hope you can laugh at how silly it all seemed now, but can you see how easy it is for our brains to blow things out of all proportion, and how easily we go along with it? Think of how much better you’ll feel when you stop hanging out with the office gossip - your own brain..

Now… If the situation you are stressing about is actually true and you genuinely have something to worry about or be afraid of, ask yourself this question:

“What can I do about it, or learn from it?”

Because sometimes you get things wrong – we all do. But remember, it’s not the getting it wrong that’s the problem, or the thing to be frightened of – it’s what we do or don’t do about it.

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Sometimes we mess up.

We try something that doesn’t go as planned.

We’re thoughtless, or rude, or get swept along with things; and we can be mean.

That’s okay. Just remember that you are in control. If you tried something and it didn’t work out, see it as just that – something that didn’t work out. If you’ve got something wrong, swallow your pride, say sorry and do something about it.

It’s scary, but you can do it. So do it.

Write down what it is that you are worried or scared of right now. What can you do about it?

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In the last part we dug into whether what you are fearful of or worried about is actually happening, or if your brain is making a bigger deal of things than it needs to. And if something really is happening that needs to be addressed, what can you practically do to help the situation?

Now it’s time to take the one thing that our brain has been desperate for us to do… That is to ask ourselves:

What’s the worst that could happen?

Let’s take a look... 1. Make a list of all the terrible things that could happen at work or in your personal life, or wherever it is that you want to make changes. Dig deep, really go for it: absolute worst‐case scenario stuff that’s right out of your most awful stress dream. We have all been through a terrible time throughout 2020, and some of your worst things may have actually happened, you may be living through them right now, at this exact moment.

2. Now look at the list. That’s the absolute WORST that could happen. It’s not good, but now you’ve seen it written down I bet you can think of ways you could deal with it. If you are in the middle of it right now, write down what you have been doing to deal with things. Now, devise some appropriate responses for each of your worst‐case scenarios that haven’t happened. In this way, you’ll have already faced your worst fears and come up with a solution for them. So, what do you have to be afraid of?

3. Next, write a list of the BEST things that could happen at work or in your personal life. Because if you’re going to look at things one way, then you have to balance it out by looking at it the other way.

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Somewhere in the middle of your worst‐ and best‐case scenario lists is what will actually happen. What’s the worst that could happen if you try to change?

What if I fall? Oh my darling, but what if you fly?

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What is the story you’re telling, both yourself and others?

Thee author and speaker Gabrielle Bernstein’s take on fear is that while we’ree hardwired for it, we can overcome it by choosing not to think fearful thoughts.

Gabrielle recommends that we simply say: ‘I choose not to think this thought’ and it magically disappears. And, eventually, it’s true. It doesn’t happen right away, because that gossip muscle is STRONG! But eventually, we can train that muscle to work in a way that benefits us, rather than trying to hamper us.

The research professor, Dr Brene Brown, has spent two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy, and she has an interesting take on how we view our lives and our actions. One interesting method she uses, during a time of conflict with either ourselves or others, is to ask:

“What is the story I am telling myself right now?”

This is something that every single one of us does, intentionally or otherwise. We tell ourselves stories about our own behaviour and others, to justify or explain, in a way that either makes us feel better about something we have done, or justifies our response to something others have done. Either way, these stories are RARELY TRUE.

WWee ddon’ton’t sseeee tthingshings aass ttheyhey rreallyeally aarere – wwee sseeee tthemhem aass wwee aarere.

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If you are emotionally robust enough, this is a really powerful tool to use on yourself, and if possible, with the person you are having an emotional tussle with. It’s difficult, all powerful things are, but it’s also incredibly enlightening.

Think of a time when you have told yourself a story to justify or explain your behaviour or that of others. Was it true? Really true? Write down why you think you told yourself that story. What were you trying to justify? Can you think of a time when someone else has done the same to you? Does this help you understand why they may have done it?

As the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle says in his book Oneness With All Life: ‘The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it.’

Use whatever works best for you and remember: you may just surprise yourself by reacting in a way you never thought you would. You may be afraid right now, but doing nothing about it means nothing changes. Start small. Accept that most things are out of your control and let it go. Do your bit with the things you can, and let the rest go. You can overcome it. And you will.

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You have just completed Module 1 The Fear Factor.

This was not an easy section to complete; fear is the most powerful, disruptive emotion in our psyche, and tackling it is not something that we can do effectively in one sitting. It doesn’t just take time, it takes repeated and considered action to change our habits and thought patterns around the primitive part of our being. You may find yourself coming back to this section, filling parts out that come into head later on, helping you to figure out why you think and feel the way your do. This is all part of the process, let the words flow out of you and enjoy the release.

In this Module you have learned: We’re all afraid of things, but we can work out what we can do to take that fear away. We can ask ourselves whether our fear is real or imagined – are we just ‘gossiping’ with ourselves. It’s rational to feel some fear, but we should keep our emotions appropriate to the situation and not make it into something it’s not. We should remember that things are never as they seem – instead, they are as we see them. And we can choose to see them differently.

In the next Module, you’ll be asking yourself some brutally honest questions about your thoughts and behaviour, and figuring out if the world really is against you, or whether you have brought some of the things that are happening to you on to yourself. Don’t panic - it’s a good thing, because it means you are in control and can stop it!

Take a deep breath, and I’ll see you in Module 2.

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MILESTONEMILESTONE 22 SOMETIMESSOMETIMES IT'SIT'S NOTNOT THEM,THEM, IT'SIT'S YOUYOU

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Sometimes you are the one who’s holding you back.

Not your horrible boss, your lousy ex, your flaky friend or simply life itself. You.

There are lots of signs that this is true, but we choose not to see them.

It’sIt’s soso muchmuch eeasierasier ttoo ggiveive oourselvesurselves aann eexcusexcuse oorr ttoo blameblame otherother people.people.

We all do it, we know we do it, and we even know when we’re doing it because even as the words come out of our mouth there’s a slightly churny feeling in the pit of our stomach.

That’s our conscience doing the gut equivalent of tapping us on the shoulder and saying: Er, that’s not exactly how it happened. Actually it was you who didn’t pull your weight, who didn’t work quite as hard as you could have, who took your eye off the ball, who became just a tad selfish and self‐centred and stopped asking how your partner, friend, whoever it is that’s drifted away from you, actually felt about things.

It’s okay to admit that to yourself, even if you can’t face saying it out loud to anyone else right now. Remember:

StopStop lookinglooking backwardsbackwards aandnd sstarttart llookingooking fforwards.orwards. YYouou ccan’tan’t hheellpp what’swhat’s gonegone bbefore,efore, bbutut yyouou aarere iinn ccontrolontrol ooff wwherehere yyou’reou’re ggoinoingg..

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Once you get your head around this life becomes so much more positive, and less scary too, because you don’t feel as if you’re thrashing about and that it’s all someone else’s fault. You’re not lost: you’re taking control and taking responsibility for your life. It makes you feel good when you do this; and it makes you feel good when you give yourself goals, plans, objectives, tasks, lists, whatever you want to call them. Because they’re reasons to look ahead; they’re the light that you work towards. Wouldn’t you rather be in the light than in this horrible, dark existence?

So, let’s stop you making excuses and get you out of your own way…

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We all like to think of ourselves as good friends. Loyal and supportive, funny and kind, we are the kind of person that others can rely on, can call on, can lean on. That’s what good friends are, right?

The thing is, we can be all of those things, but we can also have a spiky little side to us. One that isn’t quite as attractive. Our shadow side if you like. We need to be really honest with ourselves about the kind of things we do around our friends, even if we don’t mean any harm to them…

Ask yourself this: Do you get a kick out of it when others mess up? Do you love to spread the word about someone’s failure?

If you’re this kind of friend, ask yourself what that energy is doing to you and the people around you. Can you be trusted? Why are you doing it? Does it make you feel better about yourself when other people mess up? I know we all have that in us – we can feel a little jolt of relief that someone who appears to have it all figured out is human just like the rest of us. That’s normal. But do you relish it? Roll around in it? Spread it about and take pleasure in it?

That’s not good for you, never mind them.

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When have you done things you’re not proud of in your friendship group; what were they, and why do you think you did them?

Well done! You have completed Part 1. There have been some uncomfortable moments here, so congratulate yourself on being open and honest. In the next part, you are going to do a similar dive into your behaviour, only this time looking at your romantic relationships…

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In Part 1 you had a look into how you behave in your friendship group, and how you truly show up for your friends. In this section, we are going to do a similar exercise, but this time with our romantic partners. We all know that even when we are partnered up with our very best friends we don’t behave in the same way with them as we would with someone who was simply our friend. We think we do, we tell ourselves that we do, but we don’t…

All relationships are different, but if they’re unequal in their intention then they’re never going to work. Think back on some of your past relationships, and you reaction to them; can you see times when you tried to change how things were to make them how you wanted them to be, rather than accept what they were?

You may not have realised you were doing anything wrong - most of us think that by trying to make things work, you are doing the right thing? Isn’t that what women are raised to do – make relationships work? But who decided this, and when was it agreed that it was a ‘good thing’?

Have a think about your own behaviour. Have there been times in your past where you thought you were doing the right thing, but actually you were being an absolute pain in the neck?

Were there times when you simply were an absolute pain in the neck, when you were downright horrible?

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Write down the times where you behaved in a way that wasn’t your proudest moment, and ask yourself why?

Well done! You have completed Part 2. I know that you have dug into some uncomfortable truths here, so congratulate yourself on being open and honest, it wasn’t easy, but you did it. In the next part, you are going to do a similar dive into your behaviour, only this time looking at how you turn up for work…

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Most of us tend to focus on the job we have to do and don’t often give much thought to how we’re doing it. What are we like to work with? What kind of energy are we giving off to the people around us?

Have a look at your own behaviour. Could there be a reason why opportunities just don’t seem to work out for you? Or why you haven’t made many work friends? Maybe it’s not all down to everyone else... Write down times (either in your past or right now in your present) where you have not brought your A, B or even Z game to your job, ask yourself why, and reflect on how that worked out for you.

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You’ve done it! These were the trickiest parts to complete in this Milestone, so well done for taking a long, hard look in the mirror and being really honest with what you saw. It may have brought up some difficult memories for you, so be kind to yourself - that was what you did then, up next, you are going to be focusing on what you do now…

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In the previous parts, you have looked at your behaviour around friends, lovers and colleagues, and how sometimes, you maybe haven’t done things in the best way they could be done. That’s ok. That was what you did then, up next, you are going to be focusing on what you do now…

Remember that you always have a choice about the way you react to something. Always.

Your reaction isn’t the only option, it’s just the first one you have.

So think again. How would you choose to react to something if you had the time to consider it? Next time, make a conscious decision to react in that way – choose the better option. See humour in it. See irrelevance in it. See whatever you like, as long as it’s positive and helpful rather than negative and unhelpful.

There’s humour or learning to be had in every situation, even the truly awful ones.

Have a think about the things you wrote down in the previous parts. If you were to approach them again with the mindset of laughing at something or learning from it, what would you do differently? How could that have affected the outcome in a better way? If that moment arose now, what would you do differently?

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Congratulations - you have completed Part 4! You have not only looked at your past behaviour, but put a new mindset on it, and looked at how you now, would behave differently to you then. This is a huge step forwards, so well done! This is all any of us can hope to do in life; see our mistakes, learn from them and try not to repeat them.

In the next section, you will be looking at the way we behave towards ourselves, because the way we are towards the outside world, is a reflection of how we are feeling in our internal world. If we are feeling hurt, stuck, scared and overwhelmed, we won’t be feeling warm and loving to the anyone else. So how are you treating yourself? I’ll see you in Part 5, where we’ll look at why our words matter.

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Welcome to Part 5, where we are going to be looking at the words we are surrounded by - the ones we listen to and those we use on ourselves.

When times are tough, as they are right now, when every news station and newspaper is revelling in wall‐to‐wall reporting on every terrible thing that’s happening in the world, the words we’re surrounded by every minute of the day seep into our subconscious and lodge themselves there. Just think about what that’s doing to you – listening to hourly hypothesizing about how truly awful everything is, and could be. I’m not saying that we need to walk around with our fingers in our ears, but sticking to the facts, rather than the hypothesizing, helps our fearful brain focus on those, rather than on the fiction.

And that’s just the words we’re listening to – the words we say have just as huge an impact. We all have friends who naturally lean to the dark side and are the Eeyore to everyone else’s Tigger. Think of the language they use: things are always a disaster; they aren’t just upset, they’re devastated and furious; everything is hopeless! It’s no surprise to learn that these and words like them trigger a response in both their brain and ours.

Think about the words that you use – when you’re talking to yourself and to others. What kind of state are you talking yourself into rather than out of? You can choose the way your mind sees things – choose to see the good or the bad. If there’s a problem in your life right now, rather than dwelling on it, think about what it might be trying to teach you. What can you learn from it?

The language we use when we talk to ourselves, and how we frame the events around us, has a huge effect on us psychologically. But we don’t even notice it because those words become our norm.

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Would you talk to a friend the way you talk to yourself? If you did, you wouldn’t have many friends left…“What’s the point? It won’t work. It’s alright for her. I never get what I want. Everyone’s going to laugh at me....” You know how it goes. We need to really think about the way we talk to ourselves and others – to consider carefully what the language we use means, and how we’re talking ourselves into feeling when we use such negative self-talk.

Using the wrong words can make us feel angry, depressed and fearful, which releases stress hormones. The brain reacts in the way we’ve told it to – it goes on guard, ready to protect us from harm. Our fuse is short, we’re on edge and we’re primed to react! And not in the best way.

When things are tough and scary our natural response is to be afraid and to surround ourselves with people who feel the same way. But by simply changing the words we use around that same situation, we can transform the way we view it.

Have a think about the words you use when talking about yourself and a situation, and how much it could benefit you to change them. Are things really devastating? Or are they difficult? Why not have a swap around – instead of catastrophizing the negative and minimizing the positive, minimize what’s going wrong and maximize what’s going right.

Instead of just feeling okay, why not feel amazing! Those little word swaps alone will have an outstanding effect on your psyche. Think about what using the right words does to our bodies – we feel lighter, energised, better able to cope.

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Write down words that describe you right now, even if you don’t think you are feeling too much. How could you turn the volume up on the good feelings and turn the volume down on the unhelpful ones?

How much time do you waste wishing things were different and moaning about the state of your life? Feeling sorry for yourself gets you absolutely nowhere. For every gripe you have there’ll be someone who faced ten times your adversity and overcame it. Of course you can dig in and find reasons why your situation is worse than someone else’s, and your resolution may not be exactly the same as theirs. However, even just accepting your situation, and then working on a way to resolve it, puts you a million light years ahead of those who do nothing.

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Everyone’s difficulties are unique, even if there are threads of similarities that bind us together. But the one thing that binds those who move away from, or survive difficult situations, is taking action. M THISGIRLISONFIRE.COM 36 SOMETIMES IT’S NOT THEM, IT’S YOU... Part

Congratulations - you have completed Part 5!

In the next section, we will be asking some questions to challenge your negative self‐talk, and help you work towards reframing your thoughts to more positive ones, as we look at ways to cultivate a positive (but realistic) mindset.

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Here are some questions to challenge your negative self‐talk and help you work towards reframing your thoughts to more positive ones:

1. Are you being truly honest with yourself right now? Is the issue that’s causing you so much pain as far beyond your control as you think it is, or is there something you can do about it? Write it down. Then write down the solutions you’d offer if you were giving advice to a friend who was in this situation – what would you say?

2. What kind of words are you surrounded by? How do your friends talk? Are they supportive of you? Do they make you feel great? Or are they always criticising other people and poking fun at anyone who tries and fails? Does this make you afraid to try too? Remember: they’re doing this because they’re too afraid to try themselves. Do you want to be like them?

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3. How do you talk to yourself? What kind of language do you use? Write down five words that you’d use to describe yourself right now. Next, write down five words that you think a good friend would use to describe you. Are they the same as your words? If not, what’s the difference? Why do you think that is? Why are you harder on yourself than you would be to someone you care about?

Stop being your own Mean Girl.

Take control of your mind, your own happiness. It’s your responsibility, no one else’s. You’re in control! We all have decisions to make in life, and while it can seem easier in the short term to wallow in misery and miserable company, you can make the decision to choose to think differently. It really is down to you.

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You have completed Module 2. If you thought the Module about overcoming fear was difficult, this one must have been an absolute stinker for you - so well done for getting through it!

In this Module you have learned: Sometimes, you are the one who’s holding you back – so get out of your own way and stop making excuses. Unless they tell us, we have no idea what others are thinking, or why they’re behaving the way they are; so we invent stories to suit what we think is happening and then make that our truth. So check your facts. The words we use when we talk to ourselves, and to frame the events around us, have an enormous effect on us; using the right words can shift our perspective from a negative to a positive one. If there’s a problem in our lives right now, rather than dwelling on it, we can think about what we can learn from it or how we can find humour in it.

This foundation course is simple but can be emotionally challenging, especially when it comes to rooting around in our heads and hearts, so you are doing incredibly well. Looking at our past emotional responses to situations, and our reactive behaviour is hard, especially when we are being brutally honest with ourselves. But that’s what this course is all about… being really, really honest with ourselves, privately, away from anyone we want to like us (like a therapist or mentor) or who already likes us (a partner or friend). Working through our thoughts and actions without trying to frame them in a way that makes us look good to anyone else, is the only way we can truly work out how to turn away from habits or behaviours that aren’t serving us, without shame or judgement. There is no shame here, just celebration that you are trying to figure out how to love yourself and this one life you have to live. You are doing so well and I’m so proud of you.

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In Module 3 you will be learning how to fail. That may sound a little strange - surely it’s something you’re NOT supposed to do! Sure, but it’s also the one thing you are absolutely guaranteed to do, so you may as well learn how to do it spectacularly!

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MILESTONEMILESTONE 33 LEARNINGLEARNING TOTO FAILFAIL

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You are going to fail way, way more times than you succeed. In fact, that’s the very definition of a successful person: someone who just got up, and tried again, and again, and again, until they got what they wanted, and were where they wanted to be. It really is that simple.

Few people have success handed to them on a plate. And if they do, you can bet your life savings they mess it up. Why? Because they haven’t learned how to do it properly. All those times you were failing, you were learning. They were lessons. It probably didn’t feel that way when you were let down, screwed over, embarrassed, broke, scared, lonely, but they were. I’ll bet every single time you experienced any of those things you learned something. Even if it was Well, I won’t do that again, it was a lesson.

Perspective is everything: until you’ve walked in another man, or woman’s shoes, you don’t know why they made the decisions they did. Learning is acquired through experience, and if your experience is only that of smoothness, joy and light, you’ll never understand the strength of character it takes to overcome roughness, sadness and darkness. And if that’s the case, what advice do you have to offer?

It’s up to us to look for the success in the things we do, especially those that don’t turn out the way we’d like them to.

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BeforeB we really dive into the things we have done that haven’t gone the wayw we’d have wished, I want to share with you one of my favourite poems.oe It may have been written in the 1800s, but I think the words are completelymp relevant today. And doesn’t it just show us that while we think wewe have come so far as humans, hundreds of years later we are still stressinge out and feeling exactly the same! So find comfort in the fact that mmany, many people have stood in your shoes, have felt your pain, and yet here we are, still learning and growing.

Don’t Quit By John Greenleaf Whittier

When things go wrong as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill, When the funds are low and the debts are high And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don’t you quit. Life is strange with its twists and turns As every one of us sometimes learns And many a failure comes about When he might have won had he stuck it out;

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow – You may succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out – The silver tint of the clouds of doubt, And you never can tell just how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far; So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit – It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

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You see, there’s really only one definition of failure, and that’s when we stop trying.

Things not working out as you’d planned or wanted, things going wrong, things falling apart, making a mistake, messing up... These are all the same thing, and they’re simply a part of life’s experience. Some failings will be huge – they’ll be mortifying, embarrassing on the scale of a YouTube clip gone viral. It doesn’t matter.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and start all over again. That’s it. That’s all you can do.

See you in Part 2, where we will be looking at, yes you guessed it, all of your failures. Every single, horrible, cringe-worthy, embarrassing, toe-curling, crawl under a rock one of them!

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There’s always a point to failure, even if it’s to teach you never to do something in the same way again.

You can’t see it at the time. You’re too busy hurting and feeling awful to appreciate why something’s gone wrong or not worked out. But one thing you have to do is understand why something hasn’t worked out the way you’d wished, hoped or expected.

When failure happens to you – and it will, probably many, many times – ask yourself: What am I meant to learn from this?

It’s well worth taking the time to consider the things that haven’t gone the way you’d hoped. I’m going to ask you some questions that will change the way you look at your life.

1. What have you failed at in life? Write a list of what you think of as your ‘failures’. What were the big ones? The smaller ones? Think about personal failures as well as work‐related ones: put them all down, get them all out! Leave enough space underneath each one to write notes.

2. What did you learn from those ‘failures’? Under each failure in your list, write down the lesson it taught you.

3. Would you have learned those lessons without your failures? Be honest in how you answer this! What do you think you would’ve done if you hadn’t experienced those failures? Looking back from where you are now, would you have been happy with that?

4. Would you change anything? Are you glad you went through those experiences because you’ve learned something about yourself or others? Or do you wish you’d done things differently? If so, what would you change and why?

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Well done - you did it! I know that wasn’t much fun to begin with, but I hope you can see how valuable a lesson it is to spread all these moments out in front of you and really look at them, rather than hiding them away in a drawer marked “Do not open - EVER.” Now you can see how mistakes and misjudgements were made, and how you can look at things in a different way should moments like them occur again.

In the next part, we’ll be looking at the life you are living right now and comparing it to the life you could have led…

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We’ve all heard about asking ourselves; Will this thing I’m worrying about now matter next year? Or in five years’ time? Or at the end of my life? Chances are that it won’t. You can take this a step further, as Pete Cohen suggests in his book Inspirators: Leading The Way In Leadership. He asks us to imagine someone reading out our eulogy. What would they say? How would we like to be remembered?

Imagine your eulogy being read by a loved one at your funeral. It’s a weird feeling, but it does make you think. Would they mention your so‐called ‘failings’ or would they talk about everything you tried your best to be? Write it down - how would they see you, compared with how you see yourself?

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What was that like? Did it help to see yourself through another’s eyes? Did you see the great things you have done, the kind of person you are to others, compared to the harsh and unforgiving view we have of ourselves, and what we see as failings? Or was it disappointing; had you hoped to have done more?

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is there a difference between what your eulogy would say now and what it’d say if you managed to achieve all the things that you’re trying to do in life?

2. Where are the gaps? What’s being left out?

3. How can you change things so that your life stories match? What do you need to do?

Some people take this a stage further and imagine meeting themselves at the gates of heaven. Standing in front of them is the person they had the potential to be, had they lived without fear, taken every opportunity that came their way, worked hard and lived a good life. For many of those who do this exercise, their biggest fear is not matching up to the person in front of them.

Write this down. Really take your time.

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Well done, that was a tough exercise, but important. You see, a lot of the time, the only thing standing between the person we are now, and the person we have the potential to be, is ourselves. Our fears, our paralysis after failure, or critical self-judgement, and our pain, stand in our way. It’s only through learning to put those things to the side, gently and with forgiveness, that we can keep moving forward, and become the person we are born to be. It’s only then that we can learn to live a life we love.

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You have completed Part 3 AND this Milestone! This was not an easy Milestone to do, and it may have brought up feelings of failure, wasted opportunities, lost loves - all kinds of things may have bubbled up to the surface. Remember though, looking back on these things is important because it gives you proof, examples of times where you can take something you have done, LEARNED FROM IT, and know that you are no longer a person who would think, say or do that thing. This is not a list of failings to beat yourself up about, it’s the opposite - now you have a barometer of your growth. You can SEE AND FEEL how far you have come, just by changing your mindset. Even if you haven’t actually done anything yet, the fact that you now see and feel, what you would do differently is a HUGE step forward. And finally, forgive yourself for failing, for making mistakes. You’re not perfect – none of us are. Be thankful that you’ve had those opportunities to learn and grow. You now have the chance to make sure that’s exactly what you do.

In this SECOND STAGE of the course, you have learned how to: Cope with fear when it happens - because it WILL happen. Deal with “What’s the worst that could happen?” Figure out if your fears are real, or if your brain is simply gossiping with you and freaking you out. Keep your emotions appropriate to your situation, and not blow them out of control. See things as they really are not as you see them. Choose to think differently. Learn from problems, not get swamped by them. Live up to your eulogy. Reframe your ‘failures’

I will see you in STEP 3: THRIVE where you will learn to accept that you, just like everyone else on Earth, are a mixture of shit and brilliance - and that’s a GREAT thing! And you will learn how to recognise when your dreams have in fact come true. I can’t wait to see you there! M THISGIRLISONFIRE.COM M THISGIRLISONFIRE.COM M THISGIRLISONFIRE.COM M THISGIRLISONFIRE.COM