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I love working with people from all different walks of life. I love all the questions people have to life’s big questions. And I equally love all the questions people have to life’s big answers! One that has come up quite frequently in recent months is the question about jealousy. 

I’ve written about the definition of jealousy (and envy) in my blogpost here. But one of the things I haven’t really discussed in the post is what makes people jealous. 

Jealousy as a human emotion can be complex, at times quite disturbing, and never is it ever comfortable. Key foundations of jealousy include fear, resentment, anger, poor self-confidence/esteem, lack of trust (e.g. suspiciousness or disbelief), and insecurity. The thing is, this is not very clear for most people when going through this emotion subjectively. I’ve been speaking to a few young men who have said that they feel jealousy most with their girlfriends – whether that’s just referring to a look, or a word or even body language directed toward anyone other than themselves. But try to introduce the idea that jealousy actually has nothing to do with what their girlfriends do or don’t do, but rather, what is going on inside of themselves, and they are stopped in their tracks. 

There is a great confusion about what love really is and how that links in with jealousy. My ‘rule of life’ says that they couldn’t be further apart from each other! Let’s think about jealousy more realistically and using an analogy of Joe, whose girlfriend is Courtney. Joe will only get jealous if he looks at her or treats her as someone (or something!) he owns or possesses. “She’s mine”. “How dare he look at her like that – only I can do that”. This is absolute folly! Each and every person has been given free will to choose to act or behave in a correct manner. This is a moral responsibility of that other person looking at Courtney (perhaps lustfully), and of Courtney not to encourage that behaviour if she is already in a committed relationship with Joe. How a so-called adversary might look at Courtney is entirely up to him, and this shouldn’t affect Joe’s and Courtney’s relationship. But since Courtney is in a relationship with Joe, he also has a moral responsibility in which he needs to choose how to behave about this situation. 

If Joe reduces Courtney to an object and not a person, then Courtney is a thing that he ‘owns’. According to him, she is no longer entitled to the benefits of what it means to be a human being, a person – capable of making (and free to make) her own choices and choosing what is good. If he chooses to treat her as a person but also as a possession, essentially Joe enslaves Courtney to himself. She is therefore, no longer a free human being, able to make her own choices. She must do all that Joe tells her to do. This is called possessiveness, and is, in my experience, the most common cause of jealousy. Let’s just clarify at this point, that it’s not a bad thing to make commandments, but the context of those commandments must always be made in respect of the freedom of the human being before you. 

Obsession is yet another cause for jealousy. This very powerful notion lived out through a false sense of control, fixation, lack of self-awareness and an abnormal need of self-satisfaction. Just like unhealthy possessiveness and ownership, obsession is rooted in fear. In spirituality, attachment is the modality with which obsession manifests. When fear, attachment and absence of inner freedom combine, obsession becomes fulfilled.

So what is the antidote to all of these influential and difficult-to-get-out-of practices? The antidote is love. You see, love, if understood and lived correctly, isn’t actually a feeling. Yes, feelings do surface as an ‘effect’ of love, but we cannot reduce love to just feelings. Love is so much bigger and so much more than that. Love includes doing what is objectively right by and for the one you love. Freedom and personhood are objective rights that every human being have been granted, and love never crosses that boundary. If Joe really loves Courtney and if Courtney really loves Joe, then they will mutually do what is best and right for each other. This means that there is no room for possessiveness, enslavement or obsessiveness – the real causes of jealousy. When we compare the foundations of jealousy with love, we can see their opposites. 

Jealousy is fueled by…	Love is fueled by…
Fear	Courage (From the word ‘Cor’, which is the Latin word for ‘heart’)
Resentment (consider something as an injury or affront)	Pacification (peacefulness) and Gratitude
Anger	Delight
Poor self-confidence / self-esteem	Connection with fullness of one’s own dignity
Doubtfulness (e.g. suspiciousness)	Faith and trust
Insecurity	‘Free from the dread of evil’ (from the Latin word securus) = Secure

In its very essence, love cannot be separated from its sacrificial and heroic properties. In love, something or someone must be willing to give, and often, this requires a certain vulnerability. This is another subject matter for another time, but suffice it to say that the cost of being loving limits perceived hurt to oneself alone, whereas the cost of being jealous spreads much further than the self, and is therefore of higher objective cost. 

So I hope this explanation helps to answer the question about the source and the power behind jealousy, and hope that where jealousy is brewing, put in love to sabotage it. Jealousy has no space in our lives because it doesn’t build people up – it just tears them down. Jealousy’s destructive nature is the complete opposite of love’s nurturing nature. I have a few personal experiences of this, and know how painful it can be when it’s present and active in someone’s life. 

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I’m Claz, a Professional Coach in Career, Life and Health, based in West London, accredited in the UK and enjoy working with individuals as well as organisations across the UK. I am also a Professional Sports Massage Therapist. You can contact me through my website www.touchofclarity.com.

Life is full of precious moments in which we can, and in fact, must bring in change – in order to keep momentum up. The classic life cycle often patterns out to look like this:

• the stumbling start: full of teething and accidental dip-falls, often due to incapacity or ignorance. This stage is full of learning and so ought to be steeped in reflection.
• the rise and success: which often seems as though it may never end. Here, your morale, motivation and resources, energy and performance are at its highest. The results are showing, and are easy to shout about.
• the plateau: stability and comfort often reign here, and it’s this stage that we are going to focus our attention on today
• the eventual decay and collapse of that which was proving a success: the causes of this stage can be many, but some examples of the biggest influences on decay include distraction, external disasters, depletion of resources, depletion of ideas, loss of morale and change in values. When we examine closer, it’s often not these things themselves that collapse a good thing, but the human response to those things.

Let us apply this concept to the scenario of a new job. Even though it is possible to hit the ground running when landing a new job, there will still always be a few teething problems and mistakes might also be made. But focus on the responsibilities of the role, and provided the company culture, influential factors outside your control, your skillset and your commitment are all firmly in a good place, you’ll find yourself rising to the success of your role. 

When you are at the plateau of success, you will have many opportunities to reframe your thinking about where you’re at, and to transform any stagnancy into preparation for the next level. This might be anything from a promotion to a more senior level, to upskilling as a trainer, to embracing an entirely organic change that stemmed from a spark of interest you’ve garnered whilst mastering your trade but takes you down a completely different career path altogether. Whatever decision you make about your future success, know that the plateau would have been the key position that influenced the direction you take, and therefore, here are 5 important things to be aware of…

The plateau is not a time to become stagnant or comfortable

So you’ve gone through the stumbling start and you’ve risen to the top of your game. All is looking a success to you and those who need to see it recognise and reward. What is often not realised here, is that you’re now well into a habit or way of being/doing that is really working out for you – but this is unlikely to last forever. Yes, the past is gone, but at some point, another ‘new’ is about to start. Consider the plateau as a journey of re-patterning and preparation for that next upward climb (or rise and success). It is a fantastic time to grow, largely due to the fact that from a place of ‘comfort’ your resources, energy and high morale gives you breathing room for experimenting, innovating and testing – to see where you would be most happy at the next big stage. More about this in a bit.

The plateau is an opportunity to give a meaning to this opportunity you find yourself in

Keep moving, despite the success. Fine, do enjoy the moments and reap some of the benefits of having put in so much hard work that lead to the success – but turn this into a permanent convenience for yourself, and you may find yourself losing drive and meaning. This is the opportunity to look around (by this, comparing oneself to others is not part of that picture), look at new things, look at things differently, and legitimise opportunities that you find just by simply looking for them. Not only will the meaning of this phase become more meaningful for yourself, but it will become more meaningful for those impacted by your success. Get down your ‘WHY’, and know it and own it too!

The plateau allows you to adapt to your ‘future self’

There’s lots of room for trial and error without it costing you too much (provided you have thought about your experimentation strategically, in a way that suits your time, energy and resources), and it’s here you begin to skill up in adaptability, essentially preparing yourself for changes to come. Try some new routines; learn better ways of managing yourself – your emotions, your time, the expectations others have of you; figure out how to turn into solutions what has become adaptable to you. One of my all-time favourite words is ‘allostasis’. This, my friend, is allostasis, and it’s what I believe is the secret of resilience. A separate blog is written on allostasis [link]. Innovation and experimentation can do a lot for you here, because it serves your adaptability.

The plateau can be a lonely time

Intentional Connection with others is really important at this stage because revelling in one’s own success can be a very lonely event, despite the crowds surrounding you drinking champagne to you and your success. This is often a really good time to volunteer and to ‘give back’ in a way that allows you to share or teach others about how they can help themselves. Not only does it keep you grounded with two feet on the ground, but it also keeps you ‘real’ and connected. Many successful people fool themselves into thinking that they are ‘giving back’ by doing things and charging major bucks for it, but really, there is a profit in it for themselves. This is the opposite of ‘giving without expectation’ – and it keeps one humble. This is often real, human connection and is given in freedom and with authentic charity.

To overlook courage in the plateau phase is to become overly influenced by fear

There is a popular quote by Bridges: “Beginnings follow the timing of the mind and heart”. From this we can deduce three simple principles:

1. A beginning may not be a beginning at all if fear has control over us.
2. A beginning may not begin when it should, because fear has control over us.
3. There may be no initial thought of a beginning, if fear has control over us. 

Living in a spirit of courage helps us to recognise the potential of new beginnings, when the time is right for us. We can come up with a lot of excuses when we want to. Which ones are genuine reasons the timing isn’t right, and which ones aren’t genuine reasons? It takes courage to decide which ones are genuine, because often, when we realise we’re only making excuses for ourselves, we must then act with courage, or surrender ourselves to cowardice and fear. 

In summary then, the ‘new beginning’ isn’t really the start of the cycle. The start relies on the preparation we had done before we ended up transitioning into the ‘new beginning’. We can really learn this lesson from horticulture. Many trees and plants blossom or flower before leaves and fruits appear. The grand strategy is that these plants put their food reserves into reproduction before all the other plants begin to grow, then spend the rest of the growing season focusing on growth and storing food for the winter. A mass of flowers that bloom together are likely to attract pollinating insects, and if at the same time there are no leaves then this facilitates wind pollination. After having been dormant or dead in the winter, the plant or tree is driven to survive and enforces its reproductive strategy as it wakes up. This happens before we can even consider what its success in fruitfulness would even look like. 

May your new beginnings be a journey that leads you from success to success! 

When two people are *not* in a committed relationship, then it could be argued that the only commitment they have to each other is the commitment that one communicates and agrees to with the other and vice versa. Examples of such a commitment include doing an act of service for them, giving them a gift that they agreed to, organising a chat and/or meeting up for hugs or a meal with them. These kinds of activities are very tangible proofs and evidence of one’s commitment (provided they show up and keep their word)! Sometimes, commitment can be confused with loyalty to a friend. For example, if a friend has come to the defence of the other when they weren’t there, this belongs to the realm of loyalty rather than commitment. In contrast, when in a committed relationship, the context of the relationship is different, and itself *becomes* a commitment. A person now has another person to be faithful and committed to, and therefore the evidence of commitment needs more than scheduled activity (although it doesn’t necessarily have to rely on such activity as evidence or proof of fidelity). Until that point though, this notion of commitment isn’t a done deal. The gift of oneself to another in a non-committal relationship is going to be quite different from that of a relationship where two people have committed to becoming more intimate with each other. Note: I don’t mean sexual intimacy here, but rather, intimacy of the heart. In a friendship, commitment requires a more active and intentional communication since it is not automatically a given, and therefore should never be assumed or expected. 

So in friendship, what level of commitment should one expect? This all depends on the persons involved in that friendship, the different factors affecting that friendship, the experiences within that friendship and the overall intention / direction of that friendship. Friendships themselves can even vary greatly in terms of intimacy levels. I have found spiritual friendships with people who I have met in the last 3 years excel in intimacy compared with other friends who I have known since childhood! In fact, it is almost at the level of intimacy that a couple might experience within a spousal relationship, and yet, there is no intention there of moving beyond friendship – simply due to the factors affecting that relationship. With this in mind, I have to make sure that I have clear boundaries for myself, and ensure that is communicated in some effective and appropriate form to them (doesn’t need explicit explanation). Some of these friends I speak to every week, some once a month, and some once a year. We have commitments to one another in the form of scheduled Zoom calls and texts in between, but we are not committed to each other. That doesn’t mean to say however, that I would be disloyal! 

And what about those friends who drift in and out of our lives like a fortunate wind passing by? I’m sure we all have friends who we don’t speak to for years, but when we encounter each other, it’s as if we saw each other the day before and it seems natural and easy to reveal a certain degree of heart-intimacy! Would we be considered to be committed to each other? Not really! So it can be argued that commitment doesn’t equal intimacy.  

Let’s look at the practical level. If a friend’s general needs has increased, they may expect more from the friendship and from you. Self-knowledge is key here and it might help to communicate needs and wants with each other to help manage expectations. Disappointments and hurts often occur because of a lack of communication regarding our hopes and expectations of the other person. Take a friend who is in a crisis situation as an example. They might need a friend to be there for them when things are really tough. But how much should be expected of that friend? The different factors that affect the friendship can’t be ignored. If that friend is already in a committed relationship with a natural support network close-by (e.g. their spouse, children, siblings, parents, wider family network), then it’s really important that neither party cross boundaries. I do believe that part of being in a committed relationship means sharing all of life’s lows and highs with the persons you are committed to. This is perhaps why setting healthy emotional boundaries for oneself about how much one ought to share with people outside of that immediate committed relationship is worth establishing. With commitment, comes great sacrifices, and one of those sacrifices, in my opinion, is about willingly offering up and exercising your liberty of choosing to share deeply intimate things with others for the sake of the greater cause that your committed relationship (e.g. a marriage) is meant to fulfil. Maybe sometimes we can forget that love is not for our self-gratification – it exists for the sake of others. The same can be said for our freedom. In essence, it is a just act to do what is good and right toward the person(s) who you are primarily committed to. For a committed person, sharing the right amount of intimacy with the right people about the right things outside of that commitment often needs quick and strong decision-making skills – and this tends not to a priority when the heart is so emotionally charged or in need. The notion of emotional boundaries within friendships is seriously worth considering further if one is in a committed relationship. Attraction is such a powerful force that could wreak havoc in both friendships and committed relationships. This is another blog post for another time though!

For now, I’ll finish off this post by saying that friendships don’t have to be ‘easy’. Sometimes, we are meant to have difficult friends in our lives to deal with. They help us grow, learn, and become better people ourselves. In practice, we can really choose how much effort we want to commit to our friendships, but there’s no one single guideline for how friendships ought to be. We are all human beings living in different circumstances and have different life experiences and different perspectives. Every one of our friendships is a gift. Some we will cherish more than others. Some are there because it is the right time for it and it serves the right purpose. Let that help us to review the commitment, level of heart-intimacy and emotional boundaries we have in those friendships, and take appropriate action where necessary.

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There is a saying that we can’t give what we don’t have. On a human level, I have mixed feelings about this statement.

What is our understanding of ‘gift’? 

Gift does not mean ‘exchange’. When ‘gift’ becomes ‘exchange’, it loses its unconditional quality – a quality that is natural to authentic love. The idea of gift is that it is symbolic of deeper truths – truths which are commonly invisible. A gift is normally used as an expression or a manifestation of love; love being invisible. When offering a gift to someone, what truth are we really wanting to communicate and to make ‘real’ to them? Giving freely and without ties (translates into offering, and not a mandatory requirement to accept) is to pour out of our inner abundance, that which gifts are intended to represent and also to honour in another. That is, that the person deserves to be loved for the sake of simply being. Nothing more and nothing less. The freedom to give and to receive comes from that interior space in us that no external power has any control over unless it has already been given reign in the heart. If you have surrendered it to something or someone else, reclaim it back. In reality, we actually need very little and all of us equally have the freedom to receive or reject a gift that is being offered to us. Your interior freedom is of itself, a gift that has been offered to you. It’s up to you to accept it, and to use it wisely.

Managing expectations

Is there an expectation there that the receiver must return the same sentiments to us? Are we anticipating that the receiver must accept our gift in the first place? If we offer ourselves, our gifts, money, time to someone with hidden expectation or veiled conditions, we levy an abolishment in the freedom of the other person to freely accept our offer of the gift on our part. Every human being ought to be given their freedom to accept or reject a gift, in the order of love. Conditional offers are made from our limited inner resources and are a result of an inner need, which, if left unsatisfied, could wreak all sorts of havoc on our emotional, social and psychological wellbeing. Maturing the act of gift-giving from conditional to unconditional is do away with those expectations and give from inner abundance. We can do very little to manage the expectations of others – how they give and receive their gifts, but we are totally in control of the expectations we ourselves have about the way we give and receive gifts. A genuine, mature act of gift-giving is approached not as an exchange, but as an offering with no strings attached. This includes letting the memory of giving your gift go.

Giving in freedom

How do we identify the freedom of the gift being given or received? The spirit of gifting is to offer freely and without expectation. To give without any conditions to the gift or in the act of giving is to crystalise the motivation behind the gift. The purity of this motivation is worth so much more than the gift itself. Often times, we don’t recognise, and we do even less to acknowledge it, in each other. We don’t need to have much, to be able to recognise depth of gift when one is in front of us.

Gift is you, not what you own.

You are a gift. You are a gift to all the people in your life. You are a gift to society. You are a gift that cannot be replaced or exchanged. Your ability to be a gift to others, although impacted by your past, is not determined by it. No matter what difficulties you have experienced in your life, you still have the capacity within yourself to give so much more than you have ever received. This is why what you own or possess has no bearing on your value (worth) or efficacy as a gift. It is our human calling to appreciate the gift that is YOU and every human being. Some of us are called to go out of our way to make sure the lonely, the marginalised, the excluded and the isolated in society know that. 

Society pressurises us into a consumer pattern of Christmas presents, which emphasises the need to buy, and that if we don’t buy, there might be a problem. When will it be enough for us to appreciate each other as the gifts that we are to each other? If I don’t own much, does that mean I am less worthy of being a gift than the next person? Not at all. When I die, I’m not going to be appreciated much for what I own, but for the person I was. My worth is not determined by what I own or possess. You too, are invited to recognise yourself as a gift. For this spell in time, we, and the world, has YOU. And this Christmas, I want to thank you for being you. Even if not in person, our circumstances mean that we have crossed paths. We are still connected.

Outside of Christianity, I find the fulness of these truths difficult to explain. In my life experience, I can reflect that if I give, it is because I have first been given – but that might not have come from any human or natural source. No, we can’t give what we don’t have on a natural level. But we can give from what we always receive on a supernatural level: love. On that level, I have received Jesus Christ, my greatest love. And He is all I freely offer to you this Christmas.

Wishing you a wonderful peace-filled Christmas and New Year.

Claz.

We’ve all heard the saying: to err is human, to forgive, divine. Forgiveness is perhaps the most powerful healing force possible, yet so few are acutely aware of or in touch with this interior power, and even fewer are truly transformed by it. I suppose this is one of the reasons why I run a Forgiveness, Healing and Freedom workshop. I want every single human being to know that no matter what, each of us has the power to forgive and experience its transformational capability. 

Interestingly, I began to put together the workshop on forgiveness, because every single time I ran a love languages workshop (for details about the next workshop, see my events page), there was often a huge barrier presenting in some attendees’ capacity to love authentically. The symptoms show in feelings of resentment, hostility, anger, and hatred toward another person, or system, or body of people (whether outwardly or subtly); and there is only one antidote to this blockage: forgiveness. 

For love to be authentic, it needs to be both given and received in freedom. So when there is something holding a person captive from acting genuinely in love, a process (or what I prefer to call a journey of growth) needs to take place. Forgiveness is just one of these stages (similar to any experience of change), as is the stage of interior healing, and then of course, freedom. At this point can love be given and received fully, without barriers and with a purity that would demonstrate the brilliance of love itself. I like to think of the aura around this love being peace, although I note these as two different things. 

It is impossible to avoid being hurt by others. Even those of us with faith know a certain painfulness of developing an intimate relationship with God that in more advanced stages feels like rejection and abject hurt. This is an arena that I study in my own time and if you ever want to converse with me about that, feel free to drop me a line. But as human beings, even these moments of clemency can transform us from being bitter and repressive to joy-filled and free. Regardless of whether the other person who has hurt us apologises, shows remorse, or is deemed deserving of our mercy, the gift and journey of forgiveness has its highest value first and foremost in the one who has been hurt. The ripple effect of that ultimate ‘letting go’ finds benefit in everyone around them, including the person who offended, as a secondary outcome. This is the most perfect route of forgiveness.

At the same time, the importance of worth comes into the picture. Whilst some of the people I work with come to terms with what it is they have to ‘let go’ of, others are approaching me to help them temper their capacity to forgive as they are finding themselves (in their own words) being a ‘pushover’. Interestingly, for people who consider themselves a pushover, it’s not the area of forgiveness that needs work. In fact, it seems to me they got that spot on. It could be that there is some work to be done in the healing arena, and a deeper diagnosis would be necessary to identify that. But certainly, for someone who feels like a pushover there will be some work to be done in the freedom stage of the journey. The journey ought to end in authentic mutuality of love – given and received freely. Freedom exists for the sake of love and is unquestionably different to this concept and lifestyle of ‘license’, which skews and warps the very truth of love itself. Nobody has any right to treat another as a pushover, unless they have been given license to do so. Understanding and practising freedom rightly enables authentic love to take place.

The journey to love can be a very difficult one, yes – a journey of valleys and mountains influencing our emotions and logic. But I’d like you all to remember that every journey takes time. Love needs its time. Perhaps this message is especially for one of my readers who simply needs to learn the art of waiting in hopeful anticipation for love to takes its course. Come to know that point of peace that spurs you into good acts void of resentment, hostility, anger and hatred. And if you’d like to walk through the process, then you’re welcome to join my next forgiveness, healing and freedom workshop taking place in summer 2021 (date tbc)!

Love, Claz.

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I’m Claz, a Life & Career Coach working with individuals as well as organisations, accredited in the UK. You can contact me through my website www.touchofclarity.com and sign up to my workshops on my Eventbrite Page. I am also a holistic massage & wellbeing therapist based in West London and treatments can be booked on my scheduling site.

(in no particular order)

You’re already worth ££££s!!!

In 2020, it costs an employer on average, £3k to recruit someone into a role. If you have been invited to an interview, accept that your success in being shortlisted means that the interviewing panel will have already seen value in you on paper. Approaching an interview believing and proving that you are worth every penny of that spend will have an impact on how you perform at the interview. Remember: They wouldn’t have brought you this far if they didn’t find you worth a £3000 risk!

Unfair recruitment

If at any point you feel that you have been unfairly treated or discriminated against, go straight onto the ACAS website for further advice.

Confidence

Interviewees often forget this: the company needs you, just as much, or even more so, than you need the company. Sometimes, interviewees attend interviews with a kind of desperation for the job. If the interviewee has been applying for jobs for some time now and has faced rejection after rejection, they might also bring that sense of defeatism into their interview performance. Trust me, recruiters can sense if you are simply desperate for *any* job at this stage. Approach your interview believing you are there to fill in the gap that they really need filled in – in other words, that they need you, and you’re there to help them out! Due to what is essentially a power-shift, this approach and attitude will boost your confidence massively in an interview and will help you perform to your best.

The company/organisation have a mission and a purpose to fulfil. How much have you bought into / are you invested in their vision? Are you entirely sure that their values align with yours? If so, don’t be afraid to briefly drop elements of that part of yourself into the interview. In fact, if this company/organisation is geared toward fulfilling a purpose that you strongly resonate with and are yourself passionate about, don’t be afraid to show your passion and enthusiasm for their goals. Passion speaks for a lot in interviews, and some of the best recruiters do recruit on potential more than experience, provided the passion and drive to excel in achieving the mission and purpose is there. However, if you aren’t that passionate about the employer’s mission, then please, don’t fake it. It comes across badly at interviews. P.S. this often triple-ticks the ‘company research’ box.

Be confident but not arrogant or cocky. 

Interview content

Answer the questions the interviewer is asking you. This is very important. This requires first that you listen very carefully to their question, deciphering what information the interviewer is wanting from you. For example, if you are asked the question ‘What did you learn from that experience?’, telling them how you learned something isn’t answering the question. You need to provide the employer evidence that you meet their criteria. Waffling on with irrelevant information will not only set your chances of landing the role back, but it will also take up precious time you need to ask your own questions.

If the interviewer is asking you to retell lived experiences of a certain situation or scenario, then start off with the experiences that you feel highlight your value the most in their eyes. The job description will reveal to you what that is! Usually, employers will most value the experience you gained in a work capacity. If you’re lacking that level of experience, then go through your voluntary and community-based experiences, finally giving personal experiences – being very mindful of how much and what you are revealing about yourself and your private life.

If you are not recruited…

Always ask for feedback.

DO something with that feedback. Learn from it. Write down what you learned from the interview and the whole process. What did you learn about the process itself? What did you learn about the company/industry? What did you learn about the people involved? What did you learn about yourself? What needs to change?

Once you’ve put down your lessons in writing, let the interview GO. Take from that whole experience what you need to take from it and move on. Failure to do this is only setting yourself up for self-sabotage. Take these learnings into a reflection activity. Or even bring them to a career coach, who can help you decide what decisions you have to make moving forward. As a saying goes: Everything in life happens as a lesson or as a blessing. My advice is: just strive to transform all your work-related lessons into a hope-filled blessing.

If you are recruited…

Still, write down everything your learned. You learn as much from your successes as you learn from your trials. Sure, you don’t grow as much from success as you grow through trial and failure, but that doesn’t mean you don’t learn something. Put it down in writing because this contributes toward your personal and professional development reviews and planning.

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I’m Claz, a Life & Career Coach working with individuals as well as organisations, accredited in the UK. You can contact me through my website www.touchofclarity.com and sign up to my workshops on my Eventbrite Page. I am also a holistic massage & wellbeing therapist based in West London and treatments can be booked on my scheduling site.

Change is happening all around us. It’s also happening in us and to us. All the time. Yet, now, more than ever, we are visibly seeing change accentuated in such a way as to now recognise it, or at least recognise its impact – that we may prepare and act more effectively and proficiently towards it. 

Some of us have lost loved ones to Covid-19. The loss of another human being in our life can emotionally and psychologically turn us upside down, potentially creating huge changes in every wellbeing key in our life. Our ways of working and living may have changed because of external factors that are beyond our control. Brexit is on its way – are we really preparing ourselves for the foreseeable change it may bring to us in the UK, or even in Europe?

For me, growth is demanding me to change my business model, resulting in a split in my holistic therapy services from my coaching services. The foreseeable hard work is a little daunting, yes, but Touch of Clarity shall allow me to personally continue coaching determined individuals to create impacting and sustainable change in their lives giving my new business room to liberate many more life-lovers & health enthusiasts from physiological underperformance. I’m focused on my goal, which has always been to help people within my capacity. The change required is simply the ‘how’ of it. 

Here are 7 traits that help people adapt more readily to change. See how you do with these…

Adaptability: Adaptability includes two elements: flexibility and resilience. Flexible people have goals and dreams like everyone else, but they’re not overly invested in them. When something doesn’t work out, they’ll say, “Plan A doesn’t work, let’s go to Plan B.” Resilience is the capacity to rebound from adversity quickly with a minimum of trauma. Failure or mistakes do not limit or stop adaptable people from continuum. 

Resourcefulness: Resourceful people are effective at taking the most of any situation and developing plans and contingencies using whatever resources are available to them at the time. They see multiple ways to achieve a goal, and they’ll think ‘out of the box’ in order to find help. Resourcefully creative people have a real talent for inventing new ways to solve old problems. 

Optimism: Optimism is highly correlated with change readiness. Optimists naturally recognise opportunities and possibilities whilst the pessimist’s natural inclination is to remain paralysed with problems and obstacles. The enthusiasm and positive outlook of an Optimist is founded on an abiding faith in the future and the belief that things usually work out for the best. 

Confidence: If optimism is the view that a situation will work out, confidence is the belief in your own ability to handle it. There is situational confidence: “I know I can swim across this channel, learn this program, write this report”. And there’s self-confidence: “I can handle whatever comes my way.” 

Adventurousness: Two ingredients capture this adventurous spirit: the inclination to take risks and the desire to pursue the unknown. Adventurous people love a challenge. Since change always involves both risk and the unknown, they usually perform well during major situations requiring change. 

Tolerance for Ambiguity: The offspring of change is uncertainty. No matter how carefully you plan it, there is always an element of indefiniteness or ambiguity. Without a healthy tolerance for ambiguity, change is not only uncomfortable; it’s downright scary. 

Passion / Drive: Passion is the fuel that maximizes all the other traits. If you have passion, nothing appears impossible. If you don’t, change is exhausting. Passion is the individual’s level of personal dynamism. It shows up in a person’s level of intensity and determination. 

To make a new procedure/process/lifestyle work, to overcome the myriad of problems that any plan for change unwittingly produces, you’ve got to have passion and enthusiasm. 

As with all traits, it’s not about reaching extremes with them. If we have too much of the trait, we may lack certain skills and/or attitudes needed to get us through the change. It’s the same if we present with too little of the same trait. This is where a change coach really comes in handy, as they can identify quite quickly where there are imbalances in certain traits. There are multiple ways of identifying that: the coaching conversation is, of course, the best way, but there are also assessments that help with this too.