SigmaU Blog

Change we choose is exciting and exhilarating. Change chosen for us can feel terrifying and destructive, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Change allows us to...

Shift focus

Perhaps change has been dumped on your lap today. Perhaps it’s loss or heartache. Forced change makes it necessary to shift our focus. When I recently suffered loss, it made me shift my focus to deep gratitude for the people around me and shared experiences at a deeper level. I shifted my focus as best I could from grief to deeper connection with the people still around me.

New Growth Opportunities 

Nothing will make us level up faster than necessity. When we're thrown in the deep end of disaster, we figure it out. It always amazes me how masterful we can become at something in a short amount of time when we have no other choice! What growth opportunity have you been avoiding or delaying that you could develop now and choose to change before it's forced on you?

New Beginnings 

Our minds crave...

Going through loss is such a complex process. I found myself slipping into thoughts that were more than regular sadness. I found myself in despair and teetering on entering another period of depression. I reflected on where I was at, through journaling, and realized that there were small things I could do to make this transitionary period easier, a little brighter and a way to cherish life.

Positive Inputs

One of the things I needed to regain control of was what I was listening to. I love listening to charged debates, but during this time I recognized it wasn’t serving me. In fact, it was making me edgy and pessimistic. I replaced my fiery podcast hosts and went back to the basics of personal development during my morning workouts, and it’s been helpful to ground me and refocus my energy on what I can control.

Pause & Reflect

The other powerful thing I found was self-reflection. Taking the time to look at the situation with a different perspective. I asked myself

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Jim Rohn famously said, “You’re not a tree.”  One of my colleagues says, “Your feet are not cement.” Both mean that you and I can change our circumstances should we chose to do so.

What holds most of us back? Fear of change, fear of the unknown?

In High Performance Coaching™ we dive into the psychology behind what holds most people back. It comes down to three primary things… process pain, loss pain and outcome pain.

Process Pain

What if uprooting my life and moving to another country is going to be painful? What if there’s mountains of paperwork, foreign languages to navigate and massive risk? What if moving towards that degree means that I will step into rooms where if feel unqualified? What if all of the steps involved to move on from this relationship are overwhelming? We can get caught up in the process, the tasks and steps and this is where most of us become paralyzed with fear and don’t move forward.

Loss Pain

What...

If you’ve ever worked in sales, you know that you must be able to bounce back quickly and move on to be successful. Over the years I’ve had amazing conversations with prospective clients and others didn’t go so well. I’ve been hung up on, yelled at and definitely had some ice-cold responses. Any salesperson knows that they can’t stay in that negative space, nor can they throw in the towel for the day. They must keep going! I have a little routine when that happens. I say “NEXT” out loud and move on.

N- Negative Looping Fix

I recently heard a mentor of mine interviewing someone on a podcast about moving forward after failure. The guest made an amazing point that hit home for me. If you take a wrong turn in the car, your GPS doesn’t belittle you. There’s zero judgement because what you did two turns ago is irrelevant to correcting your course and getting you back on track. Too often though, we tend to punish ourselves for our past...

I had a mental war in my mind the other day when I went to put on my snug jeans! Being under a tremendous amount of pressure and grief recently, I know I’ve fallen back into some bad habits and routines. As a result, the snug jeans are wreaking havoc on my waistline with fabric flesh wounds! Ever been there?

The internal dialogue was a battle of relinquishing control of this new bloat and bulge and purchasing jeans that ran a size higher or facing discomfort and making changes.

I’ll be honest. I bought the new jeans, wore them for two weeks, and today have decided to become friends again with the snug pair until they feel blissfully comfy again.

My hope is that in the discomfort I will find a new sense of discipline, which is difficult to start, but the most rewarding way to live.

This scenario got me thinking about the destructive path of compromise.

We don’t gain 100lbs overnight.

We don’t fall out of love in a week.

We don’t miss our sales goals and...

A determined person pursues their goals and dreams regardless of life’s setbacks. You may have someone in your life who you admire for this very reason. They seem unshakable in their resolve to press on no matter what. Failure is not an option and success for them is a non-negotiable, therefore inevitable.

When I consider someone who is relentlessly pursuing with grit and determination, I often wonder what it is that they do differently. Or more importantly, how they think differently.

Considering this: I’ve thought about times in my own life where I’ve stayed determined in challenging times. Upon reflecting it came down to a definite “WHY”, an acceptance that life is hard, and a brighter vision for the future.

WHY?

Friedrich Nietzsche — 'He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.'

Finding our “why” has been an overused statement over the past few years. Mentioning it can cue a few eye rolls, especially from our...

I was listening to a motivational workout compilation when I heard the concept of Control, Alt, Delete. The speaker was talking about controlling yourself, altering your thinking and deleting negative associations. So simple and so powerful!

Building on this concept, I wanted to dive deeper.

What if Control, Alt, Delete could have a dramatic impact on your life and my life starting today?

Control

Yes, controlling ourselves, our habits and discipline is an important part of a reset and of high-performance living. In addition to that, what if we looked at control through another lens. What can you control in your current circumstances? Often when I coach with clients or when I feel frustrated myself, it comes down to a feeling of being out of control. Like things are happening beyond my reach or influence. What I have learned and encourage you to do is reflect on what you can control. We are back in the driver’s seat when we realize we actually have a lot more agency over our...

The days, months and years can slip by in a haze if we’re not intentional about how we approach each day. This can happen during times of extreme stress or change, but it can also creep up on us where we realize that a decade has passed and we’ve been going through the motions.

Here are a few ways we can take deliberate action and be even more intentional and live with purpose.

Set Daily Intentions

Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Planner is an awesome tool to use to set your day up with intention. You start by journaling answers to questions such as how you want to show up that day. What emotions do you want to have that day? Who needs you on your A-Game? Setting intentions about how you want to show up is a fantastic way to increase the way you live with clear intentions. If you have a tough meeting, set intentions about how you want to show up. How would your best self handle conflict?

Have a Kaizen Mindset

Kaizen is an approach to creating continuous...

Struggle reveals your true allies and adversaries. 

Facing adversity can be a tremendous gift if we’re open to the impact and opportunity for growth.

Awareness of what you value!

Adversity creates awareness of what's most important to you. When you go through a traumatic experience or life-changing event, you quickly eliminate all the distractions, all the fluff, and you narrow in on what matters most. Typically, it's your core values, it's your family, it's your connections and deep relationships. It's your passion and it's your purpose and everything else seems to go by the wayside. People who have had their lives on the line or their freedom in jeopardy will assure you that when that’s at stake, little else matters. You become keenly aware of your driving “why”.

Awareness of your allies!

Adversity shines a light on who shows up and who shrinks back. Remember, honour, and show up for the people who came through for you. You will be surprised at who...

The other day I was doing a yoga session and the instructor asked us to intentionally lengthen our tailbone. In doing so, I felt a stretch that I had never experienced before, even while doing that same posture which I had done a dozen times before.

It got me thinking, how many times I’ve failed to see the micro-steps and shifts and how much they impact my progress.

I realized that micro steps are a huge part of personal development and high-performance living.

The challenge is that we fail to see the power of micro steps.

We insist that we must have huge stretch goals, from where we are to where we're going to be successful. And that's simply not true. In high performance coaching, we gauge our current circumstances on a scale of one through ten. We don’t coach clients to jump from a three to a nine, instead we ask what would take you from a three to a five. The micro steps help us gain necessary momentum to keep pushing.

There are micro steps we can...