Kat Millar

by Leave a Comment

Mind Mastery During Chaos

Do you want to feel more in control during this chaotic time?

In the midst of this uncertain season, there is no better time to focus on mastering our thoughts…

…so you can walk through this season well and come out flourishing and thriving.

There’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment – around you, and maybe within you.

Mindset mastery, I believe, is one of the most powerful things that will get us through this season.

To start with, I want to make it clear that I’m not a neuroscientist, I’m not a psychologist. I’m a coach. I help people manage their mind. If you are struggling with severe anxiety or depression, please seek professional help.

I invite you to start with compassion, and accepting yourself as you are, right now.

Without denying that the facts are there, the circumstances exist and this is the reality that we’re all dealing with at the moment.

People are really suffering right now. People are scared.

I don’t take that lightly when I have an opportunity to share my words. Our words can create different feelings in people’s bodies. Our words can change the way people feel – including ourselves.

It’s very interesting times, and it’s so powerful to be able to show up and have these kinds of conversations, whatever your platform is.

Whether that’s a chair at home, whether it’s out for a walk, jumping on your phone, whatever it is to be able to have healthy conversations because that’s what we’ve always done for thousands of years to help us solve our problems.

So to start with, is mind mastery about positive thinking?

In short, no. The reason I chose this topic is because mastering your mind ultimately gives you the most power.

When circumstances are out of your control and when you’re fearful, and there’s so much uncertainty around you, my definition of my mastery in this context is..

…being the master of your own mind – knowing that your mind drives your feelings and drives your actions and your results.

I use a simple model that myself and my clients have benefited a lot from.

It’s called the TEAR model:

T – Thoughts

E – Emotions

A – Actions

R – Results

Our thoughts leads to our emotions, our emotions lead to our actions, and our actions lead to our results.

This is grounded in psychology. If you want to change your results, it helps to find out what thinking is causing that those results to happen.

I do self-coaching models on myself regularly using the TEAR model when I want to change the result I’m getting.

To do this, write down the result that you’re currently getting. Then write the actions that are causing that result. Then the emotions are driving those actions, and ultimately what are the thoughts causing that emotion?

The thoughts are usually the ‘sneaky’ one that you don’t always realise are actually driving our feelings, because it’s often happening at an unconscious level.

You can also use it for the result you want. Do the same thing as above, but in the ‘R’ line write the result you want, then the actions that will get you that result, then the emotions that will drive the action, and ultimately – what do you need to think and believe in order to feel that?

Mastering your mind is like watching what your brain is doing.

For many of us, our brain is freaking out at the moment and going into survival mode and getting addicted to the startling facts.

Things are changing so rapidly around us. So being the master of being able to look at what’s happening in your brain, and actually choose what you want to be thinking on purpose is taking control – it’s taking your power back in this time where it can feel like there’s so little control.

In fact, the main thing we can control and will always be able to control are our thoughts.

It’s not about “Oh, I have to think positive” It’s about thinking on purpose. For example, thinking “Okay. What AM I thinking? And what do I WANT to be thinking?’

It’s about being curious from a place of compassion, asking “What is my brain doing right now? What are the thoughts?” and being the observer from an empowered position.

It’s our brain’s job to keep us safe, so feeling any level of uncertainty or fear is very normal. Your brain is doing its job. But you don’t want to stay stuck there.

That’s why it’s so important to have conversations, because sometimes we don’t realise what our brain is actually doing until we start this conversation.

So, whether it’s through a coaching session or through journaling – it’s important to observe your thoughts. 

To rush to try and make the brain be positive, that can sometimes not help.

This time we’re in is an opportunity to go “Right, I’m going to get to know myself better.”

All our belief systems are coming to the surface – and now we can deal with them. Especially if we’re careful not to ‘numb’ our feelings and allow them to be there. Emotions serve as sign posts.

Pretending that everything’s okay when it’s not and pushing down feelings is not helpful either.

You get to show up however you want. It’s your choice. You get to feel how you want you get to think and act how you want. Just because your friends and family are being a certain way, doesn’t mean you have to follow.

So, take that step back and ask yourself “When I look back, what will the ‘future me’ be happy with how I was?”

Will you say “I’m so glad that I used that as curriculum, as a training ground, a way to show myself what I’m made of?”

The fact that you’re here shows me that you care about self-improvement and that you really want to be the best version of yourself during this time.

The word mastery, to me, makes me feel powerful. We can be the master of ourselves.

I don’t want to just ‘manage and survive’. I want to thrive and flourish. I want to fight, in the most positive way, against the panic and terror and all those things that are destructive. It’s ok to feel them, but if we stay stuck in them, they can be damaging.

Mind mastery gives us a very powerful position.

There are so many things we can do. I’m going to offer you 3 actions today…

1. Externalise your thoughts

Get your thoughts out. Reveal them to yourself. That could look like a conversation with a friend – and make sure it’s someone who cares about you, wants you to be the best version of you, and wants you to succeed and thrive.

Externalising your thoughts through conversation is amazing, which a lot of people are doing, but a lot of people are doing it in a complaining way or in a scarcity way.

It’s ok to talk about what you’re feeling, but it also knowing that you don’t want to get stuck in that victim mode.

You can choose to be hero and the guide, rather than the victim or the perpetrator.

If you’re a coach, this is your time to step up, not shrink back.

In this situation in the world at the moment, so many people are having challenges.

People are at home alone or with their families and their thoughts. Many people are freaking out and need coaching.

People need our minds. Businesses need our minds.

We need production. We need value creation.

We want to be able to coach people from a place of abundance. We want to be able to coach them from a place of not freaking out, but from a place of no matter what, everything’s going to be fine.

If you need coaching reach out. More than ever, we need help from others.

Journaling is also a good way to externalise and process what you’re thinking about – get it out of your head, because when it’s swirling around in your head, it can be very destructive.

There are lots of great offers and things that people are offering to help you, things that help you feel empowered. Listen to your body’s reaction to what you’re consuming.


2. Decide how you want to feel

I recommend you do this on paper. Write down “How do I want to feel” and listen to the feelings, and then write what thought is going to make you feel like that. Ask “What do I need to think about, what do I need to believe in order to feel like that?”

You get to choose. Maybe you want to feel calm, maybe you want to feel energised and active and bring awareness. I believe we all have a part to play in this. It’s so important for me personally to stay calm and happy and keep myself in that state. That’s the best way that I can stay on purpose and help people.

For some of you, you want to feel gratitude and so write down “What do I need to believe in order to feel that?” and simply write it down.

Even if you’re out for a walk in nature and you’re just writing on your phone or whatever you need to do.

You get to choose how you want to feel.

Gratitude is a very neutralising thought. And then you’ve got your really active thoughts, things like “What can I do, how can I help, who can I serve?”

Some of you have got all this excess energy and you don’t want to pour it into anxiety – you want to pour it into your positive actions.

Some great thoughts to think might be “How can I choose gratitude in this moment?” or “How can I be fully present in this moment?” or “How can I just BE right now, without reacting in this moment?”

Anxiety is imagining the worst in the future. I personally like to go to worst case, and it helps me because if I’ve gone there already, my brain doesn’t have to constantly nag at me like “What if this happens? What if that happens?

I’ve already decided that if that happens, I’ll be fine.

I like to think about the fact that I don’t have a right to my next breath. That I don’t have control. I’m grateful for every breath. I don’t have a right to an amazing, comfortable life. Everything that I have is a blessing.

It helps me to go back to our ancestors and think about people who lived thousands of years ago. They were resilient and they survived. We humans are built for this.

It’s good to have a big picture perspective, pulling ourselves back and looking along our timeline, looking at our past and all the things that we’ve got through to remind the brain of the evidence.

I like to look at my past and think about all I’ve been through and how I’ve been fine.

Then go to future. If you are going to think about the future, at least use your amazing imagination to look at what you could create and what you can produce and all the good things that are waiting for you in the future.

We can let our mind wander wherever we want so we might as well let it wander to thoughts that are helpful and make us feel empowered

I like the thought, “Whatever happens, I’ll handle it”.

The reason that I think like this is because I spend a lot of time thinking by myself and working by myself and not consuming a lot.

I consume a lot of great podcasts and audiobooks, and I don’t consume a lot of news. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with consuming news if you choose to and I’ve definitely been consuming a lot more than usual to stay updated.

But when I feel my emotions start to slip, I go back to creating.

We need to get a balance to keep our emotional wellbeing, so remember to create, rather than just consume.

3. Focus on your next step

When we feel in ‘fight or flight mode’ and our brain is shutting down and we just want to curl up and drink and eat or whatever, I recommend that you focus on your next step, so that you’re not overwhelming yourself too far into the future.

It’s so tempting to want to just numb the feelings and consume and use it as an excuse not to take action – not to write that book or do exercise or whatever. And I just encourage you to focus on what’s your next step in getting your goals.

Hold on to your power. You still get make many, many choices.

Even though things have been taken away from us, there’s still infinitely amount of great decisions we can make.

Mastering your mind is about not changing who you are by thinking “I’m just gonna sit on the couch and drink and eat because I’ve got an excuse” but actually taking mastery and deciding what the next step should be.

Ok three powerful questions that you can ask yourself, to prevent those disempowering questions that an ‘unmastered’ mind can throw at us, like “What’s wrong with you?” or “What if I lose my job?” or “What if I get sick”.

You can put contingency plans in place from a place of love, not fear.

1. Who do I want to be?

You might want to close your eyes and take yourself out to the time in the future when this current situation is over. And looking back at now – how did you show up? And are you happy with that?

This is an opportunity for us to get stronger if we want to. It’s not just about putting your whole life and dreams on hold until all of this blows over – no, this is a time to step up.

You don’t grow without resistance. This is a perfect opportunity for you to decide the identity of who you want to be in this time.

2. How do I want to show up?

Decide the actions that mirror how you want to show up.

My sister wants to tuck herself away and finish writing her book.

I want to be coaching more than ever and taking my events online.

We all get the choice.

3. How can I use this to make me stronger?

This is such a powerful question. Your brain will come up with so many beautiful reasons how you can actually use this to make you stronger rather than retreating away from it.

Write it down.

I personally I want to be stronger from this and come out of this better not worse, and I believe that we can. I believe this is a massive opportunity for all of us.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and what resonated and how you’re feeling, so please do reach out.

A huge thanks to Lisa Gumieniuk, who is running the online ‘Chaos To Calm’ summit all week with 15+ experts sharing their best tools to help you feel in control.

Check out Lisa’s Facebook page for details of the summit and the other incredible speakers in the line up this week.

Love Kat

P.S. Are you a business owner struggling mentally or emotionally during this chaotic time?

I’d like to invite you to book a free coaching session with me (valued at $200). This is too hard to do alone!

You can book your free 45-minute strategy session here*

*First-time sessions only. Spaces are limited to 3 people.

Don’t suffer alone. We’re all in this together.

You are amazing, resilient and resourceful.

Be strong and take care, you got this!

by 2 Comments

Handling Chaos Well

In the midst of the current world chaos, there is no better time than to talk about strategies for how to handle chaos well.

This week I’m taking a break from the normal business topics, to talk about mindset and how to manage your mind throughout the season that we’re in.

Not everyone knows this but I do a lot of mindset work with people and I’ve been studying the mind for the past two decades and I’m fascinated with the mind, our thoughts, psychology and the brain.

I spend a lot of time researching and contemplating the mind, this is an area that I’m passionate about. The reason I chose business is that I love working with entrepreneurs like yourself, who want to grow their business.

Mindset is key when developing our businesses. Often people bump up against a roadblock, a limiting belief, a negative emotion of fear that holds them back.

It’s not until we work on this area of mindset that we get unstuck, and start flowing and taking action again in our businesses.

So I want to share with you some ways to manage your mind throughout this chaotic time that we’re living through. All of us are feeling the effects of the Coronavirus. A lot of people are feeling fearful, anxious and worried.

If that’s you, I want to give you some ways to think that might be helpful for you, and some mindset tips that you can take away and implement immediately.

These are keys that you can also share with those you influence; your family, your employees, your neighbours and your community.

Understand What You Can Control – The TEAR Model

Firstly, we need to understand the realities of what we can control and what we can’t control.  I teach a model called the TEAR Model to a lot of my coaching clients.

The TEAR Model is a four-step model that shows that circumstances are not the thing that actually drives our feelings, our actions or our results.

T – Thoughts

E – Emotions

A – Actions

R – Results

Circumstances are neutral. The facts about the Coronavirus, the facts about what’s happening are neutral. They are a circumstance. They are the only things we can’t control. We can control the other 4 aspects which is our thoughts, emotions, actions, and results.

If you’re a coach, I recommend it’s so important at the moment to be coaching your clients in managing their thoughts, because we cannot necessarily control the circumstances and the events that are happening. Nor can we control the facts.

We’ve got to be careful with what we view as facts. Make sure that what we are believing is fact and not an assumption of someone around you.

Remember, we cannot control the circumstances, but we can control our thoughts, our emotions, our actions and our results.

It always starts with our thoughts. Our thoughts about a circumstance is going to lead to our emotions. Our emotions that come from those thoughts are going to lead to our actions. Our actions are going to lead to the results we produce.

An example of this is the circumstance with the supermarkets. People’s thoughts are leading them to the emotions of fear, panic, worry and stress. They think they are going to run out of food for their families.

Their thoughts are driving their emotions to overtake common sense and their actions are to panic buy. The result of this is no food or toilet paper left on the shelves.

Another person may walk into the same supermarket but have completely different thoughts, emotions, actions and ultimately results. They may see the empty shelves and think the shops will get restocked, they don’t worry because they know they are cared for.

These people walk in peace and joy, as they know everything will work out for them. You’ve got to separate the facts from the circumstance.

Watch what you put into your soul through your eyes. I call it the eyes gate. And watch what you listen to through your ears (your ears gate).

The media feed us a cocktail of fear. They show what’s happening and the panic and fear grow.  It’s important what you ‘feed’ your eyes and ears at the time. Be protective over them and that of your children (if you have them).

Our social media feeds are called a ‘feed’ for a reason. We’re getting fed constant fear and panic, and that part of our brain is actually getting addicted to it.

The more we are consuming the fear in our feeds, the less that we’re looking at all the beauty in the world. We are overlooking all the love, all the communities rallying together, all the support and all the wonderful things in the world.

3 Don’ts for Managing Chaotic Times

1) Don’t Look to Others to Decide How to Feel

It’s so important that you don’t look to others to decide how you should be feeling.

We need to step up and take leadership, and be great role models.

A lot of people are looking around at people’s eyes and looking at the news and looking at their social feeds to decide how to feel. If someone is panicking, it’s easy to feel like you’ve got to adjust how you feel.

You can almost feel a little bit bad that you’re feeling calm and happy. I feel very calm, and I almost feel tempted to go into guilt for feeling calm and happy!

Use your thoughts to decide how you want to feel.

What feelings do you WANT to feel and what thoughts

Step back and look at this – we are living in a unique moment in history. We are on this journey together as the humans. This is our journey right now and we get to choose how we decide to view it.

How do you want to be known as to how you handled 2020 and what’s going on in the world right now?

We get decide how this time will be remembered in our lives and in the lives of our children.

I choose thoughts that help me stay calm and created and resourceful.

I know that the calmer and happier I am, the more that I can help other people.

It’s important for me to stay calm and to do that, I have to choose the right thoughts.

I have to choose to trust, I have to choose to believe that whatever happens, we will handle it.

2) Don’t Feel Bad for Feeling any Feeling

Please don’t feel bad, guilty or shame for feeling whatever you’re feeling. Whether that’s feeling like you should probably be sad right now, because people are dying, but you don’t feel sad.

If you’re feeling happy and you’re getting on with your life, don’t feel guilt! If you are staying on purpose, and feeling that for you it’s important not getting distracted, that’s the best thing that you can do for the world right now.

Don’t feel bad if you feel scared or if you’ve had to cancel an event. If you’ve got elderly parents and you feel concerned for them. That’s okay.

It’s ok to allow yourself to feel the disappointment, feel concern or feel the hurt. Don’t try to buffer or numb feelings. It’s healthy to sit with your feelings for a while. But you don’t need to stay there.

Be conscious of how others are being impacted by these events and don’t minimise the experience of others. It’s so important though, that we don’t get sucked into depression, anxiety or fear in the midst of this situation.

The leaders that are successful are those that will stay calm. When you’re stressed, you don’t think clearly, you’re not intelligent or smart decisions. As emotion increases, intelligence often decreases.

In this time of uncertainty, it’s good to give your brain certainty.

So stick with routines that keep a level of certainty about your life, like going to the gym or doing workouts and making healthy food. Routines help keep certainty.

3) Don’t Give in to Urges That Don’t Serve You

Resist urges that make you want to drink alcohol, give up your healthy routine or make you want to just stay in bed and not focus on building your business because the world is at a standstill.

Choose things that will benefit you and your business. If it means not looking at the news, then choose not to read or listen to the news. If it’s not helping you, it’s not serving you.

I’m putting my energy into my business into coaching people, focussing around mindset and helping people with their emotions.

3 Do’s for Managing Chaotic Times

1) Focus on Thoughts That Make You Feel Better

Think about what’s going to make you feel better and feel calm. For me, I trust that whatever comes my way I can handle it. I trust that the authorities are doing the best that they can and I trust that I will be provided for.

I know that I have a great community. I know that I can learn from this. I take this as an opportunity to grow.

There’s no point suffering for no reason. There’s no point sitting in anxiety, when you have tools and resources, and people that can help you get out of it.

Sometimes I’ll just stop and sit on my chair and I’ll just write out positive, helpful happy thoughts. It’s not denying the facts. It’s not putting your head in the sand.

You’re looking at the facts and deciding what you want to think and feel about them.

2) Increase Positive Input and Decrease Exposure

How much time, are you spending on your Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn feed? How much negativity are you allowing into your eye and ear gates?

Double down on your positive input. Listen to positive podcasts, positive addresses on Facebook and spend positive time with your friends. Match the amount of negativity you are seeing and hearing, with the equivalent of positive input.

Coaching is one of the best things you can do at the moment, because coaching helps people let out their concerns. It’s like cleaning your house; you can clean out all the mess inside. Clean up your mind and have a listening ear.

Don’t be scared. You’re not going to run out of work. You have so many people that you can help at this time. Please don’t sit back and wait for people to come to you. Reach out and ask people how you can help.

Offer free coaching sessions and help people with managing their minds. As coaches, we help people manage their minds and focus on what they want.

3) Use This Time to Grow Stronger, Be Creative and Innovate

Put on a growth mindset. People with a growth mindset welcome challenges. They think, ‘How am I going to grow? How am I going to learn?’ They believe the world is going to get better.

We need a filter change. If we filter to see only the bad, we will only see the bad. We need to take precautions and we need to be safe.

We need to choose a positivity filter to view life at this time. Choosing a positive filter means you will see this time as an opportunity to grow. You may have to pivot and run those live events as webinars, but look for the opportunities within this time.

This is an opportunity to get stronger, to look at how you can innovate. Be creative. Join together and form stronger communities. Do your best to be part of the solution.

If you’re a business owner and you’re struggling during this time, I’d love to offer you a free coaching session*

‪If you need help or support for yourself personally or in business, you can book a free 30-minute coaching session here

*First-time sessions

Don’t suffer alone. We’re all in this together.

We the humans are amazing, resilient and resourceful.

We will get through this.

Take strong and take care,

Kat

Download Your Free Client Attraction Checklist

Grab your copy of the Checklist now

Let’s Connect!