Kat Millar

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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

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3 Ways To Move From Fear To Confidence

Would you like to increase your confidence, particularly when you’re speaking to a group of people in person or on video?

In this article I share 3 specific things you can do to move from FEAR to CONFIDENCE.

These are 3 light bulb moments that I had that helped me to overcome my fear of public speaking, become more confident and get my thoughts and ideas out to the world in a bigger way.

When you’re not confident, a lot of the time people don’t trust you, believe in you or want to follow you.

Being confident is a hugely powerful asset to have in your life and it affects every area of your life - your relationship with yourself and others, your work, health, social life, mindset, spirituality and emotions.

About 18 years ago, I gave my first talk at an Insurance company that I worked for in NZ. I remember that I was wearing a navy suit and heels and on the outside, I looked professional, but inside I was an absolute wreck.

My Manager asked me to present at a boardroom meeting. My palms were sweaty, my whole body was shaking, I was bright red and I couldn’t even look people in the eye at ALL. It was NOT a fun experience!

14 years ago, I started my own business as a personal trainer and worked at a gym called Les Mills in Auckland. I did my first talk there in an aerobics studio and there were 4 people there. Again, I was nervous, sweaty and shaky, but it was easier.

About 7 years ago, I was working in London and I attended a really big convention in Birmingham with a friend and I had one of those lightbulb moments when I was listening to the speakers. I realised that if I wanted to reach more people, I had to get over my fear of speaking to groups and learn the skills of presenting in public properly.

I remember afterward sitting in a hotel lobby drinking wine by a fireplace with my friend and talking about the speakers and I said him – I'm sick of just working with people one-on-one. I want to do what the speakers are doing!

It was a turning point where dream and reality collided. It was such a magical feeling of passion and excitement and massive energy!

It was so weird, because if you were with me as a child, you would have known a girl who HATED people looking at her. I was so introverted and melancholy as a child.

Since that time, I’ve been totally committed to learning and I’ve invested thousands of hours and dollars into educating mysel on professional presentation skills, coaching and NLP - so I could understand human behaviour, mindset and how to reach and influence more people.

The people that I’ve learned off are highly successful business owners who have built 7 figure businesses by getting their message out into the world.

Now one of the things that I'm MOST passionate about, is getting up in front of a group of people and sharing tools and strategies that can help them.

I’ve completely overcome my fear and although I still get nervous, it now longer stops me from stepping up.

My mission when it comes to working with people is to help them get clarity and confidence to go out there and make a difference, grow their business and help more people.

Here are the 3 major lightbulb moments I had that helped me move from fear to confidence:

1. Make your reason bigger than your fear

What built my confidence was running at my fear.

The first important thing to know is that fear is completely natural and normal.

Many people fear speaking to a group because at a primal level, we want to be part of a tribe to keep us safe.

If we go right back to our ancestors, one of the things we fear is sitting around a campfire and people looking at us. Because if everyone looks at us, they may see something in us that causes us to be exposed and expelled from the tribe.

In our 'hind' brain or reptilian brain, we feel at an unconscious level that if we speak up - we could die!

But I believe that this fear is one reason public speaking is so powerful. It's scarce to find people who are actually good at it. And I think that the reason not many people are good at it is - is because we are wired to be afraid of it.

It's not until we override that fear with our big WHY that we can move through the fear to get our message out.

It helps us grow and step up.

For me, I was working one-on-one and I realised that if I wanted to fulfill my vision of making a big difference and growing a big business that I HAD to change.

I HAD to overcome the fear that was holding me back or I would miss out on countless opportunities in life and spend my life playing small.

I had to stop calling myself an introvert, or someone who couldn't step up and speak in front of people.

If we can get out and influence more people and help people by speaking one to many rather than just one person at a time, that saves a LOT of time. That was a big motivational driver for me.

What would be your reason for taking your message out there in a bigger way?

Maybe for you, it's about promoting yourself more at work, or being brave enough to give a speech at a wedding, or attract new clients and grow your business.

We all have different motivational drivers and if we want to be better at influencing, we need to know what switches us on and lights us up to take action despite the fear.

What drives you? Is it significance? Speaking up against injustice?Show-casing what you offer?

Do you want to feel more heard and acknowledged? Do you want more respect, love or power?

Make your reason for helping people bigger than your fear.

2. Be prepared

A lot people have fear come up because they haven't prepared properly.

Preparation involves:

Getting ready with what you're going to say

Getting ready with how you're going to say it

Getting ready with how you look

Now, some people might say that they just want to be authentic and be themselves on stage.

Authenticity is a very popular idea and a lot of people are talking about it. Authenticity is very important, however, I do think it's misunderstood.

So, if authenticity is being yourself - let’s take this concept of self.

What is being yourself? Your self is not a set idea.

Your idea of self can change any time – you can surprise yourself!

So if we take this idea of self is a work in progress – why can’t I try out different aspects of myself?

Why can’t I have a go at being the performance of a great speaker and do some of the things that great speakers do?

We can all try it, we’re all capable of it.

So if we've decided that maybe we CAN be the type of person who steps up and speaks to a group, NOW - preparation is key.

Take the time to practice, put together a structure of what you want to say so that you're not wasting your own time and the time of other people.

Bringing forth your best work does take work and time.

Some of the greatest Tedtalk speakers rehearse for 3 months for their 20-minute talk.

Being prepared means your audience will get more out of it.

The higher the stakes, the more time you want to put in.

Something else that will help reduce your fear is to make sure:

a. You’re passionate about it

b. That you believe in what you’re saying

c. That you’re giving value

If you don’t have those 3 things – You’re probably going to feel more fear!

3. Remember - it’s not about you

The final light bulb moment I had was that it wasn't about me. I had to get over myself! It sounds really obvious, but it's not always obvious that we're doing it!

It's not about you - it's about your message.

When you're speaking to people, the more you think about yourself, the more you'll feel fear because you're thinking about looking good and avoiding looking bad.

If you're speaking and you're constantly thinking about how you're looking, how you're sounding, what people are thinking, wondering if people are judging you etc. - you're going to increase your fear.

When you focus on the audience and your message, you get downloads come to you and new insights come out of you because you're PRESENT.

It's about your message coming through you. THAT can reduce the fear.

I believe we all have a message to bring forth and a mission to fulfill on this planet to fulfill. If you don't do it, no one else is going to do it.

So focus on the change you can help someone make in their life.

One thing that really helped me, was when someone said to me - every day that you are focusing on yourself, someone is suffering.

Someone is actually struggling right now because they have a problem that you can help them solve.

That's not to add any pressure or guilt, but that was what helped me overcome fear and get out there in the world.

You know enough to help someone solve a problem and if you have a smartphone, you can get on there in an instant and help provide solutions for people.

Forget the judgment. It's ok if not everyone resonates with what you say. It doesn't matter - it's about the people that can be helped.

Would you like to improve your confidence?

Check out my events page to see what events I have coming up.

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