Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,
A time to feel calm and think clearly.
I'm Claire Downham,
The Queen of Calm,
A Transformational Life Coach.
I was a burnt out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying,
And I want to prevent you from having to do the same.
The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state,
Which is calm and clarity.
Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity.
There's nothing else to do.
Now let's relax into today's episode.
So today I am going to talk about consistency and I think that's a word that we hear a lot in business,
But I think it's not just in business that that word looks like something to be.
I hear it in parenting and I've got a little story about that today,
And I'm seeing a lot of different things around parenting right now.
But it's,
You know,
It's if you're eating a particular way to attain a particular weight,
If you're exercising,
If you're meditating,
If you're whatever it is,
There's this message out there that consistency is king.
And I'm not saying it isn't,
I'm just putting some places to get curious about this.
That sentence didn't really scan,
Did it?
But nevermind.
I'm just opening up the curiosity,
Hopefully in you.
It's definitely there in me.
The idea that,
Well,
Do we have to be consistent?
Is being consistent a human thing?
So the first thing,
There's going to be lots of personal stories in this today,
Because I'm seeing this in so many aspects of my life.
And the first thing is,
I don't feel like a particularly consistent person in lots of ways.
And whether that's my emotional state or my energy levels or my desire to eat carbs or my showing up in my business or whatever it is,
Or my parenting,
And that definitely wasn't consistent.
Who said human beings are supposed to be consistent?
I hear that message in business and it sounds abstract,
Doesn't it?
It sounds like it's just applied to the business,
But that has to be a human.
A business is just a collection of humans,
Isn't it?
It might be just one human in my case.
So who decided this idea that we're supposed to be consistent?
And this broadcast has been sparked off by something I noticed.
Someone really being quite hard on themselves for not being consistent enough and therefore their business wasn't where other people's businesses were.
But how do we know?
I get there's a strong message around consistency and that will be because some people have been what they view as consistent.
I mean,
That's the other thing,
Isn't it?
Like consistency is made up.
Like I might,
You might come and do an analysis of my business and you might say,
Oh Claire's been really consistent in whatever way and you might not,
I might not be seeing that.
So that's like,
Just sprinkle that on the idea.
Your concept of consistency is made up by you.
Your idea of where other people are being consistent in what you're seeing them doing out in the world or how you're seeing them behave or what you're seeing in their results is made up too.
And it's just a place to bring some curiosity and interest to.
And you know,
This isn't just about business but about life.
And what I've seen recently in parenting is the most important thing is presence.
You know,
I have grown up children,
About to be 20 and soon to be 22.
But,
And I think I was quite consistent and stuck to my guns quite a lot when I was a parent.
But I'm seeing something really different in the parenting that I do two days out of 14,
By the way,
Of my fiance's little boy.
That our presence and our curiosity with him is turning out to be really valuable.
Not dealing with every single situation in the same way.
Getting curious about what he's hearing in our instructions that then means he doesn't do what we ask him to do.
And getting curious about that.
And this,
As always,
Is an invitation to get curious.
I was extremely consistent in my personal managing of my personal health stuff around meditating and exercising and doing affirmations and all that kind of thing.
And that mostly felt like a burden.
And the place I was trying to get to,
The calm that I thought I wanted,
That appears to have materialized without that consistency.
I just think the whole idea that human beings are supposed to be consistent just seems flawed.
Because we're not.
I mean,
That's why it's flawed.
Because we're not consistent.
You're not.
I'm not.
Nobody really is.
Because that's not how humans are.
We don't wake up feeling the same way every single day,
No matter how many self-development things you're doing.
And particularly if you're getting older,
Sorry to mention it,
Or you're menopausal,
Ladies,
Or you're going through something else,
You or you'll physically have things going on or whatever.
It is really like saying the British weather should be consistent.
I don't know if you've noticed,
But that is the most consistent thing about the British weather,
That it is inconsistent.
And it always has amused my fiance who isn't from this country.
He's from South Africa originally.
He's always finding,
How can it be 30 degrees on Monday and 17 on Friday?
Well,
It just is.
And I guess that's similar to humans.
We're different temperatures,
Aren't we?
Sometimes I'm super hot and super on it and super energized.
And then this last few days,
I've just been a bit flatter,
Not done quite so much stuff.
I've missed a few things,
Not kept up with a few things.
But in my space of accepting that,
There is space.
As I sit with that being okay,
Then there is space to do the next thing.
There is space.
Inside me,
There is some space for something to come out of nothing.
If my head is full of the idea that I should be doing this and I should be doing that,
And I'm not being consistent and that's going to make my business fail,
Etc,
Etc,
Etc,
Then there's no space in my head.
It can really look like we have to wrongify something to make it consistent.
It can really look like we have to wrongify something to make it right in life if we really hate something about ourselves or about the world or that from that energy will make a change.
But I see that less and less to be true because we've got a busy head then.
We've got an uncomfortable feeling.
And if something's coming from you from an uncomfortable feeling,
It means you've got some uncomfortable thinking and it's probably not the best place to take your next step forward in life.
We don't work best that way.
And the other thing that's just coming to mind is how do we know what other people are doing?
We're getting into this place of comparisonitis.
But what are we comparing with?
Something imaginary.
We can see what we can see out there in the world.
It might be on social media or might be looking at somebody's business,
Apparent business success,
But we don't know what's going on in their world.
We don't know that they're consistent.
It might be that they show up,
Schedule a month's content and then go back to bed,
Just for an example.
We just don't know.
But without the stories,
There's a lot of space.
And space is where it's at,
Folks.
Space is precious.
And I've noticed myself as I just take things off the table and I just think,
I'm not going to be able to do that.
Space is precious.
And I've noticed myself as I just take things off my mind,
If I choose not to engage with the idea that I'm not as consistent as another business owner,
If I don't let that fill my head,
Then guess what?
There is space for something to come from nothing.
So as always,
The invitation is to just get curious,
To just notice how this is playing out in your life.
Just notice,
Be aware.
No judgment though,
Of course.
Thank you so much for listening.
There's nothing to do now,
But bring some awareness to how this is working.
Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.
This has been the Calmcast with Clare Downham,
Queen of Calm.
Take care and keep listening.
