The other day, my work colleagues and I went out for lunch; we went to a really cool pub near the office (An Poitin Stil, in case you´re curious), and I saw this elephant at the entrance:
(Photo of the statue of a grey elephant, at the entrance of a pub in Rathcoole, Ireland.)
I immediately remembered a metaphor I´m very fond of, one that I´m starting to use quite often when speaking about coaching and personal/professional growth (together with the one about the iceberg, which is still my favourite).
It´s the elephant and rider theory, formulated by psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He puts forward the idea that our conscious mind, that is, our logical and rational side, is like a rider on top of an elephant, and that elephant is our non-consscious mind, that is, our intuitive and emotional side.
The rider believes he´s the one in charge, the one holding the reins, but at the end of the day, the elephant is much strongerand ultimately wins every time. All of this without us even noticing... The thing is, the vast majority of our decisions are not as logical and rational as we would like to believe: in reality, we decide based on emotions, and then we justify those decisions rationally after the fact.
A bit scary, isn´t it? Hard to admit. And we thought we were so clever...
But there´s also a very positive side to this metaphor, and it´s the fact that it explains very well why we find it so hard to make changes and acquire new habits: even if the rider knows for sure where they want to go, if they´re not able to convince and motivate the elephant, they´re not going to be able to move in that direction.
In other words: as long as our goals are not in alignment with our deepest motivations (beliefs, values, identity, etc.), we´re not going to be able to make lasting changes; we´re going to be constantly sabotaging ourselves.
The solution? Befriending the elephant 🙂 Getting to know him as well as possible, learning to understand him and finding ways to collaborate, so that you can join forces and make progress in a way that satisfies your needs as well as theirs.
What about you? How well do you know your elephant? And how well do you get along with him?
Today is January 19th, the third Monday in January, and some people say it´s the most depressing day of the year. In English, it´s called Blue Monday, which could be translated into Spanish as "el lunes triste" (the sad Monday), or if we want to continue with the colour analogies, "el lunes gris" (the grey Monday, as in Spanish we don´t associate the colour blue with sadness).
It´s true that January can sometimes feel like it goes on forever, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, where it´s still wintertime, the temperatures are low, and the days are short... The holiday season, with its lights, joy and celebrations, is now over, and now it´s time to tighten our belts and exercise self-control after the excesses of December. Fun, huh? In Spain, we´ve always called this time of the year la cuesta de enero, with "cuesta" conveying the idea that it´s a struggle, it´s going uphill; Google just translated it for me as January blues, so basically yes, the same idea.
And then on top of that, most probably our New Year´s Resolutions are already out the window, after our enthusiastic start at the beginning of the year... Willpower didn´t last that long.
In view of all of this, if you´re feeling a little low on energy right now, please know that it´s normal and that you´re not the only one; on the contrary. Here´s an image that I hope will lift you up a little bit, even though it´s technically blue:
(Photo of a decorated flat stone I saw one day during a garden walk, with a drawing of our dear Dori, Nemo´s friend, and her favourite phrase: "just keep swimming".)
This week I got a reminder (thanks, Neil!) of the best thing you can do when you´re low on energy: to go back to basics. So this is my proposal to you for this month of January: to take care of yourself again, and regain your strength, so that you can then focus on whatever you want to achieve.
By the way, if you´re wondering why your New Year´s Resolutions didn´t work this year either, perhaps it´s because you stayed on the superficial portion of your iceberg, and you need to dive closer to the bottom to find out how to make that change you want so badly... If you don´t know what I´m talking about, have a look at this article.
We´re in mid-December, and it´s time to start looking back at the year that´s now coming to an end. I have to say that 2025 has been a super busy year for me, both personally and professionally... But also, and probably for the same reasons, it´s been a tremendously rewarding year, one in which I believe I have grown and matured in many ways.
Professionally speaking, there are two highlights of this year for which I am incredibly thankful, and I´ll say it, also very proud. The first one I already told you in September: achieving my ACC certification.
The second one has been a whole journey of learning (and unlearning!) that began in January, and that I´m not going to say is just finished, because I´m sure I´m going to continue to learn... I´ve just completed the ATA – Awareness to Action training and certification program, delivered by Mario Sikora and María José Munita, of Awareness to Action International. And to me, this has meant finding a fundamental piece of my coaching project, integrating the Enneagram.
(Symbolic image of the three instinctual biases that are characteristic to Awareness to Action´s methodology: preservers, navigators and transmitters. Thanks Óscar for the drawings!)
If you´ve been reading this blog for a while, you may have seen me timidly mention the Enneagram on a few occasions; very few, if we take into account that I´ve been studying it in detail for three years now... And this hasn´t been due to a lack of interest, not at all: I find the Enneagram fascinating, I believe it´s an incredibly helpful tool for personal (and professional) development.
It´s been mostly due to a lack of confidence in my ability to explain it well, to be able to convey its full value without falling into superficial stereotypes (putting us all in boxes rather than setting us free) or overcomplicated explanations (confusing us even more instead of helping our understanding). And I´m sure there´s still more progress for me to make on this, but at least, today I can finally say that I have that confidence.
At this point, it´s good to clarify what we mean exactly when we say "the Enneagram". In the most literal sense, the Enneagram is a symbol named after two Greek words: ennea means "nine", and gram, "line", and indeed, this diagram is formed by nine lines, connecting nine points distributed around a circle.
This symbol is used as part of a personal development tool, called "the Enneagram of personality", which describes nine different personality profiles and the way they are interconnected following certain patterns.
Now, what not many people know is that there´s not a single fixed and static "Enneagram" as such, in the sense that it´s not a proprietary system of personality typing like DISC or MBTI (Myers-Briggs). In the Enneagram world, there are multiple approaches and schools of thought, some older and some more recent, that have been evolving and getting refined over time, in the same way the fields of psychology, philosophy and many other disciplines have been progressively evolving and building new approaches based on previous ones.
If we were to compare it with an operating system, for example, it wouldn´t be like Windows or Mac OS, but rather like Linux - open source, available for everyone to create their own versions, enhancements and contributions.
The thing is, one of the current problems we see with the Enneagram is that many people are learning it from books that were written many years ago, using certain concepts and ideas that are obsolete nowadays, and for which now we have better explanations, based on practical applications of the model over the years. Or even worse, they only get a partial version of those stereotyped concepts and ideas, in the form of hypersummarized descriptions and superficial jokes published on social media.
And to be honest, it´s a pity, because the Enneagram, when it´s well understood, well explained and well applied, is surprisingly powerful, both for its depth and its simplicity, and tremendously helpful for personal work, as well as for professional growth.
That´s why I´m so happy to have found an approach to the Enneagram that allows me not only to understand it in all its depth, but also to explain it in clear and simple terms, and to apply it to practical situations inside and outside my coaching practice. So, from January onwards, you can expect a lot more blog content on the Enneagram; I´ll explain the methodology behind Awareness to Action, or ATA, its different components and how they relate to each other.
Thanks a million again, Mario and María José, for your generosity over the last year, sharing your wisdom and the model you´ve built through many years of working in the field. Also, thanks Lee, Micky and Creek for your support, each of you in your own style and with your own perspectives, and thanks to all my classmates for the time we shared. And of course, I also want to thank Autognosis, the school where I got my Enneagram foundation in the first place: Alberto, Laura, Fernando, Rafa, Luis, Benoit, Ana B and Ana M. Thank you!
November is gone, and here comes December, the last month of the year.
There´s only a month left in 2025! We´re in the home stretch of this year; we´ll be saying hello to 2026 in no time.
(Photo of the December page in the calendar currently hanging on my kitchen door. Having a calendar on the kitchen door is one of those habits I inherited from my family, and it may seem a little old-fashioned, now that we have Google Calendar and other modern contraptions, but I still love having a physical calendar at home, along with a giant whiteboard we can all write on, and clocks in almost every room.)
Today I thought I'd have a look at what I wrote on this blog at the beginning of the year. And I bumped into something I set out to do back in January, which, to be honest, I had forgotten about... Or not really, as it´s a topic that´s always on my mind, and one at which, in my opinion, I´m getting better at. But I had forgotten that back then I decided to make this my theme for the year, my common thread, my focus of attention: 2025 was going to be the year of...Decluttering.
And then what happened? Well, now that I think of it, two main things:
First, I didn´t set specific goals to work on; I settled for a goal that was too generic and "up in the air", without "bringing it down to Earth" in the shape of specific and measurable tasks (this, by the way, is what happens to our New Year´s resolutions, more often than not).
And second, I didn´t follow up throughout the year; I had a very good start, but then, along the way, there were other problems to solve, other tasks to attend to and other goals to achieve, pushing aside what I considered to be so important only a year ago. Does this ring a bell?
As the saying goes, life got in the way , like it often happens. But it´s precisely because we know that this is what happens, because we know life keeps changing and our priorities change too, that it´s so important for us to have a method that can help us to adjust our course and continue to cruise without losing our way.
The good news is that it´s always a good time to take (or resume) control of our ship, evaluate the situation, and act accordingly. In this case, there are still thirty days left for me to focus on freeing up space, be it physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually. So, turning the phrase around:
There´s still a month left in 2025! How are you going to make the most of it?
Today is a day of celebration! After three years of practising and growing as a coach, having overcome a variety of delays and roadblocks, I finally took the plunge; I applied for the ACC certification, and I passed!
(Photo of a small section of the vision board I have on my bedroom wall. The idea is to put up images that help you visualise your goals and get closer to them.)
The Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential is the first certification level from the International Coaching Federation(ICF). the best known and most widely extended coaching institution in the world. A fundamental part of ICF´s work consists of establishing quality standards and a code of ethics for the coaching profession, which is currently not regulated, and that can easily be confused with other help professions, like consulting, mentoring or psychotherapy.
The certification requirements include a certain number of hours of training, hours of mentoring and practice hours doing coaching sessions, as well as passing an exam. And now I understand why: all of those elements complement each other, combining theory and practice, action and reflection, for a much more comprehensive learning experience.
I know this is just another step along the way, but for me, it´s a tremendously important step, for two reasons:
First, because this allows me to prove to the world that I take coaching very seriously, and that I´m aligned with the highest standards and code of ethics of this profession. Now I can guarantee a level of quality in my service, with objective criteria to back it up.
And second, because I also get to prove to myself that I´m indeed doing things right, which gives me even more confidence and peace of mind. Please note I´m saying "doing things right", as opposed to "perfect"...
Do you have a list of pending tasks that´s longer than your arm? Do you get up every morning with the intention of doing a number of things, and finish your day exhausted, stressed out and unable to finish them all? If so, welcome to the club 🙂
(Photo of one of the pages in my «things to do» notepad. By the way, "a list as long as your arm" is a very Irish thing to say; in Spanish it sounds a bit weird, but in any case, I love it, I think it´s very visual.)
Something that works really well for me on days when the list of "I have to´s" is overwhelming, is asking myself what the most important task of the day is. It´s what Leo Babauta from Zen Habits calls the MIT, the Most Important Task).
Babauta suggests listing every morning up to three priority tasks (or MITs), with at least one of them being directly linked to one of our goals. Then, the key is to do those tasks as early as possible, so that, regardless of how the rest of the day goes, we will have made progress already. That way, we will go to bed every night feeling successful, instead of feeling like a failure.
A list with three tasks seems a lot more manageable than a list as long as your arm, right?
But we can even take it another step further, which is what I do sometimes. We can reduce the list to ONE single task, THE most important thing that needs to be done (or rather, that you choose to do) on that day.
And each day will be different: sometimes the most important task will be work-related, sometimes it will be more related to your personal or family life. Sometimes it will involve motivating yourself and finally tackling that thing you´ve been postponing for so long, and sometimes it will make you go back to basics and get some rest, go for a walk, meet a friend or simply go to sleep, just. because you need it, so that will become the priority.
The key is to recognise that it´s not humanly possible to complete each and every task we burden ourselves with, and to prioritise the time and energy that we do have in a way that makes us feel good and allows us to keep making progress.
What about you? What´s the most important thing you have to do today? Pick one single thing, and go for it!
Sometimes, when I think about ideas that may be interesting to blog about, my problem is that I don´t remember whether I´ve already written about a particular topic, so I have to start searching for keywords in the archives to confirm that I´m not repeating myself too much.
Last week I said I was going to explain a very simple exercise to clarify values... It turns out I already did, in June last year, in this article: Things that matter.
And today´s article was going to be entitled "Decisions", but then I realized I had already used that title a little over a year ago, and coincidentally, that article included one of the two quotes I had in mind for today. I have such a bad memory sometimes!
Oh well, it´s no harm revisiting a topic like this one again, and I still have the other quote I wanted to share with you, plus a new one I found along the way, so here it goes.
(Photo of the famous Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge in Northern Ireland, which we visited a few months ago. To cross, or not to cross? That is the question.)
How good are you at making decisions?
I always considered myself to be quite indecisive, but I´ve realized that, over the years, I´ve become better at it: I still think a lot about things, that´s not something I´m going to be able to avoid, but at least now I take action earlier, sometimes much earlier, instead of getting stuck in paralysis by analysis or procrastinating out of fear of making a mistake, as used to be the case.
Now that I think about it, I believe coaching has had a lot to do with this. As I explain in this other article, coaching is mainly focused on the present and future: being clear on where we are and where we want to go, and taking conscious and purposeful steps towards that goal. But in addition to that, coaching helps us to be more open-minded: to see ourselves as capable and resourceful individuals, as persons who can achieve many things (maybe not everything, but a lot of things) and to see the world as an environment that´s full of possibilities, where there are multiple ways to solve each problem, and where each step that we take brings us new learnings, especially when we don´t get it right on the first try.
And throughout our journey, there are decisions to be made, sometimes challenging, but necessary... Here´s the first quote for today, food for thought (thanks, Luis):
Easy decisions, hard life. Hard decisions, easy life.
Jerzy Gregorek
What do you think? It´s a little harsh, but if you think about it, it´s true: very often, we choose the easy or comfortable option in the short term, whether it´s regarding healthy habits or many other things, because we don´t see (or we don´t want to see) the long term consequences.
In fairness, our own brain doesn´t exactly help with this process: it lives in an eternal present, and its goal is for us to survive, so our autopilot is always going to favour the short term; that´s why a hamburger is always going to be more appealing to us than a salad, to save us from starving to death later on. Luckily, even if it´s at the cost of extra effort and a certain amount of temporary discomfort, we can override those short-term impulses and make more balanced decisions (on food and everything else). And then, by practicing those new behaviours until they become habits, we make it easier for ourselves in the long run.
By the way, there should be no need to say it, but I´m going to say it anyway, just in case making decisions as a responsible adult implies fully accepting the consequences. Which means no complaining and no blaming others. Speaking of blame, here´s the second phrase for today, I hope it helps to lighten the load a little (thanks, Hernán, you showed me this many years ago):
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Our Judeo-Christian tradition has taught us to label everything as "good" or "bad", and to believe that everything that´s "good" gets rewarded (maybe after this life), and everything that´s "bad" gets punished. But in life, things are rarely so black or white, and besides, feeling guilty is not going to solve anything, so I´m proposing a different approach: thinking that every one of our actions has its consequences, and those consequences can go in favour of and help (others, as well as us), or, on the contrary, they can go against and harm.
What kind of consequences do we want to generate? Let´s swap guilt with responsibility.
Today I´d like to talk about the famous impostor syndrome (thanks Carlota for bringing up this topic the other day).
I´m going to guess you already know what it is, and you´ve probably experienced it yourself: it´s the perception that, deep down, we don´t deserve to be where we are (workwise, for example), because we don´t consider ourselves as competent as other people see us, and we´re afraid of someone realizing one day that we´re "pretending" and setting out to "unmask" us.
I admit I´ve felt it many times in the past, and I´m still feeling it quite frequently nowadays, but it doesn´t stress me out that much any more, thanks to a few things I´ve learned in the last five or six years. Let me share them here in case you find them helpful:
Impostor syndrome does exist; it´s a real feeling, we´re not making it up. But perhaps we´re taking it a bit too far by calling it a syndrome; the word "syndrome" conveys the idea that it´s a serious illness or disorder, when in reality it´s nothing more than a natural mechanism of our mind when faced with certain situations.
Some say it predominantly affects women, but I´m not so sure; I believe it´s a lot more universal than we think (though maybe the lack of confidence is a bit more noticeable in women).
A contributing factor to this feeling of being an impostor is our tendency to not see clearly or even acknowledge our own merits, and attribute our success to luck or coincidence to a certain extent (while paradoxically still attributing failures to our own mistakes, and beating ourselves up for it). It´s as if we felt that "we haven´t earned" the right to be where we are.
And the feeling intensifies when we face the challenge of making progress: for example, a task or a position that requires extra effort (essentially a "stretch goal"), pushing us even further from our comfort zone. That´s when self-doubt comes back stronger than ever: How am I going to be able to do this, if I don´t even deserve to be here?
The good news is that those doubts and that feeling of not making the cut are giving you really valuable information: they´re showing that what you´re doing really matters to you; they´re reminding you that you have high quality standards, and that meeting those standards is really important to you.
What do you think about this last point? Does it help you to see things a bit differently? I find the reframing extremely helpful, on the one hand, because it gives a positive intention to that uncomfortable or unpleasant feeling we´re experiencing, and on the other hand it allows us to take action instead of getting stuck in an overthinking loop.
We can, for example, write down the objective reasons why we´re the right person for that task or position (and if needed, we can even ask whoever chose us for the role). We can identify our strengths and talents, and also potential growth areas or specific gaps, so that we can work on them (a SWOT analysis matrix is a helpful tool for this scenario; I´ll leave a note to myself for a future blog article).
So, what do you think? In what area of your life or work do you feel a little like an impostor right now? How is it affecting you? And what can you do to manage it better?
I´ve wanted to write a blog post about this topic for a while, as I believe it´s important. But, because it´s not urgent, I´ve been pushing it out... Which is exactly the crux of the matter.
This is what´s called Eisenhower matrix, and if you´ve been into personal development stuff for some time, I´m sure you´ll be familiar with it already. It is featured in many books and articles on "time management" (which, in reality, should be called "priority management", because we can´t manage time as such; what we can manage is what we use time for).
It´s a simple proposal: first, acknowledge that we´re always going to have more things to do than time to do them; and therefore we need to prioritize. And second, evaluate the level of urgency and importance of each task, and based on that, decide what to do first, what to do next and what not to do.
Tasks that are urgent and important require immediate action, so it makes sense that they´re the highest priority. This is a type of work we could categorize as "putting out fires": we must do it as soon as possible so that it can be finished on time, because if it´s not, there are clear negative consequences.
The Important and not urgent tasks get us closer to our goals without having a specific deadline. This is related to strategic work, and the key here is to plan for it: schedule time on the calendar and dedicate time intentionally; otherwise, there´s a risk of postponing it for too long or never getting around to it.
The urgent and not important ones are tasks that keep us busy but don´t give us much value in the sense that they don´t help us achieve our goals; they actually tend to get us off track. Paperwork, interruptions, requests from others... Ideally, we want to delegate or automate these as much as possible to avoid them being too time-consuming.
And lastly, the not urgent and not important tasks are all those distractions we often fall in and get no value out of; they´re true "time sinks", and the best we can do is eliminate them. (Note: here, I´m referring to a million different ways we humans procrastinate and look for a hollow and superficial escape from reality. Not to be confused with taking time to truly rest, practice hobbies, connect with ourselves, look after our relationships, etc., which would fall into category number 2.)
What do you think of this system? If you´ve never used it, or if you haven´t used it for a while, I encourage you to find out how much time you typically spend in each of these quadrants, especially if you´re watching the days and months go by and you´re not making progress towards where you want to be. Do you spend all day putting out fires? Or performing tasks for others when they could be handled differently? Or maybe wasting time with distractions that don´t truly fulfil you?
I myself am currently in the process of adjusting a few things; I badly need it...
I like this image showing a blank notebook and a pencil, I think it's an excellent metaphor for this time of the year:
What are your plans for the next twelve months? In this article I put forward two alternatives to the usual new year´s resolutions (which, being realistic, sound great but are destined never to be achieved). Today, I´m adding one more suggestion, something I heard last year but haven´t put into practice until now.
It's choosing a word as the theme for the year, something we want to focus on. This way, we create a common thread for our goals, using the word as a reminder and a source of motivation.
I´ve already chosen mine for 2025; would you like to hear it?
Drum roll...
For me, 2025 is the year of...
DECLUTTERING*
(*Explanatory note for the English version: there´s no direct Spanish translation for decluttering, which is a word I love in English and that I was sure I had included it in the list of untranslatables; apparently not, so I have a future article pending on that topic.)
So this is it! The theme for this year at our house, and not only for me; I´ve also recruited the girls. During 2024, for various reasons, we accumulated loads of things at home and didn´t get a chance to do any proper decluttering. Now is the time to free up space, and let the old go so that the new can come in.
What about you? What word do you choose? It can be anything that resonates with you and that you want to take as a priority this year. Let me know in a comment, and I´ll be delighted to read it.
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